Hey :) I recently listened to Harry's "Oh Anna" and was wondering what you think it's about? I haven't really found any discussions about it. Do you know if there are any theories? I kinda feel like it's about Brianna ... it would just make so much sense to me.
"Every time I see your face, there’s only so much I can take" and "I don’t want your sympathy, but you don’t know what you do to me" are rather obvious.
But also "Well I guess it would be nice if I could touch your body" makes sense since Harry really wants kids and she is supposedly carrying Louis child. Also since it's a line from "Faith" by George Michael which already gives it a queer meaning. Also gives it a kinda cute meaning like Faith in the future that someday he could touch someone's belly who's actually carrying Louis'/his child?
Hi! This is my first Ask, thank you so much, I'm very excited.
I'm also deeply sad to say I don't have a ton of insight on the Anna lyrics. It isn't one of my favorites so I never pay attention to it. I think your theory is a good one.
It was released basically at the same time as Medicine, Harry's queerest anthem (so far). He performed them both on tour.
The media called Medicine "a bisexual anthem." They got a lot of the more explicit lyrics wrong, more watered down. They seemed quite confused by it (lol at that in 2021).
So perhaps Anna was a stunt song or a compromise song to lessen the definitive queerness of Medicine.
As you noted, Anna is heavily influenced by George Michael's Faith. Harry is a huge fan of George Michael - he has lyrics from Careless Whisper tattooed on his ankles, and he has talked about him and sung his songs.
RBB/SBB referenced George Michael multiple times. 1.6.2016 - the Bears changed their Twitter icon to George Michael from the album cover of Faith - where he is in a black leather jacket and aviator sunglasses. RBB wore this look a lot, usually with a studded collar - like the collar Harry has worn in several photo shoots, that people mistakenly thought was a lil necklace.
Harry has even been on camera several times wearing the Choose Life shirt which GM famously wore in Wham!
Here Harry is checking out George Michael's art, taking it very seriously with the catalogs under his arm. I like to think he bought something and went home very pleased with himself, and hung it up immediately.
One of the lyrics on Anna that jumps out for me is:
Don’t know where you’re laying
Just know it’s not with me
Don’t know what I’d tell you if
I passed you on the street
Don’t know how you taste when
There’s smoke in your perfume
Chew me up and spit me out
And know that it’s for you
I don't know what I'd tell you
If you asked me for the truth
Laying could be read as lying down or as in "to get laid." It's either emotionally or sexually intimate. Possibly both. And is now pining for it.
Louis sings something similar in Just Like You. A song entirely centered on how the headlines are all bullshit - and disclosing how forced closeting and other abuses have always been used by the entertainment machine and media to control artists. It contains exactly and approximately ten billion LGBTQ references per square second. Including, of course, George Michael's forced closeting...and forced outing, and how that impacted his career.
If I had it my way, pub lunch every Sunday
I wanna lay where she lays
I wanna stay in these days
Gonna smoke and it's okay
In Anna, the singer doesn't smoke - but the person they're pining after does. In JLY, the singer smokes.
So TWO parallel references - one to laying and the other to smoke.
Harry also covered Girl Crush for BBC, and it's one of the most heart-rending covers I've ever seen. It is not just pining. Not even pining 2.0. It's pining infinity.
An incredible longing to just bury themselves in their lover's hair, breathe them in. Scent is one of the strongest triggers for memory in humans.
There is a lyrical parallel here too:
Yeah, ‘cause they taste like you
In a bottle of her perfume
I want her long blonde hair
You’d want me just as much
Of course here, the play on words is the crush isn't ON the girl. It's OF the girl who has access to the lover he actually wants.
It also makes me think of when Louis said his favorite thing about Harry was his curls or his smell. And how he was is probably constantly playing with Harry's hair.
The Faith riff and repeat of the line from the song
Well I guess it would be nice
If I could touch your body
Has the same longing for their missing lover's body, hair, scent, everything.
But in Faith the song goes on to say, basically, I need a break, I want you but I am sick of games and having my heart tossed on the floor, even though you're begging me I'm not sure if it's real and I want devotion and faith:
Well, I guess it would be nice if I could touch your body
I know not everybody has got a body like you
But I gotta think twice before I give my heart away
And I know all the games you play because I played them, too
Oh, but I need some time off from that emotion
Time to pick my heart up off the floor
Oh, when that love comes down without devotion
Well, it takes a strong man, baby
But I'm showin' you the door
'Cause I gotta have faith
Because I gotta have faith, faith, faith
I got to have faith, faith, faith
Baby, I know you're askin' me to stay
Say "Please, please, please don't go away"
You say I'm givin' you the blues
Maybe you mean every word you say
Can't help but think of yesterday
And another who tied me down to loverboy rules
Before this river becomes an ocean
Before you throw my heart back on the floor
Oh, baby, I reconsider my foolish notion
Well, I need someone to hold me but I'll wait for somethin' more
Because I gotta have faith, faith, faith
I gotta have faith, faith, faith
Faith in the future perhaps??
Harry once said he wrote Two Ghosts during 1D days and he also said he wrote it "the first time he broke up with me." So I imagine he has experienced quite the rollercoaster of heartbreak and reconciliation and begging and love and confusion.
He kind of talks about this in The Kitchen Table oops! excuse me oBviOuSLy I meant From The Dining Table also -
Why won't you ever be the first one to break/
Why won't you ever say what you want to say
Maybe one day you'll call me
And tell me that you're sorry too
Woke up the girl who looked just like you
No shade to Louis, absolutely not, I am a total Louis Tomlinson worshipper, even more than I am for Harry. 💙 and he was doing his best at such a young age under incredible pressure and closeting and industry abuse and stunts and being told who he was hurt other people he loved and how who he was was something to fix, and he raged back at the machine the best he could. I absolutely believe he is still doing so and I look forward to anything I can do to help his master plan. Fuck the system. Louis Tomlinson world domination forever.
Oh Anna could also be a play on words, like Olivia is it an emotion? we don't know...
It does sound like Ohana, which is related to Harry's management company. Or Johanna. Or even Anne.
If the former, it could be his version of fuck the system song. I think that's a stretch, but lyrics can be stretchy and these would fit:
Chew me up and spit me out
And know that it’s for you
I don’t know what I’d tell you if
You asked me for the truth
I don’t want your sympathy, but you don’t know what you do to me
I have also seen people say it's a song for Zayn and Anna is really Ana, codename for anorexia. That could fit if you believe in Zarry perhaps. I'm a Larrie but also a Ziam hopeful because it would be so nice and I love their nerdiness and their kindness towards each other. I do think it is interesting people don't obsessively ask Zayn to define his sexual orientation because I think everyone just assumes bi or pan, even though he is always in public relationships with women. His whole vibe is like he is so cool it would be offensive to label him or ask him to define himself, and you need to rise to his level, and that is not easy to pull off when your coolness is 85% shyness and you are in love with the adorableness of Minions, while also singing Pillow Talk and being rhapsodized over as beautiful and a sex symbol and even more offensively, "exotic" all the time.
So those are my unhelpful thoughts. But your idea is intriguing - although many people think Brianna didn't actually have Louis' baby, your interpretation could still fit either view.
I am tagging in @ialwaysknewyouwerepunk who has the best lyric analyses I know of but I didn't find one for this song. Maybe they'll have some insight for you.
