What Song Sylvie Listens To In Loki Season 2 Episode 5 & Why It’s Incredibly Important

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Loki season 2, episode 5.

Loki season 2, episode 5 was filled with bittersweet moments – including one where Sylvie visited a record store and listened to the song “Oh! Sweet Nuthin'” – the lyrics of which carry some incredible importance. The scene followed one in which Sylvie successfully convinced Loki to leave his friends to their lives on their respective MCU timelines after he had successfully rounded them up to help reinvent the TVA. Significant problems arose, however, as timelines began to fall apart, condemning each character to die without the TVA to maintain them.

The events of Loki season 2, episode 5 mirrored the preceding one insofar as the main characters’ best efforts were not enough to prevent the timeline they gathered on from unraveling itself. Thankfully, with Loki managing to exert control over his time slipping, the team now seemingly has an infinite number of chances to get it right. The significance of them losing once more, however, is beautifully enshrined in the lyrics of the song that Sylvie listens to, which also alludes to their fates within their respective timelines and stands as an ode to the main group in the Loki season 2 cast as a whole.

Sylvie’s Velvet Underground Song In Loki Season 2 Episode 5

“Oh! Sweet Nuthin'” is a Velvet Underground track that appears on the Loaded album released in 1970. The album was the last one penned by the band before Lou Reed parted ways, with other band members Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker following suit in 1971. It was also almost entirely penned by Reed and bassist Doug Yule, and was specifically designed to be “loaded,” with hits, as per the request of Atlantic Records. The album, ironically, failed to chart, though it received glowing reviews and spawned a hit single in the form of “Sweet Jane.”

There is a significance to the background context of the track. The fact that its release preceded the disbanding of Velvet Underground is mirrored by Sylvie’s insistence that Loki and his friends at the TVA should go their separate ways. There is, of course, even greater significance to be found in the lyrics, which regales the stories of a group of losers who are nonetheless content with their lot.

Why Sylvie’s Song Means Way More Than You Realized

One of the overarching motifs in Loki’s story is that losing is “in his nature,” with Loki and Sylvie pondering over whether they are destined to always lose in season 1. Given the events of the previous two episodes, the possibility seems more stark than ever. It isn’t just them, however, that keep losing – and, in fact, their TVA cohort could even be considered to be a ragtag group of losers in their own right.

This sentiment is perfectly encapsulated by the lyrics of “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’,” which runs through a list of characters who share one particular trait: that they “ain’t got nothin’ at all.” The same could be said for Loki and his friends at the TVA, who are arguably all conveyed to be losers in one way or another in their respective lives on their timelines (except perhaps for Hunter B-15). They are, however, happy regardless – something reflected in the lyric “Oh, sweet nothin’.” The song is played right before the team are reunited once more, bringing with it the sentiment that, in spite of it all, they have each other.

New episodes of Loki stream every Thursday on Disney+