Carly Rae Jepsen has released “Don’t Leave Me on the Dance Floor,” the latest single from her forthcoming 24-track double album Day and Night, arriving September 18 via Interscope Records. The song marks the first preview of the album’s “night” side, shifting from the warmer pop textures of earlier singles “On Wires” and “After All” toward a bigger, club-oriented sound.
Written by Jepsen with producers CJ Baran and Arthur Besnainou, “Don’t Leave Me on the Dance Floor” takes the fear of abandonment and pushes it directly into euphoric pop territory. Jepsen developed the song after traveling from recording sessions in Sweden to London, where seeing ABBA Voyage inspired her to pursue an ABBA-influenced melody paired with contemporary production. The resulting track hinges on the kind of immediate, participatory hook that has long been central to Jepsen’s strongest pop writing.
The official video gives the song’s emotional conflict a more theatrical setting. Playwright, actor and screenwriter Jeremy O. Harris makes his music video directorial debut with the visual, which stars Alden Ehrenreich alongside Jepsen and Olivia Washington. After Ehrenreich’s character receives a painful phone call from his lover, played by Washington, he enters a dance hall and begins working through the aftermath physically, moving beneath chandeliers and a disco ball while Jepsen performs.
Marc Crousillat, whose credits include choreography for Clairo’s “Terrapin” video, handled choreography for the project. The visual turns the dance floor into both an escape and a confrontation, mirroring a song that places romantic uncertainty inside music engineered for movement.
“Don’t Leave Me on the Dance Floor” also clarifies the structure of Day and Night. Jepsen has positioned the double album around two complementary sides of her pop instincts. The previously released “On Wires” and “After All” introduced the “day” portion through more sunlit and left-field arrangements, while the first “night” track moves toward maximalist dance-pop and heightened emotional release.
The September release will add another major chapter to a catalog that has made Jepsen one of modern pop’s most enduring cult figures. Her 2012 breakthrough “Call Me Maybe” became an international phenomenon, but 2015’s E•MO•TION reshaped the trajectory of her career, developing into a modern pop landmark and establishing a devoted audience that followed her through Dedicated, The Loneliest Time, The Loveliest Time and her acclaimed B-sides collections.
Following the release of Day and Night, Jepsen will headline All Things Go Festival in New York City on September 27, marking her first live performance of 2026.
With “Don’t Leave Me on the Dance Floor,” Jepsen opens the darker half of Day and Night by doing what she does best: finding the point where romantic anxiety, melodic precision and ecstatic pop become almost impossible to separate.
Featured image credit: Vince Aung
