Stitches - MTV Unplugged

The third single from Handwritten, this became the first song by Shawn Mendes to appear on a Billboard airplay chart when it debuted at #36 on Pop Songs in June 2015.

The song's music video was directed by Jon Jon Augustavo, who was also the man behind the lens on the Canadian's "Something Big" and "Life of the Party" clips. It finds Shawn getting beaten up in an empty parking lot by some unseen emotional force. Shawn has acting aspirations too. "The whole video is me getting beaten up by this thing that you can't see," he explained. "It was really fun. I got to do some acting in it and learn how to 'pretend' get hit. I love acting. I wanted to be an actor for a long time before I thought about singing. So I think definitely I'd love to be in movies." The final scene reveals that Shawn wasn't really getting beat up; it's all in his head. "Just filming the very last scene - I'm not all beat up anymore. I'm looking into the mirror and realizing that I was never hurt in the first place," he explained. "It was emotionally, the girl was hurting me."

The song was written by Daniel Parker, Teddy Geiger and Daniel "Daylight" Kyriakides. Shawn Mendes takes pride in his songwriting abilities, though, and wasn't sure he wanted to record a tune that he hadn't penned himself. Mendes told Radio.com, "I was thinking, I don't want to sing [it] because I only want to sing songs that I write." "I was like, 'Well, let me just listen to this,' and I fell in love," he continued. "And man, it was just so cool to hear that. I remember before I heard it, I was like 'I really want to write a song where the bridge is a repetitive something, that just drills itself into your head.'" "'Needle in a thread gotta get you outta my head,'" Mendes added quoting the song's bridge."When that bridge hit I was like, 'This is the song.' I had to have it."