What does "No Time To Die" by Billie Eilish mean?

Lyrics Meaning of James Bond’s “No Time To Die“

(The following blog post is a transcript created by Xalma of the below video.)

Billie Elish has just dropped a new single; it’s called ‘No Time To Die’, and it’s going to be the next James Bond film theme. Billie is 18 years old now, which makes her the youngest person to ever record a song for James Bond films. It feels like a strategy on the part of the James Bond franchise, to bring in a younger audience; and right now, Billie Eilish is one of the most popular young artists in the whole entire world; she’s got like 45 million monthly listeners on Spotify; people are eating this up, and especially a younger female audience, and with the films bringing a stronger female protagonist as well; so if this song lures you in to watch this movie, then their strategy worked.

Let’s talk about the music real quick; because the music is hauntingly beautiful; like she really gives a lot more body to her voice, and it’s got this James Bond twists to it; it feels very classic, while still being very modern; the lyrics themselves, I’d say, they don’t sound very personal; the lyrics are talking about a friendship, not a romantic relationship, though it could be; but especially a friendship.

Verse One

I should have known
I'd leave alone
Just goes to show
That the blood you bleed is just the blood you owe

And there is not a more beautiful line in this entire song than that. She’s saying that because of the way you hurt, you deserve this in some way; or that maybe “you have hurt other people too”; which goes along with this idea of a super spy with a license to kill.

We were a pair
But I saw you there
Too much to bear
You were my life, but life is far away from fair

That’s also a really cool line; “life is far away from fair”, I’ve never heard it be said in that way before; but that’s what good lyricist do, it’s basically their job, to say things in a new interesting way.

Was I stupid to love you?
Was I reckless to help?
Was it obvious to everybody else?

Okay, I take it back; it’s obviously about a romantic relationship.

Chorus

That I'd fallen for a lie
You were never on my side
Fool me once, fool me twice
Are you death or paradise?
Now you'll never see me cry
There's just no time to die

Verse Two

I let it burn
You're no longer my concern, mmm
Faces from my past return
Another lesson yet to learn

Honestly, this fits the James Bond theme really well; because in a spy’s situation, you’re going to have traitors; and well, traitors betray you, right? It feels like Billie Eilish is growing up, learning new things; but overall, it feels a little bit generic; I'm not going to listen to this song if I'm a new Billie Eilish fan and think “wow, she really gets me, this is super relatable and cool and awesome”; it is a good song; the vocal performance is probably the most important part though; these lyrics feel like they were written for a James Bond movie, and there is nothing wrong with that. I think the biggest comparison we could make here is to twenty one pilots’ song ‘Heathens’ that was made for the film ‘Suicide Squad’; now I am going to guess now and say that the new James Bond movie ‘No Time To Die’ is going to be way better than ‘Suicide Squad’ because it wouldn’t take a whole lot, but at the same time Tyler Joseph had a personal commitment, as he said in many interviews, that he wanted the song to still be one that stuck true to the mission of the band; they wanted the song to be something that they could play at concerts. I have never been to a Billie Eilish concert, so I don’t know if it would fit in with the tone of what they do and talk about, I would love to hear about that from you guys, who went to a Billie Eilish’s concert; but I think that the lyrics themselves feel a little bit less relatable, while the vocals and production is really strong; like the vocal performance and the emotion she puts into the song, she’s doing thing I don’t even know how to describe; everything she says just feels so real and it’s just a super good performance, it’s like she could’ve been an actress too.

I wonder if she’s going to go the route of Brendon Urie, and eventually decides to do some kind of a musical; I can’t imagine what kind of musical she would fit into though, with her voice and style; like P!ATD has always been theatrical, especially with their older music video, so it felt so natural for Brendon Urie to go off and start musicals.

You know what? I’ll leave this one for you, guys; let me know what musical would be a fit for Billie Eilish.