Billie Eilish has revealed that she almost junked one of her biggest songs – her megahit from 2024, Birds of A Feather.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, of all places, the 23-year-old singer-songwriter said that when she and her brother Finneas were putting together her 2024 album, Hit Me Hard And Soft, she had her doubts about the song, thinking it was too upbeat for her usual style. “Multiple times I was like, ‘We should cut this,’” she said.
The siblings spent over a year working on the track, with Finneas apparently being more positive about it than his sister. Even when she played the finished album to label executives, she said that she was embarrassed by it. “Even when I played the whole album for the label, I was like, ‘Guys, this one is kind of stupid,'" she admits.
Of course, pop history is littered with similar examples of this, from Smells Like Teen Spirit all the way down to I'm Too Sexy - seemingly catchy, simple songs that the artist is hesitant or feels embarrassed about compared to the more complex creations they feel they have sweated over. But in many cases, they’re the biggest hits.
And Birds Of A Feather was certainly big. It was the most streamed song globally of 2024 and to date it’s been streamed over 3 billion times and has gone five times platinum in Eilish's native US. And tellingly, in Eilish’s live sets it currently holds the position of being the final encore song.
