Billie Eilish has a lot to show for her success in music including top streaming numbers, album sales and numerous award wins. The singer even set a record at the 62nd Grammy awards as the youngest artist to win all four general awards in the same year. But you didn’t need all that to tell you how great she is, you just needed to be paying attention. For example: by 2018 she had headlined two tours without having released a full-length album.
On July 28, 2018, the singer was on her Wheres My Mind tour with a stop in Detroit, MI. She performed a number of her well-known songs kicking off with “bellyache” and going on to include “idontwannabeyouanymore” and “ocean eyes.” The setlist that night also included a performance of Billie’s collaboration with Khalid, “lovely,” and a cover of Drake’s hit “Hotline Bling” which she had previously released as a b-side. But more than halfway through the show she threw in something brand new: the live debut of the first single from her upcoming album.
“you should see me in a crown” debuted only ten days earlier as “an unabashedly dark statement of confidence and purpose,” according to Raisa Burner of Time. Different from Billie’s previous pop offerings, the eerily hypnotic song even features a sample of the sound of knives being sharpened.
The song got fans excited, understandably so, but they’d still have to wait awhile for the full length experience. WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO wasn’t released until March 29, 2019, seven months after “you should see me in a crown” dropped.
The song has since found a regular place in her repertoire, becoming her sixth most performed song of all time according to our statistics. Stats can’t tell you, though, how the unique, sinister tone of “you should see me in a crown,” like the spider imagery associated with it, crept over a summer audience.
Here's footage of Billie performing the spooky track in November 2018, at Camp Flog Gnaw:
