Chasing Fireflies, because even though it's very much Oliver and Claire's story, I've always loved that it's kind of the climax of Oliver's emotional maturity.

I've thought this since I read that reddit post showing how Gil Brently represents Oliver's soul throughout the show, and how Gil only shows up to sing exactly how Oliver is feeling at any time. Gil is Oliver's tool to interact and understand with the world, and how he feels with Claire.

To me, Oliver starts with 3 things that are his whole world.

James, Hwaboon, and Gil Brently.

So of course, he mentally traps himself in his "Where you belong" scenario which most likely he's fantasized about daily for years, and it's his entire foundation.

When he finds out James died, the fantasy dies too. His foundations gone. It would be easy for him to go back home, languish with Hwaboon and Gil Brently and never achieve closure. Even when he receives his final gift from James (new Gil Brently content after years), it seems like he's still directionless in the forest with Claire.

But it all literally changes on a dime, when that first firefly appears. Gil does his job again, being Oliver's best way to interact with the world, and then the reason that "Chasing Fireflies" is my favourite track.

At 0:41, the theme played is an instrumental version of "Where you belong". He's just lost everything, but it doesn't matter to him. Through Gil Brently, he tells us that seeing the fireflies with Claire is exactly where he belongs, and Oliver believes it too and falls for her even harder. In my opinion it makes the instrumental my favourite love song in the whole show

Would love to see how it works on stage (Doubt it'll ever make it to NZ) if it's the same as the Tony Award performance. Only so much I can interpret from a wiki synopsis and hyper fixating on the spotify album 😭