Calvin Harris – Outside Lyrics

I’m drawing some inspiration from the music video for this interpretation. For reference, I have included a summary of the plot of the music video at the end of my lyric explanation.

Who is Ellie singing to in the music video? I don’t think she is singing to a lover, she is singing to everyone in the world who has suffered a loss. This is a song of sympathy and comfort directed at an emotionally wounded listener.

Look at what you’ve done. Stand still, falling away from me

The song implores us to think back and put the past in perspective.

When it takes so long
Fire’s out, what do you want to be?

Now that the pain of the past is behind you(fire’s out). It’s time to start choosing a path to the future.

Now I’m holding on

The singer explains her endurance in the face of hardship but..

Myself was never enough for me

The singer lets us know that she needed help at one time to endure.

Gotta be so strong
There’s a power in what you do

You can overcome your hardships if you ACT (what you do), but it won’t be easy and it requires strength.

Now every other day I’ll be watching you

The singer threatens to hold you accountable for making progress.

I’ll show you what it feels like
Now I’m on the outside

The singer tells us she will share her story with us as a positive example to strive for now that she has overcome her hardship.

We did everything right

The singer reassures us that our pain is not our fault.

So, you give me no reason
For me to stay close to you
Tell me what lovers do

The listener may doubt the sincerity of the singers reliability. How does the listener know that the singer will stand by and be there for him? Here the singer reminds us that true lovers remain faithful despite any hardship and the singer makes the same promise.

How are we still breathing?

Here the singer reminds us that even though we may feel broken and helpless, we are still alive.

It’s never for us to choose
I’ll be the strength in you

Here the singer warns us against choosing not to breath, referencing the previous line. In other words don’t commit suicide. The singer will help you.

Music Video Summary
The video features two separate couples each involved in their own lover’s quarrel. One couple is portrayed by Ellie Goulding and a dark haired man with a beard and the other couple is acted by Calvin Harris and a brunet woman.

The man in Ellie’s couple is very angry and drunk and storms out of the house on his motorcycle. Ellie appears to be feeling guilty and depressed as she sits in the corner as her lover leaves.

The woman in Calvin’s couple mirrors the man in Ellie’s in that she is equally angry and drunk, but instead of driving off she stops doing the dishes and starts yelling, pushing and taking swings at Calvin.

Scenes of the stories I just described are interspersed with clips of Ellie kneeling on the ground moaning with grief, dangling helpless in mid-air and staring downward in front of a floating mirror. The kneeling implies that her sadness has crippled her. The mirror is symbolic of an emotional self-reflection and the dangling in mid-air implies a state of helplessness. The floating mirror in front of her shatters perhaps symbolic of a crumbling of her own self image.

Ellie’s motorcycling lover races through the streets performing reckless stunts and Calvin’s dish washing lover escalates to throwing glasses and plates at him. At the moment the motorcycle launches into the air and a plate is launched halfway to Calvin’s face, time freezes. Ellie’s lover has disappeared leaving only a motorcycle frozen at the apex of it’s launched arch and Calvin’s lover has similarly disappeared leaving the plate frozen in front of him.

Ellie, eyes swollen from tears she has shed, stands up from the street she was kneeling on with a sad but determined look in her eyes. Calvin looks like he has had an epiphany and with wonder in his eyes he sees Ellie standing in front of him instead of his lover. Ellie quietly returns his gaze but with lips slightly parted as if she has something to say.

Ellie walks past the frozen motorcycle brushing it with her hands as if to say goodbye and then stands looking over her shoulder, but away from the motorcycle and toward the camera, again sad but determined.

But, what does this mean? Though I described the song as a message of support for those who are emotionally wounded, it might be more specifically for those who have lost loved ones due to alcohol or drugs. Ellie had to pick herself up off the floor when she was wounded by her loss which was perhaps the death of her lover due to drunk driving. And Calvin was perhaps about to lose his relationship due perhaps to alcohol abuse.

We never see Calvin in Ellie’s world space, the street outside the mobile homes or the garage where she and her lover have their fight. But when Calvin Harris reaches the bottom of his story arc, Ellie is there, not looking at him like a lover, or an ex-lover might, but just as a friend. It is these themes of loss, recovery and support that informed my lyrical interpretation.