The song “What Was I Made For” only took Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell a few hours to hammer out, Billie told Allure. Since the explosion of the song and the “Barbie” movie it’s a part of, it’s special in a devastating sort of way to see how people relate to it. “What Was I Made For” truly captures what it’s like, particularly for women, to grow up in a world that tells you you aren’t good enough. That’s demonstrated in lyrics like “I used to float, now I just fall down/I used to know but I’m not sure now” and “When did it end? All the enjoyment/I’m sad again, don’t tell my boyfriend/It’s not what he’s made for.”
“We wrote most of the song without thinking about ourselves and our own lives, but thinking about this character we were inspired by,” Billie told Allure. “A couple of days went by, and I realized it was about me. It’s everything I feel. And it’s not just me — everyone feels like that, eventually.” She described the song as something that had been living inside her for years, wanting to escape. We can see a lot of that tenderness even in a song this simple that has touched the lives of so many people who can relate to the conflicts of growing up.
