'Paint By Numbers' Lyrics: Harry Styles Explains Meaning Behind the Personal Song

Harry Styles is letting the audience into his world on “Paint By Numbers.”

The 32-year-old “Aperture” singer-songwriter got candid about the meaning behind one of his most personal songs on his new record, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally., out on Friday (March 6).

Keep reading to find out more…

“‘Paint By Numbers’ was kind of originally track one I think, where the record started,” he explained to Zane Lowe in a recent interview.

“I was just married to the idea of coming off the last record and coming back and the first thing I say being, ‘Oh, what a gift it is to be an artist, but it’s nothing to do with me.’ I just loved that,” Harry went on to say.

“I think it felt like a pillar of something. I think, for me, some of my favorite moments of artists that I love is when I feel like I’m listening to them discover themselves. I think in terms of being vulnerable and what it means to be an artist in that way, I think it’s like, those are the bits where choosing the song that kind of is meant just for me…it becomes something important when you choose to let people look at that.”

“Writing it and keeping it on my hard drive, I don’t what feels brave about that in any way,” Harry went on to explain.

“I think the thing that makes someone an artist is letting them watch you be an ordinary person. It’s not about being, ‘I am this mystic thing.’ I think the difference is we’re all ordinary people, and there’s some people who let other people watch you be an ordinary person, and I think that is kind of the key in a lot of ways. For me, anyway.”

Read the lyrics to “Paint by Numbers”…

Watch the interview…

Harry Styles explained the meaning behind a lot of the songs on the new album, including “Season 2 Weight Loss,” “Coming Up Roses,” “Carla’s Song” and “American Girls.”