CONTEXT: This was originally a tumblr reblog of a post talking about the story of Zach Callison’s Album ‘A Picture-Perfect Hollywood Heartbreak’. The original post was VERY well made and their theories were solid. You can find the original post here:
https://www.tumblr.com/notadndguy/780407933606428672/what-was-a-picture-perfect-hollywood-heartbreak?source=share
This chap is gonna be pretty hard to understand if you haven’t listened to the album, so go do it. Honestly, I recommend it even if you don’t end up reading this cus it’s GOOD. It’s available on youtube and I think most other music streaming services. And when I say it’s good, I mean it.
Honestly just posting my original idea on what's happening in the album because I like the bullshit I came up with.
So the whole thing with 'Phantom Love’ stays pretty much the same. Juanita is manipulating and abusing him into lashing out for song ideas, then leaves him to rot.
Then ‘Francity’ comes along and it's more of the same. People are spreading rumors and misinformation and either the stress of it or the relationship itself leads to Zach turning to drugs.
Next is ‘She don't know’ which is where I get on my bullshit. Some of the lines in the later songs had me come back and reexamine one line that repeats a lot (cus it’s part of the chorus): “My heart's beatin’ out my chest”. Now, the heart is often used as a metaphor for the self or the soul. So I somehow reached the conclusion that this line meant that his heart was literally separating itself from his body, thus creating a new and separate self (instead of the obvious meaning of drugs and adrenaline making his heart beat at dangerous speeds and intensities). The whole idea of him spiraling into a drug and depression induced episode is the same though.
Then 'Christie only knows’ is where we REALLY diverge. The biggest of these being that I interpreted Christie as an actual person. Whether or not she was his actual sister or just somebody he's known all his life I never thought too much about. But what you really want to hear about is the whole soul separation thing. Basically, I made up the idea of Zach's heart and body becoming two separate existences. Basically, his heart separates out into a more “pure” (or less damaged by Juanita's machinations) version that continues living Zach's life. Definitely not happy, but less jaded and willing to give up (initially) than our main POV. The body that was left behind becomes our main POV and I always imagined him looking older, or at least more tired and gaunt. The body is found by Christie, who sees it as an easy way to manipulate and gain access to Zach's massive fame and fortune. For the rest of the story, Christie manipulates him into killing Heart Zach. Maybe Christie was already trying to manipulate Zach and that's why we get that line in ‘Showtime’. The main sticking point is that the final line is:
“And my shadow, he's holding the gun
With those hands that I once possessed”
Basically foreshadowing that Body Zach (Who is literally those hands (and body) that he once possessed being piloted by a shadow of his soul) will kill him.
‘Nightmare’ is mostly the same except for some noticeably different interpretations of the parts where the mirror symbolism comes up. Basically, this song is Body Zach talking about Heart Zach, who again is the one actually facing and being watched by the public. He is (obviously) suffering severely. There might also still be some kind of mental link between them (nothing concrete but enough to see flashing hallucinations of each other). The final lines I interpreted as a confrontation between Body and Heart before the big moment.
‘Second Thoughts’ is exactly that. The moment right before Body Zach pulls the trigger to kill Heart Zach. I came up with the idea that Christie wants to kill Heart Zach for any of a multitude of reasons. Life insurance, a boost in her fame for being related to such a high profile suicide, being written into his will, replacing him with the easily manipulable Body Zach, or a mixture of any/all of them. Body Zach is doing it out of some twisted sense of self-love (maybe even a…..Phantom Love). He sees how much Heart Zach is suffering- he’s suffering too after all- and wants to free him from it. Maybe he even thinks that since they're linked it'll end him too. A nice little cherry on top to make it all come together (one might even call it……picture-perfect). But, he looks into his eyes and hesitates, but his “dear sister” Christie urges him on and he takes the shot.
