On Billie Eilish’s recent European tour, including her history as Glastonbury’s youngest ever solo headliner, she has said she was struck by the dissonance between the euphoric crowds and the bleak news coming from her native United States.
“I would mention some things about the state of the home and it was so weird to be in a place where they didn’t have to deal with that,” he told Apple Music. “Then I thought about everyone at home and I was just like, ‘Wow, what the hell?’ What is happening?'”
This kind of nascent shift in perspective underpins his two surprise new singles, released as the Guitar Songs EP. For a songwriter who made a name for herself with lyrics shrouded in horror movie imagery, Eilish has become a realist songwriter of great subtlety, one who makes light work of crushing material and never diminishes the its impact
The song’s first, TV, debuted live in Manchester recently and made headlines for referring to the unedifying spectacle of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s court battle, as well as the annulment of the right constitutional to abortion (rumored then, now terrifyingly real). The USA
Billie Eilish: TV – video
“The internet’s gone wild watching movie stars on trial / While they’re overturning Roe v Wade,” he sings, his voice softened by sensational harmonies as his brother Finneas’ acoustic guitar takes on a softly Pink-worthy sense of range Floyd.
In the wrong hands, this might sound a bit snarky: accusing people of fiddling while Rome burns. But Eilish, never one to bow to her own spotlight, also blames herself. Seemingly in the middle of an argument with a lover, if not a full-blown breakup, she chooses to shut out the world and turn on the TV: “I put on Survivor just to see someone suffer,” she sings. “What’s the point of anything?”
Eilish has always been acutely aware of our propensity for destruction as a form of entertainment, and the immediacy of television calls to mind Lana Del Rey’s The Greatest, with the world engulfed in heat and Kanye “blonde and gone”.
Fittingly, the melody of each line seems to fall, each a crumbling empire delivered in her tremulous, light voice. “Maybe I’m the problem,” he sings off and on, which may sound a little self-flagellating at first.
But then, perhaps, the point of it all emerges: the acoustic recording is mixed with the sound of the crowd at the Manchester show, hearing the song for the first time, but repeating the lines. Their shared powerlessness grows stronger and stronger, moving from sympathy to a kind of firm communion.
Billie Eilish: The 30th – video
The 30th Is More Insular: The terrifying account of a friend who had what appears to be a life-changing car accident. The guitar is sweeter, his voice even more delicate, the soft piano barely perceptible: a cobweb barely holds the fragile balance of the situation. After the fact, Eilish realizes that her crash was the cause of the traffic jam she was in that day.
“When I saw the ambulances on the shoulder / I didn’t even think to stop / I pulled it all together that night.” A lot of what-ifs follow, with a sense of growing panic, a crescendo of rushed thoughts and overlapping vocal harmonies: “What if you had a different day? On a bridge where there was no guardrail in the way? – what if turns into a cry before Eilish’s lone voice fades away, like a bird flying free from a flock: “You’re alive.”
Eilish told Apple Music that she wanted these songs to come out quickly, without any of the pageantry that usually accompanies a major-label pop release. For a pop star whose image has been endlessly studied and often plays a secondary role in her work, immediacy suits her.
We get the visceral feeling of a young woman watching things she loves get destroyed, or nearly destroyed, and agonizing over what happens when we stop looking. But Eilish, developing at breakneck speed as a songwriter, isn’t looking away.