I listened to a couple of songs from A Star is Born this morning trying to convince myself to leave the warm nest to fly into the cold world and start my day when I had another thought about the film.

As noted previously, the movie is weighted toward Jack (Bradley Cooper) while the soundtrack is weighted toward Ally (Lady Gaga) so that taken in tandem there is more equality in representation of the characters (though typically I say films should stand on their own separate from source material and ancillary projects).

Yes, I am a bit of an apologist for this film (despite feminist critique) because I like it…or…I continue to try to figure out why I like it when criticisms about the second half minimizing Ally’s story are correct.

Today, this thought emerged.

There is another thing worth considering in terms of the transitional dialogue included in the soundtrack and the film itself: Ally is most often presented as the writer, which makes her loom larger as an artist. This makes sense because she is on the ascendency.

Jack does possess authorial voice — mostly offscreen — for his swan song and in dialogue talking about having “something to say,” which resides for him primarily in the past and for Ally in the moment and, most probably, in the future.

Yet, it is Ally who is depicted writing in the film and discussing her creative process, and — in a bit of a reversal — Jack functions as her muse.