The first song Billie Eilish learned on the ukulele
There aren’t many modern pop artists that can match the emotional intensity of Billie Eilish. Ever since her single ‘Ocean Eyes’ began to tear up the charts, her collaborations with her brother Finneas have resulted in the most emotionally potent music of the modern age, discussing the specific moments of relationships that are impossible to put into words. While songs like ‘Bad Guy’ and ‘You Should See in a Crown’ thrive from their massive productions, Eilish also has a sensitive side when she breaks out the ukulele.
Starting when she was six years old, Eilish began to work out different melodies on the uke, creating songs that don’t sound all that different from what she can do these days. When talking about the first songs that she ever learned, it all traced back to The Beatles.
Then again, The Beatles never used ukulele on any of their records. While George Harrison would end up adopting the instrument as a mainstay in the final years of his life, the instrumentation on every Beatles project tended to focus on lavish productions, either bringing in avant-garde arrangements on ‘A Day in the Life’ or orchestral suites on the back half of Abbey Road.
When first learning to play, though, Eilish started with the love song ‘I Will’ from The White Album. Written as a subtle love song for Linda Eastman, Paul McCartney put together one of the sparsest productions on the group’s double album experience, utilising only a handful of percussion instruments and playing “bass” by singing the bassline close to the microphone.
The mechanics of the song sound pretty straightforward, but it wasn’t easy getting the final version down on tape, with the Fab Four playing over 60 takes before McCartney got the performance that he was satisfied with. Although Eilish may not have put the same amount of elbow grease into learning her first tune, The Beatles would become her gateway to writing original material.
When she and her brother were barely teenagers, their mother, Maggie Baird, knew that The Beatles taught them everything they needed to know, breaking down songs like ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ until they had a common understanding of how songs are structured. While Finneas formed a band of his own, it wasn’t until he joined forces with his sister that things started to gain steam.
While Finneas was a fine artist in his own right, the amount of melancholy in Eilish’s voice spoke to legions of kids with the same disaffected sadness in their souls, relating to the simple sentiments behind songs like ‘When the Party’s Over’. Although Eilish’s first handful of releases tended to keep a caustic approach to production, it wasn’t until the follow-up that The Beatles’ influence started to show.
Throughout the album Happier Than Ever, Eilish tries different sonic spaces within her traditional style, much like The Beatles did in the back half of their career. Coming to a grand finale on the title track, Eilish and Finneas take the massive sweeping sounds of the epics they heard as kids and channelled into an emotional release unlike anything else on the pop charts. As she expanded her craft even further with ‘What Was I Made For?’ from the Barbie soundtrack, Eilish proved that she was just starting to create her masterpieces.
