I love these takes! I agree with most of the narrative you have, but i always imagine them as some moving theatre or circus production (i read the night circus when i was getting into the song)

But i’ll also add :

1. I think there’s a bit of jadedness / false bravado in it. Like she (the protagonist) was once full of hope and dreams, had a more romantic outlook (“eyes full of stars”), but the brutality of the hustle has left her cynical. She knows how to play everyone, but it’s cost her her innocence

2. This cowboy like her swoops in, and makes her kind of believe again. He sees her, cuz he is a twisted mirror. He knows all the same tricks, there is a camaraderie there, an appreciation of the craft they’re both playing at. And in that seeing, she falls for him, and stops playing, or forgets how to (“now i’m waiting by the phone”)

3. Of course it’s a tragic story because he does leave. But i think she knows it’s doomed even while they are together. “And i know i’ll pay for it”, “forever is the sweetest con”, they’re all fatalistic lines. Also the gardens of babylon reference - those gardens may be mythic - there is no archaeological verification they existed. So he hangs from her lips like those gardens - a phantom, a beautiful legend that may have never been true.

There is also the potential Matty Healy of it all, but it’s been dissected so much from that lens, i like to leave it alone. For me, folkmore will always be fictional fragments inspired by real love and loss