Sam Smith has stripped down their latest single “To Die for” in a new acoustic version.
Filmed and recorded live in Los Angeles, the new rendition features Smith accompanied by cello and piano inside a golden recording studio. According to a press statement, Smith intended this version of “To Die for” to resemble their earliest musical releases.
Smith released the original version of the song on Valentine’s Day, featuring a vocal sample from the 2001 cult film Donnie Darko. On the same day, Smith announced their upcoming third album of the same name, due out May 1st via Capitol Records.
In a recent behind-the-scenes clip for the making-of the “To Die for” music video, where Smith posed as a disembodied mannequin head in a storefront window, Smith revealed that they wrote the song the day after finding out their ex had a boyfriend. “I was so depressed, so I decided to take the day off. And then the next day I went in the studio, and this song just fell out of nowhere. After we finished writing the song, I was in the studio, and I went on YouTube, and I typed in the lyrics to the song, and the clip came up from Donnie Darko.”