Songfacts®:

• This ballad finds Harry Styles addressing a girl who's been ill-treated by her family. The singer encourages Matilda to stop associating with these people and move on from the toxic environment.
• Styles wrote the song after an acquaintance opened up to him about their home situation. The "As It Was" singer didn't feel what she told him was normal and advised her to get some help.
• During the song, Styles listens to Matilda's painful story without inserting himself into it. "It's a weird one, because with something like this, it's like, 'I want to give you something, I want to support you in some way, but it's not necessarily my place to make it about me because it's not my experience,'" Styles told Apple Music. "Sometimes it's just about listening. I hope that's what I did here. If nothing else, it just says, 'I was listening to you.'"
• Matilda isn't the real name of Styles' mistreated acquaintance. The pop superstar took it from the title character of British writer Roald Dahl's 1988 children's novel Matilda. A young girl with genius intelligence and telekinesis, Matilda gets victimized by her neglectful parents and tyrannical principal.
• Styles wrote the song with American songwriter Amy Allen and his Harry's House producers, Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson. It is Allen's second time working with Styles, following her collaboration on the Fine Line track "Adore You."
• When Styles played "Matilda" to some friends, they all ended up in tears. He realized then this is a song he needed to pay attention to.
• The song connects to the album's theme that home is not a place, but something you build out of your emotions and memories. Styles does this by encouraging Matilda to cut herself off from her family and set up her own home with those who show her love.