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"Ocean Eyes" is Billie Eilish's first major breakthrough single. It was written and produced by her brother Finneas for his band at the time but when he heard Billie sing it, he knew it was meant for her. They finally decided to record the song when Billie's dance teacher asked them for an original song that they could choreograph a new dance to. The song was written and recorded in 2015 when Billie was just 13 years old, it was finally released just after she turned 14. When put onto SoundCloud, the song blew up, launching Billie's new career.
Structure
Ocean Eyes follows the standard pop structure. This means it starts off with an intro, which moves into a verse, chorus, a second verse, a second chorus, a bridge/breakdown and then finishes off with a reflective final chorus. The final chorus gives a reflective feeling as it strips out all the instruments other than the piano with Billie’s vocals on top of it.
As this was Billie’s first ever song that she released to the public, I believe her intensions with using the typical pop structure was to create something that sounded familiar to the listener to try and gain their attention. Mixing this structure with Finneas’ amazing production makes the song sound original and new to the listener even though it also sounds very familiar.
Instrumentation
The instrumentation of the song is actually verry simple with only 11 tracks making up the entire song, not including the vocal tracks. The song starts off with a dark synth pad with a series of vocal harmonies layered on top. The dark pad plays for the whole song up to the final chorus when the rhythm is taken over by a piano. This dark pad is what gives the listener the rhythm that will then be followed for the entirety of the song.
The next bits of instrumentation to be added is the percussion instruments. The percussion is made up of 3 instruments: an African kit, a modern drum machine and a boom clap track. Together these instruments create a full sounding percussion section that keeps playing until the final chorus. Bringing these instruments in at this time solidifies the rhythm that was set by the dark pad at the beginning and also brings in the beat of the song.
The rest of the instrumentation, bar 1, all comes in at the start of the first chorus. This includes: a soft piano, 4 synth tracks (named Night of Avalon, Lost Reverse, String Vox and Moonlight Ark) and a synth bass fittingly named Ocean Bass. The soft piano plays the same thing that dark pad is playing. By doing this it adds texture to the chorus whilst keeping it familiar. The bass gives the song a richer sound and provides the bassline. The bassline itself is actually pretty simple, as it just follows the same thing the piano and dark pad play just at a lower pitch and by only playing single notes. The 4 synths are all there to add a bit more texture to the song. They add that little bit of “ear candy”. They all play very simple things but without them the song sounds a lot emptier. When you put all of these instruments together in the chorus, you get a very rich and full sound considering how simple the song is.
The only other instrument in the song is one that is named Fizzy Beats. This is used to add a little bit more to the otherwise simple song. It comes in during the second verse to add a little beat that almost sounds like a glitch. It then continues to play arpeggios during the second chorus. This brings a little bit more texture into the song to stop it getting too repetitive.
On top of all these instruments, there are a lot of layers of vocal harmonies. The first ones that you hear are sung along with the dark pad, right at the verry start of the song. In this section there are a total of 12 layers, which is more than the number of instruments in the entire song. There are 4 layers that sing the prominent note, 4 more that sing about a 3rd above, 2 more that sing the 5th and then 2 more that sing a 3rd below the main note. This harmony continues all the way through the song up until the final chorus. Having all these layers mixed with all the production on them (reverb, eq, compression etc) makes for a verry full sound right from the very start of the song with only 1 instrument and vocals.
During the chorus there is another layer of vocals over the top of the other ones. This new harmony sings the chorus melody and is made up of 5 layers. The first one sings the main vocal melody, the next two sing the same thing but a panned left and right. The last two sing a harmony to the first three and are also panned left and right.
In the verse there is the main vocal line which sings the verse lyrics and melody. This has a lot effects applied to it such as: compression, reverb, delay, eq etc. There is also quite a bit of automation on the volume of the vocal and also on the reverb. You can hear this when she says the line “your ocean eyes” at the end of the first verse; at this point the automation turns up the wet signal from the reverb.
Other than these vocals there is a couple of ad libs and atmospheric vocals. For example, during the second chorus Billie adds some ad libs to emphasise the lyrics “no fair” and “ocean eyes”. Then during the breakdown, we can hear some atmospheric vocals that Finneas named “Ghostly Vocals” in the project. This is made up of the chorus vocals that have been reversed and highly washed out with reverb. There is also one single vocal harmony in the second verse which has pitch really low to emphasise the lyric “diamond mind”. These added vocals do the same thing for the vocals that the fizzy beats did for the instrumentation, they add a bit more texture to make the second verse and chorus different to the first and stop it getting too repetitive.
