Harry Styles' Sign of the Times is Just That.

Music often has meanings that are not immediately apparent to the listener, however, in some cases the artist makes it quite clear or just outright says it. Almost every song you hear has a meaning, some deeper than others. Harry Styles makes it very clear what his chart-topping song “Sign of the Times” is about. The song is describing the current political climate in the United States. “Sign of the Times” effectively communicates its message through various lyrical clues.

“Sign of the Times” was the debut single off of Harry Styles debut album Harry Styles. The song was released on April 7th, 2017, a controversial time in politics in America. Harry Styles is a known democrat and is clearly very against Trump’s policies. This has become clear to the general public throughout his tour. Every show of his 89 show tour he ran around on the stage with various LGBT flags, one of which said “Make America Gay Again”. In Singapore, he was playing a sold out show and was told by security that he was not legally allowed to wave any pride flags due to the countries anti-LGBT laws. However, he waved two flags on stage anyway even though he could have faced serious legal action. At his final show, at the Forum in Los Angeles, he helped a fan come out to her mother. She was holding a sign that said “I’m going to come out to my mom because of you!”, he asked her if he could read the sign out loud and then had a full conversation with her resulting in him making a video for the girls mother where he yelled, “Tina! She’s gay!”. He sported a rainbow flag sticker, an “End Gun Violence” sticker, and a “Black Lives Matter Sticker” on his guitar. He posted to Instagram a picture of him and his band in “A March for our Lives” shirts. He has also openly voiced his support for the women's rights movement and is a member of the “HeForShe” movement. Most notably at one show of his tour he told the crowd, “Go out and spread eternal love into Washington, it needs it right now.” All of this gives context indirectly to his hit song “Sign of the Times”.

If you carefully examine the lyrics and dissect them you can find tons of evidence supporting the claim that the song is political. The opening and most notable lyric from the song is “Just stop your crying it’s a sign of the times”. This is referring to the massive amount of people who were driven to tears and distraught over the election results. Harry is saying that don’t cry because it’s showing how desperate we are now in America. The pre-chorus of the song provides quite a lot of context to this point. The lyrics read “We never learn, we been here before. Why are we always stuck and running from the bullets? The bullets?” You can infer from these lyrics that we as a society don’t learn from our past mistakes and that we’ve been in bad political situations like this before. The second half of the pre-chorus clearly refers to the nature of gun violence in America. After the chorus, it moves into the second verse where the lyrics reassure you, “Remember everything will be alright”. The lyrics from the song effectively communicate the central message. Anyone who is intently listening to the lyrics would be able to clearly pick up on the meaning.

Harry uses pathos in this work to effectively communicate the meaning of the lyrics. He appeals to the emotions of his audience through this work. The lyrics are very emotionally moving to some people including him. He stated on Carpool Karaoke with James Corden, “It [‘Sign of the Times’] sometimes makes me cry performing it… I find it quite emotional.” He knows that many people were very upset by the election, including the majority of his fans who tend to be mostly young women. The lyrics appeal to their emotions especially as well as anyone who may not be happy with the Trump Administration. The song may also be very emotional to people who have experienced gun violence which happens to be over half of Americans. The pre-chorus about “running from the bullets” really appeals to the emotions of those people particularly. It makes the song relatable to them and also may touch a nerve. The song successfully uses pathos to make the listener feel something and understand what the work may mean.

In conclusion, “Sign of the Times” by Harry Styles effectively uses its lyrics and tone to communicate its’ message. The political standpoint of Harry himself gives context to the songs meaning. He is blatantly against the Trump Administration and an activist for the LGBT community as well as women’s rights. Furthermore, if you look into the lyrics of the song you can find evidence to support this meaning. The most notable of the lyrics being, “why are we always stuck and running from the bullets?” which gives a nod to gun violence in America. Harry also effectively uses pathos to communicate his agenda. His work appeals to the emotions of his audience, predominately late teens-early twenties girls. He recognizes most of his audience identifies with the democratic party and made this song as a tribute to that. The lyrics read as very emotional and he has admitted that “it sometimes makes [him] cry performing it”. Pathos is in full swing throughout this song. The meaning behind this song is very clear thanks to the techniques used by Harry. The song does a fantastic job of effectively communicating its meaning through his background, his lyrics, and by appealing to the emotions of the audience.