hello my name is elie and you're listening to broken record i host the show on tuesday that six and i have some very exciting news if you have a little show before you know that my podcast has been on any streaming platforms and now it is which is so exciting because i mean to listen to whenever you want wherever you want and right now the main platforms we have it on or spotify google podcasts and it was on music and audible and right now we're working on getting an apple podcast and i would let you know we do but as of right now that's a no sadly but it's okay it just needs to be approved uh... anyway the other good news is that i'm doing the first artist of the week which is awesome and basically and for artists of the week i'm going to be picking artists or band or producer or composer who ever it may be and i'll go over their kind of life and what makes them them and why worth being recognized i don't know uh... it's hard to explain but you'll figure that when you listen to when you finish with this episode so the first artist is billy eyelash who's super difficult she's a pop singer not a pop singer i wouldn't classify her pop she's like alternative in the rock not rock soft not soft rock i don't know it's hard if she she's a very specific genre and it's hard to describe but if you listen to your music you know that it's like not necessarily pop but it's not necessarily like rock it's like alternative mixy it's a record of what's obviously what's going on talking about it right now but never mind it but anyway the eyelash she's nineteen she's super cool and we're going to start off with her childhood because it's important to the backstory right good thinking i think so billy was born and raised in l.a. she more specifically a highland park she lives with her she lived with her brother finniness who will talk about later and her mom and dad whose names are maggie and patrick and fun fact about billy is she has a super fun name so her full name is billy irish pirate burrito carnal which is so cool because one that's five names to her middle name is pirate and three she doesn't go by her last name which is interesting to me because her brother goes by finnius so carnal well he goes by finnius but on like writing credits it's finnius so carnal and some of billy's credits are finnius or are sorry for some of billy's great writing credits are billy o'connell but she is more popular popularly known as billy eyelash which is interesting but anyway moving on and she was homeschooled her whole life with her brother finnius and she sang a girl's choir starting at age eight which is where she kind of learned all her techniques and things and uh...
in two thousand fifteen finnius her brother encouraged her to sing a song for her for his band uh... and billy recorded it and released it and when she was fourteen which is insane to soundcloud and guess what this is on his ladies and gentlemen it is oceanized which is possibly the least most famous song so that was released independently on soundcloud and so later that day after they released it which is so cute uh... not that they were but they released it but the thing i'm about to tell you uh... is that it's really was waiting at a star but she was a star but she's a star or something and she got a call from finnius saying that they had a thousand streams in one day which is insane that's so cool like if you release a song and like you don't have any advertising for it you're not with a record label you really said to spot to soundcloud which wasn't a popular which is a popular streaming platform you have a thousand streams in one day that's insane uh...
and they talked about it a little bit and she was very weak she was kind of in shock that she didn't understand it uh... but anyway a year later august twenty sixteen she was signed she signed a record deal with dark room which is in the end of the imprint and in the scope like a record label uh... and then exactly a year after its original release date which is kind of fun so i was originally released in twenty fifteen in twenty sixteen it was released again worldwide along with the music video through the through dark room which is again her record company and so that's really fun and so that's a little bit of a background and now we're going to move on to the bulkier part of this epicenter which is albums eps and single or e p and singles so her first ever body of work that she released was called don't smile at me and it's an e p and it started off with obviously oceanized which is her first single in twenty sixteen and then she had a couple other single before she released the body where she had belly ache which was february twenty seventeen she'd watch which was june twenty seventeen and copycat which was july twenty seventeen and so those were the forcing goals and there are all of that uh... e p which is nice and so she released don't smile at me twenty seven in august at twenty seventeen when she was fifteen years old which is insane because i'm sixteen right now and i could not imagine writing recording producing releasing recording music videos for an e p that that's insane that's insane i think that's like every little girls to be a famous movie star and she did it not maybe sarsingar in the book anyway she named a p don't smile at me because the least i didn't know if you should actually like to be in control and doesn't like to feel the pressure smiling back at someone if they smile at you therefore don't smile at me was born is kind of i mean i can't get it like yeah i get it they don't smile at me because i don't want to put it but i don't get it but i understand it i don't know it's confusing i like the name of that um okay and then so one of my favorite songs i'm gonna talk about two songs from this um e p one of