What’s That Sound? The Australian street noise in Billie Eilish’s ‘Bad Guy’
When Billie Eilish became a household name, she was quickly assimilated into the realm of teenage bedroom pop by a group of disgruntled musos who took her vibrant exuberance for lack of experience. However, the truth is, alongside her co-creator and brother Finneas, Eilish had far more years of refining her songwriting skill under her belt than most could have imagined.
Aside from a pre-teen fascination with the pop world and the famous ‘Ocean Eyes’ song she recorded at the tender age of 14, Eilish has long been honing her craft. Able to grab the cultural zeitgeist and create alt-pop tunes for an entire generation, the musician has quickly become recognised as one of the more inspiring stars of recent years. With Finneas by her side, she not only allows her lyrics to dabble into the cultural touchstones of the moment but creates songs that already feel timeless.
The track that delivered her ultimate breakthrough was the smash hit ‘Bad Guy’, winning multiple Grammys and being widely regarded as the best song of 2019. The track was Eilish’s attempt to make light of those who take themselves too seriously, as she told 102.7KIISFM: “The initial idea for the song is like people that have to tell everybody that they are a certain way all the time? They’re not that certain way… In general, I feel like you will never catch a bad bitch telling everyone she’s a bad bitch. It’s on – it’s you.
“If you’re going around all the time saying like, ‘Yeah, I’m bad, I’m always breaking rules, and doing this and doing that'”, she continued. “You’re not. I know that because I used to say that, and I wasn’t. Bad kids, bad boys, bad bitches, whatever, they do that s–t and they don’t even know.” The song not only showcased a songwriter full of witticisms and wry social commentary way beyond her years but that she had an ear for a belting beat too.
The song thuds with an impressive dexterity that can largely be attributed to Finneas’ unique handle of sound. Refined and expressive at the same time, his work in production is one of the main platforms that allowed Eilish to reach a global audience. One note in the track that would have particularly resonated with Australian audiences was the unusual snare that flickers throughout the anthem.
“My mum and I went for a walk in Sydney,” Eilish explains in the clip below. “We were like across the street from the hotel and the crosswalk is this little – you press it and it’s like ‘doop, doop’. And I was like, ‘That’s hard!’ That’s the sound that it makes when you have to wait.”
“And then I was not prepared for this part,” she says as the glitching beat comes in and delivers what would become a part of her career-defining song. Of course, as with everything the pair do, Eilish’s spark of creativity is cultivated by Finneas, who altered the speed of the sound and made it fit within the context of the track. It works remarkably well and provides a unique sound that few producers would be able to copy without going to the original source on the streets of Sydney.
“The hilarious part about all this is,” says Finneas, continuing the story, “we were just in Australia in May, and my dad goes, ‘Have you heard these crosswalks?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s the chorus in Bad Guy.’ And he goes, ‘What?’ I was like, ‘Yeah … never mind man.’”
