Most problematic line: “And girl what a mess I made upon your innocence” Just imagine me gently dry heaving in the background. This song is a classic apology jam, vaguely referencing a laundry list of shit-stain-ery while in the same breath assuring “Girl” that he’ll always be there for her now because he’ll never make it without her, yadda yadda bullshit BYE.

The rhyme scheme isn’t the only offensive thing about these lyrics though. If they’re going to go the extra mile to explicitly address their songs to women (or “girl” in the majority of cases), then I think we should absolutely pay extra careful attention to what they’re saying.ĩ songs of 18 mention women, 2 of those co-written by some/all of the boysĮvery time this song comes up on shuffle and I hear Liam’s excruciatingly un-ironic delivery of the “disappointed/anointed” rhyme I mash the skip button as fast as possible. The messages they send about sex and relationships through their lyrics have been and will continue to be a formative force in many of their fans’ development.

Why make this gendered pronoun distinction? Because regardless of how One Direction has vocally acknowledged support for their LGBTQ fans (and they have), or any speculation on the sexual orientations of the band members themselves, this is a band made up of young men that is marketed TO young women and girls. That’s what I decided to find out, by doing a close reading of all of One Direction’s lyrics that explicitly mention or are addressed to women. It all sounds great, but do their lyrics match up to that ideal? Are the messages in their songs ones I really will want to pass onto my daughter when she’s older? To my son? Are they messages I want to be consuming myself? Niall Horan once snapped at a paparazzo who had been yelling for fans to get out of the way, “they pay my bills, not you.” Harry Styles, when asked in an interview if he and his bandmates ever called “dibs” on girls, immediately answered that they wouldn’t because they’re not about objectifying women. In their This Is Us concert film Louis Tomlinson mentions the idea of a One Direction fan, in the future, introducing the band’s music to her daughter. Over the years One Direction has repeatedly shown respect for their mostly female fanbase that goes beyond basic media training, or even just an understanding of how their proverbial bread is buttered. Tell me about Harry Styles.” I’d been only vaguely aware of One Direction and had seen many in my circle of friends fall into the 1D fandom one by one over the previous months and had actually resisted because they couldn’t be that great, right? (False, Past Mary, they absolutely can and they are.) Sage was as gracious as one could have expected and immediately sent me multiple pictures of Harry cradling babies lovingly in his enormous gentle be-ringed and tattooed hands as if a sleep-deprived stay at home mom of a three year old and a newborn didn’t have enough to hormonally weep over. I didn’t enter the One Direction fandom until December of 2015, when after an especially long night awake with my newborn daughter I messaged our own Sage: “I’m weak and impressionable. Of course I can enjoy all kinds of media as an adult (whether I’m technically still (ahem) in the target demographic or not) that may be problematic in one way or another, but I think special care should be taken with the messages in media, including music, that is marketed to younger demographics. I was a tweenaged fan of *NSync and the Backstreet Boys and I know how big a role a boy band (or any media marketed to girls and young women) can have on a girl’s development, both positive and negative.

One direction im yours lyrics