Charli XCX has released her first official post-Brat single, and it’s different from what you might expect.
The song, “House,” is part of the album of music she’s created for Emerald Fennell‘s upcoming take on Wuthering Heights. It’s a collaboration with Welsh rocker John Cale, best known for his work with pioneering Rock & Roll Hall of Famers The Velvet Underground.
As she explained earlier this month in an Instagram Story message, Charli said that a quote from Cale — “elegant and brutal” — had inspired the sound of her music for the film. She reached out to Cale to see what he thought about the songs, and they ended up collaborating on “House,” which, Charli said, “made me cry.”
The song begins as a poem with creepy-sounding musical backing, as Cale recites:
Can I speak to you privately for a moment? 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.
I was thinking, ‘What is this place?’ I thought it would be perfect. I thought, ‘I want it to be perfect.’
Please. Let it be perfect.
Am I living in another world? Another world I created. For what? If it’s beauty, do you see beauty?
If there’s beauty, say it’s enough.”
Then, Charli and Cale sing together, repeatedly, “I think I’m gonna die in this house” as the music gets more intense. Finally, as the song ends, Cale intones, “In every room, I hear silence.”
The video features a dark woods at night, a raven, burning candle wax, and Cale seemingly holding Charli down against her will on a marble altar.
Wuthering Heights, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, hits theaters Feb. 13, 2026.
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