Watch Slow Dancer’s Subtly Heartbreaking “It Goes On” Video

Australian social worker and rapidly rising musician Slow Dancer, aka Simon Okely, plans to release his new album In A Mood on June 9 via ATO Records. Today, Okely shared a new music video for his breezy single “It Goes On”—watch above.

The song and video have strong personal significance for Okely, who wrote the song right before the end of a 14-year relationship. “I have a theory about writing love songs; they are a curse; they inadvertently herald the end of the very relationship they here intended to praise,” said Okely in a press release. “In this instance, I was painfully correct.” While the song itself is melancholy in a mild way, Okely decided to use the music video to express his true feelings of loneliness in the aftermath of his breakup.

The video shows different couples in the early hours of the morning or before bed, snuggling and looking generally envy-worthy (#relationshipgoals). The couples are all in rooms that look well-lived-in, with stacks of books, glasses of wines, records piled against walls and clothes in the closet. Then, we go back to Okely, alone in his practically empty room. Ouch.

“We filmed my sections in the room I’d just moved into fresh after the breakup,” said Okely, “After the first edit of the video came back, I was embarrassed by how bare my room was in comparison to the couples’.” However, in hindsight, Okely is glad they used his room as-is, in all its coldness. “My cheap, new, self-constructed furniture was void of any real character. It’s honest though—a guiding principal!—and now I’m kinda glad we captured that space at that time.” It certainly adds a level of devastation to the video that otherwise may have fallen by the wayside. Combined with Okely’s gentle, Sunday-morning vocals and chilled-out beat, “It Goes On” makes for a solid tune and music video.

“We do a lot of talking in the developed world. I wanted to get non-verbal for this film,” Okely tells Paste. “I didn’t want to sing to camera. I wanted to shoot in intimate spaces. I’m really happy with the result.”

You can read up on Okely’s forthcoming album and tour dates here, as well as listen to his previously released single “Don’t Believe.” In A Mood is currently available for preorder here.

“Like a golden retriever locked in an apartment all day, I am feverishly anticipating this tour,” Okely said. “Touring is not the real world, it’s make believe, you travel every day to new and exciting places and meet new people. It’s one of life’s true privileges.”