Billie Eilish Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney
Billie Eilish treated fans to a sneak peek of her new song, “Lunch,” a steamy track with queer undertones and explicit lyrics.
Eilish is set to drop her third studio album, Hit Me Hard And Soft, on May 17. While hosting a Do Labs party at Coachella on Saturday, April 13, Eilish teased a handful of new songs, playing tracks like “Chihiro,” “L’Amour De Ma Vie” and “Lunch” for a handful of lucky fans.
“Lunch” has since sent some fans on social media into a tailspin with its overt LGBTQ+ themes, featuring lyrics like, “I could eat that girl for lunch / Yeah, she dances on my tongue / Tastes like she might be the one / And I can never get enough / I could buy you so much stuff / It’s a craving, not a crush.”
Eilish opened up about her sexuality in a cover story for Variety in November 2023, going on to call out the publication in December for “outing” her on the red carpet.
It wouldn’t be one of the biggest years in music without a new Billie Eilish album, right? Duh. Eilish, 22, officially announced her third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, on April 8, joining the long list of artists — including Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Kacey Musgraves, Dua Lipa, St. Vincent, Zayn and Lana Del Rey […]
“Thanks variety for my award and for also outing me on a red carpet at 11 am instead of talking about anything else that matters,” Eilish wrote via Instagram at the time. “I like boys and girls leave me alone about it please literally who cares stream ‘what was i made for’🥸.”
Eilish was asked about comments she made in a previous interview regarding her sexuality, saying that she didn’t mean for her coming out to be a grand gesture. “But I kind of thought, ‘Wasn’t it obvious?’ I didn’t realize people didn’t know,” she said. “I just don’t really believe in it. I’m just like, ‘Why can’t we just exist?’ I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I just didn’t talk about it. Whoops.”
Billie Eilish VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images
The original interview was published on November 13, 2023, wherein Eilish candidly discussed the conflict between her attraction to women and her insecurities about whether or not other women like her.
“I’ve never really felt like I could relate to girls very well,” she explained at the time. “I love them so much. I love them as people. I’m attracted to them as people. I’m attracted to them for real.”
She added: “I have deep connections with women in my life, the friends in my life, the family in my life. I’m physically attracted to them. But I’m also so intimidated by them and their beauty and their presence.” She also opened up about her gender identity, admitting that she had “never felt like a woman” or “desirable” before.
“I’ve never felt feminine. I have to convince myself that I’m, like, a pretty girl. I identify as ‘she/her’ and things like that, but I’ve never really felt like a girl.”
“Lunch” is likely to be one of many songs that show fans another side of Eilish. She told Apple Music on Friday, April 12, that she was shooting a music video for “Lunch,” which is the second track on her forthcoming album, produced by brother Finneas O’Connell.
“What Finneas and I said to a couple people when we were starting to play it for people was that we kind of made the album that if somebody had said, ‘I want you to make an album and no one is going to hear it.’ … We made an album without really any — or much — thought of, like, how other people [would perceive it],” she said. “So I found myself, when I play it for people, I’m a little bit like, ‘You weren’t supposed to hear this.’”
