Singer-songwriter Billie Eilish tries to guess lyrics from some of her biggest songs. She shares with us her experience working with Rosalía, where she keeps all of her Grammy's what it's like for her music to resonate with so many women.
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00:00 - I'm really tired, though.
00:01 [whistles]
00:02 - Yeah, is it stupid if I sit like this?
00:05 Hi, I'm Billie Eilish,
00:06 and I am going to be talking about some of my lyrics.
00:09 [upbeat music]
00:12 Things I once enjoyed just keep me employed now.
00:23 Things I'm longing for, someday I'll be bored of.
00:26 This is from "Getting Older."
00:28 Things I once enjoyed.
00:30 Good one, good choice.
00:35 I think about this line a lot in my life.
00:38 It's funny, this line bums me out so bad.
00:43 Like, anytime I'm excited about something,
00:45 or like really just feeling any kind of excitement,
00:48 or like, wow, I can't wait for whatever,
00:50 I always think about this line.
00:52 And it's like, it's just in my head being like,
00:54 things you're longing for, you'll be bored of.
00:56 And not even necessarily bored of,
00:58 but like everything we long for and crave
01:00 and are excited for, one day we'll be like,
01:03 either bored of or used to, or it'll be over, or.
01:06 It bums me out like a motherfucker, a lot.
01:11 But it's also what's so fun about life
01:12 is that we change and we keep changing,
01:14 and then we keep getting excited about the next thing,
01:16 and then that thing happens
01:17 and we keep being excited about the next thing.
01:19 And that's, we should embrace that,
01:20 but it's also a huge bummer.
01:22 Oh yeah, a classic.
01:26 "When did it end, all the enjoyment."
01:30 That's from "What Was I Made For."
01:32 ♪ When did it end ♪
01:35 ♪ All the enjoyment ♪
01:38 It's just the epitome of like what the song represents
01:41 and what it's about,
01:42 and just like everything that the song means,
01:44 I feel like is all wrapped up in that sentence.
01:46 And it's like a question that I think
01:49 everyone has or can ask themselves.
01:53 I don't know, I love that song so much,
01:54 I feel very, very connected to it and very proud of it.
01:58 I feel very, very proud of it.
02:00 I somehow maybe naively didn't think about
02:02 how many people would resonate with it and relate to it.
02:06 The fact that it has resonated with so many women
02:09 is probably I'd say my favorite part of the whole process.
02:13 I've spent my life loving girls
02:16 and being really worried that they hate me for some reason,
02:19 and wanting to impress them and whatever else.
02:24 And I felt like one with the girls.
02:26 I don't know, I've never felt like a girl, really.
02:29 I feel like there was so much on social media
02:32 of mother-daughter things and videos and stories
02:35 and sister relationships and just best friends.
02:38 And it was all to my song and it made me so happy.
02:41 Like I want to be a girl's girl so bad.
02:46 Girls are amazing, man, in so many ways.
02:50 Ooh, ooh.
02:54 You say it to me like it's something I have any choice in.
02:57 If I wasn't important,
02:58 then why would you waste all your poison?
03:00 That is from my song with Rosalia called "Lo Vas Olvidar."
03:07 ♪ If I wasn't important ♪
03:09 ♪ Then why would you waste all your poison ♪
03:12 So I'm pretty sure in 2018,
03:15 I was like somewhere in Asia on tour
03:17 and I had been a big fan of hers.
03:19 She had put out "Ma Lamente."
03:20 I just thought it was like the sickest thing in the world.
03:22 And then I don't know who hit who up,
03:24 but we ended up talking.
03:26 I remember she sent me this video of her
03:28 and she was like, "I have an intuition
03:31 that we should do music together."
03:34 And I was like, "Stop."
03:36 I screen recorded that shit, saved it, hearted it.
03:38 And I showed everybody, I was so excited about it.
03:41 Many months later, I just got into the studio
03:43 and had a couple of days in there
03:45 and we made a couple of little ideas.
03:48 And then this song kind of happened.
03:50 What was nice is like, neither of us were like,
03:52 "No, we need to make a hit because it's da-da-da-da."
03:55 We were just like, "Let's make something weird."
03:57 And like, maybe people won't like it,
03:59 but I think it's tight.
04:00 She's got such a vision, man.
04:02 And it's gotta be her vision, which I appreciate.
04:04 As much as it's a lot, I appreciate it.
04:07 I'm the same, I'm the same.
04:08 Like I get it, I want things to be a certain way
04:11 and she's kind of the same way.
