Wanting to achieve that “vintage” effect that Lana Del Rey has had the monopoly on since 2012, Billie Eilish’s latest song (at least the first half of it) and video, “Happier Than Ever,” offers just such an aesthetic. Though not in terms of what Eilish is wearing (guess the British Vogue “dress up” could have been a one-off), so much as the set design, cinematography (think: soft focus lighting) and use of an old school telephone, meaning rotary style (therefore not “old school” in the same way Adele was using a flip phone in the “Hello” video). And, if you blink, you might even mistake her for deadbeat housewife Betty Draper in Mad Men as she lazes on the couch and croons her lyrics into the receiver as though she’s actually talking to someone who might listen on the other end. As for what she’s decided to don—an oversized t-shirt that says, “I don’t need to sell my soul” (debatable) and her usual baggy shorts—well, it’s in defiant contrast to what one would expect when it comes to the art of homage. Whereas Del Rey would go full-on retro as she did for a video like “National Anthem,” Eilish chooses to blend nostalgia into the present, perhaps as an unconscious means of indicating how we experience rose-colored glasses about a relationship until suddenly we don’t.
The single possesses that “two songs in one” quality originally innovated by The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life,” and, indeed, that transitional moment from tranquil to rage-filled clearly pays homage to the Fab Four. Rather than borrowing from the British quartet visually as well, Eilish prefers something out of the Beyoncé playbook instead. Which is why, at the two minute, twenty-eight second mark, Eilish opens the door to her David Lynch-esque abode (one can easily imagine Betty in Mulholland Drive living there) in a manner Beyoncé made her own in the portion of the Lemonade visual album between “Pray You Catch Me” and “Hold Up,” echoing a similar visual setup to the way in which Yoncé finds herself in a water-filled room that she must eventually swim out of (Weyes Blood would also later use this trope on the cover of her 2019 album, Titanic Rising). Just as it was for Beyoncé, the baptismal symbolism is also at play with the pervasive water element in Eilish’s narrative. For, upon opening the door, she lets the surge pour over her after only seeing a few drops fall from the ceiling at first; this before the lights started flickering (probably just someone trying to communicate with her from The Upside Down).
It’s somewhat pertinent to note that because Eilish herself was dating a disinterested, wandering-eyed Black man (perhaps yet another instance of her “flirtation with the culture”), her sentiments are in line with Beyoncé’s reading of certain aspects of the poetry throughout Lemonade as she exhibits her contempt for Jay-Z. Particularly when she laments, “I tried to make a home out of you, but doors lead to trap doors. A stairway leads to nothing… Where do you go when you go quiet?” It’s easy to imagine these being Eilish lyrics, especially ones directed at “Q.” At the four minute, thirty-one second mark of the Lemonade visual album, Beyoncé jumps from a rooftop (whereas Eilish ends up standing on top of one) and lands into the aforementioned body of water as she narrates, “I tried to change, closed my mouth more.” This, of course, kicks off the section called “Denial.” As she writhes around like a fetus in amniotic fluid, she continues, “Tried to be softer, prettier. Less awake.” We can imagine Eilish feeling the same way about her ex (and actually, she says something similar in “Not My Responsibility” via the spoken words, “Would you like me to be smaller, weaker, softer, taller? Would you like me to be quiet?”). To boot, it’s easy to trace a parallel between this voiceover’s vibe and the one that appears as “Not My Responsibility” (formerly just a video interlude on Where Do We Go? World Tour) on Happier Than Ever.
At this point, we see her in a large room with a four-poster bed, continuing with her spiel, “Fasted for sixty days, wore white, abstained from mirrors, abstained from sex, slowly did not speak another word. In that time my hair I grew past my ankles, slept on a mat on a floor.” This is delivered in a style and tone that is distinctly Bey, and could never really be carried off by Eilish, try as she might to work the blaccent/appropriation angle. And while Eilish relishes playing up the freakish and bizarre, Beyoncé actually does it better as she becomes more manic—demonic even—while adding, “I swallowed a sword, I levitated, confessed my sins and was baptized in a river. Got on my knees and said ‘amen’ and said, ‘I mean.’ I whipped my own back and asked for dominion at your feet. I threw myself into a volcano, I drank the blood and drank the wine, I sat alone and begged and bent at the waist for God. I crossed myself in thought, I saw the devil, I grew thickened skin on my feet, I bathed in bleach and plugged my menses with the pages from the Holy Book. But still inside me coiled deep was the need to know: Are you cheating on me?” After this moment, the screen goes to black before Beyoncé emerges from behind the stately doors in her now iconic yellow tiered dress as the deluge of water pours out along with her. Where her water pours out, however, it bears noting that Eilish’s pours in. This seems somehow an unintentional symbolic representation of how white girl culture and black girl culture interpret and deal with their problems.
Once Eilish bursts forth to the surface after swimming out of her home, she finds herself now standing on top of her own roof whilst channeling Ashanti in the “Rain on Me” video (or even Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande in their own “Rain on Me” number). She then matches the new tone of the song by dramatically delivering more lyrics in the spirit of Destiny’s Child-era Beyoncé. Or, in this case, Kelly Rowland when Billie proudly and somewhat self-righteously notes, “And I don’t talk shit about you on the internet/Never told anyone anything bad.” This smacks of the line from “Survivor” when Kelly sings, “You know I’m not gonna diss you on the internet”—no, just in song form… so technically, the internet.
As she also accuses her ex (we’re all presuming “Q”), “You made me hate this city,” we know that could never really be true, as Eilish is “the ultimate Angeleno” (sorry Lana), accordingly about to release a concert special for Disney+ called Happier than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles. Still, she likely gets occasionally triggered by certain places as she drives past them thanks to this “nefarious” “Q.” Sounding surprisingly square and preachy with the line, “You call me again, drunk in your Benz/Drivin’ home under the influence/You scared me to death,” it makes sense Eilish would be so up in arms over someone driving drunk as it’s such a major cause of accidents and death in the state of California. Her melodramatic delivery, at times, makes it easy to hear Olivia Rodrigo singing this, which is appropriate since these two are their only peers (as “representatives of Gen Z”) and, what’s more, both have recently been accused of using a blaccent and being generally appropriative for the purpose of gaining relevancy when, in fact, they’re both pop culture influencers who have become victims of pop culture in its online iteration.
She builds up her list of grievances to a crescendo with laments that include, “I could talk about every time that you showed up on time/But I’d have an empty line ’cause you never did/Never paid any mind to my mother or friends/So I shut ’em all out for you ’cause I was a kid.” Eilish then completes her rain dance, and the end of the video finds her jumping back into the “lake” that’s formed atop her house, seeming to embrace floating in the water and just going with the flow of who she is. No matter how condemned that self might be. However, it should be noted that this is kind of her version of Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River”—except that “Q” isn’t on Britney’s level. But in this sense, it should be noted that the power in gender structure is shifting to favor the female perspective on being jilted. Arguably happening since 2006’s Back to Black, which also wielded retro sensibilities in a modern context to communicate heartache.
