Billie Eilish is a popular singer and songwriter from California. Known for her interesting style of baggy and unfitting clothes, she often gets a lot of attention from the media because of this and has also gained in popularity because of her interesting take on unconventional clothing. She first grew to fame with her 2015 single Ocean Eyes, which was written and produced by her brother Finneas. At just 13, Eilish had had hundreds of thousands of listens on Soundcloud, catching the attention of many media outlets, radios and record labels. Her brother got her a contract with Apple Music in early 2016 to help her with becoming an emerging artist. She was signed to Interscope Records, in which the songs ‘Six Feet Under’ and ‘Ocean Eyes’ were released to digital download sites and streaming platforms.
Through 2017 and 2018 she released many singles and an EP, and her songs are often described as melancholic and bleak. Her 2017 single ‘Don’t Smile At Me’ reached one billion Spotify streams, making her the youngest artist to reach that amount of streams on a song. Her debut album was released at the back end of 2018 and was an instant hit, thanks to a mix between her fans, talent, and the Label’s and Spotify’s unique promotion of it. It debuted number one on the US Billboard 200 and the UK Albums Chart. This album broke many records, like making her the leading artist born in the 2000s to have a number one album in the US, and also the youngest female to have a number one album in the UK. In 2020, she made the title track for the newest instalment of the James Bond trilogy. As of present, she has five Grammy awards and two American Music Awards.
Six Feet Under
Overall, the song is very powerful when you combine the different musical elements used in the song like melody, harmony and meaningful lyrics, consolidating the strong vocals singing these. I am not opposed to the song as a music listener and I quite enjoyed it, however, it isn’t really my style of music.
The lyrics in this song are about a romance that has ended or ‘died’, hence the title of the song being ‘Six Feet Under’. She describes herself not being able to get over the relationship and often suggests she thinks the love could ‘bloom again’, but it is very unlikely. It is not known whether the song is about one of her past relationships or whether it is purely fictional.
The instrumentation is quite simple; the main instruments being vocals, piano, drums, strings and choir. The texture, however, seems thicker than it should be in some parts as there are not many instruments on the song and they are all playing simple parts, but these instruments are powerful, therefore making this thick texture from not many instruments. This thickness comes in and out; sometimes the texture is thin, leaving only vocals and piano. The vocals often harmonise with each other and there is a male voice harmonising with Eilish, creating some interesting textures that work well with each other. The harmony in the song is diatonic, and Finneas layers Eilish’s voice to create vocal harmonies.
The rhythms and drum patterns are very simple and sparse through the whole song and drums are only present in the first two choruses, second verse and bridge. Even though the drum rhythm is very sparse throughout, it doesn’t fail to be a powerful addition. The bass drum is punchy, almost ripping right through you and the claps have lots of reverb to give this airy yet intense feeling. The piano is simply playing minims and crotchets throughout the whole song.
The form is generic for a pop song. The overall structure is verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, acoustic chorus, outro. However, the drastic changes in texture and dynamics makes the structure interesting to listen to, as if these two elements were the same throughout, the composition would be very boring! The song’s tempo is a BPM of 68 which is extremely unconventional for a pop song as it is so slow. The time signature is in 4/4.
The song’s melodies are different in the verses and choruses, with a new one being introduced in the bridge. The verse vocal melody is very simple and repeats itself a lot which is typical for a pop song. However, this isn’t a bad thing as it makes these melodies very memorable and catchy. The chorus melody is more interesting as Eilish moves into her falsetto voice, showing her overall vocal range, and uses intervals that are much further from each other compared to the verses. All of the melodies are pentatonic so no notes clash.
Six Feet Under is in the key of D major. From this, it uses the chords IV, V and vi, making the song diatonic. These chords (as well as chord I) are very normal to hear in pop music as they are so versatile and easy to work with in any order you put them in. In the verses and some of the choruses, the chord progression is vi, V, IV, V and second half of the choruses and bridge is IV, V, vi, V.
Bellyache
I quite liked this song because of all the interesting instrumentations and textures throughout the song. The lush harmonies alongside the acoustic guitar and percussive elements fit really well together, and the chorus’ crunchy bass sound fits her style and persona she has adopted through her public image and dark lyrics.
Billie stated that the song is a fictional story about murder, psychopathy and guilt. The lyrics such as “where’s my mind” references to insanity and the guilt the psychopath feels when they killed someone. This lyric is was the name of her 2019 tour. “maybe it’s in the gutter” has a clear double meaning, the literal one being that they left their lover’s body in the gutter, and the metaphor being that the psychopath’s head is in the gutter; thinking dark and corrupted thoughts. “now I’ve got a bellyache” is an expression of guilt and shows the persons regret for doing what they did.
The instrumentation consists of acoustic guitar, vocals (inc harmonies), drums, bass, percussion, sub-bass and a synthesiser. This song has a much thicker texture, especially in the chorus because of the powerful sine wave bass, interesting drums, lots of hi hat rolls and full and reverberated harmonies. There are vocal harmonies in almost all of the song but specifically in the intro, break, pre-choruses and in the choruses. These vocal harmonies are diatonic but they have lots of layers using different vocal ranges, making them powerful and they stand out in the mix, especially with the reverb put on them.
In the verses, the drums and some guitar parts use a tresillo/habanera rhythm, popular amongst modern pop and R&B songs today. The guitar also makes use of a semi-quaver rhythm in the verses. Billie’s vocals use crotchets in the pre-chorus when she sings the word ‘mind’ for the first bar of the phrase. In the chorus, the drums use hi-hat rolls whilst the snare and bass drum lands on the two and four of the bar, making it a four on the floor beat. The bass also uses the tresillo rhythm in the choruses.
The structure is very simple and goes by intro, verse, pre-chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, break, chorus *2. Even though it is simple and repeats quite a lot, the structure isn’t as generic as other pop songs and the huge difference in feel in the verses and choruses make it very exciting to listen to, and the pre-choruses have a nice build-up. The song’s tempo is 100 BPM which is fairly average for a pop song. The time signature is in 4/4.
The melody doesn’t change for all of the verses and the choruses. For the pre-choruses, Eilish simply sings a G major scale in descending order. Even though the song repeats a lot of melodies, the dynamics keep these interesting by going quieter for the verses and loud in the choruses, and overall the song keeps building to the point where the last two choruses are very loud. In the chorus melody, she uses her falsetto voice register.
The song’s key is G major and the chords used from this are ii, IV and vi. These chords never change through the whole song. The chord progression is IV ii vi, which is quite an uncommon chord progression for a pop song as chord ii is unconventional but vi and IV are conventional in a common chord structure.