Elton John and Brandi Carlile drop Xavier Dolan-directed music video for ‘Swing For The Fences’

The hype machine for the upcoming joint album by Elton John and Brandi Carlile is in full swing, and the pair are delighting fans once again today with a brand new music video for their latest single.

‘Swing For The Fences’ was released just last week and today sees the release of its video, directed by the award winning Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan.

“When Brandi and Elton reached out with their song, the brief mentioned it was written for ‘young queer kids’. I immediately saw this young lonely man dancing to himself,” Dolan commented. “It isn’t fortuitous that music and dancing have always been central to queer culture; it is an ultimate act of expression, abandonment, selflessness.”

The Mommy director, who has also worked with Adele on music videos for her comeback singles ‘Hello’ and ‘Easy On Me’, kept things relatively simple on the clip of ‘Swing For The Fences’. The video comprises mostly scenes of a young male model dancing around a rather desolate (but beautifully lit) apartment and caressing his chiselled abdomen.

You can watch the video in full below:

The boy’s dancing-like-nobody’s-watching catharsis is interrupted by a knock on his door from a man who, after spotting him through the window from across the street, comes over to join the fun. The video ends with the two men, played by models William Darby and Abdalla Amour, sharing a tender kiss in bed.

The video was choreographed by Emilia Peréz choreographer Damian Jallet. “Helping Xavier to put together this video with such a beautiful and hopeful message was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Jallet commented. “The goal here was to not dim or tame the feeling of an eruptive and spontaneous dancing joy by over choreographed routines.

“I attempted to guide William and Abdalla in the development of meaningful and overjoyed gestures and impulses, allowing them to portray in the most personal way possible this anthem for freedom and pride,” he continued.

Elton has previously said that the song, which is the second single from the upcoming album Who Believes In Angels?, changed the direction of the album. “When we recorded ‘Swing For The Fences’, it was the moment that crystallised where the album was going,” he said. “It was hard to get to that point, but we knew we had to rise to the occasion and we all just felt this massive sense of joy and euphoria.

“After our initial difficulties, all the uncertainties started to dissipate when this song came together. It just sounded great.”

“I’m a gay woman, Elton’s a gay man and we both have families, and our dreams have come true” – Brandi Carlile

“Swing For The Fences’ was a little gem I took into the studio with me,” Carlile said of the song. “I’m a gay woman, Elton’s a gay man and we both have families, and our dreams have come true.

“I was thinking, wouldn’t it be cool to write an anthem for young gay kids out there that calls them into a bigger, more elegant, more fabulous life. Just like ‘go, go! don’t let anything hold you back!’.”

The album Who Believes In Angels? will be released in full on 4 April.