“Style” by Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift has dated a number of celebrities since she burst onto the scene during the late aughts. And when taking all of her exes into account, none may be as popular overall than Harry Styles.

According to the internet, their flirtations or however you want call it may have lasted for about two years and beyond, in terms of verifiable evidence they only actually dated for a couple of months. Indeed, Harry is more or less known as a playa himself and has had quite a few notable conquests of his own.

And if this song is in fact about him, interesting to note is that being exactly how the addressee is depicted, as someone whom the vocalist has a notable rapport with but, to her chagrin, is not a one-woman type of guy.

That said, while we’re on the topic of verifiable evidence, it should be pointed out that there isn’t any conclusive proof that this song is about Harry, though there are some striking clues. First of all, Big Machine Records released this track on 27 October 2014 as part of 1989, which was the first album Swift dropped after breaking up with Styles, and Taylor being known to incorporate her real-life romances into her music.

Second, the addressee is depicted as having “long hair, slicked back”, which is one of Harry’s well-known looks. And most obvious of course would be the fact that this song is indeed named “style”. Or as Taylor answered when asked who served as the inspiration behind this track, her response was “the song kind of speaks for itself”.

“You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye
And I got that red lip classic thing that you like
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
‘Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style
You got that long hair, slicked back, white t-shirt
And I got that good girl faith and a tight little skirt
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
‘Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style”

That said, it should be noted that in context, the way Swift uses the titular term is to point to the idea of she and the addressee having this sorta on-again/off-again relationship, which doesn’t necessarily seem to be the case as far as her and Harry Styles is concerned. However their friendship, unlike with some of Taylor’s other exes, has lasted beyond their actual romance.

Various Facts behind “Style”

Swift has noted that “Style”, along with “Shake It Off“, were the last tracks written for “1989”. She didn’t write this song alone. This is because its producers, Max Martin, Shellback and Ali Payami, are also given authorship credit. And originally, this piece was intended to be one of Payami’s own tracks.

“Style” served as the third single from “1989”, a project which proved to be a massive success.

On its own, this song topped a number of charts in US and Canada, besides charting in nearly 30 nations in general. And amongst it certifications is going double-platinum in Australia and triple-platinum, once again in Canada and the US.

This track actually made its debut, as a snippet, in a commercial advertising “1989” through Target, who was responsible for the deluxe edition of the album.

The music video to this track was directed by Kyle Newman. And being that this is Taylor Swift, it got the full treatment, including state-of-the-art special effects inspired by the television show True Detective, and the co-star being a notable actor in Dominic Sherwood.