HAIM sheds their tops in this Paul Thomas Anderson-directed video for "Summer Girl"
Aux Features Music
As Paul Thomas Anderson continues to bat around ideas with Tiffany Haddish and preserve the next generation of cinephiles, the beloved filmmaker’s been busy palling around with his famous friends. Last month he premiered ANIMA, a short film tied to the release of Thom Yorke’s new solo album, and now he’s returned with a video for “Summer Girl,” the new single from his frequent collaborators in HAIM. Previously, Anderson directed clips for “Night So Long,” “Little of Your Love,” “Right Now” and the short film Valentine.
“Summer Girl,” a sultry, saxophone-heavy track that trades the band’s fizzy exuberance for a subtle, sustained mood, is the first new piece of music from the Haim sisters since 2017's Something To Tell You. In an Instagram post, singer Danielle says the song came about after she learned her partner was diagnosed with cancer, from which he’s since been cured. “We were touring on and off at this time and every time we were on the phone with each other or when I would come home in between shows, I wanted to be this light that shined on him when he was feeling very dark,” she wrote. “I wanted to be his hope when he was feeling hopeless.” She also discusses working with ex-Vampire Weekender Rostam Batmanglij, who wrote the saxophone line and is also credited as a producer. Don’t expect an album anytime soon, though; she notes that the band plans on “releasing new music as we’re working on it—kinda like we did before our first album.”
Anderson’s video finds the sisters yanking off layers upon layers of different tops as they stroll the streets of L.A., lounge in a sunny diner, and work the ticket booth at the city’s beloved New Beverly movie theater.
Watch it above.
16 Comments
Came for the girls taking off their tops, stayed for the surpringly catchy song.
Allow me to point you in the direction of an even catchier HAIM song with an equally cool (though more clothed) musical video:
Who cured cancer now?
Does this have anything to do with “hot girl summer?”
Squeaky Haim
Lovely video, nice song. The video makes a nice sort of bookend with PTA’s video for Joanna Newsom’s Sapokanikan, which obviously has a similar “walking, one-take” feel to it, but which has a sort of “moving into winter in New York feeling” — almost the precise opposite of the “moving into summer in LA” feel here. I’m not very film-educated to say much more, but seemed cool. In case you haven’t seen the other one:
Familiar song pattern. Reminds me of Lou Reed’s opus “Walk on The Wild Side.” Don’t you think?
Overtly enough that the estate should sue them. Doot, dadoot, dadoot, dootdadoot
A bit of Annie Lennox’s “Why” in there.HAIM: 2:25Lennox: 3:50
“Danielle noted on Twitter that she and Rostam chose to lean into the song’s vague resemblance to Lou Reed’s “Walk On the Wild Side” as they were reworking the original demo: “We were kinda joking about how the ‘doot doot doot’ part reminded us of ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ and then he put this stand-up bass part on top of the electric bass part and it sounded amazing! The palette was there—v inspired by Lou. And we kept it that way.”
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/07/haim-summer-girl.html
Ah indeed…. Now it makes sense.
I think I saw “bra face” for a second there
Oddly, the song sounds like one long intro without the actual song showing up.
Finally, a reason to care about HAIM!
In an Instagram post, singer Danielle says the song came about after she
learned her partner was diagnosed with cancer, from which he’s since
been cured.
Now I feel really bad about masturbating through the whole video……