Our long national nightmare is over—HAIM has finally released their new single. This afternoon, the band shared “Relationships,” a pop track that they first teased about a week ago and was apparently years in the making. “This one took us 7 damn years to crack but we’re so stoked it’s finally here!!” the band wrote on Instagram with a clip of the new music video. “Single girl summer let’s fucking go.” You heard the ladies—if you’re in a relationship, get out of it now.
Just kidding. Though the track isn’t necessarily pro-romance, as last week’s teaser art depicting Danielle, Este, and Alana Haim as Nicole Kidman freshly divorced from Tom Cruise suggested, it isn’t ready to be alone quite yet either. “I got you all to myself but I keep asking why,” Danielle sings ahead of the chorus. “Baby how can I explain/when an innocent mistake/turns into 17 days/fuckin’ relationships.” The song does have a pretty undeniable summer sound, with a strong bassline and hazy synth production that leaves your head swimming in circles. “Relationships” works as an open-ended question probing the circular nature of this push-pull. “I would do it all again/if you put down your defenses/Think I’m in love so why am I trying to escape from it?” HAIM doesn’t offer an answer, but at least we have an album’s worth of exploration to look forward to.
“Relationships” also comes with a fun and flirty music video starring Drew Starkey of Queer fame. Mirroring the back-and-forth nature of the lyrics, the video plays with time, watching Danielle and Starkey kiss and undress and redress each other ad infinitum. Framed around a moving day, the clip ends with Danielle suggesting she isn’t quite ready to move on while Alana rolls her eyes. Hey, single girl summer is still a few months away.
Though “Relationships” is promoted as the first single from a new album, no further info about that project seems to be publicly available just yet. The band’s last album, Women In Music Pt. III arrived in July 2020. Since then, they released the loose single “Lost Track” (which came with a music video directed by Paul Thomas Anderson) and contributed “Home” to 2023’s Barbie soundtrack.
