Hayley Kiyoko dropped “I Wish,” her first new song since her 2018 debut LP Expectations. The song arrived with Kiyoko’s self-directed, magical video.
The video opens with a girl in a plaid school uniform running up the stairs of her home. There, her friends sit in circle as the girl pulls out a bottle from her backpack. “It’s like I don’t exist to her anymore,” Kiyoko states from her seat in the circle. She details how the girl she likes has become distant then drinks from the bottle her friend brought. Kiyoko subsequently passes out, but as the song starts up she and her friends begin dancing and she sees her crush in the doorway. When she comes to, the crush vanishes.
The song itself is a mid-tempo heartbreaker, as Kiyoko pines for a better and more available partner. “I wish, I wish, I wish I found love,” she sings on the chorus. On the verses, she describes the friction with someone who is “selfish” with their affection.
Kiyoko released her debut album Expectations last spring. Last month, she made a cameo in Taylor Swift’s star-studded “You Need to Calm Down” music video. She had joined Swift on stage a couple times last year.