Watch

Billie Eilish, is arguably one of the greatest young musical talents that I have discovered in the past year. At the mere age of sixteen, her and her older brother Finneas O’Connell have managed to encapsulate and create songs that are incredibly beautiful, catchy and truthful. The LA natives started writing songs in O’Connell’s bedroom, simply messing around and writing for the fun of it.

Eilish’s success began with her first single “Ocean Eyes” that was uploaded onto SoundCloud for her dance teacher, which was what brought the singer into the forefront of the music scene. However, it’s her song “watch” that made me truly appreciate the talent her and her brother bring to today’s almost repetitive, sometimes shallow and debatably boring world of love songs.

“watch” ultimately tells the story of an individual coming to terms with their feelings of not only unrequited love, but their loved one not being the person they thought they were. The lyrics: “if we were meant to be, we would have been by now”, create such a special connection with the listener as the words are so brutally simple and honest it creates such a connection with the listener – there’s no hidden messages or signs, Eilish and O’Connell’s lyrics state fact and force the listener to hear their words.

“I’ll sit and watch your car burn with the fire you started in me, but you never came back to ask it out”, the imagery here is so vivid it feels as if it could have been a poem. As the song progresses, Eilish’s feelings towards her lover change “your lies will never keep, I think you need to blow them out”, as well as “when you call my name, do you think I’ll come running? You never did the same, so good at giving me nothing.” These effortlessness and elegance of these words create an emotion inside the listener of almost power and strength, and since the song is only 2:57 minutes long, it almost reflects the fleeting relationship between Eilish and her lover; whether this is intentional or not, it’s an incredibly intelligent and interesting component to the song. With these original lyrics from O’Connell paired with Eilish’s soulful, husky and so powerful-it-hurts voice, “watch” is a song that will hopefully inspire today’s artists to turn back to simple and honest lyrics when it comes to writing about the ups and downs of love.

Release date: 30th June 2017

Songwriter/s: FINNEAS

Album: don’t smile at me (2017)

Label: Interscope Records

Chart rankings: none! (beautiful song, never reached the charts sadly)