Kings of Leon definitely know which way the wind blows. The family band tap into their weather jones in the new lyric video for “Cold Blue Dawn,” a groundbreaking feast for the eyes created in partnership with The Weather Channel that dropped on Wednesday morning (Sept. 30).
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The mesmerizing clip for the song from their upcoming 10th studio album, O My Beloved (Nov. 6) is a first-of-its-kind effort that employs satellite imagery from NASA’s Landsat program to spell out the lyrics to the gentle ballad about the dreams, and realities, of living a rock and roll lifestyle. Each letter of each lyric is spelled out using natural images of the Earth — mountains, rivers, coastlines, farmland — allowing viewers to zoom out and ponder the planet’s natural beauty before transitioning briefly to footage of the Followills enjoying the great outdoors.
According to a release, the collaboration came about after The Weather Channel cooked up a viral clip of weather formations set to the band’s 2010 single “Pyro” from their Come Around Sundown album earlier this month. After KOL reposted it on their socials, they spawned the idea for the collaborative clip featuring the Landsat footage and archival video of the group’s members.
“My family was already die-hard Weather Channel followers,” said singer Caleb Followill in a statement. “So we saw what they did with our song immediately and thought it was beautiful. We learned they were making music a larger part of what they do and we reached out immediately to try and do something together. They have been super cool to work with, and we hope this unlikely partnership keeps going because it makes a lot of sense to us.”
“As a kid I would visit the home of the King,” Followill sings somberly on the midtempo tune as abstract letters made up of rivers, ice formations, islands and deserts fill the screen. “Rock n’ roll fantasies and dreams/ Start to take hold/ Follow me down the road/ I imagined it different than this/ Long nights and long cars/ Lonely bliss.”
NASA’s long-running Landsat program, launched in 1972, has employed satellites to take millions of images of the Earth’s natural formations for use in agriculture, geology, forestry, surveillance and education.
“Weather isn’t the backdrop to our lives, it’s part of the story. It shapes the moments we remember, the places we love and the experiences that connect us, much like music,” said The Weather Company CEO Rohit Agarwal (the Weather Company is the parent to The Weather Channel). “This collaboration with Kings of Leon brings that idea to life in a completely new way, using science and creativity to remind us just how extraordinary it is to experience the world around us.”
O My Beloved, the band’s first full-length self-produced album, is the follow-up to 2024’s Can We Please Have Fun, which reached No. 35 on the Billboard 200 chart. Kings of Leon are slated to play the Austin City Limits Festival in Austin, Texas on Oct. 9.
Watch the “Cold Blue Dawn” video below.
