{"id":2315707,"date":"2026-03-06T15:34:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T15:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2315707"},"modified":"2026-03-06T15:34:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T15:34:41","slug":"harry-styless-lyrics-and-references-stay-vague-on-new-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/harry-styless-lyrics-and-references-stay-vague-on-new-album\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Styles\u2019s Lyrics and References Stay Vague on New Album"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In his song \u201cPaint by Numbers,\u201d one of the least disco songs on his new album, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally.<\/em>, Harry Styles croons about \u201cholding the weight of the American children whose hearts you break.\u201d On first listen, I thought he was talking about me \u2014 or rather, not me, personally, but the greater hoards of One Direction fans who have continued to follow his career and who express their disappointment at one thing or another he decides to do. There\u2019s a more obvious read of the lyric, however, and it\u2019s that Styles is referencing his relationship<\/a> with his Don\u2019t Worry Darling <\/em>director, Olivia Wilde<\/a>, and whatever association he had with her children she shares with ex Jason Sudeikis.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a jarringly specific line in the grand scheme of Styles\u2019s music, which errs on the side of vagueposting. He gestures and he nods, sure, but he avoids giving too much away. Privacy and authenticity are valuable assets for any artist to maintain, but Styles has never been a master of crafting a specific image, let alone a lyric that possesses a kind of crystal-clear metaphor or emotion. Part of the appeal of a song like \u201cWatermelon Sugar\u201d was that it could \u2026 kind of just be whatever you wanted it to be. Same goes for equally aloof titles like \u201cAs It Was\u201d and \u201cSign of the Times.\u201d The most clear-cut his lyrics have ever been are in \u201cMusic for a Sushi Restaurant,\u201d in part because he\u2019s naming literal foods. His ballads, on the other hand, tend to just circle the drain, as if he was posting on an Instagram Story a caption like \u201cDepressed, don\u2019t text,\u201d leading everyone else to text each other about what\u2019s wrong with him.<\/p>\n

None of this would necessarily be a problem \u2014 we don\u2019t need Styles namedropping John Lautner like Dua Lipa or making an an Easter egg seeker\u2019s dream hunt like The Tortured Poets Department \u2014<\/em> if Styles was content to be more of a showman than a poet, but it\u2019s his ongoing insistence that these songs do<\/em> mean something and are<\/em> actually giving a lot away where things start to get fuzzy. In his conversation with Zane Lowe<\/a>, he discussed how he wanted Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally<\/em>. to have a kind of openness that his past work didn\u2019t have. \u201cI look at the past albums now where I was kind of like, Oh, this line is super vulnerable<\/em>, and I\u2019m like \u2026 is it?\u201d Styles goes on to say that it\u2019s why he felt \u201cAperture\u201d<\/a> was a perfect start to his album.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Aperture\u2019<\/a> is so about the moment of realizing, No, I was in the wrong for something<\/em>, and you can move forward when you acknowledge the things you don\u2019t know and therefore give yourself the space to let light come in,\u201d he says. It\u2019s a song born out of how \u201cin my feelings\u201d the singer felt. Those feelings, however, never really make it out of the speakers. It\u2019s a song dense with phrases like \u201cIt\u2019s complicated\u201d and \u201cWe belong together,\u201d with nods towards \u201cTokyo scenes\u201d and sports metaphors. \u201cIt kind of ended up being the freest song on the record,\u201d he says to Lowe. When he finished working on the track, Styles explained that it felt like the last thing he \u201chadn\u2019t quite said yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if Styles feels like \u201cAperture\u201d is his most free song, there are other tracks on the new record that do sprinkle in some specifics, suggesting that if Styles is moving toward a more vulnerable place, he\u2019s just doing it in a way he can\u2019t seem to grasp or describe himself. Songs like the undeniable banger \u201cReady, Steady, Go!\u201d make mention of \u201cLeon,\u201d which would mean something if that name had any weight in the song, but the lyric \u201cand you call Leon\u201d just says \u2026 that someone calls Leon. Styles told Lowe about playing his friend Carla \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water,\u201d and then his album closes with \u201cCarla\u2019s Song.\u201d The song descends into Styles repeating that he knows what the listener will like \u2014 \u201cIt\u2019s all there waiting for you.\u201d If this song lets you in on anything, it\u2019s that Styles can give a good music recommendation. Those Easter eggs are fun, if not completely indecipherable, but they at least give the music a kind of thrill. The most intimate song \u2014 the one where it feels like Styles is letting us in on something<\/em> \u2014 is \u201cAre You Listening Yet?,\u201d which reads like he\u2019s berating himself, riffing on his therapist being \u201cwell-fed\u201d and having \u201cun-intimate sex.\u201d That he would see \u201cAperture\u201d or \u201cPaint by Numbers\u201d as more vulnerable reveals he has little sense of what he\u2019s giving away and why.<\/p>\n

After explaining the origins of \u201cAperture\u201d to Lowe, Styles admits that \u201cPaint by Numbers\u201d \u2014 the is-it-or-isn\u2019t-it-about-Wilde song \u2014 was almost the first song on the album, to which Lowe scoffs, in a rare moment of earnest surprise. Styles\u2019s instinct to bury that song deep into the record is probably a more emotionally coherent choice, but it\u2019s also one that reflects his tendency to bury his secrets throughout his songs. Even if he thinks foregrounding \u201cAperture\u201d is an act of vulnerability, he winds up doing what he always does on his records: sending everyone on a wild-goose chase to find out what exactly he\u2019s saying about what or who or why. Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally<\/em>. does start to feel a bit more intimate and grounded \u2014 less platitudinal or annoyingly vague \u2014 but only once the party comes to a close and all the light\u2019s been let in.<\/p>\n