Harry Styles has opened up on in a big way on his new album.
Among the themes he discusses are heartbreak, lost love, and, in particular instances that has fans scrambling to concoct theories, lyrics that allude to specific people in his life. Read on to see which lyrics drew the most attention, and which seem most likely to be about a certain famous pop singer that Styles dated in 2012… Here is every subliminal lyric on Harry Styles’ new album.
Carolina
This one is pretty tough. Styles told BBC Radio 1 that “Carolina was the last song that I wrote for the album. It was kinda what felt it finished it off. We had a week or two weeks, and it felt like we were in a funk. I wrote this and it felt like the bit of fun it was missing. It’s about a specific person, and they know it’s about them now. It’s potentially about someone from Carolina.”
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Styles went on to say that the specific person’s name is in the song, but unless her name is Carolina, the only other name that’s mentioned is a location. Some fans believed the song to be about Caroline Flack, the 31 year old who dated Styles when he was 17, but the lyrics pertaining to innocence and youth on the song (“Feeling oh so far from home / She never saw herself as a west coaster / Moved all the way cuse her grandma told her”) don’t seem to align with Flack. We’re still trying to figure this one out…
Two Ghosts
A prominent case of this is in the song “Two Ghosts,” which many have taken to be in reference to Taylor Swift. Styles sings the lyrics “”Same lips red, same eyes blue / Same white shirt, couple more tattoos,” a couplet that bears a startling resemblance to Taylor Swift’s famous single “Style,” which reads: “And I got that red lip, classic thing that you like,” and later on in the chorus, “You got that long hair slicked back, white T-shirt.”
It seems extremely coincidental that Styles was not aware of these similarities when writing the song, especially given the rumor that “Style” is inspired by the brief romance he and Swift shared in 2012.
Ever Since New York
Swift again finds herself at the center of the rumor mill on “Ever Since New York.” From the moment Styles performed it on Saturday Night Live, they noted the parallels between the song and Swift’s own “Welcome to New York,” especially given that the two were seen in NYC several times during their relationship. Styles has neither confirmed nor denied this theory, but he did have quite a bit to say about Swift in his Rolling Stone interview:
I write from my experiences; everyone does that. I’m lucky if everything [we went through] helped create those songs [on 1989]. That’s what hits your heart. That’s the stuff that’s hardest to say, and it’s the stuff I talk least about. That’s the part that’s about the two people. I’m never going to tell anybody everything.
Certain things don’t work out. There’s a lot of things that can be right, and it’s still wrong. In writing songs about stuff like that, I like tipping a hat to the time together. You’re celebrating the fact it was powerful and made you feel something, rather than ‘this didn’t work out, and that’s bad.’ And if you run into that person, maybe it’s awkward, maybe you have to get drunk … but you shared something. Meeting someone new, sharing those experiences, it’s the best sh*t ever. So thank you.
Kiwi
The most controversial lyrics on the album arrive with “Kiwi,” the hard-rocking track that finds Styles reminiscing over an unidentified past relationship. The song also addresses fake rumors and how his relationship with fame as a while drives him crazy– while admitting that he still loves it. Lyrics like “And now she’s all over me / It’s like I paid for it / It’s like I paid for it / I’m gonna pay for this” speak directly to this tabloid theory. It’s the chorus, however, that’s sparked the most attention.
Styles repeatedly sings “I’m having your baby, it’s none of your business!” over and over again on the song’s refrain. The verses surrounding it are clearly alluding to a specific woman, but never is it made clear who that woman is or whether she is in fact “having his baby.” Twitter wasted little time in voicing their opinion of the lyric after the album’s release.
The Late Late Show host and close friend of Styles, James Corden, decided to hop on Twitter himself to set the record straight:
But are the pregnancy lyrics coming from a place of fact? Styles has repeatedly said that this album was a chance for him to tell his story, and the majority of the lyrics seem connected to his personal experiences. To further blur the lines, this is not the first time Styles has publicly discussed a pregnancy scare. In 2012, the former One Direction singer told Hollywood Life that he quite nearly became a father: “The first time I had sex, I was scared I got the girl pregnant. And that was despite the fact we were safe. Luckily, we were fine.” Styles went on to say that he “would never risk not wearing a condom, it’s too much of a risk. If you’re not ready for a child, then don’t risk it.”
Conversely, Genius seems to think that Styles is simply using the pregnancy lyric as a means of poking fun at the tabloids and their penchant for making up stories. In an interview with BBC Radio 1 on May 12th, Styles seemed to support this theory, saying: “It started out as a joke, now it’s one of my favorite songs. It’s one of the first ones I wrote for the album, when I was getting out a lot of energy. I hadn’t written in a long time and this is what came out.” Watch the full BBC Radio 1 interview below.
