One Direction: ‘Complex’ What Makes You Beautiful lyrics confuse fans

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One Direction released What Makes You Beautiful just nine months after coming third in the ITV show The X Factor. Although the band didn’t win the 2010 singing competition, they signed a deal with Simon Cowell’s record label, Syco, and started working on their debut album, Up All Night, in the beginning of 2011. The record wasn’t released until November 18, 2011, but What Makes You Beautiful hit the charts on September 11, 2011, acting as a strong promotional single for their upcoming work.

The track reached number one in the UK, Scotland, Ireland, Mexico and the USA, but fans have begun suggesting it doesn’t make complete sense.

The lyrics tell a story of a woman who doesn’t know how beautiful she really is.

The lighthearted song says: “You don’t know, oh-oh / you don’t know you’re beautiful, oh-oh / that’s what makes you beautiful.”

Fans on Reddit pointed out these lyrics are cyclical in nature and don’t work when taken literally.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/QJO3ROT-A4E

Reddit user jblackhawk7 pointed out: “So by not knowing they’re beautiful they become beautiful, but once they hear the song they will know and become not beautiful, but then there is nothing to know and they become beautiful again, and the cycle continues.”

Another Reddit theorist suggested: “I’m not familiar with the song in question but the line you quoted says to me that it’s her humility that makes her beautiful, like she’s pretty but she doesn’t flaunt it around and that makes her more beautiful and desirable.”

This theory was also spoken about by Stephen Colbert in 2012, who pointed out the song’s issue.

Poking fun at the band’s lyrics, he said: “The lyrics are incredibly complex. You see the boys are singing ‘You don’t know you’re beautiful. That’s what makes you beautiful.’ But they’ve just told the girl she’s beautiful!”

https://www.youtube.com/embed/mQT7Xby85xg

Colbert continued: “So since she now knows it, she’s no longer beautiful. But it gets deeper. She’s listening to the song too, so she knows she’s not beautiful. Therefore, following the syllogism of the song, she’s instantly beautiful again.

“It’s like an infinite fractal recursion. A flickering quantum state of both ‘hot’ and ‘not’. This lyric as an iterated algorithm could lead to a whole new musical genre. I call it Moblus Pop.”

While What Makes You Beautiful’s lyrics may pose more questions than they answer, the song still stands as their most popular track of all time.

According to the UK’s Official Charts, What Makes You Beautiful is the band’s highest-selling track of all time.

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Since its release in 2011 it has sold more than 978,000 singles worldwide and even scored them the 2012 BRIT Award for Best British Single.

The track also won the Teen Choice Award for Choice Music: Love Song.

The band’s second highest-selling single is their 2013 hit Story of my Life, which sold a staggering 519,000 singles worldwide.

Although the band split up in 2015, Harry Styles has since played What Makes You Beautiful while on tour during his solo career.

In 2019 Harry performed at Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball where he played some tracks from his forthcoming album Fine Line.

After delivering powerhouse performances of Lights Up, Adore You, Sign of the Times and Watermelon Sugar, the singer gave his fans a trip down memory lane.

Harry smiled at the crowd: “If you know the words to this one, please do sing along,” before closing the set with What Makes You Beautiful.

The Golden singer changed it up a lot, however, giving a more rock ’n roll-style rendition of the song, complete with a breakdown in its final seconds.

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