Harry Styles has been front and centre this weekend, with the 32-year-old releasing his highly-anticipated new album, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, on Friday.
The long-awaited project features 12 new songs, including American Girls, Ready, Steady, Go!, Are You Listening Yet?, Taste Back, The Waiting Game, Season 2 Weight Loss, Coming Up Roses, Pop, Dance No More and Paint by Numbers.
However, it was the album’s final track, Carla’s Song, that got the world talking the most, with Styles’ beautiful lyrics leading fans to speculate about Carla’s identity.
“Through your eyes, in awe, melodies like the tide. It's all waiting there for you. It's all waiting there for you,” reads part of the lyrics. "I know what you like, I know what you'll really like."
“Ignorance or innocence. Call it what you wanna. You've been a baby sleeping upon a candy bar. Till your eyes open on the changing summer light.”
With fans eager to know the identity of the Carla in question, and the nature of her relationship to Styles, Zane Lowe was quick to bring up the topic during their Apple Music interview. And according to Styles, Carla is a close friend.
“Carla kind of just became, in so many ways, the most important part of the record to me,” Styles explained to Lowe, recalling that it had “answered so many questions” about why he makes music.
“There was a time when you heard a song for the first time that made you want to touch music, in some way,” he continued, explaining that the song was inspired by the moment that he introduced his friend Carla to Paul Simon’s music, playing her the song Bridge Over Troubled Water for the first time.
He also introduced her to Kathy’s Song by Simon and Garfunkel with the title inspiring the name of his own track, Carla’s Song.
“Watching her listen to [Bridge Over Troubled Water], having never heard that song, felt like I was just watching someone see or something, or like discover magic,” Styles recalled. “There was something in that moment that reminded me of, by making music, what you’re investing in, and it’s songs that go so beyond our lifetime.
“Maybe someone hears a song of yours and goes, ‘This song’s going to be in my life forever.’ That is kind of it. Like, that is enough. And I don’t ask for any more than that, really.”
Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally by Harry Styles is out now.
