As the first song from Harry’s House, Harry Styles’ “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” lyrics are the first words Harries hear. But what is “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” about? It’s inspired by a real experience Styles had at a sushi restaurant.
“Music For a Sushi Restaurant” is the first song and third single from Styles’ third album, Harry’s House, which was released in May 2022. The music video for the song premiered on October 27, 2022. In an interview with Apple Music in May 2022, Styles explained that the idea for Harry’s House came from a realization he had about himself while in quarantine. “For a really long time, I was terrified of what my life was if I wasn’t up here doing music, on a show, doing something. And then you’re faced with a time when you can’t do that,” he said. “I kind of stopped for a second and looked at what I turned to listen to and what I was watching and all that kind of stuff and was like, ‘What does it actually mean to make something? And what does it mean to me to make something as my job?’”
he also explained the inspiration for the title of the album came from the idea that his home wasn’t a “geographical location” but an “internal” feeling.“I was kind of like, ‘I’d be really fun to make an album called Harry’s House,’ and thought about it being this smaller thing. And then it was back to that thing of, ‘Maybe that’s an album I’ll make in four years or five years or whatever.’ And as I started making the album, I realized it wasn’t about the geographical location. It’s much more of an internal thing,” he said. He also described the sound of the album as “more electronic in a lot of places than anything I’ve made, it’s also so much more intimate to me. And so much more intimately made.”
But back to “Music for a Sushi Restaurant.” So what are Harry Styles’ ” Music For a Sushi Restaurant” lyrics about what is the inspiration for the song? Read on for what we know about the real story behind Harry Styles’ “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” lyrics and who the song could be about.
Image: Columbia Records.
What are Harry Styles’ “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” lyrics about?
What are Harry Styles’ “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” lyrics about? “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” is the first song and third single from Styles’ third studio album, Harry’s House, which was released in May 2022. The first and lead single was “As It Was,” while the second single was “Late Night Talking.” “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” was written by Styles, Thomas Hull, Tyler Johnson and Mitch Rowland. So…what are Harry Styles’ “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” lyrics about?
In an interview with NPR in May 2022, Styles explained that the idea for “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” came about when he was at a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles with a producer and a song from his second album, Fine Line, started to play. “I was in a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles with my producer and one of our songs came on from the last album, and I kind of said, like, ‘This is really strange music for a sushi restaurant,’ and then I was like, ‘Oh, that would be a really fun album title,’” Styles said. “And then as this song started being made, I kind of just said, ‘Music at a sushi restaurant.’”
Genius also describes “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” as a “smooth jazz and funky ‘70s pop…about making sushi while relating it to [Styles’] desire for a relationship.” The theme of food—which Styles has also written about in other songs like “Watermelon Sugar,” “Kiwi,” “Cherry” and “Grapejuice”—is seen in the first verse of “Music For a Sushi Restaurant”: Green eyes, fried rice, I could cook an egg on you / Late night, game time, coffee on the stove, yeah (Oh) / You’re sweet ice cream, but you could use a Flake or two / Blue bubblegum twisted ’round your tongue.” Styles’ girlfriend, Olivia Wilde—whom he met on the set of the 2022 movie, Don’t Worry Darling, in which Styles starred in and Wilde directed—seemed to confirm she was the inspiration for “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” by sharing a clip of the song on her Instagram Story in May 2022. She set.a snippet of the song to a scene from the 2018 movie, Cold War, which showed a crowd of restaurant goers drinking cocktails, smoking cigarettes and dancing to Styles’ song.
In an interview with “Mix 104.1 Acoustic Sunrise with” in May 2022, Styles also revealed that he’s “not” a “roll guy” when he eats sushi, despite his song, “Music For a Sushi Restaurant.” “Not rolls. I’m not a roll guy,” he said when asked by a fan to name his favorite type of sushi roll. Styles also told the station at the time that Harry’s House was “the most fun I had making an album.” He continued, “I feel like my experience of making music is just become more and more fun, I feel like I’m falling more and more in love with it every time I get to do it. And this one for me, I think it’s the most proud of something I’ve made. I think I feel kind of much more confident just that it’s something that I wanted to make.”
