Shine

Years & Years vocalist Olly Alexander wrote this song about his boyfriend Neil Arnin-Smith, who is the violinist in the group Clean Bandit. The lyrics evoke the dizzying experience of falling in love as we hear Alexander murmur, "It's you that I've been waiting to find," over shimmering, glittery synth grooves.

The music video finds the Years & Years trio in a mysterious house as they wander into a glaring light. Olly Alexander explained that, "the song is about the overwhelming and unstable feeling of falling in love and we wanted to use light to represent that feeling. We wanted the light to be this powerful supernatural force and we took inspiration from films like ET, Poltergeist and Close Encounters."

The song was released as the fifth single from Communion. Asked by Digital Spy why the album was titled Communion, Alexander replied: "Well it's called Communion because when I looked at all the songs - the title came up at the end - and I looked at all the song titles, they all sounded very spiritual, like: 'Shine' and 'Take Shelter' and 'Worship.' I really like spiritual imagery, like the lyrics - I've always loved that." "I wanted the words, I wanted the title to possibly reference that, and all the songs are about sex or relationships, so Communion just was perfect, because it was a communion of spirit, a communion of bodies, a communion of people."