The collective consciousness tends to have the same epiphanies at the same time. That’s why, so often, one can notice trends and themes coinciding in pop culture that go beyond merely “the suits” orchestrating it. So it is that many feel the crescendo of disgust all at once being manifested in film and music. For Billie Eilish, that disgust has been fueled not just by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but the overall apathy of humanity spurred by our numbing internet “culture.” The very internet that provides the spectacle we all can’t seem to get enough of. From watching Johnny Depp sue Amber Heard for defamation (referenced in Eilish’s “TV”) to the January 6th hearings that have continued to prove that government is the biggest spectacle of all (which we’ve known at least since the HUAC hearings), our thirst for it must surely be at least part of the reason why it continues to be provided.
This is a major theme in Jordan Peele’s third film, Nope, released on essentially the same day as Eilish’s two-track EP, Guitar Songs. The latter commences with “TV,” the lamenting ballad she debuted at a June 7th concert in Manchester (a city still likely skittish about arena shows after the suicide bombing attack at Ariana Grande’s unfortunately named Dangerous Woman Tour). With it, Eilish gets right to the dreary point. One that speaks to the (lack of) heart of our zombie existence as she sings, “I don’t wanna talk right now/I just wanna watch TV.” Yes, that’s exactly what so many want to do. To just sit in front of the boob tube (whatever form it may come in—computer, phone, etc.) and numb the fuck out on soul-unenriching content. Even before the internet’s pervasiveness, this was the case, as Nope alludes to with a 90s sitcom called Gordy’s Home. Clearly one of those “hardy-har-har this isn’t really funny” shows that requires a laugh track to make viewers believe it is, Gordy’s Home is, naturally, a runaway hit. So much so that the people working on it refuse to acknowledge that they’ve pushed the starring chimpanzee too hard in order to meet filming schedule demands. And his brink is finally reached enough so that the chimp goes, well, apeshit. Starts mauling the entire cast in a fit of rage, as though to say, “You want some fucking spectacle? I’ll give it to you.”
And now that “TV” is out, it’s easy to imagine the lyrics, “I’ll put on Survivor just to watch somebody suffer/Maybe I should get some sleep/Sinking in the sofa while we all betray each other… What’s the point of anything?” playing over this scene. And certainly, what is the point of shilling unenlightening content to people? The obvious and pretty much only answer is: for money. Make that profit, be part of that inescapable capitalist machine. Eilish herself is inexorably part of it, mentioning as much when she asks, “Did you see me on TV?” Even if a reference to ensuring her love object is paying attention to her, it’s also a line that addresses her awareness of being a spectacle herself yet also holding some level of contempt for that role as she muses, “Maybe I, maybe I, maybe I’m the problem.” Of course, this is also just a convenient way to shruggingly excuse being part of the problem and still go on in the same way. As we all do. Each and every one of us being part of the problem that is contributing to a certain demise.
As for second song on the EP, Olivia Rodrigo is one-upped yet again (after already being so post-Sabrina Carpenter’s release of emails i can’t send) in terms of car-oriented singles with Eilish’s “The 30th.” A dramatic and affecting number about someone close to the singer being in a near-fatal car accident (one day, we’ll probably unearth the identity of whoever it was). Because, in case you didn’t know already, no native Californian songwriter can exist without eventually featuring a car crash mention in their work.
In its own way, “The 30th” is an extension of the topic of spectacle, with car wrecks being among the most “classic” of such a thing in post-modern society—hence the phrase, “It’s like a car crash…you can’t look away.” Indeed, one of J. G. Ballard’s great literary opuses, Crash, is as relevant today as it ever was. And in California, the machine that is the car being but an “additional limb” to the human body remains evergreen—no matter how often the government claims that the state will be switching over to a policy of “eco-friendly” cars only any decade now. Not seeming to pay any mind that there aren’t that many decades left for a lot of people if the environment keeps heating up.
Delivering a bridge that’s rife with emotional earnestness, Eilish wonders of the crash’s circumstances, “What if it happened to you on a different day?/On a bridge where there wasn’t a rail in the way?/Or a neighborhood street where the little kids play?/Or the Angeles Crest in the snow or the rain?/What if you weren’t alone?/There were kids in the car/What if you were remote?/No one knows where you are/If you changed anything, would you not have survived?/You’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive.” This revelatory concluding repetition speaks to the way we all feel a bit surprised, car accident or not, that those around us (and ourselves) are still alive these days.
Eilish adds, “You were scared and so am I.” To that end, she commented as her final note in an interview with Zane Lowe about Guitar Songs, “It’s a really scary world right now.” But in some sense, it has always been scary. Mainly because of how ghoulish people are when it comes to taking in and craving the spectacle. Of focusing on that rather than the world crumbling around them. The spectacle serves as a pacifier to soothe us all amidst that reality. And we all know what happens when you take away someone’s pacifier: they start acting like the chimp in Nope.
