Glad He's Gone

Album: Sunshine Kitty (2019)
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  • Lyrics
  • Here, Tove Lo comforts her girlfriend who has just been through a painful breakup.

    I love you, he never loved you
    He never saw the pretty things in you that I do

    "It's about friendship and love," Tove said of the song. "It's the obligatory pep-talk you give your girlfriend when she's going through a breakup."
  • The song finds Tove Lo watching her friend endure a toxic relationship from the sidelines. "When they finally break up, it's kind of like a celebration because you get your partner in crime back," she explained to
  • Tove-Lo wrote the song with her fellow Swede, Johan Shellback. A frequent collaborator of Max Martin, his other writing credits include Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger," Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble" and Ed Sheeran's "I Don't Care." His previous collaborations with Tove Lo include her 2014 single "Talking Body."
  • Tove Lo and Shellback penned the song with Ludvig Söderberg and Jakob Jerlström in a basement studio during a Swedish snowstorm.

    The track started with a guitar melody played by Shellback on guitar, over which Tove Lo began singing the phrase "glad he's gone."

    "It kinda just came out and we all started talking about what that would mean," she recalled to Billboard, adding with a laugh, "It could be a murder-y song, which would feel really dark, and not really the point of it."

    As Tove Lo was personally "happily in love" at the time she penned the song, she began to think instead about friends ending bad relationships. "We all have friends dating an idiot that we want them to get rid of," she said. "It's just a celebration when they finally pull the trigger on that, but you still need to be the supportive friend and give them the love and support that they need."
  • Directed by Vania Heymann and Gal Muggia, the song's music video was shot in Kiev over four days and nights. The clip shows Tove Lo taking a phone call from her friend who has just dumped her toxic boyfriend. We then see her absentmindedly wandering to the (literal) ends of the Earth, as she comforts her pal.
  • Tove Lo and Shellback wrote "Glad He's Gone" in the studio while drinking vodka straight-up. "Shellback was like, 'I figured out how to not get a hangover,'" Lo recalled to Billboard. "And then you drink these rehydration drinks on the side. I'm pretty sure I still got a hangover, but it felt very grown-up or something. There were definitely some drunken experimental sessions."
  • Tove Lo moved to Los Angeles prior to recording Sunshine Kitty, but returned back home to Sweden to record with Shellback. The trip down memory lane inspired this song. She explained to The Sun: "I hung out with some of my girlfriends at home who I grew up with and I just remember this unconditional support and love.

    Then there's the feeling of happiness that you got your partner in crime back. If your friend dates someone that you don't like, it's really hard. You kind of have to accept that it's their choice but as teenagers we did not accept that. It's a breakup song but it's also a supportive friends song."
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