Switched on Pop - Hopes and Fears of Mac Miller, Future, Drake, and Billie Eilish

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

Mac Miller, Future and Billie Eilish all have good and bad news to share. On Miller’s posthumous album, Circles, he exposes personal struggles with fame, addiction, and mental illness — sobering topics given his unintentional drug overdose last year. Yet at the same time we hear him searching for “good news,” practicing self care and accepting that “there's a whole lot more” waiting. Future & Drake’s celebration of material excess also finds them “working on the weekend” just to keep up appearances. Similarly, Billie Eilish has achieved “everything [she] wanted,” but dreams of death and darkness overwhelm her. But she’s buoyed by the support of her brother FINNEAS. Many pop songs are about a single emotion: love, heartbreak or exuberant joy. But these great songs evoke more complex emotions, existing somewhere in a liminal space between our hopes and fears. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.

And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. You know, Nate, some of my favorite music can speak to multiple emotions at the same time. Yeah. And as I was listening to songs to think about what we would chat about this week, I kept hearing this theme arise. Yeah. A combination of hopes and dreams, but also fears and nightmares. Two things that you would think might belong in different songs, but are often happening in just one track. I don't want to wax too philosophical about what that might mean at large, but these songs really stuck with me. Not only did they get stuck in my head, but existing in this sort of like liminal, emotional space was powerful.

And so I want to take three songs today. One from Mac Miller off of his posthumous release, another from future featuring Drake. Yeah. And finally, Billy Eilish. Each of these artists are going to speak to both our dreams. and our nightmares. Wow. All right.

This is exciting. This is like Camarical pop. What does Camarical mean? Camara is like a figure from Greek mythology that has, is a fire breathing monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail. So this is multiple things at once. I think that's exactly what we're going to find. I want to start out with Mac Miller, an artist who we haven't spoken about on the show.

A really, I think, important figure in contemporary hip hop for those who don't know Mac Miller was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and he had a very promising young career in music before an accidental overdose at age 26. He recorded in a very short period of time 13 mixtapes and five studio albums. He was known for his 2012 song Loud, which went to number 53 on the charts.

He was also featured on Ariana Grande's song, The Way, off her first album. And, you feel so fine, make you feel so fine, I hope you hit me on my cellie when I sneak in your mind. And his song, Self-Care, went number 33 on the charts in 2018, dealing with the challenges of his own mental health. Self-care, I'm treating me, right. Yeah. Hell, yeah. We're going to be all right.

He has an upcoming posthumous release, an album called Circles, and off it, there's a single called Good News. I want to listen to that with you because I think it captures both a lot of those. the struggles and the hopes that Mac was dealing with that resonated so powerfully with me. Wow. Yeah. That was a deep experience. Yeah, it really is. Obviously, with his loss, it's that much more powerful.

Absolutely. Yeah, you read into certain lyrics, such as there's a whole lot more for me waiting on the other side. It's impossible not to hear that with that specific valence. In its moment, there's almost a sense of hope there, but I think as a listener, there's a great amount of grief as well. Yeah, yeah, a sense of loss, absolutely. Mack was someone who dealt with depression. He struggled with fame as well as addiction,

and he wasn't afraid to talk about these things. It's what made a lot of his later work speak so strongly to people. I think he had a way of being extremely vulnerable. We can also hear in this song, not just his vulnerability. We can hear the progression of his emotions, and we can hear, I think, the real strength of him as a songwriter. And so I thought what we could do is highlight a couple of moments that show this song's sort of progression of despair into hope and the duality of emotions that it contains. If we just listen to the chorus, I actually think we get both of those sides in one moment.

Before we even dig into the lyrics, what strikes me about the chorus is how the harmonic language of the chord progress, and kind of mirrors this idea, good news, that's all they want to hear, they don't like it when I'm down. As he's saying down, the chords that are being played by these fascinating guitar parts, which we need to talk more about. They move to like a minor key

and then maybe a diminished chord. So it's text painting that notion of feeling down and then it resolves to the major tonic again. Just those four lines just have a lot of like emotional weight to them. Yeah, exactly. the words, good news is all they want to hear, which is sort of in the more major sonorities of that chord progression,

are then balanced by the, they don't like it when I'm down and where things take that more menacing turn. And those chords loop throughout. I think it's appropriate that they have this circularity to them. And there are moments, though, where he jumps out of these cycles.

