Billie Eilish has said she thought she’d she’d “hit her peak” and “it was over” before penning her Barbie soundtrack song this summer.
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Eilish’s song for the soundtrack, ‘What Was I Made For?’ was last week nominated for five Grammys. The track was written by Eilish and her brother and collaborator Finneas for the soundtrack of Greta Gerwig’s summer blockbuster. Finneas also produced the song at his home studio in LA.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Eilish said: “I honestly was concerned that it was over for me. We’d been trying and it wasn’t doing what it usually would do in me. I was honestly like, ‘Damn, maybe I hit my peak and I don’t know how to write anymore?’”
Eilish revealed she was struggling to find inspiration to write other songs before the call came from Gerwig arrived in January.
“Greta saved me, really, honestly,” Eilish said. “It brought us out of it and immediately we were inspired and wrote so much more after that.”
Eilish said she and Finneas were in the studio writing after they first saw the film.
“It was just a day of nothing. It was just idea after idea after idea of just no ideas. Nothing was happening. It was the least creative,” she said of the session. Finneas then suggested to Eilish that they try writing the Barbie song.
“I was like, ‘What? You think after the day of garbage we’ve just made, we’re going to make a perfect song for something that needs something really good?’ I was like, ‘I don’t even have that in me.’”
Eventually, after Finneas started playing at the piano, Eilish started singing. Once they had the line “I used to float, now I just fall down,” the rest quickly followed.
“Then we were both asking the question after that and we did that in probably five minutes,” Eilish continued. “It was like it was God. It was just the most perfect example to me of true inspiration and connection. It was living in me that whole day, but it wasn’t coming out of me. We didn’t go into it knowing at all what we were going to make or if we were going to make anything. And it was just so clear that we needed to.”
- READ MORE: ‘Barbie’ review: Greta Gerwig’s grown-up toy story is fantastic fun
Elsewhere, Ryan Gosling’s ‘I’m Just Ken’ song from Barbie was also nominated for a Grammy last week.
Other songs from the Barbie soundtrack nominated in the same category included Dua Lipa for ‘Dance The Night’, Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice Featuring Aqua for ‘Barbie World’.
Barbie has become the highest-grossing movie of the year worldwide so far, and the highest-grossing film ever by a female director.