By KAYLA DEMICCO
Contributing Writer
After distancing himself from the media until early June, Sam Smith finally breaks his silence with a new song that is bound to make you want to curl up into fetal position and cry. On Aug. 30, he send out a message saying that he poured his soul and heart into this song. On Sept. 4, he finally released new music for the first time since “Writing’s On The Wall” from Spectre in 2015. He sent out another message a few days later telling his fans that he was relieved to have finally shared this song to everyone.
On Sept. 18, he will release the video for the song. After watching it for the first time, I could NOT stop smiling because it was so cute. The video is directed by Luke Monaghan, who also directed the video for his song “I’m Not The Only One”. The synopsis for the video starts off with Sam Smith in a recording studio flaunting his beautiful vocals with a grand piano playing in the background. It then cuts to him in an alley starting to sing the song. The video then proceeds to show a variety of couples (same and opposite sexes, I’d like to mention) caressing each other.
Sam Smith is also among those couples and he holds another man in his arms while the man rests his head upon Smith’s shoulders. The couples in the video are shown looking passionately into each other’s eyes as one person holds the other’s face. People in the video cry, smile, laugh, hug, raise their drinks, and kiss. It ends with Sam sitting in a field on a bench in the shade on a sunny day looking out into the distance. It’s actually hard not to look at this video with adoration.
Seeing as Sam Smith is a gay man himself, he knows of the lack of representation in the media amongst LGBTQ+ people. He tackled that himself (with the help of the director, producers, and actors, of course) by showing same sex couples in his video, knowing it was going to a bunch of attention as this is his first in a long time. More and more artists who identify as LGBTQ+ are incorporating the representation in their music videos, even just the allies are giving the community a boost. Recent trending music videos that join the movement are Logic’s “1-800-273-8255” (feat. Alessia Cara and Khalid), P!nk’s “What About Us”, & Selena Gomez’s “Bad Liar”.
He said in a Beats 1 interview with radio host Zane Lowe that, the song is about a relationship he was in and that he’s “getting good at getting dumped” and that he’s “insanely single.” .The artwork for the single is a bouquet of dying flowers in black and white. He explains that his “favorite flowers are dead flowers,” and that it symbolizes goodbyes to him. With his album coming out in November, Sam says that he challenged himself and he addresses heavier stuff with his new work. He has been through alot relationship- wise and learned some lessons from it which made him stronger during his hiatus
