British pop star Harry Styles puts his waltzing to the test in the video for Coming Up Roses, posted on Monday, October 26. He learns the steps with a group of strangers in a dance class, including a pregnant waitress, a man in a neck brace and a denim-clad cowboy.
The video opens in a ballroom, where Styles warms up with squats before trying basic steps with different partners. As he gets better, he twirls away with a woman in a bridal gown, then switches to a man in a suit, whom he accidentally spins into a table. Bradley & Pablo, the directing duo behind the clips for Watermelon Sugar and Late Night Talking, worked with Styles again on this one.
During the song's orchestral break, the instructor performs a solo routine that incorporates a number of birdlike movements. When class is dismissed, Styles hangs back for a moment to enjoy one of the cookies on the snack table, then joins his classmates for a group photo.
The couple getting married in the video is the same couple that got engaged during Styles' October 7 show at Madison Square Garden. Styles was playing Coming Up Roses on piano that night, facing the other side of the stage. When the arena erupted in cheers, he craned his neck to see what had happened without stopping the song. Styles first hinted at the video during the 27th of his 30 shows at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night.
Coming Up Roses is the fourth single from Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, Styles' fourth studio album, released in March. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 430,000 equivalent album units and was led by Aperture, a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single. Aperture, American Girls and Dance No More have also had videos.
Talking to Thom Yorke for Rolling Stone's Musicians on Musicians series, Styles said of the album: "I wanted to meld the parts of my life together. I'd started going out dancing a lot more."
The song began as an attempt at a Christmas song. "That lasted two lines," Styles told Zane Lowe earlier this year. He said the song then wrote itself, and that it had nothing to do with Christmas.
Styles described the song's subject in the same interview:
"For me, it is a love song about how special something can be, and not everything has to last forever in order for it to be special."
The Together, Together tour is still running. Its Madison Square Garden residency ends on October 31, after which Styles plays Melbourne and Sydney in November and December, then picks up again in Glendale, Arizona in April. Documentary director John Wilson has been filming the shows at Madison Square Garden since August, for a doc expected to blend live performances with a glimpse into Styles' world.
Styles' live era closes with a trio of shows at Wembley Stadium in London, falling on August 24, 27 and 28.
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