Still leaving fans of the show reeling from last week’s episode featuring a new song from Lana Del Rey, called “Watercolor Eyes,” Euphoria isn’t letting up on providing its viewers with music from beloved millennial artists (despite this being intended as a “Gen Z series”). Particularly songs, like “Watercolor Eyes,” that embody the narrative—are tailor-made for the show, or rather, a specific episode of it. This now includes “How Long,” the first single from Tove Lo since 2020, when she put out two songs at the beginning of the year, “Bikini Porn” and “Passion and Pain Taste the Same When I’m Weak,” followed by a deluxe edition of Sunshine Kitty with previously unreleased tracks, including “sadder badder cooler.”
It would appear that the quarantine hiatus did Tove Lo quite a bit of creative good (though it’s hard to say if marriage will do the same, for she just “tied the knot” with a “music industry type” named Charlie Twaddle—no, it’s not an ideal last name, and one hopes “Tove” will keep her own). How else can the dark, moody synths, furnished by producers A Strut and TimFromTheHouse, paired with Tove’s damning lyrics be explained?
Being that the third episode, “Ruminations: Big and Little Bullys,” ended with Nate (Jacob Elordi) showing up to Maddy’s (Alexa Demie) door, the audience is left to wonder what this will mean for Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), who has patiently been waiting every week to have her clandestine fuckfest with Nate, going so far as to keep him wanting more by waking up at four a.m. every morning to groom, therefore get his attention at school (which he does not give). Obviously, if Maddy ever found out, even though the two are no longer together, she would probably murder Cassie for the betrayal. And so, we have to speculate if Nate perhaps realized it would be more “practical” to return to Maddy. Maybe he’s secretly doing so as a display of love for Cassie, trying to protect her from ever feeling the wrath of this fiery, at times violent girl. The lyrics of Tove Lo’s “How Long” could lead us to think in either modality: 1) it’s being sung from Maddy’s perspective after she finds out about the betrayal or 2) it’s being sung from Cassie’s perspective after Nate decides he’d rather go back to Maddy.
The generalness (so far) of a chorus like, “How long have you loved another while I’m dreamin’ of us together?” won’t keep us guessing for much longer. Set to air during the January 30th episode, “You Who Cannot See, Think of Those Who Can,” the song also has tinges of “Are U Gonna Tell Her?” featuring MC Zaac, an equally as mercurial song from Sunshine Kitty that starts off cautiously enough before delving into total vocal earnestness. The careful music supervision of Euphoria is also present with the selection of Tove Lo for the season two soundtrack, for, like Del Rey, her entire discography explores the pleasures and pains of substance abuse (albeit with far more danceable rhythms). Tove Lo has even more of an edge because she’s been rocking face and body glitter since long before the show began to air. As for her oeuvre spotlighting the temptations of the night (that quickly turn into temptations of the day), such examples include a therapist (also played by Tove Lo) questioning her at the beginning of the video for “Moments” (itself looking like the plot of a Euphoria episode) with, “Why don’t you tell me why you did what you did? Was it the narcotics?” and Tove assuring, “I’m no chemist, but it’s good shit” on “Discotits.” Then, of course, there’s her drug homage masterpiece “Habits (Stay High)”—the song that put her on the international map, and included an accompanying video with a shooting and cinematography style that doesn’t look all that dissimilar from the “New Year’s Eve episode” of season two, otherwise known as: “Trying to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door.”
So clearly, it’s no wonder she’s “excited and honored to have ‘how long’ on the @euphoriaHBO soundtrack. It’s about love, betrayal and denial…” In short, everything going on among the love triangle of Nate, Cassie and Maddy—except Maddy is thus far totally unaware she’s even participating in a love triangle. And naturally, the extent of the betrayal is going to feel even more profound when she realizes Cassie was playing her all along, acting the part of her best friend while getting railed by the erstwhile “love of her life.”
Tove Lo even goes the extra kilometer with the bridge of this song, quoting both Woody Allen and Selena Gomez when she sings, “I know the heart wants what it wants,” and further adding, “There’s no way to prepare for burning, brutal rejection/I know it takes some time to feel the pain of losin’ a lie.” And yes, Maddy has long told herself the lie that Nate simply has to be worth all the drama—the agony and the ecstasy—in addition to sharing with Jules (Hunter Schafer) the idea that she doesn’t think she’s capable of ever having, or even wanting, “sweet” love. Which is, so far, what Nate appears to have with Cassie. A fact that would likely make Maddy all the more enraged as she asks through Tove Lo, “How, how long have you loved another/While I’m dreamin’ of us together?/She got the best of you (she did)/Part of me always knew (I knew)/How, how long have you tried to end it?/While I’m blamin’ myself to fix it?”
Other salient lines in the single include, “You give, you give me empty promises of love/You’re an honest man when you’re drunk/Wish I never asked ya, but it’s killin’ me to wonder.” And maybe, with this lyric in mind, Maddy is the one who invited Nate over to ask him point-blank if he is seeing somebody else. Then again, denial is a more powerful agent than La Mer. Ergo, perhaps even after the truth comes out, Maddy might still try to tell herself that she and Nate are “meant to be.” As much as Sid and Nancy.
Whatever happens next, “How Long” is yet another perfect example of how Euphoria so sublimely interweaves its musical selections into almost every scene.
