The Shade

This uplifting synthy rocker finds Metric frontwoman Emily Haines outlining her wishes for life and love: A blade of grass, a grain of sand The moonlit sea, to hold your hand The first single off Pagans In Vegas, it was written and recorded at the Beastie Boys' Oscilloscope Studios in New York City and at Metric's own Giant Studios in Toronto. The song was released on May 11, 2015.

The music video is a collection of scenes of Metric performing the song on a sun-drenched rooftop, interspersed with a variety of shots including landfills, cityscapes, and serene nature images. Emily Haines explained the clip to Rolling Stone: "We live in a world inundated with imagery. Pictures, videos and graphics permeate our consciousness all hours of the day. That's what we wanted to capture in 'The Shade': humanity and nature caught in patterns and loops of beauty, destruction and decay." "When I say, 'I want it all,' this is what I'm talking about. Look at the world around you. Don't shy away from what you see, even if it's ugly. Own up to yourself and be prepared to be thrown your share of shade."

The album title was something that Emily Haines came up with at the last minute. "We've never named an album this late. The album had been done for a while, and I think in terms of deadlines, we were down to about 20 minutes," guitarist Jimmy Shaw told Consequence of Sound. "Emily was in an airport, and she said, 'I've got it, I got the title,' and she texted me 'Pagans in Vegas'. It was a lyric from a song that got cut." He further explained to Pop Matters: "Metric has always ridden this line between being like a mainstream band, a pop band, but also like an indie band, and literally we are about as independent as you can get as a band. But we don't sort of succumb to the prerequisite guitar tones that that usually associates with. So we've always kinda played this weird line. And for us, like, when I heard that title, it felt very much right because it's who we've always kind of been. The people with ethics and a conscience in a place where you're really not supposed to have one."