Let's talk about Connor's brilliantly terrible karaoke song choice in Season 4 of Succession

Now there's no shame in doing cheesy, emotional karaoke - but you have to prepare for it and assess the vibes. No one goes to karaoke to watch a lonely man sing a sad ballad. As the lead singer of the night, Connor immediately becomes the wet blanket, and his siblings find his pity excruciating. Ironically, despite campaigning for POTUS himself, Connor has always been the Roy brother with the least to do, and here he is at his most pathetic breaking point. As Roman said, "That's Guantanamo-level crap."

So why "Famous Blue Raincoat"? On the surface, Leonard Cohen's song is about betrayal and infidelity; his words are written in the form of a letter addressed to a man for whom Cohen thinks his wife is leaving him behind. Throughout this episode, as Willa runs away from Connor, he grows increasingly paranoid that she escaped to be with another man, or maybe she jumped off a bridge ( his siblings in particular don't reassure him that he is overreacting). That's probably explanation enough as to why Connor chose this song as is, but there's also a mysterious layer to Cohen's track that also feels narratively appropriate.

Despite being structured like a letter, the lyrics are vague and ambiguous enough that one often wonders if the song's narrative is literal or imagined. Is it a man who took Cohen's wife and misled her, or is the man a construct of his own mind? Perhaps the man is a representation of fate itself. Cohen blames a certain strength that seduces his wife, but there is ironic denial that his relationship was on shaky ground as it was.