Harry Styles has only performed the newest cuts from his third studio album, Harry’s House, a few times before kicking off the latest leg of his extensive “Love on Tour” trek. Still, the musician was up for the challenge of performing “Boyfriends” in just one take on the Japanese YouTube channel The First Take.
Styles was joined by Sarah Jones and Elin Sandberg for assistance on the chorus, while Mitch Rowland led on acoustic guitar with Ny Oh on both guitar and backing vocals.
The stripped-back acoustic performance sticks to the original arrangement of the track just as it was debuted during Styles’ headlining set at Coachella in April. “Boyfriends” was originally recorded during the making of his sophomore album Fine Line, but the singer was set on spending more time with it before releasing the track.
“There was a lot of different versions of it. We were trying to work out what the best version for the album was. There was like, different guitars and different vocal arrangements,” Styles told TODAY during a recent appearance. “There was something about it that was kind of one of those. We could have rushed it to get it ready, and it just felt like there’s something special about it and I wanted to kind of take my time with it. I knew that it would find its way onto the album. It was meant to be and I love the song.”