Swedish singer-songwriter Tove Lo tries to guess lyrics from some of her best known songs. She teaches us the proper pronunciation of her name, discusses her struggles with bulimia as a teen, and describes how the song "Habits (Stay High)" changed her life.
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00:00 How am I going to say this without making this too dirty?
00:03 Hi, I'm Tove Lo, and I'm going to talk about some of my lyrics.
00:06 Thank you.
00:14 Oh.
00:16 "Je m'appelle Tove, get the show on the road, I'm down for one night, let's go."
00:22 That's from mine and Jax Jones' song, "J'Acque."
00:27 "Je m'appelle Tove, get the show on the road, I'm down for one night, let's go."
00:31 How did this come about?
00:33 We had a session, I think we were talking about past flirtations or something,
00:41 and I just told a story about a French guy that I had met in London,
00:46 and then the song kind of wrote itself, I don't know.
00:50 My name.
00:52 How to pronounce it?
00:55 The Swedish way is Tove Lo.
00:57 So my name is Tove, been my name my whole life.
01:00 Tove Lo has been my nickname my whole life, so I just kind of kept it.
01:04 But it's kind of like when you're a non-English speaker,
01:08 you're kind of so used to English-fying your name,
01:11 like making it have an English tone to it so that people can pick it up easier.
01:16 So to me, to say Tove Lo was not that big of a deal,
01:19 because everywhere outside of Sweden they would say Tove Lo,
01:21 like in France and Spain, everywhere, and they wouldn't adapt.
01:24 They're just like, "It's Tove Lo, what are you talking about?
01:27 You don't know your name."
01:27 I feel like I just kind of adapted the international way,
01:31 but then obviously RuPaul came and set the record straight,
01:34 like, "No, no, no, this is how you say it."
01:35 With extra special guest judge, Tove Lo.
01:38 And then Megan Thee Stallion doubled down and taught us all really how to say it.
01:42 Now I'm like, "It's out there, so let's all do it the Swedish way."
01:51 I still answer to both, I'm not that precious about it.
01:54 "Bite me, babe, you make me love the pain."
01:55 Oh, bite me, babe, you make...
01:58 Oh, from "Say It," yeah.
01:59 I mean, this is just like a knowing it's bad for you,
02:07 but kind of loving it at the same time.
02:09 There's the...
02:10 Hold on, I'm going to say this without making this too dirty.
02:13 There's a sexual way, and then there's the love and life way,
02:17 which I think you should kind of stay away from,
02:19 but kind of the other way, if you're both into it, can be fun,
02:21 which is what this line is about.
02:23 "Boy meets, boy meets, girl meets girl.
02:26 This is the best place in the world."
02:27 From "Influence."
02:30 With this line, I want it to be a little bit clever
02:39 and kind of showing that all love is welcome at this party kind of thing.
02:44 And yeah, I think it's pretty cute.
02:45 Like the crowd always yells it back at me, and it's, yeah, flirty and fun.
02:49 Thank you.
02:49 Oh, from "Bitches."
02:53 "All the girls stare at me, drop lip, drippin' in harmony like fifth."
02:57 It's just dirty and hot about girls being wet,
03:08 and a little shout out to Fifth Harmony, which is all hot girls.
03:11 I wrote this song in 2017, I think,
03:14 and I just thought it'd be more fun to have more girls sing it with me.
03:18 Elephant wrote her own verse to it, which I love,
03:20 which is so beautiful and clever.
03:22 And she kind of made it more about women being there for each other and being badass.
03:26 And then the rest of the song is just very sexual and fun.
03:28 This is from "Suburbia."
03:34 It's kind of sassy, but it's actually really vulnerable.
03:46 Being queer, but I'm still in a straight marriage with a straight person.
03:50 And I have this feeling of fear of that taking away from my queerness.
03:55 And also, I think, growing up very traditionally,
03:58 as soon as we do anything that's kind of traditional and more fits the norm,
04:01 we get so much love and cheer.
04:03 And it's like, "Oh, you know, it's so great. Oh, you are normal."
04:06 Kind of like that.
04:08 And I don't mean to shit on people who want to have that.
04:12 I think it's totally, you know, everyone should live the life that they want, you know?
04:15 And a few are lucky to get to do that.
04:18 But I just feel, for me, I've never wanted a traditional life in that way.
04:22 And so I've had this fear of like, "Okay, once I take that first step,
04:26 am I just going to fall into living in the suburbs with fake grass and kids
04:31 and be like chit-chatting to the neighbor, like, "Ha ha ha, what do you do with your flowers?"
04:34 I don't know.
