Lauv Needs to Know What the Future Could Hold on New Single ‘Potential’
Lauv would rather take a major risk than talk himself down from his own feelings on his new single “Potential.” The record finds the pop singer and songwriter testing the waters to see if a long-term friendship could actually hold something more below the surface, singing: “We’ve been friends for years / And you were always here / Through my heartbreak tears / And none of them compare to you / Never told you why / Always held inside / No more tears to cry / I’m not afraid.”
“Potential” arrives alongside an intensely choreographed music video directed by Luke Orlando in which Lauv has to overcome physical barriers between himself and his desires. In a room full of people, the musician finds himself being pushed and pulled in all different directions. Whenever he does get close to the one person he does want, the swarm of bodies yanks them away from each other.
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In the lead-up to the song’s release, Lauv opened up for the first time about recent breakthroughs he has made in understanding his sexuality, which encapsulates the major theme within the single and video.
“I spent most of my life thinking relationships weren’t working cause i had attachment issues (which may very well still be true!!! but let’s get to that another time…??) but basically i would leave every person i was dating after getting anxious and feeling like something was off, or missing, or like i couldn’t be mysel,” Lauv wrote in an Instagram post in March, in which he shared a snippet of the single. “Flashback to me being a kid and thinking i was gay & also getting made fun of mad at school with people just assuming that i was as a little wee kid (sad). anyways, i finally, around age 29 have reopened the door to the part of myself that feels…well…into men.”
At the end of the “Potential” video, Lauv finally breaks through the restraints that the mass of other people represented. Once they’ve all been paired off, he’s left to embrace the last man standing — the one he was reaching for all along.
“And i don’t know where its gonna go but i think it’s important to talk about because i literally spent A LIFETIME blaming my anxiety & eventual really bad OCD for all my thoughts that had to do with being into men, always shoving it back down,” he continued on Instagram. “But here i am, a few kisses and some fun in, a lot of songs in, and confused as ever but at least so much happier and more comfortable and less anxious because i’ve started to embrace a part of myself that i ran away from for so long. and yeah..idk where it goes or what i really AM, but that doesn’t really matter cause labels arent always necessary im learning (could u riddle me that, a boy with OCD not needing to label things?!?!?!).”
“Potential” is the latest in a string of single releases Lauv has shared since the release of his second studio album, All 4 Nothing, in 2022. “‘Potential’ is about realizing you have feelings for someone and dreaming about the potential of what it could be,” Lauv shared in a statement. “It’s the beginning of my next, most authentic chapter, and I can’t wait to share this and everything that’s coming next.”
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