One Direction’s October-released single “Little Things” is good. Legitimately good. And I can’t believe I think that, let alone said it out loud in front of anyone I would ever want to respect me.
I might be a little late to the club, but I recently heard the song on the radio while driving and had no idea it was One Direction. I was shocked by my Shazam results.
The song immediately replaced Ke$ha’s “C’mon” as my newest guilty pleasure. But then I started thinking there’s a reason I like this song.
I watched the music video when I got home. It got me. Its candid, black-and-white nature was somebody’s really great marketing scheme and I definitely fell for it, as I’m sure thousands of girls similarly swooned to see this (albeit mock) glance into what it might be like to be in the recording studio with One Direction.
But so what? This song says everything girls wish a charming English-Irish guy would say to them.
So gentlemen, listen up, because One Direction has done something right and we all need to take note of it. At first glance they might be just the next boy band, and maybe they’ll grow up and become washed-up has-beens, but what they’re doing right now is spot on.
Really, what girl doesn’t want to be told that it’s OK if she has cellulite. Women won’t ever be satisfied with their stomachs, so when Liam Payne says that he’ll “love them endlessly,” I pretty much melt.
We all want to be told that we’re beautiful despite our flaws, and that’s the nature of this song. And that’s beautiful.
These lyrics are speaking to the soul of even the deepest cynic’s romantic side. Despite the fact that the song was actually written by Fiona Bevan and Ed Sheeran, it’s the delivery that counts and the boys of One Direction do it perfectly with their boyish charm and innocence.
So I’m totally OK with young girls being obsessed with One Direction, because they’re telling us all that it’s OK to be who we are. That not knowing we’re beautiful is better than being overconfident.
We need this brand of optimism – five good-looking guys telling girls to embrace their flaws. We don’t all need to be a size zero to have someone write a song about us.