All these different vocals on top of each other causes a very distinct sound that is instantly recognisable as Ocean Eyes. These vocals not only provide the texture, but also provide the main melody of the song as well as add to the rhythm.
Lyrics
I've been watchin' you for some time
Can't stop starin' at those ocean eyes
Burning cities and napalm skies
Fifteen flares inside those ocean eyes
Your ocean eyes
No fair
You really know how to make me cry
When you gimme those ocean eyes
I'm scared
I've never fallen from quite this high
Fallin' into your ocean eyes
Those ocean eyes
I've been walkin' through a world gone blind
Can't stop thinkin' of your diamond mind
Careful creature made friends with time
He left her lonely with a diamond mind
And those ocean eyes
In this verse Billie is describing how she is haunted by her romantic interests “Ocean Eyes”. The compares them to different dangers or disasters such as “burn”, “napalm” and “flares” but then at the end of the compares them to an ocean.
"No fair", in this context could have two separate meanings. It could mean that Billie is describing the power this person has over her isn't fair, but it could also be Billie saying that their relationship isn't fair.
This part of the chorus shows that when this person look Billie in the eyes, the emotion that their eyes express is so great that makes Billie want to cry. The thought of loosing someone we love is so heartbreaking and maybe when Billie looks at this person she realises how much she doesn't want to loose them.
In this context, "Falling", has to different meanings. Not only is Billie describing the thought of falling into an ocean, but she is also describing the feeling of falling in love. This comparison of falling into an ocean could also show the danger of falling in love with this other person. She describes the fall as being high which shows the danger of falling into their depths.
The lyrics in this second verse sound as though they are coming from the other persons point of view. It shows that they too thought about Billie and they describe her as having a brilliant mind with the use of the words "diamond mind", which is repeated again towards the end of the verse. This verse also shows them describing how they ended up making new friends with time and ended up leaving Billie by herself. The fact that this persons point of view pops up in the song could show how much control the other person had over Billie's life and how much they interfered with everything, including Billie's thoughts in a song.
Melody
In the intro, the melody in Ocean Eyes is very simple. There are 3 notes that go down and make up a triad chord. These notes are all relatively close together which means the average person would be able to sing along in a concert. This part of the melody also continues throughout the entire song, so if someone thought they couldn't sing the verse or chorus melody, they could still join in by singing the backing melody.
The verse melody is pretty simple, also. It moves downwards through the scale making it fairly easy for the average person to sing. It goes down in mostly 2nd and 3rd intervals and has a fairly slow melody as well, meaning you don't have to be able to sing many words in a short space of time.
The melody in the chorus is also relatively simple as it is still fairly slow moving. However, it becomes a lot harder to sing because it has a lot of big leaps between notes that the average person wouldn't be able to make. It doesn't quite jump by an octave but it does jump quite a lot by perfect fifths and altogether does cover and octave.
In the breakdown the is a vocal overlay that is very simple melody. It just goes between a few notes in major second interval.
In terms of intentions for the melody, I don't think they were trying to create something for people to be able to sing along to. I think they were trying to make something that is powerful and meaningful that matches the feeling of the song. This is the type of song that, when it comes on during a concert, the audience goes quiet, just listens and take in everything that Billie is saying.
Production
Production wise, this song is very well made by Billie's brother, writer and producer, Finneas. There isn't a huge amount of instruments in Ocean Eyes but what Finneas does with them is very effective. There is a lot of effects on all of the instruments but he also makes good use of the automation. For example, the final "ocean eyes" in the first has a bit of automation on it that turns up the wet signal on the reverb, giving off a very unique sound that is very recognisable to this song.
The song is very well mixed and, once again, has more automation to ensure it always stays well mixed. All the layers of vocals are so perfectly mixed together that they almost blend into one. The song has been mixed very bass heavy, mainly because, as Billie stated in an interview, she likes the feeling that you get in your chest when a bass-y song come on in a concert.
Finneas also has a very unique way of using the default effects within logic. For example, he tends to use two compressors rather than just one. He will have one compressor with a short release and fast attack, and then one that does the opposite. He also tends to layer delay up with reverb to create a very distant echo sound.
Finneas also made, what would be to many, a very odd production choice and decided to leave the bleed of Billie's headphone in the mix. This gives the song an almost human feel to it and doesn't make it sound to over-processed. A very unique choice as many producers would try to get as much headphone bleed out as possible to make the song seem polished.
All in all, the production in this song is very unique and is what gives the song the feeling that it has. Considering this song was produced in a bedroom and not in a professional studio shows the power that modern equipment can have and also shows how much it can do if you know how to use it.
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