How's It Going to Be

"How's It Going to Be" is a song by the American rock band Third Eye Blind, featured on their 1997 self-titled album. The B-side is a non-album track entitled "Horror Show", written by guitarist Kevin Cadogan and vocalist Stephan Jenkins. According to Jenkins, the song deals with the trauma of the ending of a relationship and how the transition from friends to acquaintances is a brutal one. It is one of the few songs by the band to feature an autoharp.^[1]

Released as a single, "How's It Going to Be" reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, to become the band's third top 10 single, following "Semi-Charmed Life" and "Jumper".^[2] In the UK, the single peaked at number 51.

The band performed the song during their appearance on Saturday Night Live in April 1998.

Song meaning

"The song’s inspiration came about when Third Eye guitarist Kevin Cadogen was tinkering around with an autoharp, ‘which is a vintage-sounding instrument that you can’t really play without it having a sort of nostalgic sound to it. That inspired this emotional condition in me,’ Jenkins says. That condition surrounds the idea of lost love, of realizing that there may come a despairing day when the two meet and no longer know each other. ‘I think we all feel violated when we find that a relationship actually has time limits, that it’s not unconditional. That’s the thing that aches in people,’ he explains. ‘That’s something everybody can relate to, even when you know you have no business being with this person anymore.’” –From a Billboard interview with Stephan Jenkins, 1998. ^[3]

Charts

References