The one-year anniversary of Grammy winning Harry’s House is a little over two weeks away. It is the third studio album by English singer and songwriter Harry Styles, not that he needs much of an introduction. Despite the release being nearly a year ago, one song on the album, “Satellite,” recently got its own music video. As of writing this, the video is #2 on Trending for Music on YouTube and got many positive comments about its storyline. I also enjoyed it and wanted to go through the video scene by scene. Let’s get started!
Opening
The video starts with Harry walking out of his green room while the television is on in the background. It depicts a robot on Mars called “Curiosity” who has been alone for ten years. The camera then cuts to a robot back in the green room that stops vacuuming to look at the television. Although it doesn’t have eyes, the audience can tell the robot is looking at Curiosity longingly. It seems to be a long-distance love story, one that people compare to WALL-E, the 2008 Pixar movie.
As the song picks up, we see the robot weaving through the backstage area like it is on a mission. No one notices the robot as it watches Harry huddle up with his dancers and band before the show. The robot goes onstage with them until a security guard removes it. After the concert ends, the robot cleans up the confetti left behind. It sees a skateboarder do a trick and starts spinning with it. I thought that scene was super cute because it was like a baby trying to mimic the world around it.
When the second verse starts, Harry sings, “I’m in an LA mood,” the robot wanders outside of The Kia Forum in Inglewood, California. It takes on the streets of Los Angeles as it weaves through traffic and meets a rat outside a pizza parlor. After a montage of all the places it has gone to, the robot looks up at the sky while sitting next to Harry on a grassy field. As the robot’s battery dies, we find out that the robot is right outside a NASA building, seemingly wanting to see Curiosity.
SO, what’s the deeper meaning?
According to Genius, Harry’s House’s eleventh track begins as a light and airy track, in which Harry Styles sings about a lack of communication and the desire to be there for someone who keeps him at a distance. We see this represented with Curiosity and the robot, as the robot on Earth can support Curiosity by watching from afar. After the mellow start, “Satellite” explodes with drums, synths, and echoing vocals. The song uses the symbolism of a satellite to emphasize Harry’s longing to be more than an observer, as a satellite’s primary use is for planetary observation.
When the chorus starts with, “Spinnin’ out waitin’ here for ya,” there is a double meaning behind it. When someone is “spinning out,” they are panicking or anxiously going insane. Here, Styles compares himself to a satellite, spinning away from a celestial body until the body’s gravity catches him and pulls him closer. Similarly, he is going crazy waiting for this person to notice that he wants to be closer to them because he can solve their loneliness. The video parallels Styles’s lyrics well, as the robot uses all of its battery to get closer to Curiosity until it finally dies at NASA.
Final Thoughts
I thought I had listened to all of Harry’s House, but I seemed to have forgotten this song until now. It is super catchy and doesn’t sound like something that would be playing at Old Navy like “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” does. I love the sound of the pre-chorus when he sings, “We go round and round, satellite.” It is the last part of the song that is mellow until the chorus hits, and there’s an explosion of sound. You can hear the emotion in Styles’s voice as he longs for someone who doesn’t notice him. I’m glad they made this song into a music video, even if it is not his most famous song on that album. Maybe it’ll skyrocket on the charts after this. You never know.
