Charli XCX has teamed up with Velvet Underground’s John Cale to create a trippy video for their new collaborative song “House,” which will appear on the soundtrack to director Emerald Fennell’s upcoming big screen adaptation of Wuthering Heights.
The idea was sparked a few years back when Charli saw the the 2021 Todd Haynes documentary The Velvet Underground. “One thing that stuck with me was how John Cale described a key sonic requirement of the Velvet Underground,” she wrote in a note to fans. “That any song had to be both ‘elegant and brutal.’ I got really stuck on that phrase. I write it down on my notes app and would pull it up from time to time and think about what he meant.”
“When working on music for this film, ‘elegant and brutal’ was a phrase I kept coming back to,” she continued. “One day whilst on tour in Austin, Finn [Keane] and I went to the studio and wrote the bones for a song that would eventually become House. When the summer ended I was still ruminating on John’s words. So I decided to reach out to him to get his opinion on the songs that his phrase had so deeply inspired, but also to see whether he might want to collaborate on any.”
They wound up chatting on the phone, and Charli sent over several songs, including her initial take on “House.” “We spoke about the idea of a poem,” she added. “He recorded something and sent it to me. Something that only John could do. And it was… well, it made my cry.”
The unsettling video shows Charli and Cale isolated together in a remote house, creating the vibe of a horror movie. It includes a spoken-word poem by Cale. “Can I speak to you privately for a moment,” he says. “I just want to explain/Explain the circumstances I find myself in/What and who I really am/I’m a prisoner/To live for eternity.”
“House” is one of several Charli XCX songs that will appear on the Wuthering Heights soundtrack. The project began a year ago when Fennell reached out to see if she’d write a single song for the movie, which stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.
“I read the script and immediately felt inspired so Finn Keane and I began working on not just one but many songs that we felt connected to the world she was creating,” Charli wrote. “After being so in the depths of my previous album I was excited to escape into something entirely new, entirely opposite. 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.”
The Wuthering Heights soundtrack is one of many projects that Charli XCX has in the works. She’s also star to star in Daniel Goldhaber’s Faces of Death, Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex, Cathy Yan’s The Gallerist, Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights of Hero, Romain Gavras’s Sacrifice, and Pete Ohs’s Erupcja.