Shawn Mendes Uses Smoky NYC Skyline to Promote New Single

Shawn Mendes left fans both excited and understandably confused when he surprise-announced he had a new single on the way ... yet used a photo of a smoke-covered NYC to promote the new tune.

Mendes broke his musical hiatus Friday with the release of "What the Hell Are We Dying For?" but when he announced the single on Thursday, he also shared art showing the orange-tinted NYC skyline.

For the most part, fans were happy, as it's been about a year since Shawn dropped new music ... but there were also comments like, "Extremely poor taste" and "I thought this was parody" regarding the image Shawn used to promote the single.

One positive though -- Shawn says a portion of the proceeds will go to the Canadian Red Cross -- an org that's been on the frontlines assisting with the wildfires raging so badly across the country, it's smoked out multiple states in America's northeast.

As for the song's lyrics ... it opens up with "Smoke in the air, the city's burnin' down. I wanna speak, but I don't make a sound. Locked in my mind, you're all I think about. I wanna save us but I don't know how."