Harry Styles’ Has Released A New Song, And A Whole Lot Of People Think It’s About Olivia Wilde
Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde have been a thing since about January 2021, and I have to ask myself: is fourteen months enough time to get a song written about your relationship? I don’t know, but according to some super sleuths on the internet, fourteen months is more than enough time to get with Olivia and start writing uptempo pop songs that are thinly-veiled allegories to your relationship. Then again, Harry Styles’ new song, “As It Was,” released earlier today, could just be a song Harry randomly thought up while he was picking out which pair of retro polyester bell bottoms he was going to wear one morning.
“As It Was” is the lead single from Harry’s upcoming album, called Harry’s House, which is scheduled for release next month. The video and song just dropped, and I’m personally shocked that anyone was able to get any kind of subtext about Olivia Wilde from this song. All I could think of while listening to it is that I didn’t realize New Order was selling at-home DIY craft kits for their song “Age of Consent.” That’s a joke of course, but I won’t at all be surprised if some of New Order listened to Harry’s new song and thought, “Wait a minute…“.
But the music video for the song is all Harry. Harry Styles works a variety of fashion in size TOO LARGE FOR HIM, while walking around a brutalist office building, before finding himself in some kind of ballroom/art gallery/rich person event space in a red sequinned jumpsuit that makes him look like Evel Knievel’s lovable non-threatening nephew. He’s joined by a lady in blue (model-slash-dancer Mathilde Lin), as they dance around a giant rotating UFO. Later, they’re outside undressing on a structure that looks like it was built by Axel Vervoordt for a very austere episode of Wipeout. There’s lots of dancing, lots of spinning, lots of sequins, and do I spy some nail polish courtesy of Harry’s new beauty brand, Pleasing?
So what of these clues that the song is about Olivia Wilde. Well, there are many, according to the internet. Cosmopolitan has the full lyrics, but at one point, Harry sings:
Go home, get ahead, light-speed internet
I don’t wanna talk about the way that it was
Leave America, two kids follow her
I don’t wanna talk about who’s doin’ it first
Olivia shares two kids, Otis (8) and Daisy (6) with Jason Sudeikis.
Harry hasn’t commented on whether this song or this album, is about his relationship with Olivia. But he did sort of vaguely address their situation during a recent interview with SiriusXM’s The Morning Mash Up show, saying that he’s “really happy” with everything in his life at the moment. via UsWeekly:
“I also feel really happy at the moment and I feel like it’s the first time I feel like I’m kind of making music and putting music out from a real place of kind of personal freedom. That is a really liberating place to be kind of creating from and now putting out. So, the process for me has been, has been easily the most joyous of anything that I’ve kind of experienced so far while making music.
I feel very lucky that this is kind of the proudest I’ve been of something that I’ve made so far. And I feel, like, kind of the most comfortable I’ve been with myself and happiest with what I’m making and the best I felt about something that I’m making.”
Harry and Olivia have remained fairly private, so maybe we’ll find out if this is about her, and…maybe we won’t. Or maybe we’ll learn with complete certainty from Harry himself that this album has nothing to do with his current lady. Harry just sings about leaving America and two kids follow her. Has Harry ever casually dated a baby goat farmer? I’m sure those fans will get to the bottom of it ASAP.
Pic: YouTube