"By Your Side" is a song by Scottish DJ and producer

Calvin Harris Adam Richard Wiles (born 17 January 1984), known professionally as Calvin Harris, is a Scottish DJ, record producer, singer, and songwriter who has released six studio albums. His debut studio album, ''I Created Disco'', was released in June ...

featuring English singer

Tom Grennan Thomas Grennan (born 8 June 1995) is an English singer and songwriter from Bedford and is based in London. Grennan found fame as the guest vocalist on Chase & Status's "All Goes Wrong" in 2016. His debut album, ''Lighting Matches'', was releas ...

, released on 4 June 2021 via

Sony Music Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainment ...

Background

On 4 June 2021, Grennan shared a video on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, captioning it "this is going to be the summer we've all been waiting for." In an interview with

Apple Music Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Apple M ...

1's Zane Lowe, Harris said: "The first thing is I liked Grennan's voice a lot. I started following him on

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

. And I was struck by his positivity, his relentless positivity in his posts... So when I figured out what the song was going to sound like, he seemed like such an obvious choice."

Composition

Harris described the song as "nostalgic", and said: "In a nice way. The sort of thing that nobody else is making it, so that feels good. And regardless of how it does or whatever, it felt really nice to me."

Reception

Ellie Mullins of website ''We Rave You'' described "By Your Side" as the most essential summer anthem for 2021, writing that "Grennan's influence is heard and not just through the vocals either but also through the fun, upbeat guitars that can be found throughout" and "Harris is on top form with upbeat productions and synths that beg to be danced along to".

Music video

The music video was directed by

Emil Nava Emil William Capper Nava (born 29 March 1985) is a British music video director. After leaving school at 16, Emil started his career as a chef. He shot to fame after directing Jessie J's song " Do It Like A Dude". He has since directed over 1 ...

and released on 11 June 2021. It was described by Jason Heffler of EDM.com as "kaleidoscopic" and a "bubbly audiovisual project that ties in perfectly with the sun-kissed tune".

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Release history

References

{{Authority control 2021 singles 2021 songs Calvin Harris songs Songs written by Calvin Harris Songs written by Jamie Scott Songs written by John Newman (singer) Songs written by Mike Needle Songs written by Theo Hutchcraft Songs written by Tom Grennan Sony Music singles Tom Grennan songs