Synopsis

At the bottom of the ocean, a mermaid falls in love with a sailor from another world. Hoping to become his bride, she makes a wedding dress and rises to the surface with human legs. She searches for him through a bar and the city streets, but the land offers no reunion. Memories of their underwater romance interrupt her lonely journey, which ends with her waiting on a dock as her tail slowly returns.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was filmed in Los Angeles with cinematographer Steve Chivers and art director Alison Dominitz, both part of the regular production team used by the filmmaker.

• The fantasy casting was deliberate. The creative team wanted to challenge the lack of Black women being presented as traditional fantasy characters.

• The concept was shaped around the idea of an impossible romance. Making Sade's character a mermaid ensured that she and the sailor could never fully share the same world.

• The story was partly inspired by *The Little Mermaid*, though it takes a considerably darker and more tragic approach to the familiar human-underwater divide.

• Several underwater scenes were created with a "dry for wet" technique: performers and sets were filmed out of water and staged to appear submerged.

• The video marked the first time that technique was used in this filmmaker's music-video work.

• Sade had studied art at Saint Martin's and was closely involved in the visual development. The scenarios were shaped around giving her a character to act rather than simply presenting her as a recording artist.

• The video's romantic but melancholy imagery became one of Sade's most recognizable visual signatures, especially the striking contrast between the wedding dress, the grimy streets, and the deep blue underwater scenes.