Cracking the Zarry Code - how Deep is real.

Just a Little Bit of Your Heart

Ariana Grande has spoken about how Harry wrote this song for her "by chance" when he was recording in the same studio. It was released in August 2014 as part of her album, My Everything.

It is a heartbreaking message to a lover who belongs to someone else:

I don't ever ask you / where you've been/

Cos I don't feel the need to / know who you're with

......

Just a little bit of your heart / is all I want.

.....

I know I'm not your only / but at least I'm one

I heard a little love / is better than none

It is almost certainly about Zayn: it was written just after Zayn had made a huge commitment to Perrie, and about the same time that Zarry stopped interacting on stage.

How do we know when the song was written? 

Ariana herself confirms that it was written when Harry was on tour in L.A. (interview with Spin 103.8 in 2014 at approx. 6 minutes in)... and the only time that could have been was August 2013, as that was when the 1D tour came to LA.

When did Zerrie announce their engagement to the world?

August 2013.

Apparently Harry wrote the song very quickly (articles on Bustle.com and elsewhere). Seems like he was expressing some feelings lying just below the surface... either that or the song was already written before Harry chanced upon Ariana in that LA studio.

Personally I don't buy the official story that the songwriters just suggested that Harry write something for Ariana. That seems really unlikely. I think Harry probably produced this song in (or before) the writing/recording session and they all decided it wasn't right for a 1D album (or Harry wasn't prepared to put it on a 1D album – let's face it, it would have been hard to sing this heartbreaking, confessional song all about someone in the same band alongside that person).

As I have said in an earlier chapter, Harry didn't write the song just for Ariana (or some other female singer) and yet the lyrics are very obviously about a man. Yes, Harry could have been writing about one of his own heterosexual relationships....but really, which one?? Which girl left him for someone else around this time and broke his heart? Yes, I know women can be cheaters, players etc. too - but it's less common for them to behave like that.  I'm not saying Zayn is a player here: he had pressures on him that people in heterosexual relationships don't have and was probably trying to "do the right thing" by getting engaged to Perrie. 

Just a quick digression about Harry's relationships, for any of you that might still think this is all fantasy and that he's basically straight / a womaniser. Obviously Harry's "public" relationships with women (basically Caroline Flack, Taylor Swift, Cara Delevingne (haha) and Kendall Jenner plus a few other random women who I can't be bothered to list) seem to have been short-lived or on-off and not very serious. You could argue that those relationships were much deeper "behind the scenes" and that we really don't know how much Harry actually felt for them. But my answer to that is this:

One Direction were subject to one of the most relentless work schedules ever imposed on a band. They released four albums in four years, touring each one around the world for months at a time. They also did photoshoots,interviews, promotions, charity events, meet and greets, you name it. Working as Simon Cowell's primary cash cow must have been exhausting. Their parents have said that they hardly saw their sons during those first years of 1D mania.

I don't believe the members of 1D had much chance to build solid external relationships – and by external I mean outside the band, their team and entourage. They were just too busy. Liam seems to have been the most successful; and if you believe Elounor, that was a relationship which started very early on and was I think kept up for publicity purposes – partly, at least.

For these reasons I think it was entirely understandable that the closest relationships they would form would be with those they were with for so much of the time – the band - and, if they were at all attracted to men, those relationships could easily turn sexual. That was exactly what happened to Zarry – I will talk about this more in later chapters on Stockholm Syndrome and Zarry's solo songs.

Please feel free to disagree!

Returning to Just a Little Bit of Your Heart...Harry even said, about this song, that it was "fun to write a song as a girl."

The reason everyone made such a big deal about Harry writing the song FOR Ariana (supposedly by chance in the same studio) was so that it didn't seem strange that Harry would write a song spontaneously about  a man - as if he himself were a girl.

There's a clue in the second verse though:

"I can't even think straight / but I can tell

That you were just with her..."

The song is addressed to Zayn - so of course Harry has to force himself to " think straight " in order to realise that his male lover has just been with a woman.

Sidenote: have you ever wondered why Fleetwood Mac means so much to Harry? And why he has included a cover of one of their songs in his live show, appeared on stage with Stevie Nicks, talked about the band's influence on him? Yes, his mum and sister were into Fleetwood Mac I believe... he grew up with their music. But there is another reason. If you don't know, Fleetwood Mac the band were infamous for dating and splitting up with each other. Their most successful album (actually one of the biggest albums of all time) - Rumours – is full of songs accusing each other of cheating, calling each other out and generally crying about the dramas of love between bandmates. There is footage of Stevie Nicks, eyes full of tears, singing the harsh lines that her ex-lover, Lindsay Buckingham, wrote about her, live on stage as part of the band. Pretty extra.

However.... I suspect Fleetwood Mac had nothing on One Direction. But given that 1D's inter-band relationships were same-sex (yes I'm including Larry in this) they couldn't easily sing about the traumas in the same, open way. 

Hence Harry's epic, tear-stained ballad about Zayn was given to someone else to record.

Of course, now that Harry is a solo artist he is performing Just a Little Bit of Your Heart in every single show.  Without changing the pronouns.