Rostam Batmanglij on Friday released
the song Gravity Don't Pull Me along with its music video.
On the title track from his first solo
album since leaving Vampire Weekend, Batmanglij sings about gay
heartbreak. “And the worst way I ever felt; Was from this same boy
that I still miss; Cause I messed it up; And it broke my heart,”
the song's chorus goes.
“I want people to hear the song as
ultimately having a positive message,” he
told NPR, “of learning from your mistakes.”
The
video, filmed at The 1896,
features Batmanglij centered between dancers Jack Grabow and Sam Asa
Pratt, who move in sync with each other for most of the video, but
who also dance independently.
“I hope there's something bigger that
lives between all of those things interacting with each other,” the
32-year-old Batmanglij said of the song's message and the video's
visual imagery. “For me, the idea of writing a song, recording it,
making a video – it's like, you go around the moon and you come
back. You accomplish everything there was to accomplish … It feels
like telling the whole story.”
(Related: Vampire
Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij says Ed Droste inspired him to come out.)