Harry Styles released his latest album, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. on March 6, and along with it, he also released the music video for “American Girls.” The song is a heavy one, and the music video also gives fans that same feeling. Here’s the meaning of Harry Styles’s “American Girls” music video, explained.
The video starts with Styles arriving at an actual music video set (very meta) all alone. You can actually feel the loneliness of the moment in a way ā and it echoes what the actual song is about. Styles told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe ahead of the album drop that the track is āquite a lonely song in a lot of ways.ā He continued, āI watched my three closest friends get married, and actually seeing them trust in something and risk something to find something truly fulfilling in a way that isnāt as shiny or on paper as exciting.”
Styles continued, “Watching them get married, I was like āIām single, so Iām having all the fun,ā and āAmerican Girlsā is actually about watching them get married, and there just is a magic when you find the person that you want to be with. I think watching them do that and seeing that it doesnāt come without any uncertainty.āĀ
Committing yourself to someone is a risk, and since Styles is single, heās taking different risks, like driving a car through an explosion or doing motorcycle flips. Except, heās not actually taking these risks, of course, because it’s just a stunt. This feeds into the faƧade of Hollywood and being a celebrity, and what people think actually goes on is much different than what’s behind the scenes. Styles navigates these circumstances literally and figuratively, in Dunkirk style, as he dodges a series of landmines ā symbolically avoiding the chaos of what it means to be a person in the public eye.Ā
For Styles, being single looks like a lot of fun, but it’s actually just a front. These exotic activities arenāt as fulfilling as they seem. He feels stuck in place ā evidenced by him on a treadmill or an immobile car ā and is waiting for something bigger.Ā Styles told Lowe, “Itās like being truly vulnerable with someone, like sharing a life with someone like that. Having the time to stop and assess all of it and really look at my life from a birdās eye view and go, āWhat do I actually want in my life?ā Like, I have all these things around me all the time. Itās hard to pull those things in without making space for them. If youāre touring all the time, and youāre doing this all the time and all these things, thereās no space to really choose.ā
The video follows a similar chaotic, nonlinear story to the first KATTDO music video, āAperture.ā With bright colors and high energy, the two videos perfectly embody all that isĀ Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.Ā