When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

I haven't watched the Grammys in years, being almost completely out of touch with contemporary popular music, but for some reason I turned the show on for the last hour or so, enough to see Billie Eilish take to the stage three times to win awards. She won five for the entire night, and seemed more embarrassed every time she made an acceptance speech.

She was the first artist to sweep the "major" awards (Best Song, Best Record, Best Album, Best New Artist) since Christopher Cross back in 1981. She just turned eighteen years old. I don't know if she's still in high school (I doubt it) but she certainly put her classmates to shame. What were you doing when you were eighteen?

Not knowing anything about her, but intrigued by her chartreuse hair and long green fingernails, I listened to her album, When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and to my surprise I loved it. I listened to it three times over the week, and I can understand why voters rewarded it. The music is genre-bending, with very catchy melodies, some trenchant lyrics (as well as some playful ones) and Eilish has a whispery voice that seems to penetrate the soul. Her brother, Finneas O'Connell, co-wrote the songs and produced the album, and he deserves a lot of credit, as the melodies of the songs tend to be simple, but he dresses them up with a variety of instruments and sounds, from a ukulele to sirens to clips from an episode of The Office.

Eilish's image is that of the weird girl in school who may sit in the back row and not say anything but has more talent than the rest of the student body combined. The songs on this record reflect feelings about suicide, depression, and even climate change, but listening to it is not a downer. In fact, I feel more positive about Generation Z, or whatever her cohort will be called (she was born after 9/11!) than I do about Millennials. She seems preternaturally mature for her tender years.

The big hit on the record, and what one Song of the Year and Record of the Year, is "Bad Guy." While I have a hard time believing of all the songs recorded this year this was the best one, it is infectious, with a simple but clever lyric:

"So you're a tough guy
Like-it-really-rough guy
Just-can't-get-enough guy
Chest-always-so-puffed guy
I'm that bad type
Make-your-mama-sad type
Make-your-girlfriend-mad type
Might-seduce-your-dad type
I'm the bad guy, duh"

My other favorites on the record are "All The Good Girls Go To Hell," which references climate change:

"Hills burn in California
My turn to ignore ya
Don't say I didn't warn ya
 All the good girls go to hell
'Cause even God herself has enemies
And once the water starts to rise
And Heaven's out of sight
She'll want the Devil on her team"

Perhaps my favorite song is "My Strange Addiction," which includes the clips from The Office and rhymes belladonna with Oxford comma.

The end of the record gets slow and serious, with "Listen Before I Go," sung from the point of view of a girl about to kill herself, and "I Love You," which has a lyric, "I love you, but I don't want to." It is here that Eilish shows her gift for phrasing, as the songs really tug at the heartstrings. After listening you want to give her, or anyone, a hug.

But every song on his album is top notch. One wonders where she goes from here. Cross pretty much was done just a few years later. There will be a lot of curiosity about Eilish's second album. I know I'm looking forward to more from her. Next up she will be performing the theme for the next James Bond movie, so perhaps a year from now she'll be adding an "O" to the "G" she already as.