Watch Billie Eilish Sing The Old Torch Song “I’m In The Mood For Love” In BBC Live Lounge

Watch Billie Eilish Sing The Old Torch Song “I’m In The Mood For Love” In BBC Live Lounge

“I’m In The Mood For Love” is a classic American standard, a torch song that’s been a part of popular culture for nearly a century. The song presumably, for instance, inspired the title of Wong Kar-Wai’s most famous film. Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields wrote the song in 1935, and Frances Langford sang it in the movie Every Night At Eight that year. Since then, plenty of different people have offered their own takes on “I’m In The Mood For Love,” including Charlie Parker, Fats Domino, Rosemary Clooney, Shirley Bassey, and Bryan Ferry. Today, Billie Eilish has taken a crack at it.

Today, Eilish paid a visit to the BBC Live Lounge. She just released her sophomore album Happier Than Ever, and she sang a couple of its songs, “NDA” and “Getting Older,” with her brother and collaborator FINNEAS backing her up. According to Live Lounge tradition, Eilish also covered a song, and she picked “I’m In The Mood For Love.” (Eilish’s version is listed on YouTube as a Julie London cover, and London did record “I’m In The Mood For Love” in 1955, but it would be a stretch to say that it’s her song.)

It’s an illustrative choice. Happier Than Ever is a relatively sleepy album, and many of its songs are awfully torchy. More often than not, Eilish sings with a deep, throaty jazz phrasing, and I bet she’ll make an album of standards before too long. Her version of “I’m In The Mood For Love” is nice, FINNEAS’ intricate guitar work has a lot to do with that. Check it out below.

Happier Than Ever is out now on Darkroom/Interscope.

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