Wednesday, June 8, 2022 — 3 
 
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Take a tour through ‘Harry’s 
House’, song by song

The long-awaited third studio 
album 
from 
Harry 
Styles 
is 
finally here, and it is exceeding all 
expectations. Harry’s House is an 
intimate portrait of love and fun 
that will guide you through every 
emotion. His crooning vocals and 
epic instrumentals (hello, steel 
guitar, I love you) make the album 
a cinematic experience, and no two 
songs sound the same. Combine 
that with his incredible lyricism 
(“Somehow you’ve become some 
paranoia / A wet dream just 
dangling” … come on) and we’ve 
got a certified banger on our hands 
— one that you can sob, dance, 
drive and eat sushi to. 
“Music 
for 
a 
Sushi 
Restaurant”
Moving past its similarities to 

the “A.N.T. Farm” theme song, 
“Music for a Sushi Restaurant” 
is the kind of opener that lets you 
know you have no idea what’s 
in store. There’s an interesting 
contrast at the beginning between 
the loud production and Styles’s 
soft vocals, as if he’s nervous to 
show us what he’s been working 
on. All the different elements of the 
song, like the vocal harmonies, the 
catchy horns and Styles repeatedly 
yelling “you know I love you, 
babe” don’t seem like they all work 
together initially, but the more 
you listen, the more they do (and 
the more you’ll want to dance). 
The only question worth asking is, 
what exactly does Styles define as 
“music for a sushi restaurant?” He 
sings that it’s “music for whatever 
you want” — a definition that’s 
fitting for Harry’s House as a 

whole.
“Late Night Talking”
One of the best parts of a 
new relationship is the late-
night talks — when you stay up 
into the early morning getting 
to know each other. You know 
you’ll be exhausted tomorrow, 
but it’s worth it. Styles manages 
to perfectly capture the feelings 
of the honeymoon phase in “Late 
Night Talking.” Styles debuted 
this song along with “Boyfriends” 
at Coachella earlier this year, and 
it isn’t hard to see why it’s already 
one of the album’s top songs. For 
such a catchy and exciting song, 
lyrics like “I’ve never been a fan 
of change / but I’d follow you to 
any place” provide a glance into 
the more intimate side of growing 
closer to someone new. 
“Grapejuice”
I’m slightly embarrassed to 
admit how long it took me to 
realize that Styles is singing about 

wine … Yet this song perfectly 
captures the tipsy sadness that 
he calls “the grapejuice blues.” 
Taking on a more intimate and 
“chill” vibe than the first two 
tracks, “Grapejuice” opens with 
Styles counting in a whisper, and 
he sings most of the song in his 
falsetto (which, as usual, sounds 
amazing). Lyrically, Styles could 
be going in two different directions 
— when he sings, “There’s just no 
getting through / without you / a 
bottle of rouge,” is he in a happy 
relationship, enjoying a bottle of 
wine with the person he loves? Or 
is he mourning a past relationship 
and using wine to cope? That kind 
of analysis should probably be left 
up to the listener, but you’re in for a 
good time either way. 

The Home B-Side

It’s so difficult to sum up “home” 
in a simple paragraph. Its definitions 
are an enigma, albeit a beautiful and 
contradictory one. People can share it, or it 
can be vastly different for different people. 
It can be transitory. It can be permanent. 
It can be a place. A person. A feeling. 
An object. A memory. A song. Home, in 
all cases, though, is synonymous with 
comfort and a degree of vulnerability. 
Each of these writers has bared their souls 
in sharing with you what home means to 
them, and I couldn’t be more proud of 
them. They each have shared a piece of 
themselves, allowing themselves to be 
known by others. What is perhaps most 
compelling about what they have written 
is that it shows us how, in sharing your 
“home” with someone, you can extend a 
bit of that comfort that your home brings 
you to others. From them, I learned that 
home, in addition to all of these other 
things, is a gift you can give to someone 
else. In reading their pieces, you also, for 
however long it lasts, can feel that you are 
“home.” 
Searching for my ‘Sunshine State’ 
by Daily Arts Writer Annabel Curran
In a collection of essays titled 
“Sunshine State,” Sarah Gerard weaves 
a provocative narrative, relating a 
connected series of events from her past 
with the drive and inquisitive nature 
of an investigative journalist, but with 
the subtle nostalgia that is so often 
evoked when retelling tales of home 
and childhood. At the root of each essay 
in “Sunshine State” is Gerard’s home 
state of Florida, or the Sunshine State, 
which shaped her formative years and 
memories in an idiosyncratic assortment 
of experiences that Gerard recounts so 
candidly.
An ode to Gilbert, my childhood 
goldfish by Daily Arts Writer Hunter 

