A bad breakup may feel like end of the world, but JP Saxe and Julia Michaels take the idea quite literally with their apocalyptic love song “If the World Was Ending,” which dropped along with a stirring video on Thursday (Oct. 17).
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The clip opens with the pop singer-songwriters staring at the television as an emergency alert plays on screen: in the wake of their breakup, an environmental catastrophe is headed straight for North America and the world is over as they know it. As the two musicians contemplate their imminent destruction, they wistfully question what it would take to reunite.
“If the world was ending, you’d come over, right?/ The sky’d be fallin’ and I’d hold you tight/ And there wouldn’t be a reason why/ We would even have to say goodbye/ If the world was ending, you’d come over, right?/ Right?” the two sing on the wistful chorus over sparse piano and echoing percussion.
“I discovered JP’s music and posted about him around the same time he was listening to Inner Monologue,” Michaels tells Billboard of how the pair’s collaboration came about. “Since we were fans of each other’s music, we got together for a writing session. The song is about that person in your life who you would come back to if the world was ending, when nothing else matter and there is nothing left to hold you back.”
“Writing this song with Julia was one of the most creative experiences of my life,” Saxe adds. “We wrote it the day we met and recorded it that same day.”
Produced by Billie Eilish‘s main collaborator and brother Finneas, “If The World Was Ending” is Toronto-born Saxe’s third new release since signing with Arista Records earlier this summer. It follows singles “Same Room” and the Guapdad 4000-assisted “Women Who Look Like You.”
Watch the cinematic video below.