Part of it he does in the way that he performs vocally, and we're going to talk about that, but I think there's some other just really great moments I want to highlight musically as well. When he moves from the first verse into the second verse, I think we see the darkness really come out and then the hope comes later. Here's the second verse. That final lyric, wow, got to build something beautiful just to set it on fire.

Yeah. That's a good line. There's a couple of those. like when he says, I'm holding all the cards, but I hate dealing. Yeah, he's got some good one-liners in here. I'm sure people are going to, like, have tattoos of these before long. Certainly. This song is circulating, and he's in the middle of it.

We're not in a good place, but I really like how on the other side is perhaps a sense of hope, and we can hear that in his final verse. As he says, there's a whole lot more for me waiting. It ain't so bad. And of course, this is what makes the song obviously so emotionally challenging is that he didn't make it. But he had a sense of there was great opportunity.

We can hear joy in that as a listener sort of interpreting our own experience into it. You pointed out how the harmonies are both joyous but also unsettling. And you were a question, like, what's making that sound? And part of it is just the chords themselves, but I think that this uneasy feeling that we're getting in the song

is reinforced by how it's being produced. We have some really great players on here. John Bryan, who people might know for his score for many films, including Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mine. He's produced for Amy Mann, Fiona Apple, Kanye West. I think he was even on Lemonade. And then also there's guitar by Wendy Melvoin who played with Prince. So you've got these two really interesting guitar players,

and we can hear them in conversation with each other. I think the way that they actually construct the track creates that uneasy feeling. And I wanted to highlight it by playing it out for you. Great. Here's sort of just a really rough playing of that weird harmony circulating guitar line. There it is.

There it is. Okay. Kind of bland, though. A little bit. I wasn't going to say it. Thank you for sparing your critique. They bring the song a little more alive by not just doing that once,

but they actually record multiple guitars on top of each other. And in doing so, it widens our stereo field, but it also feels like there's a little bit of a conversation happening by double tracking the guitar. And so you get some minor imperfections, but it also sounds richer. Some slippage. Yeah.

And then they really increase the slippage by adding some weird delays and effects to make things feel... Well... Technical term. Yeah, now we get it. Now we're getting that good news guitar line, getting closer and closer.

I can hear it. Just as they take what is a simple line and breathe more life into it through some wobbliness, I think what I'm so attracted to about Mac Miller's performance is the way in which his phrasing is always changing that a song which I think goes over five minutes long, I keep getting pulled into it

because he constantly surprises me with how he delivers his lines. And we could hear this actually just in one verse alone. If we just go into the first verse, he has so many ways of performing the challenges that he's dealing with. So to illustrate it,

I want to break down that verse. Here he is right at the top. I spent a whole day in my head a little spring cleaning. I'm always too busy dreaming. Another gorgeous line. but then the music comes in to join him and changes the feeling of what it's like to be alone in his head

I can't just be easy why does everybody need me stay but you underneath the ceiling got the cards in my hand I hate doing well as he changing up his phrasing but as soon as he says why couldn't things just be easy actually things maybe do get easy the band comes to join him to give him some support Is there like some marimba in there?

Yeah, there's some kind of vibes. Silophone or something. I like it. It's really pretty. Yeah, it is. And then you had mentioned one of your favorite moments where he really plays with our expectations of phrasing, and you're trying to be like, Mac, where are you at?

Yeah. So here's the last couple of lines of the first verse. I spent the whole day in my head. A little spring cleaning. I'm always too busy dreaming. Hmm. The rhyme scheme is never, you can never lock in. No. It's never just like A, B, A, B. It's constantly changing and that kind of keeps you on your toes as a listener.

You don't know exactly what to expect. He's switching up the phrasing. He's taking these long pauses. Yeah. I even love how he just says this difficult war way. He's like, get everything I need that I'm gone. And he does it like, get everything I need that I'm gone. Huh. Get everything I need and I'm gone. But it ain't standing

Can I get a bright? Everything is both highly performed And yet because of the way That he's changing these rhyme schemes He's altering the phrasing Changing his intonation throughout It ends up feeling entirely natural Like he almost feels like he's having a conversation

And you're trying to lean in closer To hear what he has to say next. Right. I think this is something that I've had to accept over the years with this artist. I think when I first heard Mac Miller, I was very dismissive. And I think a big part of that

was because of his vocal delivery, which sounded kind of laconic and maybe sort of like mumble-mouthed and lazy to me. But in this song especially, and in general, the way I think about him now is that these are aesthetic choices. And I think that is exactly the point.

the goal is to bring you in as a listener by him hanging back. Yeah. So you have to fill that space. And I think at first I was like, oh, don't make me like, don't make me try and understand everything you're saying. But of course, that is the reward of that deep listening. Yeah. And I think he really gets you when he just fluidly switches from rap into song. And I just, I love this moment at the end of the first verse to put a little bookend on our phrasing conversation.