Bishop
Buried in the notes app on my phone, 
between shopping lists and reminders I 
have since forgotten the meaning of, is 
a quote from the author Sarah Dessen: 
“(Home is) not a place but a moment, 
and then another, building on each other 
like bricks.” Growing up, many of my 
moments happened in a singular place: 
My childhood home, where I was born 
and raised for the better part of 18 years. 
For me, the idea of home was tied to that 
house. With so much of my life spent in 
the same place, I couldn’t comprehend it 
not being my home.
Your body is your home by Daily 
Arts Writer Kaya Ginsky
In college, my body started to feel like 
my home. Not in a confident way or just 
for the green eyes that were an exact mix 
of my father’s blue and mother’s brown, 
but for the marks on my skin that form 
a map of my hometown. I look in the 
mirror and remember my childhood. 
Maybe that is enough: not to feel perfectly 
comfortable in my skin, but to feel at home 
when I look at myself.
Figuring out home with The Front 
Bottoms in ‘Vacation Town’ by Daily 
Arts Writer Saarthak Johri

After a complicated freshman year 
of virtual college, and a slightly less 
complicated sophomore year, I’ve found 
myself intrigued by the unique nostalgia 
folk punk band The Front Bottoms 
gives me, especially their song “Vacation 
Town.” I killed time and relieved stress 
in quarantine by going on drives and 
chasing the sunset while listening to The 
Front Bottoms’s hits and oldest songs — 
ballads of banal, yet painful, parts of life 
told via powerful, poetic lines in simple 
diction over somber guitar. 
Finding home at the piano bench by 
Daily Arts Writer Hannah Carapellotti
The piano that sits in my den right now 
is almost as old as I am. I still remember 
the first time I sat down at its bench — my 
little legs swinging in the air, unable to 
touch the ground beneath. My parents 
saw the musical talent in me before I ever 
did, and we bought the piano from a family 
friend — a music teacher — just before I 
started kindergarten. Its age is starting to 
show: The wood stain is fading, a few keys 
are chipped and its tune is degrading from 
the last time we had it fixed. Despite the 
countless years of lessons, playbooks and 
recitals, I don’t play it nearly as often as I 
should. It’s one of my biggest regrets.

EMMY SNYDER
Daily Arts Writer

Design by Tamara Turner

An ode to Gilbert, my childhood goldfish

Buried in the notes app on my 
phone, between shopping lists and 
reminders I have since forgotten 
the meaning of, is a quote from the 
author Sarah Dessen: “(Home is) 
not a place but a moment, and then 
another, building on each other like 
bricks.” Growing up, many of my 
moments happened in a singular 
place: My childhood home, where 
I was born and raised for the better 
part of 18 years. For me, the idea of 
home was tied to that house. With 

so much of my life spent in the same 
place, I couldn’t comprehend it not 
being my home.
There were several times that 
my parents considered moving into 
town so that my sister and I would be 
closer to our friends and our various 
sports and extracurriculars. Each 
time the possibility of moving came 
up, I would put up a fight to stay 
where we were. Moving would mean 
saying goodbye to so many details of 
my childhood, and I wasn’t ready for 
that yet. I had become so entrenched 
in our house and our life there that 
it would have taken a seismic event 
to pull me out of my carefree, naive 

little bubble. 
Like many kids, I had a revolving 
door of pet goldfish. Even though 
my parents would warn me that the 
fish from the Walmart aquarium 
probably 
wouldn’t 
last 
long, 
I 
would still beg for one and then 
be devastated a month later when 
I awoke to find it belly up in its 
bowl. We would have a ceremonial 
flushing of the fish, and my parents 
would explain that life was a fragile 
thing, that my fish lived a (debatably) 
happy life and I should be glad for 
the time I got to spend with it. 

HUNTER BISHOP
Daily Arts Writer

Design by Madison Grosvenor

Read more at michigandaily.com

Read more at michigandaily.com

EMILIA FERRANTE & 
HANNAH CARAPELLOTTI 
Senior Arts Editor & Daily Arts Writer