Dent May Unveils New Single 'Second Wind' Alongside Music Video
- Josh Kitchen
- 7 minutes ago
- 2 min read
By: Josh Kitchen / July 23, 2026
"Second wind, fill my sails and carry me again into the night / I will not be giving up the fight," Dent May sings on "Second Wind," the latest single from his upcoming seventh album, The Big One. It's another superbly polished and expertly crafted pop tune ahead of the album's release on August 14, but its optimism isn't immediate. In the new video for "Second Wind," May quite literally dances his way to salvation.
"The song itself takes you on a journey from feeling exhausted and down to catching a second wind and finding the energy to get back out into the world,"
May tells me. That journey is vividly illustrated in the accompanying music video from auteur director Ambar Navarro. No stranger to whimsy, Navarro has previously directed videos for Sparks, Weyes Blood, and The Lemon Twigs, and alongside cinematographer Max Flick, she crafts a dreamlike fantasy that finds May dressed to the nines, dancing like a marionette as an unseen sandwoman pulls his imaginary strings.
"So tired, I don't know if I can do a thing right / Struggling now to keep open my eyes," May sings in his pajamas as he prepares for bed. From there, a literal splash of water sends us into his subconscious—a visual baptism of sorts—as May navigates a surreal dreamscape alongside a dummy version of himself that may or may not follow him back into the waking world.
Ahead of the album's release, May told me, "Ambar's visual instincts are incredible. Along with Max, who shot the video, they have this voracious creativity—they're just overflowing with ideas, and I love that." Voracious is the right word. There's plenty to take in, but Navarro never overwhelms the frame with kaleidoscopic excess. Instead, the dream unfolds like a Technicolor variety show from the 1960s, with May reacting to his increasingly bizarre predicament with the exaggerated physicality of classic television comedy.
"The idea actually came from my girlfriend, Allison. It was inspired by an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show where Dick Van Dyke plays a marionette in a dream sequence and Mary Tyler Moore is the puppeteer," May says.
It's the kind of inspiration Navarro transforms into something unmistakably her own, perfectly capturing the playful spirit and emotional core of the song. May continues: "I want to present actual ideas. Ambar's videos are always full of ideas too. They're not just about cultivating a mood or looking cool on camera. They're imaginative, they're playful, and they have something to say."
I won't spoil the ending, but as the song winds down and May sings, "This is not the end," he still can't help but look a little weary. Even after finding his second wind, there's always the dummy of it all.