Say sorry playing it about All I have to do is say sorry And he's sort of singing it He's pleading it He's crooning And you know At the same time

At the end of that line He says I don't even know What I'm saying it about And he has this sort of Upspeak In his intonation This sort of like

doubting his own phrase Yeah Before landing into the chorus But good news Good news, good news Yeah The song ends sadly But also

Really beautifully It ain't that bad It doesn't have to be no more. And then he fades out and the band just keeps on playing. Yeah. Recording a posthumist release is a really sensitive subject in terms of being respectful to that person, obviously to their family, also to the listeners. And I think that they've done a really artful job taking a work that was reported by his family to be almost entirely complete this project. And it really does feel like a beautiful swan song.

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unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Let's keep on moving with some other music. Right on. Mac is not the only artist who is conveying these emotions of hopes and fears at the same time. I was very curious to hear this new release by Future in Drake. We just heard a song called Good News. This song is called Life is Good. And we're going to have a question, is it?

All right. The song, very strangely, is divided into two parts. Okay. Distinct halves. Yeah. So we'll start with... Timera. Yeah. Do we start with the goat or do we start with the serpent? I think it's the goat. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're going to start with a goat. And in this case, Drake is the goat. Okay, go ahead. Working on a weekend like usual. Way off in the deep end like usual.

I swear they passed us, they doing too much. Haven't done my taxes, I'm too turned up. Virgil got a paddock on my wrist going nuts. Call me slipping once. Okay, so what? Someone hit your block up. I tell you if it was us. Man, a house in Rosewood, it too plush.

That's heavy. That groove is heavy, and I love. like it. Drake's flow fits right in the pocket. Yeah. This is cool. So here I think we have Drake expounding his great material success. He is excited about hanging out with his buddy Virgil. He's got a paddock on his wrist. Virgil is the head of Louis Vuitton's menswear line. I guess perhaps he is friends with him and the paddock is a high-end wrist watch. He is rhyming about his fame, how it is more than just a social media meme, and more than just his influence. He later says, you know, this is fame, not clout.

This is fame, not clout. I don't even know what that's about. Watch your mouth. Ah, an important distinction. And he's often critiqued for just making memes, not music. Right. So he's addressing his critics. He's celebrating life, and he's frankly bragging about his manor house in Rosewood,

which is a signature suite in the upscale London Rosewood Hotel. So life is good, right? Is it? I don't know. It's like, it's a fun track, but the production is kind of cold. Like it has these really dark, minor pads. Yeah, yeah. And it's very sparse.

Yeah. That central baseline has kind of a harsh, buzzy sawtooth kind of texture to it. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I actually think if we look at the opening line, it really shows where Drake is. at. Working on the weekend like usual. Working on a weekend like usual.

Way off in the deep end like usual. And the music video is actually really fun. It's Drake and Future both working overtime jobs. And they sort of go from being a mechanic to working in a retail location. And I think there's sort of a worker's solidarity, which is going on with the song. But underneath it, I think the darkness of the track and Drake rhyming about how life is great and he has all this material excess, he's really just showing that, like, to hold it all together, he's constantly working his butt off.

Yeah. Chimera. And that's where Future comes in. Okay. So the song, as I said, is in two acts, and there's a sample flip, which takes the song in a new Sonic territory by interrupting Drake.

Here's Future. Curtin up, Act 2. Man, a house in Rosewood, it too plush. It's cool, man. Got red bottoms on. His life is good. You know what I mean? This is a funny moment because this is actually future sampling himself.

This is an interview that he did with the, I believe, French outlet called Click. Click? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But why not? So here's the interview. Cool, man. Got red bottoms on.

His life is good. You know what I mean? Do you seem to feel good when you're in Europe? Who? That's great. So Future here is, of course, talking about his red bottom shoes, lewitons, and celebrating life. Let's get a little bit more of what's going on for future. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, yeah. 100,000 for the cheapest ring on a finger, look. I don't flew one out of Spain to be in my domain and automata. Who, drawed $3 on the ring called Ben to Trot. I was in the trap. Serial cocaine name been the same fence. Ooh, granted she was standing right down while I

Kier. And now the serpent tail. Yeah. And the fire breathing lion. We were talking how the very beginning of the song with Drake has like a certain heaviness to it. Yeah. We just threw a hundred pound weight on that.

