By now, if you haven’t heard the song “She” by Harry Styles, you probably don’t know who Harry Styles is. The eighth track on Styles’ sophomore album called Fine Line is a six-minute slow jam. If you’re looking for a good night-drive song to add to your playlist definitely go ahead and add this song. The song opens up with a slow, sultry drum and guitar combo, soon joined by a groovy bass line. After twenty seconds of instrumentals to set the mood, the lyrics open with a narrative of a seemingly normal man. He wakes up at nine in the morning and drops his kids off at school: not too much that would require scrutiny. But the next line, “And he’s thinking of you, like all of us do” implies that despite the man’s average routine, he is always thinking of this You figure, which, based on the song title, is most likely a feminine figure.
This first verse is easy enough to decipher, but the divergence comes in the chorus: “She (She), she lives in daydreams with me (She)/ She’s the first one that I see, and I don’t know why/ I don’t know who she is (She, she)”. From this point, there are multiple perspectives the song could take. One of the most obvious is continuing the “normal” implication of the song, that the man sees this feminine figure all day long in his head and that he can’t shake this figure, or perhaps he is picturing someone he wishes to be with rather than the person he is currently with. Again, that’s simple enough just based on the title of the song. However, this all-powerful “She” figure could also be the man’s feminine side. He lives an average life as a man, he is seen as “Dad” to his kids, his assistant may call him Sir when they refer to him. He accepts this because that is normal in society; he is biologically male, therefore he accepts the pronouns and social roles that a man may have in society. However, he struggles with this identity because he feels so strongly attached to his feminine side; he’s thinking of it all day, it’s the first thing he thinks about, and he can’t understand who he is supposed to be with his masculine and feminine sides dueling in his head.
The second verse describes the man imagining taking a boat on to the ocean and sailing away without telling anyone that he went or where he is going because he doesn’t know how they would react. This verse could confirm that the man wishes to escape his life that he’s been sewn into, he wants to leave his prescribed existence and exchange it for the daydreams he constantly has of this femininity. He doesn’t want to tell his friends about this because he doesn’t want to hurt them and he doesn’t want their judgment whether it be positive or negative. The desire to leave everything behind and just not deal with showing his true self to people he knows really shows his internal struggle with coming to terms with his femininity. However, he has responsibilities that he can’t just abandon like his children or maybe even his job. This is what has kept him from living out his daydreams and breaking from his social roles. The chorus repeats and brings us to the bridge.
The bridge gives a more in-depth view of how the feminine figured daydreams affect the man: “Lives for the memory/A woman who’s just in his head (Just in his head)/And she sleeps in his bed (His bed)/While he plays pretend (Pretend)/So pretend (Pretend)”. The bridge describes the man living for a memory, perhaps a time in his life when he was more feminine, or a feminine figure he wishes to emulate, or perhaps a woman he was with in his life that he always remembers. Whatever this memory is, it is what is keeping him going through a bland life. The memory and the feminine figure are one and the same, it stays with him while he sleeps in his bed, it’s the same thing he dreams about all day. I think this lyric could also be interpreted in another way, that while the man is playing pretend, i.e. going through the motions of his social roles as a masculine figure to the people in his life, his feminine side sleeps in his bed, dormant during his social interactions.
The song ends with a chorus repeat and then closes out with an epic guitar solo. The song leaves one with the feeling of longing, or maybe the desire to obtain what you have been daydreaming about yourself. The song does a great job of keeping the mood it sets up within the first twenty seconds, and its effect stays with you long after you’ve listened to it. As a woman, when I listened to this song for the first time it made me feel powerful and confident like I was this all-powerful She that was the focus of the song. If you read through this article and haven’t listened to the song, I highly recommend giving it a shot- you won’t be disappointed.