Billie Eilish attended the Barbie premiere in Los Angeles on Sunday, July 9, and told Variety that she was “going for more of a Ken thing” with her pink carpet look. Toward the end of a sit-down interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe published today, July 13, Eilish explained exactly what she’s going for with all of her decisions right now.
Lowe joked that Eilish’s oversized ERL sneakers gave a “severe nut allergy vibe.” Eilish cracked up before saying, “Yeah, dude. I’m trolling. I’m trolling these b*tches. Me at the f*cking premiere — ugh, I looked like a giant toddler. But I’m like, I’m trolling, bro. … Please. I tried to take myself seriously with the Happier Than Ever period, and I was like, ‘OK! Did that. Let’s do something else.'”
The preceding 31 minutes of Eilish’s conversation with Lowe also took on a more serious tone, as she unpacked the origin story and inspiration behind her and Finneas’ devastating piano ballad, “What Was I Made For?,” for the Barbie soundtrack.
“I find it really hard to write about my exact feelings in my life, and so, ‘What Was I Made For?’ would never have ever been written [other than for Barbie], even though every single lyric is exactly how I feel,” Eilish said to open the interview. “Every lyric. Exactly how I feel. You hear me? Look at my mouth. It’s exactly how I feel! It’s about my life.”
Eilish relayed that the opportunity to write “What Was I Made For?” came about organically and unexpectedly.
“Through this last winter, [she and Finneas have] both been incredibly uninspired, and we’ve still been working and trying to make stuff, and honestly, that song was the first thing we’d written in a minute,” she said.
In December 2022, Finneas started a group text between him, Eilish, Barbie director Greta Gerwig, and Barbie: The Album executive producer Mark Ronson. By January 16, 2023, Gerwig organized a private Barbie screening for Eilish and Finneas.
“[Gerwig] played us the first 30, 40 minutes of the movie, and I mean, like a minute in, Finneas and I looked at each other like, ‘Whoa. This is insane,'” Eilish said.
The 21-year-old seven-time Grammy winner then compared the impromptu making of “What Was I Made For?” to the drawn-out process for their Oscar-winning Bond theme, “No Time To Die”:
“Literally the next day, we were working, and we were writing something. I don’t know. It was kind of a dud of a day. Nothing was really made, and it was late. I was like, ‘Alright, I think I’m gonna go. We’ve done enough. We’re done for the day.’ And Finneas was like, ‘Should we try to write a Barbie song?’ And I literally was like, ‘Dog, no. What? We’re not gonna make – c’mon.’
I thought about ‘No Time To Die,’ that was months of thinking and talking and coming up with different melodies and stuff. That was also one of my favorite processes of all time, but very different. I was like, we can’t recreate that. How are we gonna do that? We truly sat down, and Finneas started playing piano, and those first couple lyrics, ‘I used to float, now I just fall down,’ just came out.”
“What Was I Made For?” was released this morning, July 13, and Barbie will enjoy its long-awaited theatrical release on July 21.
Watch the “What Was I Made For?” video above, or watch Eilish’s interview with Lowe below.