them is called copycat which was a single um it's the first song in the e p and one of my favorite lyrics is from the song is your italic i'm in bold which is such a power move it like basically it symbolizes that italicized words while they're different from the normal font they don't draw attention like a bolded word word and so vili is kind of saying this song is like someone copying her and like doing everything she does and like acting like billion blah blah blah blah and so this so this lyric you're italic i'm involved is kind of really saying like yeah you're different but i'm i'm i still hold the power like i'm still the one that people look to and so that's just a big power move and i find it very like confident boosting it could be dangerous like you could get over confident from it but you won't i won't okay the next one i want to talk about is party favor which is on the e p obviously because i'm talking about the c p that was not a sparkly the segulli whatever um so it's formatted as a voicemail to a boy who she's trying to break things off with um and so it's kind of like a break up voicemail but not really and it's it's cool it the first like minute is um is very interesting it's very well produced um and so this song is kind of like an upbeat positive feeling like it's like very not feeling like rhythm melody beat whatever and which is interesting because the lyrics aren't positive like they're very like sad like i i don't want to be with you anymore you're i'm not happy like it's a very sad message but it's a very upbeat song not upbeat i wouldn't say it's like fast pace but it's it's definitely not portrayed as a sad song um but yeah one of the lyrics is um if you don't stop i'll call your dad which is a very childish threat but it's like we've all heard it before and we all know it like it's scary like if you're like if you're a child and you think that you're you're gonna stop what you're doing and you're in you're gonna like reconsider what's happening and so Billy's like using this voice fear of his dad and getting in trouble to add as her advantage to get him to leave her alone which is very interesting because um that's just a very smart powerplay like i'm like if you don't solve i'm gonna call your dad because who wants to get in trouble with your dad like their dad i don't like that's scary and so it's a very like i like i know what i'm doing like come on go together okay her next her next body of work that she released which kind of really like stepped her up to the next level was when we all fall asleep where do we go which was her first album um it's super cool here's kind of a um it's like it's about fears which is very interesting because i feel like there's songs that are about fear but i've never really seen a like an album or an ep or some sort of body of work that was just about fears and so this album is very cool um this it also talks a lot about like sleep paralysis and stuff and like just like unnatural things while also not being supernatural i don't know it's really cool um so she had a couple singles from this album the first one was You Should See Me in a Crown which was released in August 2018 and then there was also When The Party's Over which was October 2018 where um and then these two singles kind of like started a new era and was kind of like okay you know me as they don't smile at me girl but look at this like i'm i can go all creepy and psychedelic and stuff it's oh i love it i love it i love this album um she also had a single called Berry Friend in January 2019 and then the last single before the album was released was called is called what's it didn't you just think is called Wish You Were Gay and that was released March 4th 2019 and the album came out March 29th 2019 and i feel like that's interesting i feel like that's very close to the release date of the album to release a single but like i also give it because then she gets attraction like then like more people are clicking on her name and her song and then when they see that they're like oh she also has an album coming out but it's also like you want to build up anticipation i don't know it's a very interesting move to release that so close to to release a single so close to an album release anyway songs i love about this album okay the first one i want to talk about is zany which references zanex the anxiety drug like it's not an anxiety drug it like it helps with your anxiety i think i don't know i i don't want to look too much into it because i feel like i'll get scared but anyway Billy wrote this song after a night of being at a friend's house where they all got drunk except for Billy and so this is this is something that Billy probably hasn't experienced before because she was home school as i mentioned earlier so she never went to parties like she never she never had like was with a group of friends that all had a desire to like get drunk or like i don't know and so it reminds you they're all underage like this is like Billy was smart and not getting drunk like she this wasn't this wasn't allowed she wasn't allowed and so at one point multiple people were throwing up and like no one was phased and Billy was so confused because she had always never experienced something like this and so the lyric that says um they just keep doing nothing too intoxicated to be scared comes from that situation of everyone being out of it and just kind of letting these consequences happen of like people throwing up or people falling or whatever the situation may be and they're just kind of like it happens like no one's phased and so Billy kind of wrote this song based off that idea and so one of my favorite lines from this song is i'm in their second hand smoke still just drinking canned coke and this is Billy's way of saying like while