Styles also called Harry’s House his “favorite album at the moment” and credited it for helping him through the COVID-19 pandemic. “I’m really happy with the way it kind of finished up, and there’s a lot of love that went into it and I think this album very much got me through the pandemic and stuff so it means a lot to me,” he said. Fans have also joked that “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” sounds similar to the theme song from the Disney Channel show A.N.T. Farm, which aired from 2011 to 2014 and followed an 11-year-old musical prodigy named Chyna at her school’s gifted program. “Did Harry sample the ant farm theme song for music for a sushi restaurant…or is it just me?#HarrysHouse” one Twitter user wrote.
In an interview with Apple Music in 2022, Harry opened up about how he wrote Harry’s House in the “gifted” and “stolen time” of the pandemic. “For a really long time, I was terrified of what my life was if I wasn’t up here doing music, on a show, doing something. And then you’re faced with a time when you can’t do that,” he said. “I kind of stopped for a second and looked at what I turned to listen to and what I was watching and all that kind of stuff and was like, ‘What does it actually mean to make something? And what does it mean to me to make something as my job?’”
He also told Apple Music about how Billie Eilish’s success as a young artist in the “fickle” music industry led him to start Harry’s House. “I think being in the band, I’d always felt like we were really young… And I had a moment seeing [Billie] do this at such a young age where I felt like, ‘I’m not that young anymore.’ And for a while it was, how do you play that game of remaining exciting?” he said. In the end, Harry told Apple Music that he was “thankful” to Eilish who “broke the spell” of his perfectionism habits when it came to making music “This is so unbelievably liberating to go, ‘I just want to make good music.’ That’s it. That’s what I want to do. And everything else is what it will be. And that’s kind of it,” he said.
That realization led him to write Harry’s House. “I was kind of like, ‘I’d be really fun to make an album called Harry’s House,’ and thought about it being this smaller thing. And then it was back to that thing of, ‘Maybe that’s an album I’ll make in four years or five years or whatever.’ And as I started making the album, I realized it wasn’t about the geographical location. It’s much more of an internal thing,” he said. As for the sound of the album, Harry told Apple Music that Harry’s House was “more electronic in a lot of places than anything I’ve made, it’s also so much more intimate to me. And so much more intimately made.”
Read the full lyrics to Harry Styles’ “Music For a Sushi Restaurant,” via Genius, below.
Harry Styles “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” lyrics
[Intro]
Ba, ba-ba
Ba-ba, ba-ba
[Verse 1]
Green eyes, fried rice, I could cook an egg on you
Late night, game time, coffee on the stove, yeah (Oh)
You’re sweet ice cream, but you could use a Flake or two
Blue bubblegum twisted ’round your tongue
[Pre-Chorus]
I don’t want you to get lost
I don’t want you to go broke
I want you
[Interlude]
It’s ’cause I love you, babe
In every kind of way
Just a little taste
You know I love you, babe
[Chorus]
Ba, ba-ba
Ba-ba, ba-ba
(You know I love you, babe)
Ba, ba-ba
Ba-ba, ba-ba
[Verse 2]
“Excuse me, a green tea?”
Music for a sushi restaurant
From ice on rice
Scuba-duba-dubub-boo (Oh)
Music for a sushi restaurant
Music for a sushi restaurant
Music for whatever you want
Scuba-duba-dubub-boo (Oh)
[Pre-Chorus]
I’m not going to get lost
I’m not going to go broke
Staying cool
(You know I love you, babe)
[Chorus]
Ba, ba-ba
Ba-ba, ba-ba
(You know I love you, babe)
Ba, ba-ba
Ba-ba, ba-ba
[Bridge]
(Ba, ba-ba, ba-ba, ba-ba)
If the stars were edible
And our hearts were never full
(Ba, ba-ba, ba-ba, ba-ba)
Could we live with just a taste?
Just a taste
[Interlude]
Ba, ba-ba (It’s ’cause I love you, babe)
(In every kind of way)
Ba-ba (Just a little taste)
(You know I love you, babe)
[Chorus]
Ba, ba-ba
Ba-ba, ba-ba
(You know I love you, babe)
Ba, ba-ba
Ba-ba, ba-ba
Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale.
