“Bigger Than Me” by Louis Tomlinson
Louis Tomlinson has described “Bigger Than Me” as being premised along the lines of him coming to the conclusion that sometimes in life, you have to step to whatever responsibility has been placed before you.
As put forth in the pre-chorus, in the past others tried to enlighten him to the fact that personal change was coming, but he was adverse to or afraid of accepting such an idea. But now he has come to the realization that as time progresses everything changes, and therefore he must step up and grow, or something like that.
Indeed comprehensively deciphering this piece, in all honesty, is not the simplest task. It would appear that Louis and his co-writers didn’t particularly go out of their way to make this song understandable. But to reiterate, it reads as if what we’re dealing with here, more simply explained, is someone who understands that life calls for sometimes making hard decisions. However, he lacks the heart to confidently do so.
And there appears to be a particular individual(s) the vocalist addresses in the second verse. Perhaps, we can speculate, this is a romantic interest or maybe even Tomlinson’s fandom, i.e. a person or persons who is judging him for initiating change.
With that in mind, maybe what he is saying holistically is that one of the reasons he’s adverse to go from one stage to another is because others in his life would be offended if he did so. But since growth, if you will, is an inescapable part of nature, then at the end of the day he really doesn’t have any choice but to do so.
When was “Bigger Than Me” released?
As of late, with this track being released on 1 September 2022, the only former member of One Direction to regularly appear in entertainment headlines has been Harry Styles.
In fact it has been noted that Louis Tomlinson himself has not released a single since “Walls”, which came out in early 2020. In fact it can be safely said that even the release of “Bigger Than Me” caught fans by surprise, as Louis didn’t bother announcing it until the day before it came out.
But that said, it is lead from a full-length 2022 project titled “Faith in the Future”, Tomlinson’s second-studio album.
Louis has sorta implied, after his first solo album (which was also titled “Walls”) didn’t necessarily perform too well, that maybe he wasn’t overly-enthused about dropping another one. However, he decided to do so in the name of not disappointing his fans.
Credits
Tomlinson wrote this song with three other renowned songwriters. The complete list of credited writers for this song is:
- Louis Tomlinson
- Robert Harvey
- Rick Parkhouse
- George Tizzard
The track’s producer is Mike Crossey.
Louis fans have embraced and supported all of the evolutions that he’s going through. To surmise that line was potentially calling out his fans means you don’t understand that relationship.
This is 100% speculation with no grounds of proof or approval. You clearly have not spoken with Louis, nor do you understand his journey as his fans do. This is drivel. Do better or find another job where you don’t write about real, kind, living people who have lived a journey that you are unable to understand.
Dear commenter,
You are right – the writer of this post is not a hardcore Louis Tomlinson fan. Nor, by the looks of things, are most people who will eventually hear this song. But it has been made clear throughout the article that this is an attempt to interpret a piece which, relatively speaking, is difficult to understand comprehensively. Also, the explanation Tomlinson himself provided about the nature of this song/project isn’t that straightforward itself, besides insinuating that he has come to the realization that his music plays a major role in some peoples’ lives, a fact that he didn’t fully appreciate or acknowledge before. So if one of such persons, such as yourself, can offer a better explanation of “Bigger Than Me”, then we all would be happy to entertain it.
The confusion aside, I commend you guys for embarking on this project. Usually the interpretations of songs on the internet are only one or two sentences long. However, you guys always try taking the extra step to dive deep into the lyrics to try to make sense out of them. I personally think that sometimes the songwriters/singers themselves deliberately make the lyrics confusing on purpose (which I suspect is the case in “Bigger Than Me”).
And another interesting thing I have noticed is that most of the artists’ fans can’t even interpret their songs’ themselves.
Didn’t bother mentioning the single!?! Where were you while we chased letters on pics for 10 days? I got whiplash bouncing around social media. Also, Walls may not have been the success youd imagine but flops dont sell out tours. I don’t think Lou implied much of anything so go make up stories for other songs.
It is not a songwriters job to explain every little detail in a song. With Louis you can rest easily knowing it is an honest representation of his mind, heart and life, up to this point. Also, Louis never forgets that his song belongs to the listeners, to encourage, to enjoy and embrace, or not.
It is not the music critics’ job to do a deep dive into an artist or his other music. But in Louis’ case, it certainly wouldn’t hurt, because his songs are the sum of all his parts. And that is why people listen to him. He started young, had terrible personal tragedies, fell in love, maybe out of love, became a father, mourned the breakup of 1D and has grown unbelievably in his art. He writes well, his voice has improved tremendously, he truly supports young artists and has free festivals. His songs, have the ability to radiate and resonate with all his listeners because it comes from his spirit and transcends to the individual listener. That is a songwriting/performing gift that only the great possess.
I really liked you. liked your speech. We are believing in Louis always. He is the most gorgeous person in the whole world 💙💙