04:35 All those thoughts went through my head when I got married.
04:38 And obviously, I told my husband about it.
04:39 And he's like, "Okay, I feel the same way.
04:44 I also, I want our life to be just what we want it to be,
04:48 not what the world is kind of trying to tell you it should be."
04:50 "Cover the basics, it's pretty easy. He's a bitch with some expectations."
04:54 This is from Glad He's Gone.
05:02 It's so funny.
05:09 I had so many of my friends reach out to me and like,
05:11 "It's a song about me," when I put it out.
05:13 Because I think maybe I've had some friends with this who've dated some questionable people.
05:17 I think "bitch" can mean so many things.
05:19 And here it's just about this person who doesn't give anything but expects everything.
05:24 Not all men, but a lot of men just expect a lot but give nothing in return.
05:31 And then I see, I've seen so many of my friends just like,
05:34 try and stick it out with these guys and they're going to change,
05:36 it's going to get better and just like, "It's just so easy. He's just not it.
05:39 Like, he's just not it. Just cut it."
05:41 One of the craziest shoots I've ever done.
05:48 But you can tell, it's like such a beautiful piece of work.
05:50 Petro's in Argentina and was sleeping.
05:54 I was really tired.
05:54 I think we're about to do our last show of that run.
05:57 And my boyfriend, well now husband, he was like, "Babe, wake the fuck up."
06:05 And I was like, "Don't talk to me. I am sleeping. How dare you?"
06:09 He's like, "Wake up." I'm like, "Don't."
06:11 He's like, "What is it?"
06:13 And then he's like, shows me his phone and he just says like,
06:17 "Grammy nominated video of the year."
06:19 And he's just glad he's gone. I just lost it.
06:21 Started crying. I was just so happy.
06:23 And you know, you have this feeling of like, you can't compete in music and all that.
06:26 But that recognition felt so huge to me.
06:30 Thank you.
06:32 Counting all the calories. Now get them up. Body positivity. Help me out.
06:35 This is from Grapefruit.
06:37 Counting all the calories. Now get them up.
06:41 It's just me, I guess, thinking very bluntly about
06:45 my past when I was struggling with bulimia growing up as a teenager.
06:48 Counting all the calories is about the control that would make me feel like I was in control.
06:52 And then when I get them up, it's obviously the purging that would always make me feel better in
06:57 the moment, but then horrible. Body positivity would help me sometimes just try to learn how
07:01 to love my body. And then just, I guess, in general, it's just hard to do on your own.
07:04 You need therapy. You need help. You need support around you.
07:07 I went to a lot of therapy to break the behavior.
07:09 And then I went to therapy to deal with what was actually going on,
07:12 you know, underneath the behavior. Because I think it's rarely about food in the end,
07:17 you know, or how you look. It's about something else.
07:19 So just really taking the time and getting better.
07:24 And then, you know, I was nervous when I started putting out music and kind of being in the public
07:27 eye because the comments you get and how people, you know, dissect your looks from top to bottom.
07:32 So it kind of weirdly made me feel stronger and better and that it was important that I
07:36 stayed on top of it, taking the time to do therapy and really like work it all out.
07:41 I mean, I've been well for a long time now, but it took a long time as well.
07:44 Of course.
07:47 Staying in my paper tent where the fun ain't got no end.
07:49 Can't go home alone again, need someone to numb the pain.
07:52 The song that changed my life.
07:53 From Habits, "Stay High," obviously.
07:56 Can't go home alone again, need someone to numb the pain.
08:01 During the time when I wrote this, I was, you know, traveling, writing songs for other people.
08:07 I was still kind of in limbo about do I want to be an artist or not?
08:11 Because I love this life as a writer. I thought it was so much fun.
08:13 I just had this feeling with the song. I'm like, I cannot give this away.
08:16 And so I kind of put into the motion and I put it out independently.
08:20 And I thought I've kind of found my sound with this song. I'm on a roll now.
08:24 I'm going to just have this as my indie side project and then I'll...
08:27 The songwriting will be my main thing, but I will have my own outlet.
08:31 Just the amount of calls and texts and just from all different label people and A&Rs that
08:37 I had met with through songwriting.
08:39 They're just like, "Why haven't you shown me this? What the fuck is this? This is you.
08:43 I get it now. I see it."
08:44 And I was just kind of like, "Oh, okay."
08:47 And then it felt like overnight.
08:49 From having done it for so long, it happening like that, having played maybe five shows
08:55 in Sweden and then going straight to Austin, South by, and having fans across the world.
09:01 It was so wild. It made my dreams come true.
09:03 Yeah.