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Billie Eilish’s fragile, love-soaked song “Birds of a Feather” almost never saw the light of day.
In a new interview, the singer revealed that she almost removed the single from the tracklist of “Hit Me Hard and Soft” because she thought the song was “kind of stupid.”
In conversation with the “Wall Street Journal” Eilish said she and Finneas, her brother and background helper, had trouble finding the chorus – particularly the line “I’ll love you till the day that I die.”
Billie Eilish’s doubts remained
After completing the track, which stands out from her more melancholic songs, Eilish still wasn’t entirely convinced. “I said several times, ‘We should cancel this,'” Eilish said. “Even when I played the whole album to the label, I was like, ‘Guys, this is kind of stupid.'”
Despite their initial misgivings, “Birds of a Feather” found a place on their third studio album and became one of the biggest hits of the summer. The single peaked at number two on the Billboard 200 and topped the Billboard Global 200 for three weeks. Spotify also declared the track the most streamed song of 2024, and the track received Grammy nominations for Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance.
Music industry felt songs were too dark
Elsewhere in the interview, Eilish discussed the music industry’s initial doubts that her introspective, dark (and sometimes devastating) songs wouldn’t appeal to a wide audience.
“It’s so funny when I think back to all the criticism that was, ‘The songs are too sad,'” she said, adding that when she wrote “Birds of a Feather,” she incorporated “something dark” so it wasn’t all “rainbows and smiles.”
The musician added: “We wrote about the idea that you’re going to die soon and that you should make the best of it.”