In the video Billie Eilish directed herself for “Chihiro,” the singer explores empty hallways with closed doors, singing “Open up the door, can you open up the door?” Eventually, she finds another person, played by Nat Wolff, and their interactions are sometimes aggressive, sometimes affectionate, and sometimes quixotic since he can disappear. For Eilish, it’s a surrealistic representation of a dream state — rendered all the more obvious by the imagery of her plunging into an endless ocean of water, similar to the cover of Hit Me Hard and Soft, the album “Chihiro” comes from.
Eilish recently told Rolling Stonehow Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away — and its main character, Chihiro — inspired the song and Hit Me Hard and Soft. “The song is loosely based off of that movie, which is one of my favorites,” Eilish said. “It’s kind of from her point of view, mixed with mine. The visuals in that movie are some of the best ever — all that Studio Ghibli shit is unbelievable. There’s all those visuals of the train in the water after the flood, and it literally looks like an ocean with a train track. I had just watched Spirited Away and Finneas had made that beat. I love that movie. I’ve seen it so many times.”
Eilish, who was recently on the cover of Rolling Stone, will begin North American tour dates in support of the album in late September. Her tour dates run through mid-December. Hit Me Hard and Soft debuted at Number Two on the Billboard 200, just behind Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department, and it was Eilish’s best-ever week for sales.
