I don’t ever bear in mind writing a music about how I used to be really feeling within the second, as a result of I used to be bored by that. Who cares about what I really feel like as we speak? (After all, it seems that lots of people care, which is actually cool.) However writing “What Was I Made For?” I wasn’t fascinated by myself, or my life. I used to be simply impressed by the attitude of a personality. It was solely afterward that I had a realization: It really was about me. Quite a lot of the time it’s a unconscious factor, writing about myself, however doing it in a approach that feels safer. It’s sort of trippy. I used to be fascinated by a personality, nevertheless it seems I’m the character.
The week after the music got here out, I didn’t get sufficient sleep as a result of I simply stayed up watching movies that followers made for it. I can’t let you know how cool it was to really feel like I used to be a part of one thing that was bringing folks collectively, all gender identities and generations from everywhere in the world, and I beloved that a lot of it was bringing ladies along with all of these movies of individuals’s girlhoods and mom-and-daughter relationships. I’ve numerous internalized misogyny—I didn’t ask for it and I don’t need it, nevertheless it’s there—and I’m consistently retraining myself to not assume that approach. “What Was I Made For?” introduced ladies collectively on this stunning however devastating approach: We have been all bonding in regards to the traumas of being a girl on this planet.
As a younger feminine within the trade, I typically discover myself preventing actual resentment, however that’s the world that we stay in. My physique, face, and skills are scrutinized in a approach {that a} man’s simply aren’t. I didn’t notice how relatable “What Was I Made For?” would change into. Individuals began to level out the lyrics and say, “Oh, my God, Billie wrote this for me, as a result of that is how I really feel.” Listening to folks speak about how a lot their expertise as a girl resonated with what I wrote was so unhappy, however I additionally felt much less alone.
As a woman, I feel the liberty of being slightly child is one thing that we don’t actually ever get again, and we don’t notice it till it’s gone. You’re feeling like a individual—then all of a sudden you’re being checked out by grown males, you’re rising physique elements you don’t acknowledge, and also you get your interval. Generally I see eight-year-old women, and I feel, Oh, my God, have a look at how free you’re! You hit a sure age and it’s about to be the worst stage of your life.
I directed the video for “What Was I Made For?” and it’s certainly one of my favourite issues I’ve ever made. The exhausting factor about directing, particularly if you’re not tremendous skilled, is that you’ve got this imaginative and prescient, however you don’t essentially know how you can obtain it. You’re making an attempt your finest making an attempt to convey to folks the way you need it to look, however how do you even know the phrases to explain it? I felt very assured in what I wished, and I requested in regards to the issues I didn’t know. Whenever you get to the place that I’m at in my life, you hear numerous “Sure.” I may not know what the hell I’m doing, and other people shall be like, “Sure, cool, let’s do it!” So I actually ask everyone, “If I’m doing this in a bizarre approach, please inform me. I wish to study.”
Rating has been such an enormous inspiration, and it’s a part of why I wish to direct and edit my very own movies. I consider music visually, and I consider visuals musically. If I edit one thing, the cuts need to be absolutely in sync with the music. With the “What Was I Made For?” video, I had my mother sit in a chair within the yard whereas I performed the music and I did all of the strikes precisely how I wished them to be. Someone watching that video could not give it some thought a lot, however the digital camera is transferring on all the proper beats, and with the lyrics and melody of the music.
I’ve my little secret listing of administrators that I’d like to shadow or make one thing with, however I maintain it to myself. How embarrassing is it if you happen to say it out loud after which it doesn’t occur? (Okay, I undoubtedly dream of doing one thing with Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I really like, love, love her.) I’d like to direct one thing huge sometime, nevertheless it’s cool to be a part of different artists’ stuff as effectively. The entire inventive course of surrounding “What Was I Made For?” was nothing however mutual admiration. And to be part of one thing so large, and so necessary to the world—that is historic shit. Funnily sufficient with this music, there was no strain. Finneas and I have been sitting there as if we have been puppets and the music was writing us. It felt like there was no world during which that music wasn’t going to be written. We have been so moved that it was unstoppable.
As instructed to Pleasure Press.
Hair, Benjamin Mohapi (Billie Eilish); make-up, Emily Cheng (Billie Eilish). Produced on location by Anna Sabatini. For particulars, go to vf.com/credit.
