escapism & surreality in the work and expression of harry styles. a thread

harry regularly has themes of escapism in his art, whether he’s fleeing from restriction or misery into a different better place, or simply entering a dreamscape. i find this rlly interesting and wanted to make a thread just to point out where i see it!

1: lyrics about relationships. finding relief and safety in another person, completely dedicating himself to them and ignoring the rest of the world. “i know you wanna leave [...] baby be with me so happily.” “if i could fly i’d be coming right back home to you.” +

“walk in your rainbow paradise [...] i get so lost inside your eyes.” meanwhile, real tangible places are usually negative sites of painful memories and thought spirals: the hallway in mmith, the dining table implied in the title of ftdt, his bed in falling.

2: general lyrics. searching for a better place, escaping restrictions. “we’ve got to get away from here.” “maybe we can find a place to feel good.” also, his song she is sometimes interpreted to be about the strictness of gender norms in society. +

a man lives a mundane and ‘normal’ life, but his feminine side exists and “she lives in daydreams with me.” the dream is preferable to reality, because there is freedom there. there’s also the potential of literal escape: “he takes a boat out, imagines just sailing away.”

2: tattoos. often nautically themed, a preoccupation with freedom and new places. some of his major tattoos are a ship, an anchor, a mermaid, swallows: all traditional sailor designs.

3: music videos. typically fantastical or surreal. he depicts fantasy scenarios, like ridiculous food fights, a modern fable with a fish and a made-up town, and a joyful day on the beach that was made to look like “an LSD trip”. +

in other videos, he uses surreal imagery that creates a dreamlike and otherworldly atmosphere: flying through the air unaided, the eerie scenes in the lights up mv, a flooding piano, the entirety of the two ghosts mv.

4: visuals. dreamlike, surreal, intangible places. hs1 is in a body of water, disorienting and unclear as to what or where it is. +

fine line is strange and eccentric, punctuated with random props and the fisheye lens.

5: dream with me. the very definition of escapism, a meditation over various idyllic scenarios, literal dreaming. obviously he didn’t write it, but i like that this was a project he chose to take part in (and was apparently written to fit him).

6: habits. during quarantine in LA, harry said he had started listening to live albums to pretend like he was in a room full of people, escaping into daydreams. he also has a tendency to bury himself into his work and creative process. +

for example, he wrote the song tbsl in one sitting, working on it all night alone in the studio. cherry was similarly written during an all-nighter. he’s said that writing is an escape and catharsis for him.

harry is always wildly creative, and i think his apparent occasional boredom or disillusionment with the real world is one of the things that makes him such a brilliant and original artist. end of thread <3