British singer-songwriter Arlo Parks has released a new single, “Softly” — an intimate, emotional song detailing the disintegration of a relationship. The standalone track’s release is accompanied by a music video, directed by Zhang and Knight.
“‘Softly’ is a song about yearning, about how fragile you feel in the dying days of a relationship when you’re still desperately in love,” the Grammy-nominated singer explained in a statement. “The song is about how it feels to brace yourself before the blow of a break up and reminisce about the days where it all felt luminous.”
The video sees Parks wandering through a surreal cityscape that slowly unravels.
“For us ‘Softly’ explored the idea of wanting something that was once perfect to end in a gentle way, and we wanted to express this using the world surrounding Arlo,” Zhang and Knight said. “We were instinctively drawn to the warm toned, hazy nostalgia of the 1960s, as we loved the idea of something universally romantic being slowly stripped away throughout the film.”
“Softly” follows Parks’ 2021 debut album Collapsed in Sunbeams, which arrived last year via Transgressive Records. The record is up for Best Alternative Music Album at this year’s Grammy Awards, where Parks is also nominated for Best New Artist.
Parks will be heading on tour with Clairo across North America beginning Feb. 16 in Charlotte, N.C. The trek ends with performances at Coachella. Parks will also join Harry Styles for his show in Dublin on June 22.
From Rolling Stone US
