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Louie was…upset. Frequently. He didn’t want to be, but the life of his family was so chaotic and dangerous and lived in such a public way. They were basically celebrities and to Louie that just made everything feel messy, and nothing made him more upset than feeling messy. It was something he and Huey shared. Dewey did too to a certain extent, but he played it off better than Louie or Huey ever could.
Louie spent a good portion of his life feeling upset because things felt messy. It was hard not to when he watched Uncle Donald struggle to barely make ends meet, Huey being constantly ridiculed for how serious and controlled he was, and Dewey being pushed aside and mocked by teachers who couldn’t understand that he simply couldn’t sit still and focus even if he wanted to. It was hard for Louie to not feel messy when how he felt inside didn’t match up with how people perceived him.
For a good portion of his life, Louie didn’t have the words to describe how he was feeling. He largely felt disconnected from his life and felt like he was moving through his days in a large cloud. The only time he felt like he could connect with anything around him was when he was involved with music in some way. Once Louie learned the word transgender, everything snapped into focus for him. He came out shortly after, socially transitioned a few months before moving into Scrooge’s mansion. Essentially, his life was chaotic before he came out, before he knew he was a nephew of Scrooge McDuck, before he became a kid adventurer and amateur entrepreneur. The one thing that tethered him through it all was his connection to music.
It was one of the ways he was Uncle Donald’s kid. Donald sang to the triplets constantly when they were babies even though his voice was ruined from years of using it improperly and his time in the Navy. He instilled his love of music into the triplets by singing them songs in a variety of genres and always having the radio on or a record playing. In addition to this, he also had songs he would sing to each of the triplets, their own special song as it were. They all were Dad-to-Child songs, both semi-generic but perfectly encapsulated how Donald felt about each of his boys. Louie’s song both filled him with unimaginable comfort and killed him at the same time. It didn’t stop him from pulling a guitar out and playing it whenever he felt particularly upset.
Hey little girl you might not know this song
This is not the kind of song that you can sing along to
Even though Louie was still relatively young, he felt like he understood why those first couple lines made sense. He has gone through a huge deconstruction process in order to understand what society expected of him and how he realistically fit into that. Largely, he simply couldn’t, but he was becoming more okay with that as he became more okay with himself.
But hey little girl
Maybe someday
Least that's what all the good people will say
He kind of wondered if Donald always knew Louie wasn’t what everyone expected him to be. They never really talked about it, Donald accepted Louie with open arms and they didn’t reflect on the past too much. Or maybe he always knew how analytical and perceptive Louie was and so he knew Louie would understand one day why his Uncle’s love for him was so fierce. Louie liked to think he did.
Hey little girl, look what you've done
You've gone and stole my heart and made it your own
You've stole my heart and made it your own
Louie liked to think he understood if for no other reason than Donald never let the triplets forget how much he loved them. With Della being gone and them completely cut off from Scrooge, there were days where it felt like the entire world was against them. Way more days that Louie knew he and his brothers were willing to admit to each other or their uncle.
Hey little girl, black and white and right and wrong
Only live inside a song I will sing to you
The houseboat was always so safe. It was small, warm, softly rocked with the waves of the tide coming into the bay, and there was always a pillow and fuzzy blanket within arm’s reach no matter where you were. Uncle Donald was so safe. He was soft smiles, warm hugs, an unjudgmental listening ear, and sweet words of encouragement and advice.
You don't ever have to feel lonely
You will never lose any tears
You don't have to feel any sadness
When you look back on the years
Moving in with Scrooge was much harder on the triplets than any of them were willing to admit. Being in a bigger space was initially very exciting, but living outside the houseboat quickly lost its luster after about a week. It lost its luster when it became clear that they weren’t ever going to move back into the houseboat. There was a reason the triplets never fought to have their own rooms.
How can I look you in the eyes
And tell you such big lies
Donald and the triplets beginning to separate their lives more was the hardest part of that move. Louie especially didn’t want Donald to have a more typical uncle role in their lives, he was their Dad and always would be. The only reason the triplets didn’t call him Dad was because the title of Uncle was hammered into them as they were learning to speak. Louie’s first word was Unca.
The best I can do is try to show you
How to love with no fear
Louie was only truly not fearful when Donald was around. Donald had always protected him and his brothers from everything he could, it was one of the many reasons why he was such a safe person. It’s why he freaked out a bit when Donald started to pull back a little when they moved into the mansion. How could he protect them if he wasn’t there every single possible second he possibly could be anymore?
My little girl
You've gone and stole my heart and made it your own
You've stole my heart and made it your own
Louie loved his Uncle so much. So much of who he was could be attributed to Donald. It didn’t matter that this song didn’t ever truly reflect his relationship to Donald from a gender standpoint, it was pure comfort and pure love to Louie. That’s who Donald was to him and therefore that meant those were the primary things that Louie got from it. He could never be bitter over how much it assigned incorrect labels to him. Never.