The much-maligned song from Dominic Fike, as featured prominently in the Season 2 finale of Euphoria, is out now. Fike teamed up with co-writer Zendaya to release a shortened version of “Elliot’s Song” after Euphoria fans criticized (and meme’d) its excessive length.
The track was written by Zendaya and Labrinth, the musician responsible for the hypnotic Euphoria soundtrack, and performed by Fike’s character Elliot in the season finale. In the episode, Elliot serenades Rue (played by Zendaya) for an entire 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
As far as song lengths go, that’s pretty standard. However, amid a finale episode with way too many unanswered questions and plot holes at stake, the song felt a little too long.
Fans flocked to Twitter and TikTok to let out their frustrations, channelling their annoyance into memes and making “Elliot’s Song” the most viral moment of the finale. Users complained that Fike got to perform a whole “Tiny Desk” concert while other characters got zero closure.
Fike took the trolling in stride and posted his favorite reactions to “Elliot’s Song” on his Instagram Story alongside a selfie captioned, “The internet remains undefeated I am humbled.” When he announced the release of the song on his Instagram yesterday (March 3), he wrote, “We made the song shorter…” And he wasn’t lying: The studio track is an entire minute shorter, and it features Zendaya on backing vocals.
Though, it’s a shame that the official track is shorter since, in retrospect, it’s a good song. Fans were simply annoyed that the song itself played such a significant role in the episode. The frustration was never about the song! It seems like the more logical decision would have been to feature a shorter version in the episode and release the longer version, but Euphoria is nothing if not illogical.
In an interview with Insider, Fike shared that his character was originally supposed to play the trumpet before he requested to play the guitar instead. So “Elliot’s Song” could have been much worse, folks!
