When You Die

"When You Die"
Single by MGMT
from the album Little Dark Age
Released	December 12, 2017
Recorded	2017
Genre	Psychedelic pop neo-psychedelia gothic rock
Length	4:23
Label	Columbia
Composer(s)	Andrew VanWyngarden Ben Goldwasser Ariel Pink
Lyricist(s)	VanWyngarden Pink
Producer(s)	MGMT Patrick Wimberly Dave Fridmann
MGMT singles chronology
"Little Dark Age" (2017) "When You Die" (2017) "Hand It Over" (2018)

"When You Die" is a song by American pop and rock band MGMT, and the second single from the band's fourth studio album Little Dark Age. It was released worldwide on December 12, 2017, through Columbia Records.

The song was recorded in 2017. It was co-written by Ariel Pink, who also plays guitar on the song.^[1]

The song's artwork is based on an illustration in The Heart of Man; Either a Temple of God, or a Habitation of Satan; Represented in Ten Emblematical Figures, an 1851 book by German religious figure Johannes Evangelista Gossner.

The music video was directed by Mike Burakoff and Hallie Cooper-Novack, and was released on December 12, 2017 through The New Yorker along with the audio release. The video stars Alex Karpovsky and Lucy Kaminsky, with Karpovsky playing a failing magician that appears to die and watch his death through a psychedelic trip presumably in purgatory.^[3]

The video has been viewed 33 million times through the band's official Vevo account on YouTube.^[4]

MGMT

• Andrew VanWyngarden – vocals, guitar, percussion, producer
• Ben Goldwasser – synthesizer, vocals, flute, producer

Additional Personnel

• Ariel Pink – guitar, background vocals
• Patrick Wimberly – percussion, production, engineering
• Dave Fridmann – production, engineering, mixing
• Connan Mockasin – background vocals
• Sébastien Tellier – background vocals