On the topic of love, it really, really sucks when your crush doesn’t love you back. Even worse, it sucks more when they love someone else. Conan Gray explores those feelings of envy and yearning in his wistful new “Heather” video.
“Why would you ever kiss me? I’m not even half, as pretty / You gave her your sweater / It’s just polyester, but you like her better / I wish I were Heather,” he sings in the chorus, as the clip shows the 21-year-old singer-songwriter at home, slowly dressing himself and styling his hair to how Heather might.
“When I was in high school, I had a crush on the same one person all four years. But that one person did not love me back, instead my crush liked a girl named heather,” Gray said in a press statement. “Heather was gentle and beautiful, inside and out. She was warm like a summer day, and had so many friends. She was soft and so easily lovable— everything I am not. The ‘Heather’ video is my way of becoming all of the things that I envy about Heather. I would’ve done anything to be like her. Wear the right pretty clothes and act the right effortless way. Reject all the things that made me who I am. Anything to be loved back by the person I loved. Anything to be their first choice. The slow transformation throughout the video was made to represent the feminine and masculine traits I constantly switched between in order to become who I knew my crush would like. Somebody soft and sweet. Somebody like Heather.”
“Heather” remains a standout track from Gray’s debut album, Kid Krow, and the name has even turned into a term on TikTok to describe a beautiful girl.
Watch the “Heather” video below.
