You’re still young enough to GET OFF MY LAWN, BILLIE.
[Video][Website]
[6.75]
Tim de Reuse: Lovely, whispered vocals, delivering a vague breakup narrative that can’t decide what kind of imagery it’s going for; a tender and atmospheric start that leads into an overwrought climax; a tune with no real central conceit and no sense of overarching direction, drifting around from pleasant moment to pleasant moment until it decides to end.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: The pace of pop in 2019 is so overcharged that someone like Billie Eilish releases what seems like 50 songs per month in 30 different styles. But it’s truly remarkable what percentage of those 50 are more interesting than anything her peers are doing. “When I Was Older” sounds simultaneously like a murder ballad and a futuristic slasher soundtrack. The menace is just the slightest bit Sucker Punch (which came out when she was NINE), but it’s also palpable. I can’t imagine the amount of restraint it took not to blow the whole track up, “Yellow Flicker Beat“-style. I also feel like her answer to that would be along the lines of “Amount of restraint? Fucking whatever, grandma.”
[8]
Ian Mathers: With this being the fourth song I’ve heard from Eilish that’s both great and in (broadly speaking) the same register, I’ve confirmed I don’t really need any bangers from her. The increased digital distortion here marries well with her usual, unusually young in life doom and gloom. Personally I could do with a whole album of variations on this theme, at this point.
[8]
Edward Okulicz: Eilish is clearly in a period of great productivity if she can toss a single this good out on a soundtrack at a time when you’d expect her to be stashing it for her yet-to-appear debut album. There’s something very video game about the production, with the layered vocals capturing attention despite in places having almost no accompaniment also bringing to mind Imogen Heap. It certainly doesn’t bring the hooks but it’s a beautifully tense and smartly produced bit of moody pop. The minimalism means that I can blast this on repeat for an hour and barely notice it’s restarted at any point.
[9]
Thomas Inskeep: Yeah, Billie, you’re 17; “When I Was Older” isn’t exactly something I’m coming to you for experience on, especially when you’ve Auto-Tuned your voice to hell. If there’s such a thing as twee electropop, this is it.
[2]
Iris Xie: To me, this song is an exploration of pleasant oblivions, of a fantasy where you creep into a warm embrace and you never need to return to your old life. It’s an escape, but not so far removed from the realities that you face. The intro and the instrumental have a dreamy music box start, with low, slow hums. The reverb and exhalations make me feel like I’m underwater, panicking, and then realizing that I can breathe underwater and start exploring the depths. When the snare drums kick in, the dynamics get even headier and it makes you want to crawl to somewhere, anywhere, in a hazy but edgy atmosphere. A lullaby for horrors, where danger is not elaborated on but hinted at.
[7]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: More often than not, Billie Eilish’s singles prove how a mishandling of restraint can lead to the most dreadfully tedious work. Not so with “When I Was Older” — Eilish’s brother and producer FINNEAS builds tension here in a manner that’s wisely gradual. At a certain point, all the compounding production quirks amass into a colossal, inescapable vortex of sound. When Eilish’s voice starts to stutter, it sounds as if she’s held captive by the instrumentation. As she reflects on a collapsed relationship, the song embodies how lingering on such thoughts can subtly balloon into torturous yearning. Eilish can thus declare the titular line because she already knows her fate: one where she’s thrown overboard, left drowning in a sea of unattainable futures.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Whether “When I Was Older” deserves obsessiveness on the playback mechanism of your choice depends on your concentration and your tolerance for furtive electronic twitches. Stick with it, though, and its tonal and lyrical twitches fascinate. Singing as if from the bottom of a sea of glimmering pixels, Billie Ellish takes feminist tropes from Virginia Woolf and Björk to PJ Harvey to wreck notions of subject and object: she’s submerged in one verse, watching this film in another. Inspired by Roma, she said. I’d say it surpasses Roma in ambition and deed.
[9]