Cue the Twitter meltdown! Harry Styles released his first solo single, “Sign of the Times,” in the early hours of Friday, April 7.
The former One Direction singer, 23, teased his new music at the end of last month, releasing a 30-second commercial on U.K. television on March 25.
“Sign of the Times” features the lyrics, “Just stop your crying / It’s a sign of the times / Welcome to the final show / Hope you’re wearing your best clothes.” (Listen to it below.)
It’s the first song off his upcoming debut solo album, and in an interview with Manchester Key 103 radio in the U.K., the former boy-bander revealed that he got an interesting reaction when he played his upcoming release for his mom, Anne.
“She cried a couple of times, which was good,” he said. “I think that was good.”
His stepfather, Robin Twist, had a slightly more perplexing response.
“I had one piece of feedback from my stepdad,” Styles said, according to the Manchester Evening News. “One of the songs on the album has a vocal effect in the background. And it finished and he went, ‘How did you get a duck in the studio?”
The singer and actor, who stars with Tom Hardy in the upcoming World War II drama Dunkirk (out July 21), was spotted dangling in midair from a helicopter on the Isle of Skye in Scotland as he filmed his music video Tuesday, April 4.
Styles talked about his new single in an interview with BBC Radio One on Friday morning.
“It’s a bit weird,” he said of this new chapter in his life. “I feel I’ve been hibernating in a studio for so long and you kind of hear it in, like, the safety of the studio and everything, and now it’s time to, like, give birth.”
Listen to more of Styles’ interview with Nick Grimshaw below.
