The cult filmmaker reunites with the sisters for the dreamy visual
We’re officially into August which means summer is slowly coming to an end (sob). But save your sadness because HAIM’s new video is here to remind us it’s not quite over yet. Reuniting with director Paul Thomas Anderson, the sisters bask in the hazy summer sun in the dreamy visual for “Summer Girl”.
The track marks the band’s first release since 2017’s Something To Tell You, and was written by Danielle Haim after finding out her partner (and the band’s producer) Ariel Rechtshaid had been diagnosed with cancer.
“I was on tour and felt like I was trying to send positive energy his way almost telepathically”, Danielle wrote in a press release. “Whenever I would come home in between shows I wanted to be his sunshine – his summer when he was feeling dark. His hope when he was feeling hopeless.”
In the clear now, Rechtshaid co-produced the song with Something To Tell You collaborator Rostam Batmanglij. Writing on Twitter, HAIM expanded on the creation of the song, explaining it was inspired by Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side”.
so excited to start releasing new music as we’re working on it - kinda like we did before our first album. we finished this song a couple weeks ago and thought, why don’t we shoot something real quick and release it ! (more on the video tomorrow)
— HAIM (@HAIMtheband) July 30, 2019
The group first debuted the track in July to an intimate Los Angeles crowd, before deciding to shoot a last-minute visual with long-term collaborator Anderson – who previously directed their video for “Right Now” as well as a short film about the creation of their last album.
The sun-kissed visual sees Danielle taking centre stage, with her sisters intermittently joining her to strip off their winter layers. Followed around by a saxophone player, Danielle eventually confronts him, urging over woozy guitars for him to “walk beside me, not behind me. Feel my unconditional love”.
The feel-good track is a blissful ode to love, which keeps you in the summer mood and gets you pumped for even more new HAIM music. Though we might be waiting a while, as the band said on Twitter they are releasing new music as they work on it. “Writing is kind of like a muscle you just have to show up and flex”, Danielle told Dazed when discussing Something To Tell You in 2017, “We didn’t want to pressure ourselves: sometimes we would just write a verse, different parts, mess with tones… Sometimes it would just come to us fully formed.”
For now, at least, we can enjoy a HAIM girl summer with “Summer Girl” on repeat. Watch the video below.