Sweet Creature

It was written by Styles and Kid Harpoon, while production was handled by the latter alongside Jeff Bhasker, Alex Salibian and Tyler Johnson.

[8][9] For the album, he took inspiration from the music of Pink Floyd, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Fleetwood Mac to recreate a 1970s-influenced rock record.

The song was mixed by Mark "Spike" Stent at EastWest Studios, Los Angeles, and mastered by Chris Gehringer at Sterling Sound in Edgewater, New Jersey.

Geffen said that the track lowered the magnitude from Styles's sonorous debut single, "Sign of the Times", to "an intimate, acoustic level".

[22] According to Digital Spy's Justin Harp, the song, although not very different from the ballads of One Direction, marked a departure from the energetic pop sound of the band.

[20][32] Variety's Eve Barlow noted that the song attempted to emulate the guitar sound of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood", Plain White T's' "Hey There Delilah", and Fleetwood Mac's "Never Going Back Again".

[33] In an interview with radio host Zach Sang in May 2017, Styles revealed that "Sweet Creature" was written about a specific person.

[35] Sung in the form of a lullaby, according to Entertainment Weekly's Leah Greenblatt,[36] the track's lyrics discuss the confusion and potency of young love.

[38] Gordon said that as with Sheeran's best songs, "Sweet Creature" trades in fanciful words for sincere pining that awaits to captivate the listener with earnestness.

[20] Reviewers such as Billboard's Da'Shan Smith and Rolling Stone's Jon Blistein felt the song showcased Styles's vocal range that allowed him to perform "some pretty spectacular power notes".

[14][39] Bridgett Henwood of Vox and Jon Caramanica of The New York Times deemed "Sweet Creature" as one of the album's highlights, with the latter praising Styles's singing.

[23] Similarly, Jessica Hopper of MTV News noted that it signaled a musical maturity for Styles, by "sound[ing] like someone wanting the intimacy and quiet sensuality of Jeff Buckley's Grace and Ryan Adams's Heartbreaker".

[26] Leonie Coope, writing for NME, felt the song rendered a "country-indebted Laurel Canyon sound" that "could have as easily have been written about Joni Mitchell as much as his ex Taylor Swift".

[46] In a less enthusiastic review, music critic Greg Kot dismissed the song as trivial, although he discerned that Styles's vocals and the guitar arrangement made him "appear older than his years".

[78] While reviewing his concert at the Forum on 14 July 2018, August Brown of Los Angeles Times said that Styles's performance of "Sweet Creature" showcased his "big range and comfort in the most intimate of arrangements".