Conan Gray released This Song on May 30, 2025, as a soft-edged chapter in the emotional arc of his upcoming album Wishbone, due August 15.
Where some songs cry or collapse, this one coasts—with a warmth that builds slowly, like sunlight through curtains.
It doesn’t wrestle with heartbreak. It reflects on connection, timing, and the moments that almost slip past.
Conan Gray’s “This Song” is a soft, cinematic love track that revisits past emotions with quiet, emotional clarity.
The video, directed by Danica Kleinknecht, brings this to life with quiet intimacy, casting model and actor Corey Fogelmanis as the love interest—though not without controversy.
It plays like the final act of a coming-of-age film—the kind where longing finally gives way to clarity.
There’s laughter, quiet stares, even a shared glance at a Polaroid in the kitchen.
And in the last scene, a kiss. Not dramatic. Just real. This Song doesn’t just soundtrack affection—it rests in it.
In June 2025, filmmaker Aitch Alberto (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe) accused the clip of borrowing ‘plot, shots, and costumes’ from her work.
Gray’s listeners countered that such tropes are genre staples, and the discussion faded as quickly as it began.
“I still drive through the suburbs” — The imagery feels familiar. It recalls his line in Astronomy: “We drive through the woods.”
But here, the tone shifts. We’re not driving away. We’re circling back.
The suburbs are less a setting than a symbol—of habit, of reflection, of something half-closed and half-open.
“And I hate that I still smell your perfume” — It echoes Memories, where scent becomes a haunting tether to the past.
But this isn’t haunted. It’s wistful. A reminder that closeness leaves traces, and that not all of them sting.
“I picked you up from the corner store” — The callback is impossible to miss. Alley Rose told us that first kiss happened in an alley.
Here, it’s as though we’ve passed that same intersection again—only this time, the memory’s been made softer with time.
“Why’d you put me in this song?” — It’s a quiet accusation, but also a confession.
It’s as if he’s writing the question into the chorus before someone else gets the chance to ask it.
“I was never yours / You were never mine” — The lyric sounds final, but the delivery feels anything but.
It lands like a truth you’ve rehearsed so many times it stops sounding like resolution and starts sounding like routine.
Part of what makes This Song resonate isn’t just what it says—it’s what it remembers. Conan Gray doesn’t write isolated singles. He writes emotional sequels.
From Astronomy to Memories to Alley Rose, the DNA of previous tracks lingers. The suburban drives. The scent of perfume. The kiss by the corner store.
These aren’t just references—they’re emotional bookmarks. A quiet acknowledgment that we don’t move on in clean lines.
We loop, and we revisit, and sometimes we fall for the same person in a slightly different way.
The sound of This Song plays like memory in slow motion. There’s a softness to the arrangement—muted guitar plucks, breathy vocal layers, and a kind of sonic fog that allows nothing to be too sharply defined.
Rather than follow a strict build-up, the track swells and fades like an old reel playing back a summer that never quite ended.
It’s the video that unlocks the rest. The framing, the colour grading, the way the characters move—everything feels curated, but not stiff. The light lingers. The touch is tentative.
Even the quiet kitchen scenes buzz with something unsaid. When Conan glances up at Corey Fogelmanis’ character, there’s no monologue.
No explanation. Just the shared language of people who know they’re not finished yet.
This Song doesn’t posture or proclaim. And that’s what makes it stick.
It’s for the quiet in-betweens—the liminal hours of a relationship that hasn’t really ended or begun.
The ones that never made it to your camera roll but play on loop in your head.
It’s a love song that hums more than it shouts. But that hum carries, and it lingers.
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Conan Gray This Song Lyrics
Verse 1
You know that I love you
And I have a feeling that you love me back
We’re sat in my bedroom
And I hear your heart like a train on the tracks
Your eyes are like Heaven, your voice is like rain
11:11s, they all hear your name
I’m too shy to tell you the words on my mind
I hope you can see if you read through these lines
Chorus
That I wrote this song about you
Something I wish you knew
Something I’ve tried to say
But now I’ll say it straight
I wrote this song about you
Verse 2
We drive through the suburbs
And you’re playin’ all of your favorite songs
You joke ’bout your mothеr
She can’t help but cry when shе hears Elton John
You’re singing obnoxious, I’m laughing like spring
Your brown racer jacket, my hands through the sleeves
The smell of your perfume is all over me
I can’t wash it off, so it’s easy to see
Chorus
That I wrote this song about you
Something I wish you knew
Something I’ve tried to say
But now I’ll say it straight
I wrote this song about you
Bridge
You know that I love you
Is it dumb believing you might love me too?
Yeah
Outro
(I wrote this song about you)
(I wrote this song about you)
Now you know that I love you
