Chords for Conan Gray “People Watching” Official Lyrics & Meaning | Verified

I love people watching.
It's by far my favorite activity on earth.
When I was going to school my freshman year of college at UCLA, there was this one cafe on campus.
I would go there every single day and watch people all day long.
But there was this one couple that used to always sit at this table close to me.
I would just eavesdrop on their relationship for years of going there and listening to
them and listening to them talk about each other and talk about their problems or talk
about little things that happened.
And I knew all these things about them by the end.
So I threw a bunch of the information I collected about them and put them in this song. _ _ _
[C] _ _ [B] _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _
So I wrote this song with Julia Michaels and my producer Daniel Nigro.
And it was a really funny day.
I was like, I want to write a fun song today.
Let's write a fun song.
Julia looked at me, she's like, do you want to write a fun song, Conan?
I was like, I think so, Julia.
I think.
She was like, no, you don't.
And I was like, _ I don't.
I don't want to write a fun song.
And she was like, I know.
I can tell.
I was like, I just feel like everyone's in love around me and I've never felt it before.
And it was really one of those moments where she just saw right through me and we had to
write this miserable song about wanting to be in love. _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ We chose to say 49 months instead of four years or whatever.
I just thought it was kind of a funny way of saying it.
I feel like in a relationship or with things that you really cherish, there's so much about
pulling the time and making it feel like it's bigger than it actually is.
I always think [Eb] about how when moms have babies, the baby will be three years old and it's
like 36 months.
You're like, that's a whole baby.
That's a human.
I feel like I wanted to kind of set up the song showing this couple that obviously have
known each other for a really long time and know everything about each other.
Even with my best friends, we have all these inside jokes and all these things that when
we're talking to each other, it's like barely even English at that point.
It's just like words that don't make any sense or mean nothing to anyone else.
I think there's something really special about that.
So I wanted to kind of play that picture of that couple who just, I could just tell they
knew each other so intimately.
And I want that for myself eventually one day. _ _
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_ _ I feel like if one day I was engaged, I wouldn't be able to tell people that I was engaged.
I'd just be like, yeah, we just hang out.
We've just been hanging out for like, I don't know, five years.
Like I'll have a child.
Like, yeah, we're just friends.
I feel like I'd be like that.
I have such bad _ intimacy commitment issues.
I think that's like a super gen Z, just unanimous thing. _ _ _ _
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I was a nerd in school, so I definitely got good grades.
But by the end of school, I hated school so much.
It was so bad.
I skipped so much school that they threatened to not let me graduate.
I'd probably skipped it for like an entire month to the point where when I walked into
class for the first time and after skipping it for like weeks and weeks, everyone in the
class stood up and started clapping because I'd been gone for so long.
And then when I got to college, I went to college for one singular month and then dropped
out and signed my deal.
So it was just like,
_ _ _ _ _ _ Well, _ the first time I did a Genius interview was for a song called Crush Culture.
At that point, I was so bitter about the fact that I'd never been in love that anytime I
saw a couple _ be in love, I would just like want to vomit all over them.
I didn't have it.
I was really jealous of them.
I just hated [Ab] watching couples exist.
I was like, that's not me.
I hate you.
[G] If I'm going to be single, we're all going to be [N] single.
But nowadays, I see couples and I think I've shown some growth.
I watch couples and I am happy for them.
I mean, it's sad for me because I've never been in love and it's definitely bittersweet.
That's a hard feeling because I just never felt it.
I'm happy for them.
But I want to fall in love.
Hasn't happened yet. _ _ _ _ _ _
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I hope that one day I'll meet someone who makes me feel like I don't have to be terrified
that I'm falling in love with them.
So many times in my life where I've liked someone and then I just tell myself, no, no,
no, you can't fall in love with them because they're going to break your heart and you
just need to leave.
Me having never dated anyone my entire life is fully, that's on me.
That was my fault.
Every single time I've ever liked someone or have liked someone, I end up heartbroken.
So I got to this point where I just didn't want to be in love at all.
Because falling in love is so scary and it's so embarrassing and it's so vulnerable.
And I think when I was younger, it was easier for me to be like, yeah, I don't want to be in love.
That's stupid.
But nowadays, I do want to be in love.
It's just so scary.
It's just terrifying. _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ Growing up, I always wanted that kind of perfect _ love story or that kind of perfect normal life.
I wanted more than anything to just be normal in high school.
All I wanted was to be normal in college.
All I wanted to be was normal.
I just wanted to be normal.
I wanted to be like drinking beers with the dudes and just like living the normal life.
I wanted it so badly.
But now I'm looking back, it's so obvious.
I mean, look at me.
I was never going to be that.
I was fooling nobody.
So I think it was kind of one of those realizations where I was like, use some common sense, Conan.
You're never going to have that.
You can have dreams about living in the perfect house with the picket fence and the golden
retriever and all that stuff, but _ it's just not who I am and it's never going to happen. _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ _ I think cutting people out like tags on my clothing to me is just kind of, it's just
something I do without even thinking.
You get a new shirt, some new person comes into your life and then the second you realize
that it's uncomfortable, just like snip and they're gone.
_ I've always been so afraid of being vulnerable.
I'm like only vulnerable in music and in nothing else in life.
It's been a challenge for me to let myself fall in love or let myself be, _ _ I don't know,
just vulnerable and real around people that I feel like I can't trust. _
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_ _ _ _ _ _ I do feel like I tell people a lot more in the music than I tell people in real life.
Music has always just been my diary to me.
It's just been something that I don't really think about people ever listening to.
It's like _ horrifying to know that millions of people have heard some of the things that
I haven't even told my friends.
It's so bad that at one point, when my album came out, when my debut album came out, I
had friends calling me being like, I didn't know that happened.
And I was like, yeah, it happened, but it's like whatever.
It's scary to be honest and real with people, but in the music I just feel like I can say
whatever I need to say because I think honesty is the most important thing when it comes
to being able to relate to people in music. _ _ _ _
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So with this line in particular, I wanted to kind of make this like choir section that
was like, I feel love emotion.
I've had so many people reach out and be like, oh, like I don't know what it said.
I did that on purpose.
Basically, some people hear I feel love emotion and other people hear I feel no emotion.
I wanted to kind of make it like this _ section of the song where just depending on how you
feel at the moment, that's what it means to you.
So if you hear no emotion or love emotion, that's just how you're feeling in the moment.
And I think that was kind of a little emotion or love emotion.
That's just how you're feeling in the moment.
And I think that was kind of a little _ [Em] Easter egg.
[A] _ _ [Em] _ _