The Weeknd has shared the Ariana Grande-assisted remix to his latest After Hours single “Save Your Tears.” The highly anticipated release marks the third collaboration between the two diamond-selling musicians.
“Save Your Tears (Remix)” arrives with an official animated video directed by Jack Brown and produced by Blinkink. In the visual, The Weeknd is portrayed in the classic attire of his After Hours era: a bright red suit jacket paired in contrast with his black shirt, pants, shoes, and gloves. His character resembles the singer as he presented in “Heartless” and “Blinding Lights” before appearing with more and more bandages with each new visual leading up to the album release.
When The Weeknd’s character appears halfway through the “Save Your Tears (Remix)” visual, he is revealed as the figure operating the machinery that has been building a life-sized doll of Grande from the start. Beginning with her head, which dons the singer’s iconic ponytail, Grande travels down a conveyor belt that makes her up and pieces her together under The Weeknd’s control.
“Met you once under a Pisces moon / I kept my distance ‘cause I know that you / Don’t like when I’m with nobody else / Couldn’t help it, I put you through hell,” Grande sings on the song’s second verse, which appears in place of The Weeknd’s usual third verse.
The remix transforms “Save Your Tears” into a harmony-filled call-and-response when paired with the original. Grande’s added verse correlates with The Weeknd’s existing second verse, which is left off of the new recording, where he sings: “You could’ve asked me why I broke your heart / You could’ve told me that you fell apart / But you walked past me like I wasn’t there / And just pretended like you didn’t care.”
Rather than tacking a verse onto an existing, already successful track (“Save Your Tears” peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100), Grande offered layers of harmonies and soft whistle tones throughout the song in her unmistakable timbre.
The pair most recently teamed up towards the end of 2020 on “Off The Table,” a call-and-response deep cut from Grande’s sixth studio album Positions. The track marked the two singer’s first collaboration since 2014’s My Everything single “Love Me Harder,” which peaked at No. 7 on the Hot 100. As two artists who frequently blur the lines between R&B and pop, The Weeknd and Grande are expert collaborators.
“Save Your Tears” is the fourth official single from The Weeknd’s 2x platinum album After Hours. Currently No. 1 at Top 40 Radio, it follows “In Your Eyes,” “Blinding Lights” and “Heartless” as the most recent piece of the album’s still unfolding narrative. This week, “Blinding Lights” extended its record for most weeks spent in the top 10 of the Hot 100 with 57 weeks. It previously held the No. 1 spot for four weeks.
The Weeknd’s “Save Your Tears (Remix)” featuring Ariana Grande is out now and can be purchased here.
