Track-by-Track Review: Fine Line - Harry Styles

Track 5- Cherry

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Liv’s take-

“I wrote this one for when things get overwhelming…” Cherry. I’ll start by saying this one is slightly more personal than the rest, because of my adoration and connection to the song. Track 5 tells the story of someone who was replaced or forgotten by a lover. So simplistic, yet it tugs at your heart and leaves you in a state of nostalgia and melancholy. Reminiscing on lost lovers and friends from another life. Remembering places you’d go with that person, things you would say and do, how parts of them still exist in your daily life, and how badly it hurts when the only part of them you still possess is your own memories.

Even if you haven’t experienced being forgotten by a lover, being forgotten by someone close to you leaves you in the same hurting state. Moving around a lot as a child, I have had my share of friendships existing only in photos. It’s not very easy to pack everything you own into boxes and leave without a backward glance. Staring out a window, reminiscing, wondering if they would still remember you by the time the moon was whole again. Words cannot describe all that this song means to me. This track was my lifeline during a very lonely time in my life, and it continues to be the track I will always go back to when life gets to be overwhelming and I just need to be reminded that I’m not alone. I will never be able to use words to explain how much I love this song. If I could have 5 minutes of Harry’s time, it would be to thank him for this song. On November 8th, I stood in an arena with 20,000 people and I sang this song with him. As I stood there, tears streaming down my face, holding my best friend, with the biggest smile humanly possible, I remembered all those times I felt miserably alone and how this song held me tightly and reminded me that we all feel like this sometimes. I remembered all that I went through and came out stronger to get to that moment where I got to sing it with Harry. Now when I listen to it, I remember those 4 minutes with beautiful melancholy, and my epiphany of how far I’ve come from the lonely girl who heard it first.

Cherry is for the dreamers, hopeless romantics, the hurt, the broken, writers, poets, and anyone that has ever felt forgotten. It’s Harry taking your hand and telling you it’s okay to feel alone, that we all feel like this sometimes. It’s Harry telling us that when things get to be too much, to scream until there’s nothing left to plague your heart. Coucou.

Bri’s take-

Cherry is simply a beautiful and genuine song, written and produced with so many layers. This track is truly one for the broken, the lovers, and those wishing for a chance. It is hard to describe how this song pulls at my soul. Its vulnerability speaks more words than I could ever try to. It tells the story of a love lost, and the ache of jealousy burning deep within. We all have those moments where we aren't at our best and we long desperately for something that once was, this track shows how painful it can be to have loved someone and have them move on without you. In other words, the pain of being left behind, of pining after something or someone that was not meant to be.

It is a song for those who have been forgotten. Cherry is easily relatable to anyone with a soul because even if you haven't been forgotten by a romantic lover, you have likely been forgotten by someone else. Cherry is the song that you hear in the back of your head when you feel a drift settling in and your heart feels like it could close on you and your legs could give out. It's there when you sense a change in the tide and the winds whisper to you that things aren't the same as they used to be. This is the song that catches you when change forces itself through the cracks in your foundation and knocks you to the floor. It stops your free fall. It cradles you when you notice that it's been 36 days since you last talked to that person who you talked to nearly every day and it never seemed like you got to say everything you wanted to say even after an absurd number of hours tick by. Its plays in the back of your mind when you see old pictures of your favorite memories that only seem to fade as you continue to age and you see new people take your place so easily that it almost could be like you weren't even there.

Track 5 can only be described as possessing some sort of euphoric melancholy and should be one that lasts into infinity as it shares a vulnerability that we all in one way or another can relate to. I can only thank Harry for being able to make his pain into such an ethereal melody that will continue to be a track that I turn to when the feeling of loneliness comes creeping in. This song is a message to us all that it's alright not to be ok, it's a message to himself just as it's a message to us. Harry tells us and himself with this track that it's ok to be jealous and to miss what once was, that it's alright to dwell on the past for a bit and to romanticize what has been lost. The track is deeply humanizing, stripping us down to our bare minimum, making us comfortable in our discomfort.

Cherry allows you to open yourself up and feel at home when you feel utterly lost, confused, and fractured. It is a lighthouse when you find yourself missing at sea, a raft when you feel yourself start to sink, it's there for you in your lowest of times, and gives you space to just be. To exist amongst the storm of your emotions. It allows you to cry the tears you didn't even notice you were holding in, to let out the scream you kept bottled up, to stare at the ceiling in helplessness, to just sit and breathe. Coucou.