you guys are like having fun smoking and doing drugs i'm just gonna have a soda and like i feel like this will be a conveyor like illustrates Billy's innocence very well not as like her innocence to like being at parties and experiencing people drinking and it's kind of like yeah like you do all these things but i'm gonna stay safe like i'm i'm gonna be safe about this and i'm just gonna have a soda like like i don't have any interest in doing it and i think that's a very interesting lyric because i feel like a lot of um high schoolers kind of want to experience that they like it's so romantic decides like going to parties in high school and drinking and having fun with your friends and Billy's kind of like i'm i'm fine not doing that like i don't see the interest and so but that's so i feel like that that's why that um lyric kind of stood out to me and then something super interesting which about the song is that Billy said the verses are what smoke looks like and the chorus is what smoke feels like and i think that's a very interesting way to think about a song um because obviously you listen to the song you think of the lyrics you think of the beat but you don't think about like like it like it's correlation to anything and Billy's like this is what smoke feels like this is what smoke looks like and listening to the song it totally makes sense like there's you can feel the change of what of the chorus to the verse or the verse to the chorus you're like okay this is a different feeling and you're not quite sure what it is but then you're like oh wait this is this is relaining like these these things are related and i think that's super cool and Billy also is just very um she's very detail oriented like she she has immense detail in whatever she does she has um she leaves everything in if she wants to leave an initial ad like layers she'll it's so impressive i recommend listening to any of her songs um and you'll just see how much like power she has in it um a second song that i want to talk about is elo muleo which references a childhood game Billy played called elo muleo where two characters elo and muleo i said that a lot where two characters elo and muleo would be separated and the player's goal would be to have them reunite and then similar to party favor this party favor which was in don't smile at me her ep um this song has an upbeat feeling but if you pay attention to the lyrics it's actually about like the fear of separation and like it's very interesting Billy Billy is very good at this we're like having not necessarily an upbeat song but having a song that isn't necessarily portrayed as sad but having like dark sad like thoughtful lyrics and so one of my favorite lyrics is because it's me and your lyrics one of my favorite lyrics that that Billy wrote in this song is the world's a little blurry or maybe it's my eyes and i think that's such a beautiful and creative way to say that someone's crying because it you can obviously say oh it's here's running down my cheek or i there's so many ways you can say someone's crying but saying the world's a little blurry or maybe it's my eyes is very it's so cool like i wish i thought it that like it's listening to that lyric is so powerful that lyric is so amazing and i love it um i mean it's kind of sad because someone's crying but it's very it's very awesome not not describe me well because it's not awesome but it's very well written it's very well written that's good that's a good one and then this song is also like full of warnings um but not like threatening warnings like so copycat which i talked about earlier in her ep is more like don't like don't mess with me like blah like you're gonna get what's coming but then you know milo is kind of like i like be careful like don't say out too late i need to get home safe like they're very endearing warnings which is interesting because i mean it makes sense because the song is about fear separation um but it's also like we haven't really heard this like caring side ability where it's like i mean we've always heard her being vulnerable and stuff but we've never heard her like kind of be like like i need you to be safe like i need you to be protected um and then another song that's very that's that i absolutely adore this song it's so cool it's so cool it's called goodbye which is the last song on the album and it's oh like a wrap up of the album which is insane to me it's so genius it's so so so genius um and so each lyric in this song is from references a different song in the album and it goes from bottom to top in like in order of the album so like like it goes it starts from i love you and it goes all the way up to bad guy which is so cool but it oh i love this song i love this song it's so good um i mean it's kind of sad but it's just so genius and so beautiful and um this song was played at the end of her concerts while she was on tour for the women y'all thought sleep tour this um this would be the song that Billy kind of said goodbye to when she was walking off stage this song would play and it's so cool and Billy said that she created this song because she doesn't like when albums just to end and don't feel like it's over and so she kind of wanted to have like a period at the end of the sentence if that makes sense like she wanted to have a closing statement like just something to wrap it all up and i think it's so cool this song is so amazing and i'm very very very grateful to be able to hear it okay next album happier than ever this is her most recent album it came out this year which is so exciting um it's it had a couple singles the first one was my future and therefore i am which were both singles in 2020 and these singles came out before we knew that an album was happening and so she announced her sophomore album