Seigar Recommends: “Bury a Friend” by Billie Eilish
Seigar, the photographer, is back.
A few weeks ago my sister recommended me to listen to Billie Eilish. Just after that, I found and saw her name everywhere. She’s got 15 million K followers in her Instagram account. When I told my friend Fran Plasencia about her, he said “yes, I know her, I think she is the only one I like among the new acts”. I don’t know why but it took me sometime to listen to her and to check what was her about. Once I did it, I wasn’t surprised. In fact, she wasn’t that impressive for me. I clicked on the Spotify list: “This is Billie Eilish” to discover her music, and I listened to her on repeat for days.
My impressions were she is not doing something new and that I have heard all that before. I was dissapointed with her ballads and acoustic songs, and sort of “OK, it’s not bad” with her dark emo dance tracks. Her image is quite strong, her videos and all that imagery speak loud, but again, it was the same sensation, a sort of dissapointment.
But now, I can say her music is a grower*.
I have been listening and enjoying her music, her videos, her performances, and doing some research on her lyrics too. Most critics say she is too young and that fact makes it hard for an adult to feel identified or to connect with her music. As an adult, I can affirm I don’t agree, I’m really enjoying her music and all her stuff and I think we need more pop acts like her. It is true that she is not completely original or innovative. But she is quite interesting and complex. She can sing nice acoustic ballads with a beautiful voice and also these dark trashy songs that could perfectly sound on a horror movie soundtrack. These emo songs are like a millenial version of Tricky, Chemical Brothers or Portishead.
Today I’m bringing you Bury a Friend that I think it’s the perfect start to get to know her. The lyrics are quite eerie and dark. She has said “it’s about the monster under the bed;” that is also her. Others think this song is about death, afterlife or suicide. Try to guess what all her profound questions are about:
What do you want from me?
Why don’t you run from me?
What are you wondering?
What do you know?
Why aren’t you scared of me?
Why do you care for me?
When we all fall asleep, where do we go?
Let’s watch Bury a Friend, my fave song in her album.
- a grower: a piece of music that is initially unimpressive but becomes more enjoyable after further hearings.