Sunshine Kitty

“I have journals from when I was nine years old,” Swedish-born singer Tove Lo tells Apple Music. “The ones from my teenage years up to my early twenties are filled with these hilarious, detailed stories about people I was dating or hooking up with.” These tales are dispersed throughout her fourth album, Sunshine Kitty—a bright collection that delivers synth-pop with a forthright edge. “All over this record, there’s a mix of current love, future fears, being naive, and actual people in my life." In this track-by-track guide, Tove shares the stories of each song on Sunshine Kitty.

Gritty Pretty (Intro)
“There’s a few songs about certain characters in my life. One of them—Mateo—is the guy getting a phone call in this song. His friends support him through his breakup with Uma, and Uma is my best friend who calls me in the ‘Glad He’s Gone’ video. There’s little connections that show that the album is one world.”

Glad He’s Gone
“You know what’s best for your friends, and you want to make sure that the person they date is good for them. When they’re dating someone and you feel like they’re not really themselves and that your relationship isn’t what it used to be, you’re bummed. When they break up, you feel for them because they’re sad, but at the same time you’re also happy to have your partner in crime back.”

Bad as the Boys (feat. ALMA)
“‘Bad as the Boys’ is based on one of my first crushes that I had on a girl. When I realized that I was attracted to girls as much as boys, it was an exciting but confusing feeling. I was writing this song with Ludvig Söderberg and Jakob Jerlström, and right away we felt that it was nostalgic, but it needed to have some kind of pain. I really wanted another girl on it who also is into girls. ALMA is a good friend of mine with a beautiful voice. She’s always very open. I asked her, ‘Do you relate to this?’ And she said, ‘Are you fucking kidding me? Yes.’”

Sweettalk My Heart
“This was the first song I wrote where I felt, ‘Am I making my fourth album right now? Is this where it’s going to go?’ This song is about being happy with the ability to be naive when it comes to love. It's not about being cynical, it's about choosing to believe someone because you feel them in the moment.”

Stay Over
“‘Stay Over’ is about luring someone into something physical. It’s a very sexual song that’s about instant infatuation and feeling like you’re not in a place where you should go for it because you’ve just been through something hard, but the attraction and instant connection you feel makes it impossible to not want to try.”

Are U gonna tell her? (feat. Mc Zaac)
“This came out of a drunken experimental session with Ludvig and Jakob. They played the track and I said, ‘This is fucking awesome. What do we do on this?’ The song is about a guilt hookup and making mistakes. I really wanted to work with a Brazilian artist because I have so much love for Brazil; Mc Zaac was someone that a lot of people recommended. We listened to his music and felt that his voice would be perfect. It was tricky, because he doesn’t speak English, and none of his team did either. We ended up finding someone to translate a very interesting session on FaceTime.”

Jacques
“Me and Jax Jones had two amazing sessions in London—this was one of the songs that came out of that. This is the club banger on the record. I love house and techno, and I wanted a song with that.”

Mateo
“‘Mateo’ is based on a guy that doesn’t even know what he puts people who are falling for him through. Growing up, I was never the first one to be noticed. I was competing with beautiful girls who wanted the same guy as me that would always get the attention. You ask yourself, ‘How do I get their attention if I have different things to offer?’ It’s always embarrassing to be in love with the one person that everyone also wants.”

Come Undone
“When you’ve met someone and you’re really in love, you’re over the moon and it feels like you’re floating on clouds. Everything is perfect. Then you have your first fight and feel like everything is falling apart and that you’ll never get back to where you were. You feel as if you’ve ruined everything because of just one fight.”

Equally Lost (feat. Doja Cat)
“I got that song title while I was with some friends of mine at the club. I was telling them, ‘I need to get a good title. I need to spark something in me lyrically.’ I asked them to tell me about things they did when they went through hard times, and they told me that they were ‘equally lost’ and both brokenhearted, trying to find something to ease the pain. I’d been following Doja Cat and listened to her a lot and was loving her voice. I reached out and asked her if she would want to be on a song with me, and she was super excited and said, ‘I can kill this.’”

Really Don’t Like U (feat. Kylie Minogue)
“I met Kylie Minogue in Hong Kong. We played at the same charity, and she said, ‘It would be so fun to do a song together sometime.’ I was writing for the album and her words were at the back of my mind. When I wrote this song, I felt like it could be the perfect one for her voice. I reached out not knowing if it would even work, but she loved it and was down. She’s had such a long, amazing career, and you don’t know what to expect when you talk to anyone in her position. It was a surreal moment.”

Shifted
“Sometimes you have to let the lyrics be the carrying moments. We had the chorus first and worked the bouncy bassline in later.”

Mistaken
“This song is the opposite end of confidence. You’re admitting to your weird jealousies. It’s a blunt and honest song about being jealous of someone’s ex, or comparing yourself to someone in the past because you’re not enough. It’s me asking someone to help me not feel these feelings. It’s something that you don’t want to have ask.”

Anywhere U Go
“It’s about my move to LA. I moved there for a person, but I didn’t tell them that I moved there for them because I didn’t want to create any pressure. It was hard at first, and I wrote this song out of frustration of not feeling at home there. There’s also hopefulness and feeling good for taking that leap. Even if it’s a struggle, I’m still hopeful.”