The Manchester leg of Billie Eilish’s tour recently saw her debut a brand new song that made an allusion to the legal battle between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.
Since rocketing to superstardom in the latter years of the 2010s, Eilish has not only established herself as an intriguing young musical presence but also an outspoken public figure in many ways.
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In addition to being candid about her own struggles with body image and a life-threatening form of depression , she has also thrown her hat in the ring regarding a wide variety of social issues affecting Americans today.
So it perhaps shouldn’t be surprising that she’d have something to say about some of the biggest matters dominating the nation’s consciousness right now, but the avenue through which she expressed it came as an exciting surprise to her fans at her latest concert.
On June 7, Billie Eilish and her brother and writing partner Finneas took to the stage at the AO Arena in Manchester, England.
And about halfway through the performance, Insider reported that Eilish introduced a new song that hadn’t even been hinted at publicly before.
In her words, “We haven’t played a new song live before it’s out since 2017 or 2018. This is one we just wrote and we just wanted to play for you.”
As the cheering fans in attendance would soon learn, it’s called “TV” and it largely deals with her feelings of being overwhelmed after a recent breakup.
And as she stares at her television in the song and asks her former lover if he saw one of her TV appearances, she also contemplates her anxieties about alienating her friends and wonders if she’s the problem in her interpersonal relationships.
But in the midst of that context, she makes a brief reference to a current event that was almost certainly on TV while she was writing it.
Of course, that would be the massively publicized trial in connection with Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard.
But while some might expect her to lyrically take sides as so many across various social media platforms did, it turns out that it was precisely that buzz that Eilish seemed to take issue with.
As she sang in the last bar of the second verse, “The internet’s gone wild watching movie stars on trial/While they’re overturning Roe V. Wade.”
Whether the events of the trial and the social media calamity surrounding it are a distraction from issues affecting women or another example of them are thus far up to interpretation.
Either way, the fate of Roe V. Wade would be the far more pressing concern of the two for Eilish as she’s been an outspoken advocate for abortion rights.
According to The Hollywood Reporter , she had contemplated cancelling her appearance at the Austin City Limits festival in October of last year after Texas passed a law banning the procedure within six weeks of pregnancy.
However, she made her date after coming to realize that the people she would be performing for would include those most affected by the law, who she said “deserve everything in the world.”
It’s unclear at this time whether “TV” will appear on a future album, but it certainly sounded like it went over well for those lucky enough to hear it live.
h/t: Insider
