JP Saxe & Julia Michaels – If The World Was Ending

An exciting and powerful collaboration between two masterful artist/songwriters, “If The World Was Ending” by JP Saxe & Julia Michaels is a heart-wrenching new single that’s sure to get under your skin.

Opening with a wistful piano, JP Saxe’s voice cuts through with conversational honesty, as his mind wanders from an LA earthquake, a breakup, and finally to the end of the world. The pre-chorus builds like a ballad into the chorus’ simple yet heartbreaking question: “if the world was ending you’d come over, right?”

Julia Michael’s takes the second verse and drives it home with her uniquely elegant vocals and masterfully tight songwriting. She tells her side of the story, reminiscing on the relationship with details full of pain and passion.

Their voices come together in a complimentary and climactic way, building in sync and balancing out as the production explodes around them. And there is so much nuance and subtly in the minimalistic way the production glides around the vocals and builds. It’s no surprise FINNEAS, the inimitable force behind his sister Billie Eilish’s sound, produced this song with expert care.

The video compliments the song with an almost terrifying starkness. In the video the world is ending and people are reacting with a range of emotions, from fear to wonder, as JP Saxe walks to Julia Michael’s house to spend their final moments together. The apocalyptic final moments has them sitting on the living room floor and it’s impossible to deny the intensity of that final shot, your heart racing as they look at each other one last time before the world ends.

I have no doubt this will be a pivotal song for them and pop music as a whole. It’s a special song that captures everything from the pain of moving on after a relationship to our collective anxieties about the apocalypse.

If the world was ending, I’d still listen.