happier than ever in 2021 and after she announced it she released three more singles which are called your power lost cause and nda and so those five singles obviously obviously we're very popular not just popular or other songs but they definitely were on the radio they were on social media they are very awesome and i love them um okay and then her happy and never album came out right it's good it's an amazing amazing amazing amazing piece of work um it's i this is one of my favorite albums so it's so amazing um okay so i'm just talking about i have four four i think i want to talk about first one getting older it's the first one on the album it's like kind of a previously on type of thing like it's kind of like it's like catching us up on billies growth and stuff from um when she when we last heard from her so like like when she released when we all fall asleep where do we go to when she released happier than ever it's kind of like a catch up which is interesting because it also coven also happened coven was a thing so she has that extra time to grow and to learn more about herself and so it's just very interesting to think about how that song might have been different if coven wasn't a thing and if she only had X amount of time to do it instead of X amount plus 18 months to do it you know um it's very cool very interesting um she this is kind of like this song is very like billy talking about self growth she talks about being abused which was um obviously obviously awful um and she does it in a very casual way which i think is interesting um she like the lyric that she mentions is wasn't my decision to be abused which is interesting because i feel like people i i don't want to talk about this because i have an experience to be used and i'm grateful for that and i don't want to undermine anyone who has um but i feel like if i feel like usually stories of abuse are their own story like they're not just mentioned in the middle of something i feel like people take time to like specifically put awareness onto that specific story and billy does her song um your power is about abuse as well um but i think it's very interesting um that she did that and she also um she also talks about putting on a facade for the public but anyway moving on because that was kind of sad and i want to talk about abuse um one lyric from the song is i'm happier than ever at least it's my devor try um to keep myself together and prioritize my pleasure which i feel like is a very relatable line like whether it's relatable to someone from an artist standpoint whether it's relatable to someone from a personal standpoint whatever it may be i feel like it's very relatable because it's kind of like i'm trying to get to this place of like being so happy and being so good on myself but i'm also not there yet like i'm trying and i'm doing my best but i'm not there yet um it's like i'm putting in the effort but i'm just not there yet and what i'm going to be but i'm not um and so that's like it's kind of just saying like hey like i'm trying to improve myself i least like at least i'm putting in the effort you know because there was a time where i think many people have experience wanting to be better but just not being able to put in the effort and so this is Billy's like this is Billy saying like like i am putting in the effort and i'm trying to get better which is awesome um and so another lyric i like from the song which is um kind of sad but it's also important to think about is things that the lyric is things i'm longing for someday i'll be bored of which is very interesting because i feel like um it's i feel like it's interesting when artists talk and are like i don't necessarily like singing anymore like um or i don't want to do this field anymore which is very interesting um but this is kind of like acknowledging this lyric kind of like acknowledged acknowledges the chase a little bit like the chase of getting something because it's like yeah these are my goals right now but i reserve the right to not want them anymore like i reserve the right to change my mind if i end up not being entertained by it which i think is very interesting because i feel like not a lot of or at least not a lot of music that i've heard i'm sure there's some out there but not a lot of music that i've heard has been like i like i really want this to happen but i also might not like it in the future like um like i really want to get a horse like let's use that as an example i really want to get a horse i don't want to get a horse i don't just just anything i really want to get a horse but once i get the horse i might be like eh i don't want the horse anymore i which is awful don't buy a horse if you're not gonna keep it if you're not gonna take care of it but this is kind of billy saying like i can change my mind like i'm sorry but i can't um and then we know the song which is so beautiful um it's called goldwing i don't want to talk about this is about someone being pure and like billy's referencing the music industry in this song and it's kind of like you have to be careful like you're new to this and you don't know anything so you have to be careful that someone's not going to trick you or like sell you out and so some of the lyrics that illustrate like kind of like selling you out thing are you're scared and oh sorry not you're scared sorry it's your scar it's not so it's not your scar it it's your sacred okay start over rewind what a lyric that illustrates this this idea of like someone trying to trick you is your sacred in their star which is kind of saying like your first meet and no one's heard your voice or seeing you so all the producers and executives all want you to like accept their deal so you can only be in business with them before someone else tries to like quote