Behind the Song: How Billie Eilish Impressed Her Mom on “Birds of a Feather”

Billie Eilish debuted “Birds of a Feather” in the Season 3 trailer for the Netflix series Heartstopper. It’s a British coming-of-age rom-com about a gay student who’s smitten with his classmate.

Eilish seems built for the absurdity of young love. The awkward vulnerability of desire, want, and the specialness and lust of sex. She reached for the physical appetites on “Lunch,” the first single from Hit Me Hard and Soft. On “Birds of a Feather,” Eilish explores another part of the love story.

With her producer brother Finneas, Eilish exposes herself further with a vocal performance she long claimed was out of reach. So excited by the results, Eilish couldn’t wait to show her mother.

Nothing Left To Lose Without You

Eilish writes about enduring love on “Birds of a Feather.” The tenuous connections that feel eternal but always arrive at the same fate. She hopes death or a change of heart won’t take her partner away.

If you go, I’m going too

Cause it was always you, all right

And if I’m turning blue, please don’t save me

Nothing left to lose without my baby

Using an English proverb as a hook, Eilish expresses the fragile nature of romance. Even the good ones always seem on the verge of failure. Maybe it’s the price people think they need to pay for something that feels too good.

Birds of a feather, we should stick together, I know

I said I’d never think I wasn’t better alone

Can’t change the weather, might not be forever

But if it’s forever, it’s even better

Impressing Mom

Restraint has always been a part of Eilish’s repertoire. She’s made a career of whispering powerfully. Her voice blends bedroom pop with velvety jazz. But on “Birds of a Feather,” she lets loose.

It’s a stirring moment of catharsis when she sings, Till the day that I die. She’s both defiant and resigned, swirling in a mixed-up abyss of love and life, the permanence of someday having to let go. Forever isn’t possible.

And I don’t know what I’m crying for

I don’t think I could love you more

It might not be long, but baby, I

I’ll love you till the day that I die

Till the day that I die

She told New Zealand radio DJ Zane Lowe, “This song has that ending where I just keep going—it’s the highest I’ve ever belted in my life. I was alone in the dark, thinking, ‘You know what? I’m going to try something.’ And I literally just kept going higher and higher. This is a girl who could not belt until I was literally 18. I couldn’t physically do it. So I’m so proud of that. I remember coming home and being like, ‘Mom! Listen!’”

Letting Go

In the music video, Eilish is alone in an office. Some invisible force tilts her chair before dragging her around the building. It occasionally drops her, her body crashing through a glass table.

The moving force leaves Eilish alone in the hallway. Then, it lifts her to the ceiling. She’s dropped and dragged again across the carpet floor. Maybe the office symbolizes work—the work required to keep a relationship intact.

However, the unseen force, a partner present even when they’re not, is the heart of Eilish’s anxious love song.

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Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images