The Most Agonizing Death Fantasies on Charli XCX’s 'Wuthering Heights' Soundtrack, Ranked
Of all the thoughts I have about Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights (which is many, though way less than her haters), her decision to have Charli XCX soundtrack our foggy descent into the 19th-century Yorkshire moors was one of her best—second only to casting Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff.
Charli’s 12-track album is haunting and spellbinding. It’s also full of different ways to die because your other half has either left you, might leave you, or has you so dick-drunk and trauma-bonded that you’re spiritually flatlining. I’m obsessed.
On every track, I can feel myself transforming into a lovesick British woman on the verge of losing her sanity because she doesn’t have a job, responsibilities, or literally anything else to think about besides this guy. (Complimentary.) So let’s rank the very best ways to die at the hands of your tall, dark, handsome, and equally distressed lover, who ideally has an accent, just as Emily Brontë would have wanted.
12. “Wall of Sound”
The strings in this song could stop my heart, but Charli says this lover is “what keeps me breathing/keeps my heart beating.” So, while the lack of them suggests death, what she is describing is literal life. Bottom billing.
11. “Funny Mouth”
Similarly, here she sings about waking up, having a light you must protect, and ultimately being “alright.” So what’s dying?! My libido, honestly.
10. “Open Up”
What are we opening?! The gates to heaven? The portal to hell? Our legs?! The Wuthering Heights trailer on YouTube for the 2,593rd time? This entire song has three words, so we’ll never know. But despite not describing death, its shimmering, weightless synths do feel like a romantic way to float into the abyss.
9. “Always My Reminder”
Being reminded of where I started from feels like a threat, no matter how heartwarming the friends-to-lovers arc might be. I’ve worked hard to block out certain cringe-inducing periods of my past, and having a lover whose presence keeps me straddled on the verge of dying from embarrassment? No fucking thank you.
In terms of worst ways to die, I personally believe it’s 1. Stabbing. 2. Being so embarrassed that your body literally cannot keep you alive 3. Scapism. (Don’t Google it, just know I consider it less bad than dying of embarrassment.)
8. “Eyes of the World” featuring Sky Ferreira
The fourth worst way to die is “being frozen in time.” Just ask Miss Havisham.
7. “Altars”
This loses points for plainly stating, “you’re gonna end up killing me,” with nary a detail, but gains points for the visceral “You and I, so violently/Could be togеther in forbidden scenеs,” but then loses more points for, once again, failing to describe said forbidden scenes. I expect more from our 365 Party Girl.
6. “Dying for You”
You might be surprised to find the most obvious song about being hypothetically tortured to death by your obsessed lover is in the middle of this ranking, but this song actually has too many descriptions of death, and some of them cancel each other out.
Losing “gallons of blood”? Yikes. “Gun to my head”? Hard pass. “Fall on my sword”? Ouch. “Set myself on fire”? Getting…warmer. “You’re my favorite jewelry, worn just like a noose round my neck.” Chic. I will take a tormented romance that feels like a string of emeralds and diamonds perpetually threatening to choke me to death. I bet they’re a Scorpio.
5. “Out of Myself”
This is dying via failed astral projection—your lover is so hot that your soul ascends from your being, but then you can’t get back into your body. Ideally, your lover’s soul also ascends, and they can’t return to their body, either. Neither of you is dead, just eternally trapped between the spiritual and physical realm, destined to have your supernatural forms entangle with each other forever—actually, where is this novel? I would like to preorder.
4. “Always Everywhere”
If you’ve never been unfortunate enough to find yourself wrapped up in an agonizing situationship, not being able to escape the “storm you gave me” whilst still experiencing “lightning in my veins” is a pretty apt description. Feeling fucked up and on fire? Hurts so good.
3. “Chains of Love”
This is the elevated literature version of “Dying for You.” I’d much prefer my lover’s obsession metaphorically lay me “down in thorns” than put a “gun to my head.”
2. “House” featuring John Cale
Spooky. Haunting. Erotic. “I think I’m going to die in this house” is meant to be anxious and distressing, but of all the other deaths detailed on this album, dying in your own home is really the best-case scenario.
1. “Seeing Things”
Death of your sanity?! Lace up the straitjacket, lock me up in a windswept Victorian asylum, and throw away the key. I’ll waste away conversing with the echoes of my lovers’ imagined voice and drift out of this plane of existence while hallucinating Jacob Elordi, I mean Heathcliff, I mean—just an average, random, non-Elordi-as-Heathcliff-looking lover. This is what tortured Gothic tragedy death dreams are made of.