Ariana Grande Gets Her Mind Wiped in Futuristic ‘We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)’ Video
On the heels of dropping her eagerly anticipated Eternal Sunshine album, Ariana Grande also debuted the futuristic video for the collection’s new single, “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)” on Friday morning (March 8).
The singer teased the clip last week with an image from the waiting room in which she signs a consent form stating, “You have given extensive thought behind your decision and give ‘Brighter Days Inc.’ the exclusive permission to remove this person completely from your memory,” as her pen hovers over the box marked “No,” before the 30-year-old pop star opts for “Yes” at the last second and signing her name as “Peaches.”
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That scene from the Christian Breslauer-directed visual is the opening act of a moody video that finds Grande — wearing a furry grey coat over a mini dress and knee-high boots and sporting some dramatic, tribal-like makeup around her left eye — sitting in the drab, wood-paneled lobby of the Brighter Days Inc. clinic awaiting an appointment with a doctor. When Peaches’ name is called, Grande grabs a white box filled with memories and enters a surgery arena, where she lays back on a chair as she begins to sing the ballad’s introspective lyrics.
“I didn’t think you’d understand me/ How could you ever even try,” she sings as a nurse takes a stuffed bear out of the box and a screen shows the teddy’s brain scan. “I don’t want to tip-toe, but I don’t want to hide/ But I don’t want to feed this monstrous fire,” she continues over the song’s bubbling beat while being fitted with a silver headband with glowing red contacts on her temples.
The scene then jumps to a 1980s-style video game arcade as the tempo builds and Grande and a boyfriend pluck the bear from a claw machine and she promises to “wait for your love.” The heartbreak ballad about vowing to pretend until a love is rekindled is a travelogue of good times — including a shout-out to the final iconic birthday cake scene in 1984 coming-of-age classic Sixteen Candles — mixed with the present-day footage of Grande receiving the love-erasing procedure.
The storyline of the video — which ends with Grande blithely passing her old love and his new girlfriend while strolling with her new man — should come as no surprise given Grande’s avowed love of Jim Carrey’s similarly themed 2004 love removal machine sci-fi drama Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which Grande tapped as an inspiration for the album’s title.
In that Michel Gondry-directed movie, Carrey and girlfriend Kate Winslet’s characters, Joel and Clementine, undergo brain surgery to wipe all the memories of their painful breakup. So, in the lead-up to the album’s release, Grande posted photos and videos in which she dressed up in outfits and hairstyles inspired by the film’s leading lady.
The midtempo track is the second single from Eternal Sunshine, following the January Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping hit “Yes, And?” Grande has previously said that she wouldn’t be issuing any more songs ahead of her seventh studio album’s release. Grande will be the musical guest on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live alongside Dune 2’s Josh Brolin.
Watch the “Wait For Your Love” video below.
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