Superstar musician siblings Billie Eilish and Finneas have felt an ease to their “Barbie” expertise that was absent from the earlier film work that received them an Oscar for Best Original Song in 2021. “It was the first time ever that we’ve done anything without our whole team with us, backing us up and doing all the communicating for us,” mentioned the “Happier Than Ever” singer to IndieWire over Zoom, beaming in from a Los Angeles recording studio the place she’s seated subsequent to her brother, the youngest particular person to have received the Grammy for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical. “We were child sensations. We had to have adults in the room translating for us,” mentioned Finneas with amusing.
Eilish in contrast the pair, each of school age on the time, auditioning for the prospect to write and perform the theme for James Bond film “No Time to Die,” the eventual award winner, to being put in “a room of dancers getting ready to be on the big tour,” or “the opening of ‘Triangle of Sadness,’” as her brother put it.
The approach their “Barbie” music “What Was I Made For?” took place was merely a recreation of phone, the place one among their colleagues had met with a Mattel govt who’d boasted concerning the nonetheless unreleased movie, which led right into a haphazard dialogue about if that they had any curiosity in turning into concerned with it. Upon Finneas saying “Maybe,” he was put in contact with “Barbie” composer Mark Ronson for a fast chat, which led into him looping in Eilish, Ronson looping in filmmaker Greta Gerwig for the 4 of them to all get on the identical web page, and shortly after that, they have been set to return in for a screening the place they’d get to see the extremely anticipated Warner Bros. launch six months upfront. “It was very direct,” mentioned Eilish.
Obviously now, “Barbie” has develop into a phenomenon, incomes over a billion {dollars} on the field workplace, making it the highest grossing movie of 2023, however all the way in which again originally of the yr, when the chance to jot down a music for it first got here up, Eilish and Finneas have been simply as quizzical about what precisely wouldn’t it even appear like, and moreover, how would their usually haunting music match into the image.
“We were like, ‘Wait, what?’ We didn’t know where anything was going to go. ‘What is this movie even about? What’s the deal? Are we going to be able to write something that would make sense? Do we even fit? Does it make any sense?,’” mentioned the younger singer. “I remember when it was announced that I was going to have a song on the Barbie soundtrack, the internet was kind of clowning it,” her brother reducing in to echo “Why does the Barbie movie need the saddest song?” While at that time, she delighted within the dramatic irony, assured of simply how properly “What Was I Made For?” matches inside the context of the movie’s climax, however earlier than her and Finneas’ first “Barbie” screening, “I had the same idea that the internet had,” she mentioned.
“I’m not going to make an upbeat happy little anthem. That’s just not interesting to me. Leave that to somebody else,” mentioned Eilish. “I was definitely going into it being like, ‘Oh, I don’t think this is going to happen. I don’t know how it would work. I just want to see it. ‘Let’s go see it.’ And honestly, it was obviously so unbelievably moving that after seeing it, I was like, ‘Damn, I really want to be part of it.’ I would’ve been really disappointed if we hadn’t written anything good.”
And there have been completely no ensures they’d, because the sibling collaborators have been each going via crippling author’s block through the preliminary phases of engaged on Eilish’s upcoming third studio album. Just by taking a break from the frustration to provide the project of writing a coronary heart music for Margot Robbie’s Barbie, that will play within the climax of the movie, they stumbled upon the soundtrack reduce that not solely a present Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award nominee, however overhauled their strategy to creating their very own document.
“The album that we’ve been making all year that we’re nearing the end of, is not 100% every word autobiographical, obviously. We’re always trying to write the best song, and the best song isn’t always 100% the truth,” mentioned Finneas. “But I will say what happened [when] we sat down to write the ‘Barbie’ song, we thought, ‘This doesn’t have to have anything to do with us. We’re writing a song for Barbie.’ And then we wrote a song that Billie felt like had everything to do with her and had everything to do with how she felt… Then we started writing a really autobiographical record.”
Turning to his sister, he mentioned “You were going through a transitional period in your life, where you were like, who am I, who was I, who will I be?” “It was horrible,” mentioned Eilish. “And I think that the ‘Barbie’ song, it kind of illuminated, ‘Oh, I’m feeling this and this and this and this. I can write from those feelings.’” It’s develop into a departure from the “What I Was Made For?” singer’s standard artistic course of. “I would not have been able to write that song had we just been like, ‘Let’s write a song about how we feel.’ It wouldn’t have happened. That song wouldn’t have been written,” she mentioned. “For me, if we sit down and try to write how I feel, I’m like, ‘Yuck.’ It’s just really hard for me to see [things] in the moment. It’s easier to write in hindsight. I feel like we’ve had success writing about our own lives later.”
Getting into the nitty-gritty of their songwriting fashion, Finneas begins with “a metaphorical, hopefully poetic, ambiguous line.” He mentioned “The line I always reference that I didn’t write is [in] a song by Bon Iver called ‘33 “God”.’” There’s a line in it, ‘A child ignored. These will just be places to me now,’ and it has no sort of preamble. That’s simply the road, ‘These will just be places to me now.’ And to me that conjures such a way of someplace you go that’s so vital to you, the home you grew up in, or the bar that you just fell in love at, or no matter it’s, after which your life adjustments and evolves and none of that’s true anymore. You go, ‘It’s only a place now.’ It has nothing to do with, ‘It’s so particular as a result of I’ve met the love of my life right here.’ It didn’t work out. The songs that I’m most proud to have written oftentimes are a little bit summary.”
