But he can now recount actual relationships in his songs. He’s still never been in the kind of magical “Notebook” love he longs for, he said, but about a year ago, he had a five-month relationship that took three breakups before the breakup took and which is the subject of “Too Good at Goodbyes,” the first single off the new album, which is in the Billboard Top 10 as of this writing. He’s been dating the actor Brandon Flynn, from Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why,” seeing where that goes.

Backstage at the Hollywood Bowl, Mr. Smith drank a cup of Throat Coat, and then took a Gaviscon for acid reflux. He sang through a cocktail straw while holding up a tissue to make it move with his breath to strengthen his throat muscles, something he learned from an opera singer. He motor-boated his lips. He was ready for the show.

The next day, the news media would pick up a statement he made about feeling as much like a woman as a man, and social media would get on him for being too casual about gender fluidity when he identifies as a gay man. One day he will get it right, he said, his eyes shiny with big, sad Sam Smith tears.

“The only thing I’d like everyone to know is I’m really sorry if I say the wrong things,” he said. “I don’t want to offend anyone and my intentions are genuinely pure and good. I’m still trying to figure [expletive] out and I’d like to be treated like a human. If I make mistakes don’t kill me.”

Yes, one day. One day when he’s old, he said, he’s going to know what to say. He’s going to be someone who can figure out how to think his words through before he says them. He’ll get older, and as he does, he’s going to stop using his falsetto so much, he said. It’s a sound that can’t age with you, and even on the new album, he’s started to sing more in his regular voice. Eventually, he’s going to be like Joni Mitchell and just use the lowest registers. He’s going to come out on stage like Joni on the cover of “Both Sides Now,” with a glass of wine and a cigarette (yes, by then he’ll be drinking and smoking again). He’s looking forward to that, when his voice starts to get breathy and broken like Judy Garland’s when she sings “Over the Rainbow” at Carnegie Hall. Eventually he’ll retire and open up a flower shop in the English countryside, he said. He’ll get really into cooking, he’ll have a pet pig named Kong or maybe Flo, and he’ll live forever happily, surrounded by his husband and children and his closet full of drag. His funeral will call for fancy dress, and the men will have to dress like women and the women will have to dress like men. Drag queens wearing big black hats with veils and high heels will carry his coffin out. Then disco music will play. That’s nice, isn’t it? Yes, it’s nice to think of a time when he’ll know for sure just how to be.