Billie Eilish’s New Single Is a Jubilant Middle Finger
With “Therefore I Am,” Eilish returns to her sassy roots.
Two years ago this month, I saw Billie Eilish perform live at the 9:30 Club, a space her fame was already outgrowing. The club was set up for maximum capacity, and she performed two shows back to back in an effort to meet the overwhelming demand. I was already a fan of her music, thanks to the influence of my teenage daughter, but that night I was utterly captivated by her energy on stage. Her songs can be dark and disturbing, moody and reflective, but the way she moved across the stage, it was clear that above all she was having a whole hell of fun.
When Billie Eilish released her debut full-length album When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go? in March of 2019, the songs were a mix of dark (“bury a friend”), wistful (“i love you”), and aching (“xanny”), but my favorites were the ones that captured that irreverent exuberance that had so enchanted me in her performance — her #1 hit “bad guy” being the prime example.
For a teenage girl to sing those songs represented such a reclaiming of power to me. She wasn’t trying to be nice or pretty or…