Eilish’s early hit “When the Party’s Over” was “coming from a place of how you felt, but the situation you were in was not that situation at all,” mentioned the singer to her brother. The first songs they ever wrote collectively, “Bellyache” and “Hostage,” have been “complete made-up stories, but they work so well and you relate to them, and we related to them,” regardless of the previous being about killing one’s mates, and the latter being about eager to be in charge of a liked one. “All fantasy and metaphors,” she mentioned.
How it relates again to “What Was I Made For?” is how “there’s these lines [in the song] that are totally metaphors that happened to also be to picture,” mentioned Finneas. “‘I used to float and now I just fall down’ is exactly what I’m talking about. ‘Taking a drive, I was an ideal, looked so alive, turns out I’m not real,’ all these things that are totally character points [for Barbie]. When Billie plays a show, the people in the audience crying and singing along to these songs are internalizing them. They’re looking at them through the lens of their own existence, of ‘When did I stop enjoying my life?’ And ‘I can’t tell my boyfriend.’ These kinds of abstracts.”
A motif that’s develop into related to “What Was I Made For?” is a montage of photographs and residential movies consultant of how the individuals got here into womanhood like Margot Robbie’s Barbie ultimately does following the sequence within the movie. It is once more considerably unintentionally apt for Eilish to be the one soundtracking these clips, as she herself has been within the public eye since she was 13 years old, which “made for a lot of identity crises,” she joked.
In a time the place followers usually refer to every one among a pop star’s album cycles as an “era,” coming into into the music enterprise at such a younger age has made these artistic resets come rather more naturally to Eilish, nevertheless she might initially resent it. “It’s shocking and really upsetting to realize that they were all right when they said, ‘You’ll understand when you’re older.’ I can’t tell you how infuriating that is to me because I used to hear that all the time, and 1702883052 I’m like, ‘Damn, it is kind of true, man.’ I look back and I’m proud of myself for being strong in being really young and getting really famous and sticking to what I thought was right for me, but it’s really hard. And yeah, it naturally makes you have new eras because you’re just older. But then it’s kind of unfair. I can never, ever get away from the fact that everything that I thought was cool and made when I was 14 and 15 and 16 and 17 and 18 is just out in the world forever, for everyone to see, and I can’t do anything about it.”
In late November, Eilish had a artistic assembly simply to specific to her crew what course she sees herself moving into. “I was just talking about artists I love, and talking about things I love to everyone. And I was looking at certain artists’ discography, and all of their videos, and some people that I love started out when they were already in their 20s, and so everything they have made is really cool,” she mentioned. “And I am definitely irritated that I just was 14, so everything that I did was a 14-year-old doing it. And even if it was cool, it’s still like, ‘Oh my God.’”
“You’re so blind to it. And obviously, we’re still blind to it,” mentioned Finneas, chiming in. “When I think I have a good idea, I’m like, ‘That’s a really good idea.’ I’m not thinking, ‘Am I going to think that’s a good idea when I’m 30?’” If something, getting older comes with the trade-off of extra knowledge, however much less means to alter “in terms of opinion and taste and whatever,” mentioned the elder sibling. “The amount you’re changing from 12 to 13 is exponential… 21 to 25 is way less. As they both go deeper into their 20s, Eilish turning 22 years old on December 18, “you figure yourself out in sort of longer increments,” mentioned Finneas.
Time will inform if their existential ballad making waves within the awards race will mark the endpoint of their inventive metamorphosis, however their “Barbie” expertise has gotten the artistic juices flowing. “Every time we do anything in another world, it’s just very inspiring in so many ways, like, ‘Damn, what could we do? What could we make happen?,” mentioned Eilish. “It feels like training in a way. It feels like we’re working on a muscle that we really want to be bulky.” Even previous the music half, their collaboration with Greta Gerwig has them able to direct their very own tasks, with Finneas, who already does fairly a little bit of movie and TV scoring on the facet, even contemplating helming a film musical.
“Everything about ‘Barbie’ has felt very much like family. The way that Greta talked to us from the very beginning, I think of Greta as a cousin,” mentioned Eilish. “She’s so humble about everything, and she’s clearly such a fan.” Using that phrase in a normal sense, figuring out themselves as followers as properly, Finneas appreciates the dearth of ego driving Gerwig’s work. “When you allow yourself to be referential and pay homage, and be inspired by [things], that just takes humility,” he mentioned, citing the nod to “2001: A Space Odyssey” within the “Barbie” opening. “Billie, especially her visual language, is very referential.”
“I never go around and be like ‘I invented everything.’ And ‘I’m not inspired by anything,’” mentioned Eilish. “I will never ever not give credit where credit is due to the things that inspired me.” Finneas added that whether or not or not they’re upfront about it, “This filmmaker you think is so brilliant is referencing this filmmaker, who’s referencing [this one]…” He mentioned, “I always think that I’m the most creative, or I’m making something the most unique when I’m referencing something from a different medium. If I’m trying to make a song that reminds me of a painting, then I’m doing a good job.”
Hence why your entire means of writing, performing, and selling “What Was I Made For?” has develop into so pivotal for the pair. “People have mentioned to me candy issues like, ‘Oh, your song makes that scene even better.’ And I’m all the time like, ‘That means a lot. But man, was the movie moving before our song was in it. We saw it without [it],” said Finneas. Eilish had even been feeling like the general quality of cinema had declined in the past few years, “but then something comes along like Greta Gerwig’s ‘Barbie,’ and it’s similar to, ‘Damn, dude! Ok.’ There’s nonetheless individuals with actual ardour and actual expertise out right here.”
