When Billie Eilish and Khalid released their haunting song “Lovely” in 2018, both artists were riding an early wave to stardom.
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Eilish eschewed the usual teen pop formula. Instead, she wore baggy clothes, wrote songs with her brother Finneas (instead of using professional songwriters), and precociously raised a middle finger to pop culture, all while looking slightly bored.
Khalid, like Eilish, makes genreless music with a strong and charming voice that’s impressively versatile. In “Lovely,” he echoes Eilish’s singing, creating a duet of aching harmony.
“Lovely” is the sound of two artists with a massive fan base collectively sharing in pain.
Isn’t It Lovely, All Alone?
Feeling trapped by the weight of depression and mental health struggles, “Lovely” finds comfort in being alone. It’s explicitly a sad resignation to fear.
Oh, I hope someday I’ll make it out of here
Even if it takes all night or a hundred years
Need a place to hide, but I can’t find one near
Wanna feel alive; outside, I can’t fight my fear
Moreover, the title is darkly humorous, and Eilish and Khalid find happiness in misery together. “Lovely” follows a hypnotizing progression (C, Em, Bm, if you’re sitting near a piano), and the chordal repetition simulates depression’s unrelenting grip.
As the song progresses, you can sense Eilish and Khalid’s downward spiral, and they both give in to gloomy sarcasm.
Isn’t it lovely, all alone?
Heart made of glass, my mind of stone
Tear me to pieces, skin to bone
Hello, welcome home
A wailing violin floats above Finneas’s sparse piano as the duo hopelessly sings, Hello, welcome home. It’s an acknowledgment that the chaotic mind prison is now their home.
Bedroom Pop
Eilish and Finneas co-wrote “Lovely” with Khalid. Finneas’ prolific production uses minimalist piano and haunting strings to support two emotional voices singing toward catharsis.
But a release never comes, as the smoldering bedroom pop track resigns to despair. A sliver of hope lives in the gorgeous voices of two humans, finding solidarity in their shared pain.
Finneas’ arrangement drives the track, showing technology’s achievements for making hit records in a bedroom using minimal equipment. Furthermore, he’s perfected the trade, becoming one of his generation’s most important pop producers.
The siblings have transformed pop music with daring arrangements and lyrics that reveal the open pages of a journal before the ink has even dried.
Hanging Out as Friends
“Lovely” premiered on Zane Lowe’s radio show (then called Beats 1), and Eilish explained to him that she met Khalid on Twitter in 2016. After connecting on social media, Khalid saw one of Eilish’s early shows in Los Angeles.
“When we wrote this song, what was cool about it was that it wasn’t like we’re going to the studio and going to write a hit, you feel me. It was like, ‘Hey, come over, let’s hang out,’” Eilish said. “He just came over and we hung out. Me and my brother hung out with Khalid in our house, and it was literally, this is us hanging out as friends and we ended up writing a song.”
Don’t Smile at Me
Their chamber pop collaboration appeared on the original soundtrack for the Netflix teen drama 13 Reasons Why: Season 2. Some of music history’s most brooding romantics appeared on the soundtrack with Eilish and Khalid, including Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and New Order.
Interscope Records released “Lovely” as the first single in 2018. Eilish added “Lovely” to the expanded edition of her EP Don’t Smile at Me, which also features Eilish’s 2015 viral hit “Ocean Eyes.”
Heart of Glass, Mind of Stone
Taylor Cohen directed the music video, which portrays the feeling of being trapped with another person. Eilish, who was 16 years old then, developed the concept.
In the video, Eilish and Khalid wander around a box, representing a situation they cannot escape. A cloud hovers above the singers, and the rain turns to ice, covering the walls as Eilish and Khalid hold on to each other.
But when the ice melts, the cube is empty.
Need a Place to Hide
“Lovely” sounds like a distant cousin to Tom Odell’s magnificent hit “Another Love.” Odell writes about being in a new relationship but he’s used all his emotions on a previous lover. With nothing left, there’s an inability to move on, and Odell’s song shares the trapped feelings in “Lovely.” What they are left with is stasis.
Billie Eilish and Khalid are drowning in despair, so they make peace with the prison.
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Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella
