The track sits at the middle point of Fine Line, Styles' second full-length album — a commercial hit, beating Eric Clapton's Unplugged in 1992 as the biggest U.S. sales week for a British male artist . "Falling" describes a moment in which Styles couldn't quite recognize himself anymore in his relationship. "I had started to feel myself becoming someone I didn’t want to be, and that was really hard," Styles told Zane Lowe in an interview . In the visual, Styles sits at a piano with a glass of whiskey, dressed in a frothy, Pierrot-esque top. He plays the piano and passionately sings the song, even when water floods the room and eventually submerges him.