Billie Eilish has revealed she almost scrapped hit song Birds of a Feather as she feared it was “stupid”.
The track, which is featured on her third studio album Hit Me Hard and Soft, has become one of the singer’s biggest chart successes to date. However, in a profile published on Wednesday for Wall Street Journal, Eilish admitted she nearly removed it from the album.
“Multiple times I was like, ‘We should cut this,'” she recalled.
Eilish and her brother Finneas spent almost a year working on the track in the studio as she tried to decide if it was worth releasing.
The star was still having second thoughts about the song as she presented the finished album to label bosses.
She explained, “Even when I played the whole album for the label, I was like, ‘Guys, this one is kind of stupid.'”
Birds of a Feather, a far more upbeat love song than Eilish’s usual sound, spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard Global 200 charts. It also became Spotify’s most-streamed song of the year in 2024 with 1.781 billion streams and has since surpassed three billion streams.
Eilish is currently on the final leg of her Hit Me Hard and Soft world tour, which is scheduled to end in November.
The 23-year-old star kicked off the shows in September last year and explained completing the dates has taken a while because she likes to take time out between performances.
She added, “It takes longer, and you make less money that way. But for me, it’s magical.”
Birds of a Feather is the closing number in Eilish’s tour setlist.