04:12 So definitely together was a bit explosive,
04:15 but it was also tight.
04:16 She's the best, I love her.
04:18 She is like truly like maybe the best performer
04:20 in the world, for real.
04:23 And what's fun about this line is the whole song was done
04:27 and then there was this like outro where she does it.
04:29 ♪ Da-da-da-da-da-da-da ♪
04:30 And I wanted to say something at the end
04:33 and maybe say something in English.
04:34 I was sitting in the studio with my mom, my dad,
04:37 my brother, and like maybe a friend, I don't even know.
04:40 It was like the whole family for some reason in the studio.
04:43 And Phineas and I were like trying to show them something.
04:46 I don't even know.
04:46 And we were like, oh, should we write that line?
04:49 And we were all sitting together
04:51 as me and Phineas wrote that line.
04:53 And I think like my mom came up with the word poison.
04:56 It was just like a fun, like family time.
04:59 Oh, wow, it's so funny to see these.
05:04 They called me weak.
05:06 Like I'm not just somebody's daughter.
05:09 Everything I wanted.
05:10 ♪ They called me weak ♪
05:13 ♪ Like I'm not just somebody's daughter ♪
05:16 We wrote the first verse in, I wanna say like fall 2018
05:21 or something.
05:22 And then we wrote like the chorus in like April of 2019.
05:26 And then we wrote the rest of the song
05:29 in September of 2019.
05:31 And then we recorded it in November of 2019 or October.
05:35 I don't know, but it was like over a very, very different
05:37 like periods of my life and states of mind.
05:41 I feel like 2018 and 2019 was a blur.
05:44 God, so long ago now.
05:47 I didn't realize how much the song meant to me
05:52 until like way, way into making it,
05:55 which was interesting.
05:55 Like, I don't know, I remember writing it,
05:58 but I remember like not caring about it at all.
06:00 And my brother and I kind of like, eh, whatever,
06:02 we're working on other stuff.
06:03 And then when we kind of honed in on it
06:05 and started to really work on it again,
06:08 I grew to have such a connection to it,
06:09 which was so interesting 'cause we had already written it,
06:11 but I didn't have like a connection to it until way later,
06:15 which was fascinating.
06:16 It's about my brother and my relationship.
06:18 And I think that that's really special.
06:20 Every time I like sing the song and think about the song,
06:22 it just like makes my heart very warm
06:24 because it's my brother.
06:25 And I don't know, it's very sweet to me.
06:27 I hold it very close to my heart.
06:29 And, oh my God, I forgot the main thing.
06:31 I had a dream that I died and everyone was like, ha ha.
06:34 It messed me up to say the least.
06:35 It was so vivid and I remember it so well.
06:38 Yeah, and then like the next day
06:39 I was telling my brother about it
06:41 and I was like, dude, it was so real.
06:43 Oh gosh.
06:46 I'm that bad type, make your mama sad type.
06:50 This is from "Bad Guy."
06:52 ♪ I'm that bad type, make your mama sad type ♪
06:55 Oh my God, yeah, the Grammys, man.
06:58 It was so chaotic and insane and ridiculous
07:02 and surreal and scary and amazing.
07:04 And I don't know, I think very fondly of that night.
07:06 It's funny, like I'm that bad type, make your mama sad type.
07:10 Like my little ass was 15 years old.
07:13 Those Grammys, I mean, it was like
07:15 the most crazy life experiences all in like a few months.
07:19 There's no forgetting it.
07:20 It was so special and insane.
07:22 I keep my Grammys.
07:24 Oh God, where do I keep them?
07:25 They're on a shelf in my house.
07:28 Two shelves, two shelves.
07:31 Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
07:33 Like I'm not trying to be like extra with them.
07:36 They just, that's how many there are.
07:39 It's not my fault.
07:40 [laughs]
07:40 It's not my fault.
07:42 When we all fall asleep, where do we go?
07:46 That is from "Bury a Friend."
07:49 ♪ When we all fall asleep, where do we go ♪
07:52 Currently in the making of the next album,
07:56 I've been writing in a notebook,
07:58 but I've pretty much been only,
07:59 I kind of went into it only like planning
08:01 on just writing all the lyrics down,
08:03 but then I always end up drawing some weird little thing.
08:05 I love to draw.
08:06 I just love to draw.
08:07 And I always have,
08:08 and it's much easier for me to listen when I'm drawing.
08:11 Like I just have a lot of auditory processing issues.
08:13 And so when I draw, I can hear a lot better somehow.
