https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX8-YzMKZhQ

British singer-songwriter Sam Smith released “Too Good at Goodbyes” today, the first single from the follow-up album to 2014’s twice-platinum In the Lonely Hour.

Smith did an interview with Beats1 DJ Zane Lowe earlier this week and talked about the record:

“This song is about me and about a relationship I was in…What I’ve been through relationship-wise the last year has made me a lot stronger…and I feel like I’ve learned some lessons from it. This album actually is not all about me. There’s about four songs that are about me, and the rest are about different things and different people in my life and what they’ve gone through.”

He also told Lowe that he’s still single:

“The only thing is that I’m still very, very single. I think I’m even more single than I was when I released In the Lonely Hour. So, I’m insanely single.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYnCmAHAOfX/?hl=en&taken-by=samsmithworld

He also talked about the album cover:

“My favorite flowers are dead flowers. I think the colors are really really beautiful. So for my album cover shoot…we got loads and loads of dead flowers, but it didn’t actually work out for the cover in the end. We had this beautiful picture that we made black and white and, I don’t know, it symbolizes goodbyes to me.”

And what fame has done to him:

“My fame and what happens when you become well known really scared me. I became very distant to my family and friends just because our lives weren’t relatable. So, that was really tough for me. When I’m not close to my family I freak out and I’m just not the best person I could be. Then, I’d say the best moments were just being here for them. For it to not be about me for one year was absolutely wonderful.”

Listen to the interview: