“Sign of the Times” is a 2017 Harry Styles song about death, grief, and the way people hide their pain until it’s too late to do anything about it. It was the first single from Styles’ debut album.
Below is a section-by-section interpretation of the lyrics in “Sign of the Times.”
- Song: Sign of the Times
- Artist: Harry Styles
- Songwriters: Harry Styles, Mitch Rowland, Jeff Bhasker, Ryan Nasci, Alex Salibian, Tyler Johnson
- Released: 2017
- Album: Harry Styles
- Genre: Pop rock, Soft rock
What is “Sign of the Times” About?
Verse 1: The Final Show
Just stop your crying, it’s a sign of the times
Biblically, a “sign of the times” is an omen, a signal that the world is heading somewhere dark.
Styles applies it to something he sees in modern life: the pressure people feel to hold themselves together in public, to stop crying and keep moving, even when they’re falling apart inside.
Welcome to the final show
I hope you’re wearing your best clothes
Styles said in a Rolling Stone interview that the song is written from the perspective of a mother who’s just given birth, only to be told she won’t survive the complications. She has five minutes to say everything she needs to say to her newborn child.
“The final show” is her death, and the best clothes are what she’ll be buried in.
You can’t bribe the door on your way to the sky
In life, people talk their way into exclusive places with money and status. That doesn’t work at the gates of whatever comes after death.
There’s no negotiating or buying your way through. Whatever you’ve accumulated on earth doesn’t follow you there.
You look pretty good down here
But you ain’t really good
Someone can look completely fine on the outside while falling apart on the inside.
For the dying mother, it could be a warning to the child she’s leaving behind, saying that the world the baby’s entering is harder than it appears.
Pre-Chorus: The Bullets You Can’t Outrun
If we never learn we’ve been here before
Periods of suffering and crisis aren’t new, yet people are often blindsided by them, with no tools to handle what arrives.
If we don’t talk about and learn from these crises, we’re doomed to face them again and again.
Why are we always stuck and running from
The bullets, the bullet?
You can’t outrun a bullet, and you can’t outrun your own pain either.
Running from those things doesn’t make them disappear. It just means they catch you somewhere else.
We need to learn to deal with our issues/pain so those “bullets” don’t keep hitting us. Really, so they’re never fired again.
Chorus: Keep Moving
Just stop your crying, it’s a sign of the times
We gotta get away from here
The dying mother wants her child to keep moving, to live a full life, and she doesn’t want grief to swallow them.
“Here” in “get away from here” is the place where no one talks about or deals with their issues. Basically, we need to get to a more peaceful place.
Just stop your crying, it’ll be alright
They told me that the end is near
She’s heard the news, but she’s choosing to spend her last minutes reassuring her child she’s leaving behind rather than on her own fear.
Verse 2: What It Looks Like from the Other Side
Just stop your crying, have the time of your life
She wants the child to do more than get through it. She’s basically saying, “Go out and have a life worth having.”
Breaking through the atmosphere
Things look pretty good from here
Earlier, the dying mother said things looked “good down here,” but now the perspective has shifted. From where she’s going, things genuinely do look better.
The pain, the masks, the hidden suffering people carry on earth don’t follow you into the afterlife.
Remember everything will be alright
We can meet again somewhere
Somewhere far away from here
She’s promising her child they’ll find each other again somewhere on the other side.
It’s the thing people reach for most in the face of death, the belief that love doesn’t simply end and we get to meet our loved ones again in the afterlife.
Bridge: Say Something Before It’s Too Late
We don’t talk enough
We should open up
Before it’s all too late
Feelings that stay locked inside don’t stay still. They grow, damage relationships, and sometimes take lives.
This could be from the dying mother’s perspective or Styles’.
Will we ever learn?
We’ve been here before
It’s just what we know
The cycle is frustrating. People suffer in silence, things fall apart, and the same patterns repeat in the next generation.
Most people understand where the pattern comes from, and knowing that, the mother/Styles is asking whether anyone’s going to break it.
“Sign of the Times” Song Meaning: A Mother’s Last Words and a Bigger Problem
“Sign of the Times” is built around the devastating scenario of a mother given just minutes to prepare her newborn for a world she won’t be around to help navigate.
Underneath that story is the broader theme of people hiding their pain behind a smile, looking pretty good on the outside while something’s very wrong on the inside.
Combining those two themes, “Sign of the Times” is about breaking bad patterns and hoping people make the most of their lives. The narrator/Styles says the best way to do that is to stop the cycles of silence and suffering since we only have so much time on earth.
Songs Like “Sign of the Times”
Here are some songs that deal with similar themes:
1. “Fix You” by Coldplay
Coldplay’s 2005 hit is about watching someone you love grieve and wanting desperately to take that pain away.
Related: “Fix You” Song Meaning
2. “Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi
Written after Capaldi’s aunt died by suicide, this one is about the guilt and unanswered questions survivors are left with.
Related: Songs About Suicide
3. “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” by Oasis
This 2002 rock song is a message to someone drowning in grief, telling them things will get better even when it doesn’t feel that way.
Related: Best Songs with “Heart” in the Title
Conclusion: A Song About What Goes Unsaid
Styles wrote “Sign of the Times” from the perspective of a dying mother, but the song is really about the people still living in it, the ones who look fine on the outside while they’re really falling apart.
To me, the bridge of the song says everything: We don’t talk enough, and that silence costs us.
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