And now we're like rattling. We've got trap hatch. We've got heavy bass. Yeah. Yeah. Things have taken a turn. And some of the same themes. Here we have future bragging about he's going off to Spain.

Spain flying private just to buy a watch. Which sounds like an exhausting trip, but in any case. Yeah. I mean, just all the rigmarole, you know, packing and, you know, traffic to the airport and time change. It's like a vault. Who wants to go? Flying private's not the same anymore. Who's going to Spain for to buy a watch?

It's crazy. Who is the time? Well, Future has the time because he just bought the watch. Point taken. Okay. Anyway, he pairs this line with the end of his verse, he says, wasn't the trap serving cocaine, haven't been the same since. And I think what we've gotten this song is that same struggle between having made it,

but in many ways his past catching up to him, the systemic injustice of living in the trap, constantly bothering him. He then talks about landing in London and needing to make sure that he is packing heat and that there is constantly people out to get him. And so he has both made it, but he's got to have his head over his shoulder. Yeah. So I'm on a PJ lighting it up. lighting it up backward full of sticky.

So I'm on a PJ, lying it up backward full of sticky. So having fun time on the plane. lands in London and he's carrying a weapon with him and worried about, you know, people are going to carry a stretcher behind. So it doesn't matter if you're flying private and you're safe in the air, you land. And he's still has the same fears that he's always had. The thing that really puts this song into bummer territory, if you will, is I think the final line, the refrain. You know, Future's entire Uber is a new.

You know, Future's entire Uber is known for its reference to lean, its reference to decodean, Perkissette. One of his kids' mask off was talking all about using Molly and Perkissette, yeah. I think in his music and the production, even in his vocal delivery, feels completely inebriated. And it seems that, you know, as he's flying around, he can't escape these things. And I thought, ooh, man, is that dark? But in going a little deeper in trying to find out what future thought about this himself, I think you'll find that it's not so simple. In a Rolling Stone interview that he did with Charles Holmes,

he had expressed, I think this was back in 2016, maybe some concern. He says, what have I done? What have I done to other people? What have I done to myself talking about the celebration of drug culture? But he also says in that same interview with clique? Click. We. Yeah.

Maybe as listeners, we could hear it in a different way. You know what I mean? I'm not like super drugged out of drug addict. My music may portray a certain kind of image. And I know there's some people that might be super drugged out, and they listen to the music like, hey, thank you, you, speaking for me. And some people that's not, they feel like, man, I don't have to do drugs. I can listen to the future and feel like I'm on something.

Like, you don't have to try it. I'm not doing it for, I'm not doing it for, like, for moments and for people to enjoy it. You know what I mean? I don't do it for just like for you to really have to. to live that type of life. That should be Dare's new slogan. Don't do drugs. Listen to future.

Just listen to future. And it's the same thing, basically. I really appreciate how he uses this, he samples himself from this interview, celebrating how life is good. Yeah. He, I think, in his production and his lyrics, questions that same exact feeling. Is life really good? Is he just being haunted by his past?

And yet, if we just go and look at the material that he samples, we see that maybe this is more of a performance than it seems. Perhaps this is evoking a sense of inebriation, not necessarily celebrating it or endorsing it. And I think that might connect this track back to Mac Miller in a way. Both of these are nominally hip-hop songs that kind of are never. nevertheless at the bleeding edge of where rapping ends and singing begins. And there are also tracks that sort of force you to confront the performativity of the act where it might sound sort of unstudied and improvised, but the closer you look and the closer you listen, you see that these are very deliberate choices being made by Mac Miller and

future in their respective songs. Yeah. to give you that feeling of spontaneity and something unstudied because that disorientation is so effective and so pleasurable for us as listeners. Yeah. The chimera is in full effect. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly democratic cities for ice raids and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday.

We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want order at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down.

That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. And there's another artist. Yeah. And perhaps even artists who I think are capturing so gorgeously. this dual sense of having dreams and having nightmares. Wow. All in one song.

