Charli XCX has teamed up with Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale for ‘House’, which was written for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. One of several songs she contributed to the soundtrack, the eerie, claustrophobic song comes paired with a music video directed by Mitch Ryan. Check it out below.
Last week, Charli wrote a note on X about how the collaboration came to be. She said:
I got a call from Emerald Fennell last Christmas asking whether I would consider working on a song for her adaptation of Wuthering Heights. 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. 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.
A few years ago I watched Todd Haynes’ documentary about The Velvet Underground. As many of you know I’m a huge fan of the band and was really taken by the documentary. One thing that stuck with me was how John Cale described a key sonic requirement of The Velvet Underground. That any song had to be both “elegant and brutal”. I got really stuck on that phrase. I wrote it down in 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. One day whilst on tour in Austin, Finn 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.
We got connected, we spoke on the phone and wow… that voice, so elegant, so brutal. I sent him some songs and we started talking specifically about “House.” We spoke about the idea of a poem. He recorded something and sent it to me. Something that only John could do. And it was… well, it made me cry.
I feel so lucky to have been able to work with John on this song. I’ve been so excited to share it with you all, sitting quietly in anticipation. And on Monday, it’s yours.
Wuthering Heights arrives in theaters on Saturday, February 14, 2026. Fennell’s adaptation of the Emily Brontë novel stars Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff.
