One Of Billie Eilish’s Two New Songs Is Low-key About Survivor
What seasons has she watched?
Turns out Billie Eilish might just be a Survivor stan. Welcome to the tribe, Billie. On July 21, the singer finally dropped the official studio version of “TV,” which is a song she first debuted at her June 7 concert in Manchester, England. She dropped the song as part of the two-track Guitar Songs EP alongside “The 30th.” Both songs carry so much emotion with Eilish singing over acoustic guitars. These songs are notably stripped down compared to much of her previous work.
On “TV,” Eilish pondered the point of, well, “anything” given the state of the world. “I don't wanna talk right now / I just wanna watch TV,” she sings. “I'll stay in the pool and drown so I don't have to watch you leave / I put on Survivor just to watch somebody suffer / Maybe I should get some sleep.”
Did Billie just say she watches Survivor? I need to know what seasons she’s binged and if she’s a Parvati Shallow devotee. I hope so. Answers to these questions are unlikely anytime soon, as it’s clear Eilish is feeling weary. “Sinking in the sofa while they all betray each other / What’s the point of anything?” she continues.
Later in the song, Eilish ponders more serious topics. “The internet's gone wild watching movie stars on trial / While they're overturning Roe v. Wade,” she later sings, alluding to both Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s defamation trial, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court striking down the constitutional right to abortion.
The singer then repeats the phrase, “Maybe I, maybe I, maybe I'm the problem.” In the song, a crowd gradually joins in, and they repeat the phrase with Eilish while clapping in unison. According to a press release obtained by NME, Eilish said the audio of the crowd on the song came from her and FINNEAS’ June 7 concert in Manchester, where the two performed “TV” live for the first time.
The second and final track on the EP, “The 30th,” hits just as hard. Throughout the song, Eilish recounts a car accident that ended with someone in the hospital. The track begins slowly as the star tries to take it all in. It then builds suddenly during the bridge as Eilish thinks about what could’ve happened if things played out differently. “What if it happened to you on a different day? / On a bridge where there wasn't a rail in the way? / Or a neighborhood street where the little kids play?” she sings.
Eilish is currently in the middle of her Happier Than Ever world tour, so here’s hoping she added both songs to her setlist. More importantly, here’s hoping Eilish’s recent feelings of melancholy, as evident on her new tracks, subsides soon.