Okay, on the edge of my seat. I had a dream. I got everything I want, not what you think. If I'm being honest, it might have been a nightmare to anyone. So this is Billy Eilish's latest single, everything I wanted. and it's written and performed with her brother Phineas

singing backup vocals and doing the production for end of the show. This was one of those songs where I first heard it and I was like, stop the car. What is going on? What I love about this song

is that there are many ways of reading it and that gets back to the sort of opening point that I was making this piece is that I love songs that contain multiple emotions so that you're kind of inserting yourself into it and trying to find your place. The first spot

that this happened for me, when honestly I needed to pull the car over and listen to the song even more deeply, was actually really this first line when she says she got everything she wanted. I had a dream. I got everything I wanted. Not what you think.

From being honest, it might have been a nightmare. This is where Phineas shines as a producer. He's so good at taking her vocals and imparting meaning in the performance in ways that are sometimes subtle and sometimes less subtle. He does the same thing on bad guy where he sort of affects her voice here when she says everything I wanted. Do you notice? I can't describe it, but it becomes a little distorted or...

It becomes reverberated and cavernous. And it sounds like she got everything she wanted and it's totally empty. She's in a giant empty space. And what an interesting reflection. I think that the other performers we've heard earlier today saying maybe similar things in other ways, contrasting the joy of material excess with their own personal struggles. Here she's got everything she's wanted. It's nothing. It's empty.

So there's a clue right at the start of the song that not everything is what meets the ear here. Yeah. She gets us again at the beginning of the second verse when I think things go not even just. but downward. I tried to scream, but my head was underwater. They called me weak like I'm not just somebody's... Whoa, okay, so two cool things happening there. Underwater literally sounds like it's underwater.

And then when they called me weak, on that word weak, it sounds like a number of people are saying it to her at the same time. time. Ooh, I didn't even catch that. I want to hear that again. I think. I don't know. Rewind it back. They called me weak. Oh, that's subtle. Or there's something going to. They've manipulated her voice. It's like multi-tracked and almost whispered. They called me weak. It makes me think of people of a group of people kind of pointing their finger and saying weak. Let's also give full credit to Billy Eilish and her ability to impart so much meaning into these phrases. The little voluble.

vocal turn she does. My head was underwater. There's like a little kind of subtle trill there. The control she has, the intimacy. It's powerful. Absolutely. And undergirding what makes her performance so great is a set of harmonies that are, I think, perhaps equally as confusing as the performed emotional state of the song. Love loose. Is that you on the tickling the ivory say? Yeah, let's me on the keys. Good, Chuck. Oh, thank you. When I first heard these sounds, I knew something was up and I couldn't quite figure out what it was.

So I consulted with our friend Asaf Perez from Top 40 Theory. Nice. Anytime you have a chord progression that's played in a loop that repeats itself for an extended section of a song or even for an entire song. And this is the case in most popular songs, it limits the functional feel of the chord progression. because the chord progression is contained in a very small sort of capsule, and the listener very quickly stops being affected by the supposed tension and release properties of the chords. So, for example, in everything I wanted, when the progression is slightly altered in the middle of the chorus, and instead of a minor three chord, you get a major three chord,

the expectation for the loop to stay the same is defied, and that's a very noticeable moment in the song in terms of the harmony. So for a chord progression that repeats itself, the most significant tension it generates from a harmonic standpoint is that when the listener hears the last chord of the loop, they expect a return to the first chord in the next measure or the next kind of metric unit. So to sum up, yes, everything I wanted has a non-resolving core progression. But that non-resolution is more of a harmonic flavor rather than a functional building block. A lot of times in music today, chords don't sort of function as they did in the classical times, which is to say that they don't necessarily resolve to a certain place. They're not trying to point you in a direction.

In fact, the song, like with Mac Miller, but also here with Billy, they're more for creating an atmosphere. And one of the ways they can create an atmosphere is by not pointing in a direction, keeping things open, letting the performer try different ways of singing over that repeating loop. And in this one in particular, Asaf would call this an open progression because it actually doesn't resolve to its home key. In fact, the home key isn't in the chords at all. It's one of these strange chord progressions without its root chord. And just to highlight how this song has both these hopes and dreams and as well as their nightmare, we could actually imagine the song being a major song or a minor song.

And to illustrate it, I took this chord progression and ended it in a major key and in a minor key. Let's check out what those sounds like. Do you want to sound minor or major? Let's start with minor. I always want to end with major, I think. So we're just going to loop through once. It stays open. It could go anywhere.

