After teasing her “River” video with a snippet of dancing in a slow-strobing light, Miley Cyrus finally released the full clip tonight.
The black-and-white music video opens with the singer dancing solo as lights flash around her and she sings: “Heart beats so loud that it’s drowning me out/Living in an April shower/You’re pouring down, baby. Drowning me out/You’re just like a river/You go on forever.” Soon, however, the camera cuts to Cyrus surrounded by shirtless men as a cascade of water falls on them, and the beat intensifies as she sings the chorus.
The track features on Cyrus’ upcoming album, Endless Summer Vacation, out tomorrow.
“‘River,’ it was a time in my life where I was going through just a lot emotionally and personally,” Cyrus said in an Instagram reel before the song came out. “And I guess, all of my songs kind of evolve. They can start as something that was a trouble, like it just feels like it’s an April shower. It just never stops raining, and then it started raining down, like, love.
“‘River’ … sometimes we just need a dancefloor banger,” she continued, adding, “aka they don’t want me to talk about how the fact is the song is about … [bleep].” In the clip, her mouth was covered so what the bleep meant was unclear. “[Bleep] is nasty,” she continued with a laugh. “It’s nasty.”
The only other single Cyrus released ahead of the Endless Summer Vacation release was “Flowers,” which has become a global hit. “[Cyrus] has finally transformed into the kind of old-school grown-up legend she’s always wanted to be,” Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield wrote in an essay. “’Flowers,’ the lead single from Friday’s Saturn-return post-divorce album Endless Summer Vacation, marks the culmination of her unlikely journey from Hannah Montana to world-wise adulthood. This moment is the cherry on top of one of modern pop’s longest, most bizarre stories.”
Cyrus will be performing “Flowers” and other tracks from Endless Summer Vacation on a new Disney+ special, Miley Cyrus: Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Session). The 42-minute special premieres tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET.