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Okay I need to be careful how I say this but today we are going to be looking at Harry Styles...
Okay they're done. If you are not a fan, Harry Styles was in this tiny little boy band called
One Direction, you've probably not heard of them and he has just released an album and luckily for
you the lyrics are filled with English phrases, idioms, so we are going to look at the lyrics
today and see how much English we can learn from them, let's go! Okay so let's start off with
As It Was, you know it's not the same as it was, great song! And in as it was, there is
a line that goes like this: holding me back, gravity's holding me back. Now I want to draw
your attention to the phrasal verb to hold back, to hold something back, if you hold someone back
you are restricting them you are stopping them from going off and succeeding and doing well,
so he's kind of poetic in this lyric and he says that gravity's holding me back almost like gravity
is stopping me from flying in a way. Don't confuse hold back with hold on or hold off,
there are quite a few phrasal verbs with hold but they all mean different things,
hold on means wait, hold off also means wait but we normally use hold off in a sentence so hold off
on buying that house until you have the money so wait to buy that house until you have the money,
we can also have hold up which is a delay, a wait, so you could say oh I'm stuck in traffic
but I don't know what's holding everything up I don't know what's holding all the cars
up what's delaying us, you see? There are loads of phrasal verbs with hold but this one is hold back,
remember that one. Okay let's move on to the song Matilda, I love this song I love the book Matilda
I love the movie Matilda, just great, beautiful. And there's a line in Matilda that goes like this:
so you tie up your hair and you smile like it's no big deal. This no big deal is quite American
but a lot of British people use it as well because you know language travels, no big deal, it means
it's it's nothing, it doesn't matter, it's not important, it's no big deal, you might also hear
it's no biggie, no biggie, yeah it's no biggie, a similar phrase to this that British people use
would be no worries, so if someone thanks you for something or says oh wow that was
amazing thank you so much for doing that, an American might say it's no big deal,
British people might say no worries, ah no worries. Okay let's go to Late Night Talking.
So Late Night Talking is the name of this song, let's have a look at a line from Late Night
Talking: you stub your toe or break your camera. I want to draw your attention to stub your toe,
this is how we refer to the act of oh my god you know when you get your little toe on it
and you hit it on something, we never say I hit my toe or I
kicked my toe, it's always stub your toe which is weird because we don't really use stub for
anything else related to the body we don't say like oh I stubbed my finger, I stubbed my
leg, stub your toe, that's the only time you would use stub for the body really. And also
in Late Night Talking we have: I can't get you off my mind, this is a super common phrase,
if you can't get something off your mind it just means you can't stop thinking about it
but this is how a native would say that, I just can't get that man off my mind.
Okay let's move on to Music for a Sushi Restaurant and this song starts off with:
Green eyes, fried rice, I could cook an egg on you. Because you're so hot. So I want to draw
your attention to the word could, notice he's not saying I can cook an egg on you, he's not saying
I will cook an egg on you, he's not saying I cook an egg on you, he says I could cook an egg on you,
hypothetical conditional, it's not really going to happen Harry Styles is not going to crack an
egg on someone and it's going to cook that's just not going to happen we're in a dream world it's
hypothetical. I could cook an egg on you, you know if I wanted to. Then in the same song he
says this: you're sweet ice cream but you could use a flake or two, so he's referring to a flake
99 which is an ice cream that every British person grew up buying, so if you go to the ice cream van
you get a flake 99, I think they were called 99s because they used to cost about 99p but now
they're like two pound fifty. Inflation. But what I want to draw your attention to is, you could use
a__ or two, this is a phrase that we say and it's a way to exaggerate what someone might need,
so you'll say oh okay, um, oh she's beautiful but she's quite thin, she could use a burger or two,
it means like this person or this thing or this place needs this, I think they need that and they
would benefit from it, then also in music for a sushi restaurant he says this: I don't want you
to go broke, so this is interesting because Harry Styles is British but he spends a lot of time in
the states, um I believe I don't know, um, so he uses a lot of Americanisms in his writing, so
to go broke means to lose all your money, to completely lose it. Okay let's move on to the song
Daylight and in Daylight he says this: if I was a blue bird I would fly to you. So if you know your
conditionals he's using the second conditional here and we use the second conditional when
we're talking about hypothetical situations, so ah if I had money, I would give it to you,
I don't, but I'm dreaming about a hypothetical situation, if you're not confident with your
conditionals, I will leave a link down below to my video that explains all of the conditionals and
how to make them but Harry Styles makes a very very common mistake here and it's one of those
mistakes that people do so much I think it'll become more and more accepted that it's okay,
you can say it, it's fine, but I'll just draw your attention to it so most of the time it is
accepted that if you are talking about a situation that is so unreal, it's so never going to happen,
we say if I were, not if I was, so obviously Harry Styles is never going to be a bluebird
I don't think, that's ridiculous, it can't happen so we would say if I were a bluebird, if she were
a bluebird, if they were a bluebird, if you were a bluebird, tends to be were for these kinds of
situations, okay let's move on to the song Little Freak and there's a line in Little Freak that
says: but your gift is wasted on me, if something is wasted on someone, it means that they are not
the right audience for it, they can't appreciate it in a way that it needs to be appreciated, so
if you have an amazing opera singer oh my goodness the most amazing opera singer you've ever heard,
her gift might be wasted on people who aren't musically talented or musically knowledgeable,
maybe. So you've got an audience of people who have no interest in music they don't
know the difference between a good singer and a bad singer and then you get an opera singer
amazing opera singing in front of them and she sings and then the audience say
yeah she was good she was okay then we might say oh her voice is completely wasted on them
what a waste she's completely wasted on them. Okay let's move on to the song:
Boyfriends and in Boyfriends there's a line that goes like this: you love a fool who knows just how
to get under your skin. Now I want to draw your attention to under your skin, this is like the
Frank Sinatra song that goes I've got you under my skin, like that one, it's the same thing. Someone
is under your skin they are so a part of you like oh my goodness I can't stop thinking about you,
you've really you've put yourself in my body, you know, I can't, I can't forget about you, I can't
stop thinking about you, I can't detach myself from you, because you're under my skin, you're
with me like- oh my goodness I can't escape you, in a good way or a bad way, we can kind of use it
in both ways, so you might say oh my colleague has really got under my skin like I just,
like he's managed to get into me and it's now he's all I think about and I'm really
angry about him and oh I can't escape him, or it might be yeah she's she's really got under my skin
and now I'm just, I walk around and I can't think of anything else it could be a lovely thing but
depends who it is. And that's about it I hope you have learned a few new phrases
and little English tips that you can take in your everyday life, music and lyrics
are a great way of learning English so next time you're listening to an English song,
look at the lyrics see if you can find any new words that you didn't know. Thank you so much for
watching, if you enjoyed this video please give it a like and if you would like a one-to-one online
English lesson with me or my partner Bez, the link for that is down below and if you want to follow
us on Instagram you can do so there- and thank you so much for watching I will see you next time,
tata!