unquote steal you um which is kind of interesting because it's kind of it's it's interesting um because i feel like everyone has a perception of the music industry and so this specific example is kind of saying like you have to be careful because people will be dirty they will undermine you they will um use you to get themselves into a higher position and so another lyric that like describes that is they're gonna tell you what you want to hear just to sell you in a year which is very interesting and very like calling someone out and i don't know whether but i feel like really referencing something specific there and it's kind of the idea that like yeah like like you're interesting right now and you're great right now and we're gonna do great but then next year someone else is gonna come along and i'm gonna and i'm gonna break our contracts and offer you and like try and get you another deal so like i don't have to do with you anymore which is kind of like awful but but it happens and it sucks um and then the last song i'm gonna talk about which is so so amazing is happier than ever it's the title track it was referenced in getting older in the lyric i'm happier than i realize at least that's my never blah blah blah blah blah um it's a breakup song which is so good it's so good i love this song and it's really the first half of the song is kind of slow and like mourning the relationship and kind of like oh no like it's over and then the second half is more like i don't need you like like this is more like it's the second half is more like i'm recognizing that you weren't good for me like you like i wasn't happy in this relationship and so in this um in this song there's a lyric that says i knew when i asked you to be cool about what i was telling you you do the opposite of what you said you do and i didn't want to read which references a phone call in um which was showed in billy's documentary the world's a little blurry um where she calls her boyfriend after he um spent the night drinking and drove home drunk like he he drove home drunk and billy had told him previously that she doesn't want him to do that because one it's not safe two she worries about him like there's so many factors that went into billy's saying please don't drive home drunk and he's still dead which is always not good for many many many many many reasons but one one that billy's is talking about is like you're not listening to me like i told you to like just be cool i told you to lay low not to drive and he did i mean it's good that he told her he did but he did and that doesn't change the fact that he didn't listen to her which is not cool not cool but not cool um and so another lyric that references the documentary that billy released is um i could talk about every time that you showed up on time but i'd have an empty line because you never did that lyric is so powerful it's so powerful um but it's also represented the documentary i decided that where billy performed at coachella i think in 2019 2018 maybe um and she gave her boyfriend free tickets to coachella which is a very big deal for music people coachella tickets are not cheap and they're obviously were like the ip or something because billy was performing so they must have been good um and so she gave them these tickets and she was like i will give you these tickets as long as i see you during the weekend and so billy during one of the days um billy's boyfriend said that he would be at uh interscope party which is billy's record label he said that he would show up to the interscope party so he can hang out with billy and he never showed which is not cool not cool i also don't think he gave her any warning which is also not cool um and so this line is referencing that and she's kind of like i like i can talk about you being good but i can't because you weren't like it's kind of like you set yourself up for this like i'm just like you can't you can't expect me to talk good about you when you weren't good um which is very like kind of like a slap in the face not a slap in the face but it's kind of like a wake up call like like i i will talk good about you if you were good but if you weren't i'm not gonna do it because it's i'm not gonna lie and it's very very very interesting anyway that's all billy's that's all billy's music and i am going to split this up into two parts because there's so much more i want to talk about but i don't have enough time so this is a part one now that you know all of her music you can listen to it you can come back and listen to this episode again and you can be like whoa that's so right or actually i think different and then you can listen to the next week's episode where i'll be talking about a bunch of other stuff like her music videos tours award shows i'll be doing all that and you can be like okay i understand what this one nor oh or maybe that shouldn't work or maybe oh i wish i saw her on tour or maybe she didn't come to my sitting on tour whatever it is you can listen to it and you can relate to it a little bit um because you'll have time to know when talking to know what i'm talking about so yeah thanks for listening to the first part of my art of the week um on billy isles this is super fun i talked for a long time um that's kind of scary anyway um my podcast is up on streaming platforms now it's on spotify it's on google podcast it's on amazon it's on wherever you want to find it except for a podcast because it's still needs to be approved but we're working on it um yeah i'm on came on each eating on the bridge every tuesday at six not at ten at six i was about to say ten o'clock but it's not it's ten it's not ten it's every tuesday at six tuesday at six yeah thanks for listening this has been great i'll see you next week on tuesday at six on kmh 89 the bridge