A soundtrack song with a clear release history
“Sia Waving Goodbye” refers to the closing song from Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2016 fashion-horror film The Neon Demon. Unlike numerous Sia demos that circulated without authorization during the same period, “Waving Goodbye” was officially commissioned, licensed and commercially released. It is track 23—the final selection—on The Neon Demon (Original Soundtrack Album).
The film premiered in competition at Cannes on May 20, 2016; the festival’s own archive documents both its Official Selection status and press conference. The song consequently had a public theatrical life before its soundtrack date. Milan Records released the album digitally and on CD on June 24, the same day the film opened in the United States. Vinyl followed in July.
Apple Music dates both the album and song to June 24, 2016, while specialist archive Soundtrack.net confirms the Milan release date and 23-track sequence. June 24 is therefore the most useful publication date for the recording—not an earlier fan post or later upload.
There is no ambiguity about its status: this was an authorized soundtrack cut, not a leak, a This Is Acting outtake or a standalone Sia album single.
Credits—and one database discrepancy
Milan Records describes “Waving Goodbye” as the film’s original end-credits song, performed by Sia and produced by Diplo. Current Apple and Shazam metadata credit Sia Furler and Diplo—Thomas Wesley Pentz—as songwriters. They list Diplo and Djemba Djemba as producers and engineers, with Sia as vocalist. The Milan Records release page is especially authoritative about the track’s role and principal production credit.
Some secondary discographical lists add Andrew Swanson as a writer. That discrepancy should be acknowledged rather than silently resolved. The presently displayed Apple metadata names Sia and Diplo for composition and lyrics, whereas less direct databases sometimes include Swanson. Without liner documentation that conclusively reconciles the entries, the prudent formulation is that Sia and Diplo are the consistently documented writers, Diplo and Djemba Djemba produced the released recording, and an additional Swanson credit appears in some secondary sources.
The distinction also prevents a common misdescription. Diplo is not billed as a featured vocalist on the soundtrack track. Contemporary headlines sometimes called it a Sia-and-Diplo collaboration, which is reasonable at the creative level, but the commercial artist credit is Sia. Milan’s language—performed by Sia, produced by Diplo—is the clearest guide.
Cliff Martinez composed and produced the film’s electronic score. “Waving Goodbye,” however, is a separate song placed at the album’s conclusion. Martinez should not be credited as its songwriter merely because the album is filed under his name.
A breakup anthem built like machinery
The recording begins with emotional restraint but refuses to remain a conventional ballad. Sia’s verses sketch a relationship damaged by cruelty and divided loyalties. The chorus turns on a striking physical contradiction: one hand maintains contact while the other signals departure. Love and separation happen simultaneously.
Diplo and Djemba Djemba’s production gives that image an abrasive body. Electronic percussion clanks and surges; the arrangement repeatedly expands around Sia’s held notes, then strips back enough to expose the fatigue in her voice. The structure relies heavily on recurrence. Rather than offering a detailed narrative progression, it circles the moment when affection no longer justifies remaining.
That repetition can be heard as psychological realism. Leaving a destructive relationship is rarely represented here as a clean, triumphant break. The singer is still attached, still explaining and still waiting for the other person to experience the pain already inflicted. A contemporary Nylon reading treated it as a breakup song with implications of emotional abuse. That is a plausible interpretation of the text, though the recording never supplies a complete factual story about its couple.
Sia’s performance is central to the ambiguity. She can make the same melodic phrase sound accusatory, wounded and resolute. As the track grows louder, the vocal does not simply conquer the production; it strains against it. The result is less uncomplicated empowerment than the sound of resolve being manufactured under pressure.
Why it belongs at the end of The Neon Demon
The Neon Demon follows Jesse, an aspiring teenage model played by Elle Fanning, into a Los Angeles fashion world that treats beauty as both currency and consumable substance. Refn renders that world through polished surfaces, ritualized movement and increasingly grotesque violence. Martinez’s score supplies cold synthesizer architecture; pop and club tracks interrupt it at strategically heightened moments.
“Waving Goodbye” plays over the end credits, after the film’s final violent reversals. Milan explicitly calls it the original end-credits song. This placement changes how its breakup language registers. Heard independently, it can address one damaged couple. Heard after the film, its references to an enemy in the bed, self-preservation and belated pain seem to echo a world in which intimacy and predation have become indistinguishable.
That connection is interpretive, not evidence that Sia wrote from a particular character’s point of view. The lyrics do not name Jesse or narrate the plot. The song works more like an emotional afterimage, translating the film’s sterile horror into a recognizable pop vocabulary of hurt and departure.
Reviewers immediately noticed the effect. ComingSoon described it as a haunting ballad closing the album, while Stereogum heard a creeping, clanking electronic anthem. Those descriptions capture its unusual dual role: accessible enough to stand outside the picture, sonically unsettled enough not to offer reassuring closure.
Release, reception and correct labelling
Contemporary coverage appeared around the soundtrack’s commercial arrival. Pitchfork reported that the collaboration had been released while both film and album were available through Milan Records. NME similarly identified it as a track from The Neon Demon soundtrack, rather than announcing a new Sia studio-album campaign.
It did not receive the kind of artist-led visual rollout associated with “Chandelier,” “Elastic Heart” or “Cheap Thrills.” No directly relevant official Sia or Milan YouTube watch page could be verified, so an unofficial upload should not be substituted and presented as official. The legitimate recording remains available through authorized soundtrack services.
The song’s relative isolation in Sia’s catalogue has sometimes encouraged inaccurate labels: “unreleased,” “rare demo” or “featuring Diplo.” The first two are wrong. It was released worldwide on a licensed soundtrack. The last is incomplete unless it refers broadly to Diplo’s creative involvement; the displayed performer credit is Sia, while Diplo is a credited writer and producer.
“Waving Goodbye” is best understood as a purpose-built threshold. It connects Martinez’s sinister electronic environment to Sia’s arena-scaled pop, and it carries audiences from the film’s final image into reflection without softening what they have seen. Its title promises an ending, but the arrangement offers no peaceful exit. The hand is still holding on even as the goodbye begins.