In 2021, Yungblud was nearing the end of an arduous tour around his 2020 album Weird and found himself in a hotel room in New York City, alone and contemplating his future. “I felt like I was starting to repeat myself,” revealed Yungblud in a statement. “I’d fallen into my own cliche—I’d become comfortable. It was good in a way; it meant that I had my own style. But I’ve always said that if people know where I’m going next, that is my idea of failure.”
As an artist, the last thing the Britisht singer and songwriter, whose real name is Dominic Harrison, wanted was to be predictable, which prompted a four-year journey writing one song that would that cancel out that nagging fear and he’d tell it all in his nine-minute plus opus, “Hello Heaven, Hello.”
Hello, are you out there? / Are you trying? Are you patient? / Are you blind? / Are you with me? Against me? / Don’t know me at all he sings right from the start questioning himself throughout the song—Are you still scared of dying? / Scared of them finding out that you don’t know who you are? / And I don’t know what’s in my head, but I know what’s in my chest.
Mid-way in, the lyrics reverse toward childhood hope snad dreams—Since I was a little boy, I devised a windmill getaway / They’d kick me in the mud and they told me, “That’s the price you pay” … Little boy, stupid boy, what you after each and every day? / For it’s the fool who’s the last to jump off the edge.
“Hello Heaven, Hello’ is the opening statement to my new album,” said Yungblud in a statement. “It’s a journey of self-reclamation, a goodbye to the past and how you may have known or perceived me before, and a hello to the future and where I’m going. It sets the precedent for what this album is. It’s an adventure that’s sonically more ambitious than ever before, a journey that is meant to be played in its entirety that doesn’t for a moment hold back or let its imagination be filtered.”
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The lyrics are illustrated further in the cinematic music video, directed by Charlie Sarsfield and featuring Yungblud, opening with him alongside a black horse, singing bare-chested in a snowy mountainous setting. In the video, Yungblug grows wings and flies in the air, then switches gears, performing the second half of the song with a band thorugh the TV set.
As “Hello Heaven, Hello” settle down toward the final two minutes more imagery flashes, including a shot with him pierced in arrows before he’s seen sitting on the mountaintop with a standing cross.
“I wanted its first moment to be a statement. I’ve been discouraged from releasing a nine-minute and six-second song as my first move back in a year because, in a modern world, it’s seen to be a “risk” – I don’t see it like that at all I see as an opportunity, in my opinion, risk is an artist’s greatest tool—putting everything on the line in pursuit of the best evolution and art you can make. Without risk, there is no innovation.”
He continued, “I feel like for the first time in a long time I’m exactly where I need to be and doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, making exactly what I want, exploring the past, the present, the future, and most importantly, myself. This album feels magical to me and this is where it starts – where the f–k are we gonna end up? Let’s see. Get on the horse. Let’s ride.”
In Summer 2025, Yungblud will return with his curated festival Bludfest for second years on June 21, 2025 at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, England.
Photo: Tom Pallant
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