Ooh, there's that minor resolution, and it is sad. That is sad. Yeah. It is resolved. it is final. So if that's our nightmare, here's our dream. And one more time. We'll get that nice little core loop, cute things.

Beautiful. Open. They could go anywhere. Or they could resolve. And there's the major resolution. But isn't it? Promise optimism. Isn't it kind of unsatisfying, though, at the same time?

Like, isn't the actual non-resolved version best? 100%. Right? You want to hear it like it's supposed to be. It's up in the air. It's not one or the other. It's the chimera. It's the lion and the serpent at once.

You know, there's one more effect that's happening to this sound that adds a lot of suspense. And it's a geeky technical term. I think you're familiar with it. Maybe not. We've talked about side chaining before. Side chaining. There was a ghost. side chain. A ghost side change.

We've got chimeras and ghosts in the mix now. So check this out. Actually, the way I played it there was just sort of played it dry. But the way that it's produced, it sounds more like this. In the song, we actually get it along with a nice

kick drum, and there's a sort of sense of like pounding suspense, as I said. Add some energy to the song. Yeah. Quite nice. However, when the song begins, the first clip that we heard, there's not a kick drum in it at all.

Right. However, the same pumping effect is happening. The idea of what a side chain is, I don't know why they even call it that, but you basically say every single time this sound happens, make the volume of another sound ducked down below it. So what's happening is every time that kick drum comes in, the piano is going to get all more quiet.

Okay. And it has a thumping effect. Okay, so let me hear the piano and drum one more time, and I'm listening for the side-chaining effect of the, every time the drum hits, the piano kind of recedes in volume. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Kind of like almost a pulsing effect in the piano.

Yeah, exactly. And then you're saying, if we go back to the very beginning, we don't actually have the bass drum, but we still have that sort of pulsating piano, as though it were there. Isn't that cool? Yeah. It does create this sort of ghost.

presence, which seems very fitting for a track that's somewhere between a dream and a nightmare. You know, this song actually is about an actual dream that she had in which she dies. And the sort of ghostly version of herself sees that nobody cares. She's gone. In fact, you were fake. We never cared about you whatsoever. A very, very solemn dream. But when we move into the pre-chorus and chorus, there is unbelievable hope.

I had a dream You with me And you say Damn Isn't that pretty? Yeah That's I don't have anything profound to say

That's just That's just great songwriting So I hadn't caught it originally But the backing vocals Are performed by her brother And the song is Actually about their relationship Here's what Billy had to say about it

In an interview with the BBC Pretty much that whole song is about me and Phinez's relationship as siblings. I mean, there's so many, I can't even pinpoint the exact message because there's like a thousand. But it's kind of like my brother is my best friend. And, you know, I have these dreams and these things happen. And no matter what happens, like, he's going to always be there for me. And it's the same the other way around.

So that's like the gist of the song, kind of. I'm a sucker for that. I just think it's really sweet. That's beautiful. You know? Yeah. How often do siblings get along, let alone make a beautiful song together? They're like the anti-oasis.

And just thinking back for a second, I really appreciate these songs because by not giving us the sort of certainty, by not pointing us surely in one direction or the other, it really just, it pulls me in and it also pulls me out. It pulls emotions out. It requires me to consider the hope but also fear at the same time. Oftentimes those are working together. Our greatest hopes are often, you know, in conversation with the things that we fear might go wrong.

We often fear failing or fear what success might be like. And there often aren't comfortable words in easy ways of saying that. And so why not put it to song? Yeah. This is pop that occupies kind of a gray area. So often people might say, oh, pop, it's so silly. One song, whatever sounds the same.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. But, ooh, I mean, I find myself nodding my head and thinking about these songs after the fact. I'll be doing the same. I'm glad you introduced and reintroduce me to some of these tracks, and I'll keep my ears out for other pop that explores that duality.

It's a beautiful thing. On Pop is produced by me, Charlie Harding. Me, Nate Sloan. We are mixed and edited by Brandon McFarland, produced by Megan Lubin and Bridget Armstrong, and executive producers are Liz Nelson and Nashat, Kerwa. We're a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network. You can find more of our episodes.

Anywhere you get your podcasts, and especially on our website, switchdownpop.com, where you can find playlist and fun things from our episode, extra notes, and so on. And our book, Switch on Pop, how pop music works, and why it matters. We love hearing from you, so reach out on Twitter at Switch on Pop.

We'll see you there. We'll be back in again another week, and until then, thanks for listening.