Billie Eilish – The End of the World

This is a complex song, as should perhaps be expected in dealing with a concept as complicated as “the end of the world”. But overall it appears to be based on two presumptions. First is that the singer is obviously convinced such an event can transpire, even in her lifetime. This may be an understanding she has developed on her own. Or, as insinuated in the first verse, this understanding was introduced to her by the addressee.

Now the second presumption would be that said addressee is a romantic interest. And to make a heavily-symbolic story more palatable, what it appears as if this song is actually based on is her questioning his commitment if some type of major, avoidably life-threatening catastrophe took place. In other words, in the midst of such, would he “panic and hide”, or would he want to spend the his last five minutes with her? 

So with that in mind we can definitely conclude, everything else aside, that this is in fact a love song.

A lot more than meets the eyes

But again, there is a lot of other stuff going on also. Its lyrics are based on imaginings of “Armageddon” and even its aftermath. For instance, in terms of the latter, in the second verse Billie depicts some type of primordial setting where she and the addressee are able to love each other “like some primal animals”. So perhaps it can be said that the singer does not necessarily see “the end of the world” as a bad thing. Or more to the point, we can conclude that she perceives certain factors in the present world as inhibiting she and her partner’s ability to love freely.

Indeed, as stated early, this song is very much based on romance. For with the exception of the second verse, throughout most of the tune what the singer is trying to ascertain is if her partner is truly committed to her onto death.

Quick Facts about “The End of the World”

This track was written by a British musician named Rob Dickinson. He originally released “The End of the World” in 2008.

Meanwhile Billie Eilish’s first cover of this song was introduced to the world wide web in 2018. 

Moreover she dropped a live rendition of the tune on BBC Radio 1 in 2019, so there are actually two different versions by Billie which are in circulation.