Their desire to cling to a fake world keeps them from being able to acclimate to regular society and succeed from within the established structure. Taggart ponders what people will say if they "go down" (which could mean just losing good reputation or appearing to be failures in life): "They'll say you could do anything / They'll say that I was clever." They both have things going for them, and others don't want them to waste those things.įinally, they sing, "We'll get away with everything"-an unrealistic expectation-"Let's show them we are better"-are they really better though? Through these questionable statements, the writer seems purposefully to be painting them as naive. They sing about their loyalty to each other: "If we go down, then we go down together." Perhaps they are naive and don't understand that there may be other ways to work with people, stay together, and still get what they want, but it's at least clear that they do love each other. Now, in the chorus of "Paris," we hear some of Warren's voice chiming in, so we know this comes from both characters' perspectives. His female friend is "ut on the terrace," and he thinks about her for a moment: "I don't know if it's fair, but I thought "How / Could I let you fall by yourself / While I'm wasted with someone else?" Essentially, he may not owe her anything, and it may not be fair to him to come help her, but despite the running from rules and the creation of unreality, they do hold onto one positive virtue, and that's loyalty to this friendship.
But even if he did, the problems that threaten to break into their reality may still be too much for him to handle. Because of the word "take," I'm inclined to think it's the latter since we "take pictures" and don't usually say things like "take this in a shot." My theory then about these lines is that he's referring to taking the reality they've created into his body like it was a drink. Taggart continues singing, "And I thought, 'Wow / If I could take this in a shot right now / I don't think that we could work this out.'" This line could have two meanings: the "shot" could refer to a camera shot or to a shot of alcohol. I'm willing to guess that this is a couple, particularly because that seems to be how The Chainsmokers write songs, but I can't definitively say. While the presence of Emily Warren's uncredited voice in the chorus suggests this is a romantically involved couple, nothing about the lyrics explicitly states the other person is female or a romantic interest. In the first verse of "Paris," Andrew Taggart-one of the members of The Chainsmokers-explains the basic plot of the story being told here: "We were staying in Paris / To get away from your parents." Young people often see their parents as enforcers of rules, so these two have distanced themselves from at least one person's parents in order to escape those rules, standards, or disagreements. It's a place one runs away to and creates a temporary, alternate reality in, and that's exactly what the song is about. It's where those who don't understand u don't exist." "Paris" sounds like a place most people would at least like to visit. We'll learn more as we study the lyrics, but as far as what they've told us, they also explained on Twitter that "Paris is a metaphor for that place u go to where everything's ok.
In a picture that they tweeted before releasing "Paris," The Chainsmokers define "Paris" as "a sentimental yearning for a reality that isn't genuine" and "an irrevocable condition for fantasy that evokes nostalgia or day dreams." The band is telling us here that "Paris" is about searching for something that isn't real and hiding from the truth of what one's life is.