Charli XCX shares eerie new song ‘House’ with John Cale for ‘Wuthering Heights’
It's a suitably unsettling tune for Emerald Fennell's upcoming adaptation of the film.
By Nick Reilly
Charli XCX has shared ‘House’, an eerie new offering featuring The Velvet Underground’s John Cale, which is set to be featured in Wuthering Heights. The song’s out Monday.
On Instagram last week, Charli called it “the first offering from my album for Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights.”
The creepy track sees the Brat singer experimenting with industrial sounds, and Cale’s voice appears late on for a foreboding voiceover before the pair repeat a central refrain of “I think I’m gonna die in this house”. Charli also previously explained how she felt “immediately” inspired to start making music for the film.
“After being so in the depths of my previous album, I was excited to escape into something entirely new, entirely opposite,” she wrote. “When I think of Wuthering Heights, I think of many things. I think of passion and pain. I think of England. I think of the Moors, I think of the mud and the cold. I think of determination and grit.”
In her post about the song, she called herself a “huge fan” of the Velvet Underground and recalled a quote from Cale in the band’s documentary, when he said, “any song had to be both ‘elegant and brutal.’”
Charli wrote: “I got really stuck on that phrase. I wrote it down in my notes app and would pull it up from time to time and think about what he meant.” The phrase came up as she made the music for this film, and so she decided to reach out to him for his opinion and they ended up collaborating.
“That voice, so elegant, so brutal. I sent him some songs, and we started talking specifically about House. We spoke about the idea of a poem. He recorded something and sent it to me. Something that only John could do. And it was… well, it made me cry,” she wrote. “I feel so lucky to have been able to work with John onn this song. I’ve been so exited to share it with you all, sitting quietly in anticipation.”
Fennell (who directed Saltburn) is directing the new Wuthering Heights, adapted from Emily Brontë’s 1847 love story. Charli XCX is writing songs for the film and will release an accompanying album for it. The film will star Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi and is set to premiere on Valentine’s Day.