About when the party's over

"When the Party's Over" (stylised in all lowercase) is the second single from American singer Billie Eilish's debut studio album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?. The song was released on October 16, 2018, through Darkroom and Interscope Records. It was written and produced by Finneas O'Connell.

The concept behind "When the Party's Over" was inspired after Finneas O'Connell, Eilish's brother, had left his date's house "kind of for no reason" and was driving home alone late at night, simultaneously unhappy at the end of the relationship but also feeling a sense of safety through a lack of full investment in it. O'Connell later approached Eilish with a draft of the track, and they decided to perform it live "a full year before it came out," which O'Connell later recalled was "such a terrible idea" as he feared that fans would deem the studio recording inferior to the live version. They consequently set out to "get the magic" of a live performance "into a space where it's still interesting to record," a process which O'Connell described as "really hard" due to the song's delicate nature. Eilish and O'Connell decided that the track would be "almost entirely" vocal, utilising only sub-bass and acoustic piano as additional instruments; this made it "super challenging" to keep each measure interesting. The song required approximately 100 vocal tracks, which included the stacking of layers on each part of the harmony as well as "weird processed adlibs," while Eilish recorded over 90 takes of the song's first word "don't" to obtain the right sound. The influence of choral music on the song was informed by the siblings' experience singing in a choir during their childhood, and Eilish disclosed that it was also inspired by the songs "Stand Still" (2017) by Sabrina Claudio, "715 - CR??KS" (2016) by Bon Iver and "Hide and Seek" (2005) by Imogen Heap.