The heartbreaking Billie Eilish song about fame and depression
From the outside looking in, it would be a relatively fair assumption to state that Billie Eilish appears to be living the dream. The fledgling artist, continuously breaking music chart records, is flying the flag for young musicians all around the globe. However, the harsh reality of fame is extremely different from the one that is portrayed on social media, and Eilish showcased that on her song ‘Everything I Wanted’.
The track, released as a stand-alone single, was spawned from an argument she had with her older brother and collaborator, Finneas. Penning the lyrics, Eilish got everything off her chest and finally admitted out loud that she was struggling, despite her flourishing career. Writing ‘Everything I Wanted’ was a cathartic and healing experience, allowing the artist room to deal with her personal situation.
Speaking to The Times, Eilish explained: “We had this big argument. Because I admitted something that I was, uh… It wasn’t a physical thing I was admitting. I don’t know how to put it without actually saying it and I don’t want to actually say it. But it was me admitting to something that was very serious about my depression. A very serious step that I was admitting that I was planning on taking.”
The line, “I tried to scream, But my head was underwater,” was recorded while Eilish was underwater. She explained her decision to follow that process to Zane Lowe: “It was like, you can’t not. We were sitting there like, ‘My head was underwater,’ and we were like, ‘Wait, wait. This is our chance.'”
Finneas also explained the song’s genesis from his perspective, and unlike most of their songs, they didn’t collaborate on the lyrics. Instead, he focused on the music and left Eilish alone to do the rest. He explained: “Like the musical equivalent of giving an alcoholic another beer: ‘I’m not going to support this’.”
He added: “A lot of songs are written in retrospect, but this one felt like it was being written in real-time, and I was like: ‘This is something we’ve got to write on the other side of this hill. We have to go through this in real life. You can’t always solve your problems in a song.'”
The song deals with Eilish directly facing her problems rather than hiding them away and letting out an avalanche of raw emotion. The following lines are particularly poignant: “I had a dream, I got everything I wanted, Not what you’d think, And if I’m being honest, It might’ve been a nightmare, To anyone who might care”.
As a society, we are waking up to the fact that nobody is immune from mental health struggles. The invisible illness can grapple anybody to the ground, no matter how many zeroes are displayed in their bank account. Eilish’s honesty on ‘Everything I Wanted’ has helped push the discourse in a progressive direction and will have helped countless others similarly struggling.
