Listen to Bill Callahan’s weird-ass cover of Billie Eilish’s “Wish You Were Gay”
Bill Callahan and Bonnie “Prince” Billy continue their covers series with an extraordinarily strange (and good) reinterpretation of Billie Eilish’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? single.
Since the beginning of October, folk icons Bill Callahan and Bonnie “Prince” Billy have been recording and releasing covers, each time with a guest. Earlier this month, they released interpretations of Cat Stevens’ “Blackness of the Night” (with AZITA;) Hank Williams Jr’s “OD’d in Denver” (With Matt Sweeney;) and Dave Rich’s “I’ve Made Up My Mind” (with Alasdair Roberts). This week, the pair have covered a song that’s a little out of left field: “Wish You Were Gay,” a single from Billie Eilish’s massively successful debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Featuring Sean O’Hagan, Callahan and Billy’s Eilish cover turns the track — which, on Eilish’s album, features just her and ukulele — into a strange, burbling thing, replete with squelching synth noises, unique affectations, and more. Shifting in style more than once over its runtime, it turns the track — a fairly lightweight part of Eilish’s album — into an epic. It is an extremely strange version of the track, and it is also hugely enjoyable to hear. Listen above.
Billie photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images