You made me hate this city meaning

Billie Eilish’s sophomore album, Happier Than Ever, was released on July 30, and has already been embraced as the young pop star’s most unsparingly honest, and sonically diverse yet — a genuine feat considering her claim to fame was gloomy confessionals about self-harm, depression, and nightmares set against a spare musical background that altered the pop landscape as we knew it.

On her second studio album, the 19-year-old star manages to outdo herself on all fronts, weaving together a 16-track record that’s no longer concerned with imaginary monsters, but real life ones lurking around every corner: the stalkers prowling outside her door, abusers taking advantage of young girls, the nondisclosure agreements strangulating every potential relationship, and the weight of a million eyes watching your every move. Fame has taken a toll on Eilish, resulting in a new worn, wearied outlook from the still-teenaged star. (“Things I once enjoyed just keep me employed now,” she sighs on the opening track “Getting Older.”)

Yet the song that fans and critics have latched on to as a definitive standout is one of the earliest she wrote, before Happier Than Ever was even a concept. There’s a clip of her softly singing the song, which will come to be the album’s title, in the documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry, with her brother, Finneas, harmonizing and accompanying her on guitar. It’s 2019, and she’s touring her debut album for the first time, holed up in a hotel room somewhere in the U.S. The song, “Happier Than Ever,” still bears its former title “Away From You.”

Right before the clip, the documentary films Eilish having a somewhat strained phone call with her boyfriend at the time, rapper 7:AMP, whom she affectionately calls Q (she asks him to please call her back, but he’s already hung up the phone). We’re led to believe that the lyrics she’s singing in the next scene may be about their relationship.

If so, it was a doomed one. “When I'm away from you, I'm happier than ever/ Wish I could explain it better/ I wish it wasn't true,” goes the title track’s blue opening lines which she croons in a melted, whispered tone, emulating a bygone torch song. The song doesn’t get any sunnier from there as she continues to list grievances from their relationship that build up in a fiery pile: “You call me again, drunk in your Benz/ Drivin' home under the influence/ You scared me to death, but I'm wastin' my breath,” she chants. By now, the song has mutated into a prickly rock opera that reaches a startling apex as she yells, “You made me hate this city!”

“Happier Than Ever” is perhaps the most direct Eilish has been about her relationship with the rapper, not even bothering to veil any of its details in vagueness. Instead, her anger and frustration spews forth in targeted, specific streams: “I could talk about every time that you showed up on time/ But I'd have an empty line 'cause you never did,” she huffs near its end.

Incidentally, we witness several instances of Eilish calling and waiting for Q in The World’s A Little Blurry, one of them being on the day of her Coachella debut. “I wanted you to be here, dammit,” she sadly laughs into her phone at one point while scooting around an empty tennis court. Q is on the other end of the line. “My ass was alone the whole day. It’s okay,” she eventually consoles.

In the documentary, Eilish described “Happier Than Ever” as being about “nothing even specific that they did. You’re just not happy being with them. You can’t even explain it. I can’t even explain.” Since its release, she’s added that the track was one of the most therapeutic songs she’s ever written or recorded.

“‘Cause I just screamed my lungs out and could barely talk afterwards, which was very satisfying to me somehow,” she told Spotify. “I had wanted to get those screams out for a very long time, and it was very nice to.”

Eilish hasn’t elaborated on her relationship with Q since, and given her now very justified wariness to share too much about her inner life with the world, she likely won’t again. (Q responded to the documentary with his own statement in which he said, “There's always two sides to a situation,” and explained that at the time he was coping with the death of his brother.) All we can do is take her at her word — that now, with distance, she’s feeling happier than ever.

Happier Than Ever is out now.

Billie Eilish made a promise in 2020 that not a single one of her fans forgot: The moment she hopped into a salon to change her iconic green and black dye job was the moment we could expect new Billie music. And thus, the metamorphosis began—Billie finally removed her former hair color in favor of a sunshine-infused platinum blonde, and now we’re being gifted with new Billie music. Yay!

Billie’s newest offering, “Happier Than Ever,” is honestly a breath of fresh air. As the title suggests, the lyrics describe Billie being thrilled that a certain ~someone~ is out of her life. The singer briefly discussed the song in her documentary The World’s a Little Blurry and said, “The whole song is just more like nothing even specific that they did, you’re just not happy being with them. Can’t even explain it.” So glad she got that toxic energy out of her life, TBH.

Some fans are theorizing the song could potentially be about Billie’s ex Q Adams. Billie and Q broke up April 2019, and she explained, “I just wasn’t happy, and I didn’t want the same things he wanted, and I don’t think that’s fair for him. I don’t think you should be in a relationship super excited about certain things that the other person couldn’t care less about. I don’t think that’s fair to you. I didn’t think that was fair to him. And there was just a lack of effort, I think. I literally was just like, ‘Dude, you don’t even have enough love to love yourself. You can’t love me, dude. And you don’t. You think you do.’”

Now that you’ve got supplemental info, check out “Happier Than Ever”—and learn the lyrics, of course—below:

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[Chorus]
When I’m away from you
I’m happier than ever
Wish I could explain it better
I wish it wasn’t true, mmm

[Verse 1]
Give me a day or two
To think of something clever
To write myself a letter
To tell me what to do, mm-mm
Do you read my interviews?
Or do you skip my avenue?
When you said you were passin’ through
Was I even on your way?
I knew when I asked you to (when I asked you to)
Be cool about what I was tellin’ you
You’d do the opposite of what you said you’d do (what you said you’d do)
And I’d end up more afraid
Don’t say it isn’t fair
You clearly werеn’t aware that you made me miserable, ooh
So if you really wanna know

[Chorus]
When I’m away from you (when I’m away from you)
I’m happier than ever (I’m happier than ever)
Wish I could explain it better (wish I could explain it better)
I wish it wasn’t true, mmm

[Instrumental Break]

[Verse 2]
You call me again, drunk in your Benz
Drivin’ home under the influence
You scared me to death but I’m wastin’ my breath
’Cause you only listen to your fuckin’ friends
I don’t relate to you
I don’t relate to you, no
’Cause I’d never treat me this shitty
You made me hate this city

[Verse 3]
And I don’t talk shit about you on the internet
Never told anyone anything bad
’Cause that shit’s embarrassing, you were my everything
And all that you did was make me fuckin’ sad
So don’t waste the time I don’t have
And don’t try to make me feel bad
I could talk about every time that you showed up on time
But I’d have an empty line ’cause you never did
Never paid any mind to my mother or friends, so I
Shut ’em all out for you ’cause I was a kid

[Outro]
You ruined everything good
Always said you were misunderstood
Made all my moments your own
Just fuckin’ leave me alone

Starr Bowenbank Assistant News Editor Starr Bowenbank is the assistant news editor who writes about all things pertaining to news, pop culture, and entertainment—you can follow her here.

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