Matty Healy has a way of making total misery sound like a summer breeze. That’s basically the entire thesis of "Paris," the penultimate track on their 2016 behemoth I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It. It’s a fan favorite. People get tattoos of the lyrics. But honestly, if you actually listen to what he’s saying, it’s one of the darkest things they’ve ever put to tape.
It’s catchy.
The guitar line, played by Adam Hann, has this clean, chorus-drenched shimmer that feels like walking through a park in the late afternoon. It’s light. It’s airy. But the lyrics are a literal grocery list of heroin use, eating disorders, and the kind of existential boredom that only hits when you're young, rich, and completely lost.
The bait and switch of Paris by The 1975
Most people hear the hook and think it’s a romantic song about a French getaway. It isn't. Not even close. In fact, the song barely mentions the city in a literal sense; "Paris" is a metaphor for a headspace, or perhaps a destination that the narrator never actually reaches because he’s too busy "propped up" at a party in East London.
Healy wrote this during a period where his own struggles with addiction were starting to bleed heavily into his songwriting. While "It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)" from their following album is the explicit "heroin song," Paris by The 1975 is the precursor. It’s the hazy, blurred-edge version of that reality.
The song starts with a girl. She’s "on the floor," and the details are grisly but delivered with a shrug. She’s got "blood on her face" and she’s "starting to burn." It’s a scene of chaos that Healy narrates with the detached tone of someone who has seen this every night for a year. That’s the brilliance of the track. It captures the desensitization of the "Tumblr-era" indie scene where tragedy was often aestheticized until it didn't feel real anymore.
Breaking down the "focal point" girl
There’s a specific character in the song who is obsessed with her appearance and her "status" within this nihilistic social circle. Healy mentions she "was a girl from the internet" who "looked like she was killed in a cage." It’s a biting critique of the mid-2010s obsession with looking "heroin chic" or "waif-like."
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He’s not being mean. He’s being observant.
He acknowledges the sadness of it—how she’s "counting her steps" and "showing her friends" her progress in a way that implies an eating disorder. It’s heavy stuff for a song that sounds like a 1980s John Hughes soundtrack. But that’s the 1975’s sweet spot. They take the things we’re afraid to talk about at dinner and turn them into anthems for thousands of teenagers to scream in arenas.
Why the production feels so "soft"
George Daniel, the band’s drummer and primary producer alongside Healy, is a genius of texture. On Paris by The 1975, the drums aren't hitting you in the chest. They’re tucked back. There’s a lot of reverb. The whole thing feels like it’s happening underwater or through a thick fog of Xanax.
- The tempo is steady but relaxed.
- The bassline (Ross MacDonald) stays melodic rather than driving.
- The synths are "cloudy."
If the production were aggressive, the lyrics would be too hard to swallow. By making it sound "pretty," the band forces the listener to lean in. You’re humming along to a song about a guy who "kept on asleeping" and a girl "pointing at a bag of her own face" before you even realize how grim the imagery is. It’s a classic pop music trick, used by everyone from The Smiths to Foster the People, but The 1975 perfected it for the Gen Z/Millennial transition.
The "How to be Reticent" line and the "Bethnal Green" setting
One of the most quoted lines is "Hey kids, we're all the same / What a shame." It’s a direct address. Healy is looking at his audience and admitting that the "rock star" life isn't a solution to the problems his fans have—it’s just a bigger stage for the same insecurities.
The song is deeply rooted in London.
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Specifically, the Bethnal Green area. When he sings about "Mr. Serotonin Man," he’s talking about a drug dealer, or perhaps the personified lack of the chemical in his own brain. There’s a line about a "South-of-the-River" person who says "the problem with the kids is that they’re all the same," which highlights the generational divide that Healy has spent his whole career poking at. He’s caught between being a "kid" and being a wealthy observer of the culture.
Dissecting the Bridge
The bridge of Paris by The 1975 is where the mask slips a little bit. The repetition of "How I'd love to go to Paris again" sounds less like a travel plan and more like a prayer. It represents a time before the drugs, before the fame, and before the "blood on the face."
He’s romanticizing a past that might not even exist.
That’s a recurring theme for the band. They are obsessed with nostalgia, but they’re also smart enough to know that nostalgia is a lie. When he says he’s "propped up at the back of the flyer," he’s literally an afterthought in his own life. He’s a name on a guest list, a body in a room, but he isn't there.
How Paris by The 1975 changed their live shows
For years, this song was the "breather" in the setlist. After the high energy of "Sex" or "Chocolate," the lights would go pink or soft blue, and the crowd would sway. It’s a communal moment.
Interestingly, the band has experimented with different versions of it. During their At Their Very Best tour, the song took on a more theatrical weight. Healy often performed it while stumbling around a stage built to look like a house, emphasizing the "drunk at a party" vibe of the lyrics. It wasn't just a song anymore; it was a scene in a play about a man falling apart.
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Misconceptions about the song's meaning
A lot of casual listeners think this is a love song. It’s understandable. The melody is sweet. But if you think a song featuring the line "she had a face from a movie scene / that I saw when I was seventeen" followed by "she said I've been counting my steps / then she showed me her friends" is romantic, you’re missing the point.
It’s a song about the failure of romance.
It’s about two people who are too damaged to actually connect, so they just "talk" and "pretend" and "stay asleep." The tragedy isn't that they can't go to Paris; the tragedy is that they wouldn't know what to do if they got there. They’d just find another room to be bored in.
The legacy of the 1975’s "Pink Era"
This track is the heart of the I Like It When You Sleep era. That album was all about excess—longer titles, more colors, bigger sounds. "Paris" is the comedown. It’s the 4:00 AM feeling when the party is over but you can't go home yet. It paved the way for the band to be more honest about addiction in their later work.
Without "Paris," you don't get "It's Not Living." You don't get the raw honesty of Notes on a Conditional Form. It was the first time Healy really proved he could write a "pretty" song about "ugly" things without it feeling like a gimmick.
Actionable insights for fans and listeners
If you want to truly appreciate Paris by The 1975, you need to look past the surface-level "indie-pop" label.
- Listen to the acoustic versions: There are several live acoustic performances on YouTube where the lyrics are more audible. Stripping away the "shimmer" of the studio production makes the song feel much more intimate and devastating.
- Read the lyrics while listening: Don't just let it be background music. Focus on the narrative. Notice how the "friend" mentioned in the second verse is never actually named, emphasizing the anonymity of these drug-fueled social circles.
- Contextualize it with "A Change of Heart": These two songs are sisters. While "A Change of Heart" is about the end of a relationship, "Paris" is about the end of a lifestyle. Both use 80s-inspired synth-pop to mask a deep sense of regret.
- Watch the live visuals: The band usually uses specific lighting cues for this song. In the 2016-2017 tours, it was bathed in the signature neon pink that defined that era of the band’s branding.
Paris by The 1975 remains a cornerstone of their discography because it perfectly captures a very specific type of modern melancholy. It's the sound of wanting to be somewhere else, someone else, or even some when else. It’s a masterpiece of "sad-boy" pop that actually has something to say about the world it inhabits.
Next time it comes on your shuffle, don't just dance to the guitar line. Pay attention to the "blood on the face." It's a much more interesting song when you realize it's a tragedy disguised as a hit.