"How's It Going to Be" is a song by the American rock band Third Eye Blind

Third Eye Blind

Third Eye Blind is an American alternative rock band formed in the early 1990s in San Francisco. The songwriting duo of Kevin Cadogan and Stephan Jenkins signed the band's first major label recording contract with Elektra records in 1996 resulting in two multi platinum albums. The band's lineup...

, featured on their 1997 self-titled album

Third Eye Blind (album)

Third Eye Blind is the eponymous debut for the American alternative rock band Third Eye Blind, originally released on April 8, 1997. It spawned several singles, including top 10 charting "Semi-Charmed Life", "Jumper", and "How's It Going to Be"....

. The B-side is a non-album track entitled "Horror Show", written by guitarist Kevin Cadogan

Kevin Cadogan

Kevin Rene Cadogan is an American singer/songwriter, producer and rock guitarist. He is a founding member of the band Third Eye Blind. he performed with the band from 1994 to 2000...

 and vocalist Stephan Jenkins

Stephan Jenkins

Stephan Douglas Jenkins , is an American musician best known as the lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist for Third Eye Blind. Under Jenkins's leadership, Third Eye Blind has sold over eight million copies of four albums: Third Eye Blind , Blue , Out of the Vein , and Ursa Major...

. 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

Autoharp

The autoharp is a musical string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither. -History:There is debate over the...

.

Released as a single, "How's It Going to Be" reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 chart in the United States, to become the band's third top 10 single, following "Semi-Charmed Life

Semi-Charmed Life

"Semi-Charmed Life" is Third Eye Blind's first single off their self-titled debut album, released in 1997. It was a major hit of the 1990s, reaching number four in the U.S., number one on the Modern Rock Tracks and the Top 40 in the UK. Furthermore, it has had a pervasive cultural impact, being...

" and "Jumper

Jumper (song)

"Jumper" is a song by the American rock band Third Eye Blind, released on their 1997 self titled album, and written by vocalist Stephan Jenkins. Released as a single, the song peaked at #5.-Meaning:...

". In the UK, the single peaked at number 51.

The band performed the song during their appearance on Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

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.

Charts

End of year chart (1998)	Position
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	11