900 words on Liam Payne
Tributes to Liam Payne have poured in this week from writers and critics and especially fans. I’m a white girl from Toronto who loved One Direction growing up. I never saw them live, I only had their albums on CD. I’m not special! And so I didn’t really feel up to the task of writing this post because so much has been said already, and so articulately, by others.
I will say upfront, just as many on Twitter have already noted, that this feels like a watershed moment for my generation. The first guy we grew up with to leave us far sooner than he should’ve.
You see, One Direction was ours, in the same way *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys were for teenage girls in the wake of the new millennium, in the same way John Stamos and Donnie Wahlberg were the teen idols of the 80s, hell, even the Beatles 60 years ago. But 60 years from now, when we talk about the 2010s, the boys—our boys—are what will immediately spring to mind. And that platonic ideal of One Direction as a group of British teens who had their wildest dreams come true, who made teenage girls believe in themselves and in the world, felt like something that couldn’t ever be taken away from us. Something death couldn’t touch. Until it did.
I had to do a double take when the news broke. I am not quick to trust TMZ. Frankly, I think they should be de-platformed. That Liam Payne? No. Surely not. Couldn’t be. The guy was so young! He had so much life ahead of him and he was trying to put the unscrewed pieces of it back together. He was working on new music and was married to one of the Girls in Girls Aloud (who just wrapped up a huge reunion tour in the UK) and had a kid named Bear. And that poor kid just lost his father. I am crushed for him and his family. Just thinking about what the tabloids have made of this news makes me feel ill. No one should ever have to go through that, especially not on such a worldwide scale.
I feel awful as well for Maya Henry, who was simply just sharing her story. This isn’t her fault. No one should be blaming her for speaking out, nor for Liam’s death.
But yes, the fans. This has hit us hard. We are nine years into what was initially touted as a simple 18-month hiatus for the band and yet it feels like their presence has never really gone away, only shifted a little in shape. If you are old enough to remember when Made in the A.M. came out, older still when Zayn announced he was leaving the band, you likely didn’t buy the whole oh-it’s-just-a-break thing for a second. You knew things weren’t going to be the same ever again. A little more fractured. And now we’ve reached another new frontier, this one far more unexpected and consequential than a simple band break-up. This time, our emotions don’t just manifest in our prefrontal cortex. They’re everywhere now.
It is weird as all hell to see an Instagram post from the official One Direction account, their first in four and a half years, being an official joint statement from the band on another band member’s death. Seeing it took me back a little, jolted me upright a bit. You wish it came under better circumstances, that it could say something else entirely, could devastate a little less. I can’t imagine how heavy Liam’s death is weighing on Louis and Zayn and Niall and Hary right now, even if they weren’t as close to him in the last few years as they once were. I guess when you grow up the way they did, where every move you make gets posted online, when you’re scrutinized by tabloids, afraid you’re gonna hit a bum note in front of a ridiculous amount of fans, relentlessly exploited by the industry… you probably have to lean onto each other really goddamned hard behind closed doors as much as possible. The last thing they’re thinking about right now is a reunion. About music entirely, really. Grief can do that to you.
Me, I’m trying to come to terms with the first fresh blemish on my pop culture childhood. Listening to old 1D songs and stuff. Watching old footage. Getting in touch with my younger self. I don’t really remember this version of me, you know? I was a shy kid. I don’t recall outwardly professing my love for “Story of My Life” (their best song) or that I wanted to marry Niall (my favourite member). I first found out about the band when I saw the music video for “What Makes You Beautiful” playing on the MUCH Music channel early in 2012, and then I saw the boys on YTV a few weeks later doing an interview event thing in Toronto. Watching back footage of it, I don’t… I don’t really have the words to describe how much has changed. Everyone is so much younger. All the girls in the audience are, like, aunts and stuff now. One of the guys on stage isn’t alive anymore. On “Night Changes,” a top 5 One Direction song, the boys sing about how the passage of time “will never change me and you”. Were they right?