Stamen Power: Tove Lo and Stromae Offer “Des Fleurs” for Those in Heat

The wait for Tove Lo’s Estrus continues to brim with anticipation (making fans edge until the actual release date) as the sex positive Swede offers up yet another single following “I’m Your Girl Right?” And this time around, she’s not feeling nearly as insecure as she is on the latter, with “Des Fleurs” being a sultry, sex-drenched track that oozes the sentiment Tove Lo wants to get across with an album title like Estrus: that she’s in heat.

And the man she’s calling to—practically begging to enter—her boudoir is none other than Stromae. Someone she’s been a fan of since, as she tells it, 2015. The year she saw him live for the first time at Coachella. Thus, to be contacted by him with “this hypnotic track” (which Stromae eventually co-produced with Oscar Görres and A Strut) made her “write something very special to it.” Further adding, “I wrote it while I was in Aotearoa [a.k.a. New Zealand], looking out over the black sand beaches at Piha. I sent the idea to him not knowing if he would love it or hate it. Luckily he loved it.” Which was also lucky for the Tove fans as well, for Stromae is nothing if not one of the “gets” for any Euro girl (so, in a way, too bad Zara Larsson didn’t snag him [in lieu of Shakira] for the “Eurosummer” remix on Midnight Sun: Girls Trip).

Lulling the listener into a trance immediately with a piano opening that’s slightly reminiscent of SYML’s “I Wanted to Leave” (which Lana Del Rey herself sampled for “Paris, Texas”), Tove Lo’s vocals come in within the first ten seconds to gush, “Love the way you flirt/It’s so obvious, but you’re so cold/Ah, make it hurt/Like nothing’s better than your strong arms.” Tove Lo then leans into her Calypso stylings with a chorus that urges, “Ahh, brrr-ing me flowers/Ahh, brrr-ing your sweat to my bed tonight” (if that’s not witchy, then what is? For it sounds like she needs said sweat to use in a potion afterward). She then adds stamina to her list of demands with the casual mention of “last for hours.”

So perhaps it’s no wonder that Stromae’s response to such ardent commands is to implement a fuckboy’s answer (something Tove already hinted at by calling him “cold” in the first verse) at the one-minute-three-second mark, when he offers his verse (en français, naturellement), “Des fleurs, des fleurs, des fleurs, des fleurs/Toujours des fleurs, évidemment/J’veux pas m’jeter des fleurs/Mais j’suis pas le pire des amants/D’ailleurs, si j’t’en fais une, non, c’est pas qu’j’ai des sentiments/C’est juste que j’aime ta fleur, j’voudrais qu’on passe un bon moment/C’est juste qu’on y met les formes un peu tout l’temps/Du coup, ben tu le sais que j’aime tes formes, évidemment/Mais oui ce que j’aime, c’est qu’elles sont hors-normes [not to be confused with hormones], tout bonnement/Ça vole pas très haut, mais je n’suis qu’un homme, évidemment.”

For those unversed in French, that means, “Flowers, flowers, flowers, flowers/Always flowers, obviously/I don’t mean to pat myself on the back/But I’m not the worst lover/Besides, if I give you one, no, it’s not because I have feelings/It’s just that I like your flower [ah yes, that old innuendo], I’d like us to have a good time/It’s just that we’re always a bit formal/So, well, you know I like your curves, obviously/But yes, what I like is that they’re out of the ordinary, quite simply/It’s not exactly high-brow, but I’m only a man, obviously.”

Obviously indeed. But, despite Stromae’s total lack of romance in describing what he feels for her (which is, ultimately, horny), Tove Lo won’t be deterred. Continuing to insist on summoning him to her bedroom (or whatever room she has her slew of witchy candles set up in [see: the album cover for Estrus]).

So it is that Tove then goes back into her siren-like urging for him to bring her flowers and to, “Come-come lay me down,” further bolstering his ego with, “Yeah, you’re man enough, yeah, you’re man enough.” Because it seems she’ll say anything to be fucked right at this moment of “peak heat.” Stromae, too, gives in to the temptation of pleasure in spite of knowing full well that Tove (or rather, the “alter ego” perspective she’s speaking from) will be expecting something “more” after their “session.” For it’s the common trope that it’s every man’s fear a woman will automatically want a relationship just because she’s had sex with him.

However, based on the accompanying visualizer to “Des Fleurs” (along with the fact that Tove Lo has a storied musical canon relating to just wanting to fuck [commensurate with the amount of songs she has about yearning and being heartbroken]), it doesn’t seem as if Stromae should be worried about that by any means. Because there she is, sitting before her altar—bedecked with the candles mentioned above (for this visualizer is taken from her album’s photoshoot), peppered with cat figurines in between—rolling her head around as if possessed by the desire for “fresh cock.”

Because, yes, all Tove really wants is for him to bring her the “flowers” of getting dicked down. She doesn’t need actual, tangible ones that are synonymous with romance (or rather, the cliche of it). For what she really wants is to bring him her flower (the not-so-subtle innuendo Stromae also uses in his own verse)…to orgasm. And whether or not they have any “dealings” together afterward is probably more up to her than him.