Listen to English Teacher’s soothing cover of Billie Eilish’s ‘Birds Of A Feather’

18 July, 2024

Lily Fontaine of English Teacher and Billie Eilish C

English Teacher have a shared a soothing cover of Billie Eilish’s recent single ‘Birds Of A Feather’.

The rising indie rockers and former NME Cover stars performed a downbeat version of the track on Jack Saunders’ New Music Show on BBC Radio 1 on Tuesday (July 16). You can listen to it below.

Speaking about why she did the cover, frontwoman Lily Fontaine said: “I remember the exact moment we chose to do it, I listened to the song and I cried and then I sent it to the lads. I thought, ‘OK this song’s pretty popular and it’s good’ and that was it.”

The song, which was released by Eilish on July 2, also featured on a teaser for season three of Netflix‘s Heartstopper and is taken from her recent album ‘Hit Me Hard And Soft’.

English Teacher previously covered The Smiths‘ ‘Big Mouth Strikes Again’ and LCD Soundsystem‘s ‘New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down’ at the Gorilla venue in Manchester.

The band’s debut album ‘This Could Be Texas’ was recently given a glowing five-star review by NME, and described as establishing the members as some who “dare to dream”. It also featured in NME‘s best albums of 2024 so far.

“You’ve probably heard English Teacher compared to Squid and Black Country, New Road, but there’s so much colour on the palette of this record than you may have thought,” it read.

“What you have in ‘This Could Be Texas’ is everything you want from a debut; a truly original effort from start to finish, an adventure in sound and words, and a landmark statement.”

Elsewhere, the band recently spoke to NME about their love for Sheffield songwriter Richard Hawley and his Standing At The Sky’s Edge musical.

“After our recent New York show, I went outside and a guy came up to me and said, ‘I really enjoyed the set. I live here but I’m from Sheffield’,” Fontaine said. “I told him I went to see [Standing At The Sky’s Edge]. It was pretty crazy… he then told me this mad story about him. I was like, ‘What am I doing in New York, and why is this guy talking to me about Richard Hawley?’

“I loved it, I cried,” she continued. “I wasn’t sure if Richard’s music would translate into a musical but it was really special. I don’t want to give the story away, but [in the show] there was this mixed-race girl from Yorkshire and the story was all about home. I really related to a lot of the themes in it. To have Richard’s music soundtracking it too – it all felt really personal and special.”

Meanwhile, Eilish is set to read a children’s bedtime story on CBeebies tomorrow (July 19).

She joins stars like Harry Styles, Dave Grohl, Dolly Parton, Elton John, Tom Hardy, Ed Sheeran and IDLES frontman Joe Talbot in appearing on the children’s TV series.

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