08:16 Okay, so the thing with the sleeping stuff,
08:18 I never had night terrors.
08:20 I didn't know what that was.
08:21 And so I would just say it
08:23 'cause it sounded like what I had.
08:24 But what I had was like sleep paralysis
08:26 and horrible nightmares.
08:28 I thought night terrors was just like bad dreams.
08:30 No, it's like screaming in your sleep.
08:33 And like, no, I don't have that.
08:35 Kind of this whole album was very inspired by that.
08:40 Like it was inspired by sleep and like the weirdness of it.
08:43 And the title of the album and the album cover
08:45 and kind of the theme of the album was,
08:47 a big inspiration for me was the "Babadook,"
08:50 which I loved so, so much.
08:51 Phineas came up with this lyric.
08:53 I had just been talking nonsense for months about like,
08:57 "When we fall asleep, like why, like what are even dreams?
09:01 And like, why do we sleep?
09:03 And like, why do we wake up?"
09:04 And like, I was just asking dumb ass questions.
09:06 But then of course he's like,
09:07 "Well, this is some shit that you would say
09:09 when we all fall asleep, where do we go?"
09:10 It was just so perfect right then in that song.
09:13 And we were just like, you know what?
09:14 This is like such a perfect encapsulation of the album
09:16 and named it that.
09:17 Oh, "I put on Survivor just to watch somebody suffer.
09:22 Maybe I should get some sleep."
09:24 This is from TV.
09:26 ♪ I put on Survivor just to watch somebody suffer ♪
09:32 I do be watching some "Survivor."
09:34 'Cause I only started watching it
09:36 kind of around writing this song
09:38 and I had never seen it before.
09:39 And I kind of had this idea that it was this like,
09:41 oh, you jump through a hoop and you like run through a thing
09:44 and it's not.
09:45 It is like people almost dying and shit.
09:48 I don't know, I kind of want to go on it.
09:50 Like, what is it?
09:52 What's his name?
09:53 Mike White, yeah, who went on.
09:55 Amazing.
09:56 That was actually the season I was watching
09:58 when I wrote that line.
10:00 I think that the physical stuff I'd be great at,
10:02 but you have to like do math and shit
10:04 and I would not be good at that, so.
10:06 "I've never fallen from quite this high."
10:09 And this is from "Ocean Eyes."
10:11 ♪ I've never fallen from quite this high ♪
10:14 It's so wild to think back.
10:17 So 2015, I was 13.
10:20 My brother wrote this song and he wrote it for his band.
10:23 And then one time he was like,
10:25 "Do you want to sing this song?
10:27 Because I feel like it would sound better in your voice."
10:29 And I was like, "I guess."
10:31 And then I did.
10:32 Simultaneously, I was a dancer
10:34 and I was dancing all the time.
10:35 And that was like what I planned on doing forever.
10:38 And my dance teacher was like,
10:39 "I know you like to make songs.
10:40 Like, would you want to make like a song
10:42 and we can like make a dance to it?
10:43 I don't know, it might be fun."
10:44 And I was like so excited about that.
10:46 ♪ Burning cities and napalm skies ♪
10:50 And Phineas had written a song called "Ocean Eyes."
10:55 We were not even going to put it out.
10:56 We were just going to like send it to my teacher,
10:58 but we were like, "Yeah, it's good.
11:00 We might as well put it on SoundCloud or whatever.
11:01 We'll put like a free download link
11:03 'cause you know, like 10 people will hear it.
11:04 Probably, maybe not."
11:05 Honestly, like within the week,
11:07 it was just like skyrocketing.
11:11 I was sitting in a Starbucks.
11:13 Phineas called me and he was like,
11:14 "Dude, 'Ocean Eyes' hit a thousand plays."
11:17 And I was like, "You're lying."
11:20 And it was the biggest moment.
11:22 And I remember standing there and thinking,
11:24 "Wow, like this is my moment.
11:26 Nothing like this is ever going to happen again.
11:28 And this is my moment.
11:29 And I'm going to just take it in.
11:31 And I'm so grateful for this.
11:32 It's so cool."
11:33 And then like the next week it was on the radio.
11:36 And then here we are.
11:40 I don't know, guys.
11:42 Things happened.
11:44 If it weren't for that song,
11:45 I don't think I would be sitting here at all.
11:49 So it's really bittersweet.
11:52 (gentle music)
11:54 (gentle music)
11:57 (gentle music)
12:00 (gentle music)
12:02 (gentle music)
12:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]