Harry Styles says his new song 'Sign of the Times' is about childbirth

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(Getty Images for iHeartMedia)

Harry Styles has appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, for an extensive profile feature that saw him talk about everything from relationships to his time in One Direction and dealing with the spotlight.

In between all of this he also discussed his debut solo track 'Sign of the Times' - where he revealed what the song is actually about.

"[The song] came from 'this isn't the first time we've been in a hard time, and it's not going to be the last time," he said.

"The song is written from a point of view as if a mother was giving birth to a child and there's a complication.

"The mother is told, 'The child is fine, but you're not going to make it'. The mother has five minutes to tell the child, 'Go forth and conquer'."

After calling the lyrics "personal" when he debuted the track on BBC Radio 1 with Nick Grimshaw earlier this month, a listener likely would have assumed it was about a relationship.

Check out some of the lyrics and see if you would have guessed the childbirth theme:

Just stop your crying, it’s a sign of the times
Welcome to the final show
Hope you’re wearing your best clothes
You can’t bribe the door on your way to the sky
You look pretty good down here
But you ain’t really good…

We never learn, we been here before
Why are we always stuck and running from
The bullets? The bullets
We never learn, we been here before
Why are we always stuck and running from
The bullets? The bullets

We don’t talk enough, we should open up
Before it’s all too much

The song recently overtook Ed Sheeran as the No.1 track on the UK charts, however its performance is likely not quite what the singer or his team were hoping for.

After a much-hyped release, the song's first week sales figure came in at just 62,900 - half that of former One Direction bandmate Zayn Malik, who released his debut single 'PILLOWTALK' in 2016.

His streaming numbers were also down on rival Sheeran, who clocked 6.8 million streams with 'Shape of You', achieving a disappointing (for Styles) 3.5 million.