“This Is A Banger”: Billie Eilish Sampled ‘The Office’ On Her Album, And The Cast Approve

Pop wunderkind Billie Eilish just released When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, a twisted debut album packed with quirk-filled production.

But no song pricks the ears at first listen more than than ‘My Strange Addiction’, an album highlight which, of all things, features several snippets of dialogue from one of the oddest episodes of the US’ The Office.

And it turns out clearing that meant getting personal approval from several of the show’s stars, including Steve Carell.

During the promo cycle, Eilish has revealed how it all came about — while the song’s not strictly about the show, she’s utterly obsessed with The Office, and rinse-repeat binges while touring.

The song’s skittering beat reminded Eilish of the ‘Scarn dance’ song featured in ‘Threat Level Midnight’, a meta season 11 episode where the gang watch a secret-agent film they made written by Michael Scott, referenced in passing several seasons previous.

There’s even a line where Scott/Carell says, “Billie, I haven’t done that dance since my wife died”: as a joke, Eilish and her team put that and some other lines in the song.

“I thought that was really funny, so we literally just ripped the audio from Netflix and put it in the song,” she told MTV News, “not at all thinking that they would say yes to it and we’d be able to put it out.”

Rolling Stone wanted to follow things up, so it asked around The Office cast — while Carell didn’t respond to their request, BJ Novak and the show’s song producer, Eve Nelson, did. Both were stoked with the samplings, with Nelson saying that she’s “honoured that [she has] anything to do with inspiring Billie Eilish”.

Novak sad that she had to reach out to all actors whose voices feature, which include himself, Carell, Mindy Kaling and John Krasinski.  “I was fine with it regardless,” says Novak, “but I was like ‘Wow, bonus: This is a banger.’”

Looks like the obsession is mutual.