Simple Days - Behind The Scenes
When I wrote Simple Days, I was in a space where I needed something soothing—something that would help me let go of stress and anxiety. The song became that for me. It’s about finding joy in uncomplicated moments, and I wanted it to be a de-stresser, something I could listen to in a hot bath and feel my worries slip away.
The inspiration came from Perfect Days, a film I watched this summer. It’s all about appreciating a simple life, and it really stuck with me. It made me think about how often we overlook those small, quiet moments that make up most of our lives. I highly recommend the film to anyone who feels like they need a reminder to slow down and appreciate the ordinary.
When I first started planning the music video, my original idea was to set it in Japan, featuring a young man and woman on a summer vacation. I was pretty fixated on this concept and spent a lot of time planning out the shots. I had even used a style I found while writing my MidJourney style reference guide, called Twilight (page 28). The style creates these stunning cumulonimbus clouds with deep, rich blues and purples, and I thought it would be perfect for the video. But the problem was that the clothing and furniture always felt too baroque, too complicated for the simple, relaxing vibe I wanted.
Sometimes, no matter how much time and energy you put into something, you have to let go and start again. That’s what happened here. I shifted directions and combined the Twilight style with another called Hiroshi (page 48), which is named after the artist Hiroshi Nagai. Instead of a vacation concept, I went with something more abstract—a series of simple, painting-like scenes of couples. It felt more fitting for what I wanted to express: calmness, simplicity, and relaxation.
Color plays a huge role in that. I focused on blue because it’s known to be the most relaxing color, and I wanted viewers to feel a sense of peace when they watched the video. For me, large clouds, especially cumulonimbus clouds, are incredibly calming. They remind me of blankets, of comfort and warmth. I knew that video generators would treat the clouds like smoke, moving them too fast, but I decided to embrace that as a stylistic choice. In some shots, it almost feels like a time-lapse—everything is moving except the characters.
That visual represents relaxation to me: being lost in time, watching the world go by without any sense of urgency, but without feeling like you’re wasting time either. It’s about appreciating the world for what it is in that moment. I hope that viewers can take that feeling with them after watching Simple Days.
Ultimately, what I want people to take away from the song and the video is that the simple moments in life can be just as beautiful, if not more so, than the big events. We spend 99% of our time in those small, quiet moments, and if we learn to appreciate them, we can find happiness almost all the time. It’s a kind of mindfulness, being present and grateful for things like the comfort of your sofa, the smell of fresh laundry, or the way sunlight filters through the blinds. Simple Days is about finding joy in those moments.
