Dove Cameron’s “Waste” and “Bloodshot” Lyrics Are About Two Very Different Relationships
@Emily Tannenbaum
Guys, the long-ass wait for new Dove Cameron music is finally over! After deleting all her Instagram pics and sending her 31.2 million followers into a panic, Dove announced just this week that she’d be releasing two new singles.
Originally, Dove posted a handwritten note explaining her struggle for years to write authentic songs she felt comfortable putting out into the world. “I finally feel like I see who I am reflected in something I’m sharing with the world, and that’s incredibly gratifying and novel to me, if not a little terrifying/totally humbling.”
Well, “Waste” and “Bloodshot” are here and they are definitely two very different vibes.
First, there’s “Waste,” which is so clearly about her relationship with her boyfriend, Thomas Doherty. “It’s about a very passionate love, a kind of intense love,” the singer/actress told Jimmy Fallon. That checks out. The Descendants costars confirmed their relationship in February 2017 and they’ve been inseparable ever since.
“He told me he loved me within a week of meeting me and has never taken a step back from that statement,” she told Seventeen.
Here are the lyrics to “Waste” without repeating the chorus:
Well, you have me in, in your hands
Like a lit, like a lit cigarette
Now I’m here in your room hitting snooze
On the side of your bed
I should’ve known it the day we met
That shit is worse than a hit-and-run
My mom thinks I need therapy
’Cause I sing, only sing about you
But the thing is that she
Doesn’t know how you do what you do
But you must do this to everyone
That shit is worse than a hit-and-run
I wanna waste all my love on you-ooh
I wanna waste all my love on you-ooh
I wanna waste, yeah, yeah
I wanna waste, yeah, yeah
I wanna wa-a-a-a-aste
My love on you
When you leave my house, leave my car
Walk away from the restaurant
I admit I panic, I can’t breathe
I bet you do this to everyone
And it’s so cruel, but I’m having fun
I mean, they’re pretty much obsessed with each other, so who else could this be about? Still, it’s the lyric, “I should’ve known it the day we met/that shit is worse than a hit-and-run” that really confirms it. When she met Thomas on the set of Descendants, she had just ended her engagement with Ryan McCartan.
Even though she had an instant connection with Thomas, Dove was so not ready for a new bae. “I avoided him like the plague, I was like, ‘This is a bad idea,’” she told E! News. “I really tried to fight it.”
Now there’s “Bloodshot,” a dreamy heartbreaker that might keep you up at night…just like Dove. I’ll let you listen for yourself first.
Here are the lyrics:
I haven’t been sleeping
Just stare at the fan all night, yeah
Got tired of dreaming
Running into you all the time
Even the good ones
Leave me messed up
Leave me aching
Run away through
So I haven’t been sleeping
Just stare at the fan all night
And wait it out
And my friends say I’m losing my mind
And my parents check in all the time
But it’s harder to see you’re not mine
With my bloodshot eyes
Bloodshot eyes
The colors are different
Foreign and beautiful, yeah
Got this white noise and music
Filling my head
Like the signal’s broken
Losing focus
Losing moments
Having conversation
Hours wasting away
The colors are different
Foreign and beautiful, yeah
If you immediately thought of Cameron Boyce—Dove’s Descendants costar who passed away in July—well, same. “You are all I can think about. My heart aches for you, I’m broken for you,” Dove wrote to his family in a since-deleted emotional Instagram tribute. To Cameron, she wrote, “Goodbye to an earth angel. I will spend the rest of my life missing and loving you, and I’m all the better for knowing you.”
As for those lyrics about her friends and parents, Dove told Seventeen the core cast has kept their group chat open. “It’s hard when there are no adequate words to express the pain we are all feeling, but the usual text is ‘Love you.’ Or ‘Are you eating?’ or ‘How are we all today?’” she said. “I think something like this horrible loss makes you realize how important you all are to each other. I am grateful for my chosen family at a time like this.”
As much as Cameron has influenced Dove and how much she clearly cares for him, there is a reason I don’t think this song is about him, at least not completely. Back in May, before Cameron’s death, Dove had mentioned already writing the lyrics “the colors are different/foreign and beautiful,” in a PopBuzz video about the tattoo she has inspired by her ex. She said they are her favorite.
If the song is about her ex-fiancé, Ryan McCartan, it still makes a lot of sense. “It was my first ever real relationship, and it was onscreen and offscreen,” she explained to Seventeen. “A lot of what I went through in that first relationship, the very low lows, I did not make public.”
Dove and Ryan started dating while working together on her Disney Channel series Liv & Maddie in 2013. Although they dated for three years, their engagement lasted only six months.
“I was under the impression that I had to make everything look perfect all the time and my partner definitely put that in my ear. People thought I was sharing loads, but I hardly shared anything.” Well, maybe now, with “Bloodshot,” she was finally able to let it out.
