Fine Line

By Lauren Kent

“Fine Line” is a musical masterpiece that is six minutes of pure bliss. Written by Harry
Styles, this song single-handedly saved my life. Now I don’t use the phrase “saved my life”
lightly. My father walked out on me and my family in the winter of 2020. Think about that past
January and imagine you're a 16 year-old girl with her life crumbling around her and she can’t do
a single thing about it. I listened to this song on repeat for four months just to hear Harry Styles
tell me “We’ll be alright”. Those three words kept me sane for so long and continues to do so. I
lost almost everything when my dad left but what I did have was my family and this song. This
song helped me hold onto the last shred of hope I had in my future. As I look back now, and I see
how much I’ve grown in the last 10 months, I realize how much responsibility the song “Fine
Line” had in that growth.

Let’s talk about the composition: five writers, seven instruments, and one singer. The
song starts off slow, representing the pain and suffering that you endure in your life at different
times. This signifies that at any given moment your life could be devastated with no warning,
hence my deep connection to the song.

The “fine line” phrase means that you're either happy and life is easy-going above the
line, or sad and chaotic under the line. Either way, the “line” represents that balance that you’ll
always come back to. You’ll always have moments in your life that are amazing and perfect,
moments that you want to last forever, and moments that feel like you’re drowning in sorrow
unable to see the other side. This is life. This “fine line” he sings about is the tipping point
between these two.

When I was listening to this song in my dark days in January, I hadn’t necessarily
analyzed the lyrics like this. All I knew was his intention with this song was to remind me and
over again that everything would be all right and that I would survive this, and I did. I just
needed someone to remind me that I’d make it out. To me it didn’t matter if I knew him or if he
knew my situation, all I needed was for someone to tell me that it’s all going to be okay, and
Harry Styles did that. Not only have I grown as a person through this song but I owe my life to it.
I thank this song for keeping me grounded. This song made all the pain and loss bearable. I have
become more humble, more grateful, and more loving. Even though a lot was taken from me
when he left, I wouldn't change what happened. Losing him made my life a living hell but I’d go
through it all over again because I learned I was stronger than I thought I was, and more resilient
and strong. I know now that I can persevere through hard times and that everyone has lows in
their life. These lows help us to appreciate the highs even more. I learned that in the end, just like
Harry said, “we’ll be alright”.