How Billie Eilish and FINNEAS Created Oscar-Nominated 'What Was I Made For' | Vanity Fair

it does like an emotional thing to you I feel the same way about the little what reminds me of like a Nintendo DS or something which is this like arpeggiated love this organ I love this I think this does so much for the it plays so quietly it just kind of peeks out when the vocal goes away it sounds fake sounds like a toy barf it's like so Sentimental Feeling I really wanted the whole thing to sound like Animal Crossing I think that was a big I am Billy ish I'm Phineas and we are going to be showing you how we made the song What Was I made for it was one of the the the fastest songs we've ever written once we got that first verse and that line just what was I made for I think we were both like it was a good vibe and it was honestly like a half hour that it took to do [Music] that made for this is like one of four cases total in our career where we've made something to then kind of submit to people it's a different way of making music because you're auditioning yeah definitely an audition and all we had was a voice memo our main concern was we can't send them this voice memo because was rough but there was something about it that was cool it was pretty special I used know but what I was made for it is top three hardest songs I've ever had to record it's not even that it's high it is high in my range but it's not about that it's about the delivery I was trying to do a very specific thing with my voice which was this like very soft held back you know upper range falsetto where as I could have you know I could have belted it I could have sung it more out I could have sung it in like more of a Coral like choir type and instead it was like a used to FL it's really hard to do like honestly it's really hard to do it's really hard to sound good and be enunciating the um words correctly and and enough having I remember that being a big part of the song was making sure that it was intelligible I wanted you to understand what I was saying could have literally done like a ah used to float and now I but I was not that's not what the song Wanted you know and I could have G I used to float I there so many ways I could have sung it but none of it worked the way that this kind of heartbroken almost like you were just crying and now you're singing delivery was and it was the hardest choice of all of the choices I could have [Music] made [Music] I had this this exact vision for what I wanted it to sound like and I I got it there and I feel really proud I think it's one of the best if I can be honest and self whatever I feel like it's one of my best vocal performances I've ever given but you were harsh about it she would she we we' do the whole vocal and comp it and we'd be working on the production she'd go home for the night and she'd come back the next day and she'd be like I need to re-record this line this line and this line when I was starting out I had one way of singing and that's how I sang and everything that I sang I just sang it how I knew how to sing it and now I have all these choices and I can play with my like instrument like I have an instrument now that I can play with and it's really amazing and it's really it's really fun but it's definitely hard and I would say that I don't know how to feel was brutal cuz it goes it does that like you know uh ascending cuz I cuz I I don't know how to feel and it's so high and you're kind of sliding at the note what is the key wait for a second [Music] yeah I don't know how to feel that how oh you guys I must have done that like a gazillion time I don't know and the oh my gosh I'm so glad it's over I'm so glad I recorded it and I don't have to record it again the Run was definitely tough I think it was tough because it's in head voice and for me runs are much easier in kind of a lower register in a in a in like a mid chess [Music] voice that was the one that came to me initially and I really wanted to do it but I was like I don't know if I can get this one the second chorus was belted for a while and that run was belted and it just didn't sound right it just was like this isn't what this is It's supposed to be but of course it's much easier to do that I was like God I have to do the soft you [Music] know okay nice dude I think I'm good that run it's intricate it what is it cuz [Music] I it's fast it's soft it's back here it's not forward Billy's ability to double track is really amazing there's like micro rhythms when you're double tracking of where each syllable and Pitch ends and begins on the lead vocal that you've tracked and often times especially the way that Billy sings is a little Jazzy so often times her delivery is behind the bead or rushing and then behind the beat very purposeful it is but it's but it's hard to uh hard to double it's hard to replicate if you sing in a very sort of like common time all the notes starting the Down Beat that's much easier to double and she's doing really Jazzy intricate stuff made [Music] [Applause] me to even double that is really challenging and she'll just go after it and and Crush that and then she's able to do it when she harmonizes too and she's got a big [Music] range feel and that's playing at the same time can you play with the lead though I don't know how to feel so even her vibr is on the same Rhythm as the breaths are all matched up the vibr is all matched up I don't feel so that's three takes at [Music] once this is just the lead that line you can barely hear it you can kind of just feel it in the Imaging of it and there's a fuging called vocal line that will analyze a waveform and and and stretch it and and contract it and I've never used it once with Billy don't know how to feel I think of sound in a very physical way I think that sound has a weight to it and I think that a perfect production is like a perfectly balanced set of scales I'm just trying to keep the equilibrium and I feel like generally I can feel innately when something is tipping the scale and sort of ruining the balance of everything and it is it is all sort of like placing things really delicately and making sure that it holds and then if it holds maybe adding something else but often times especially from a stereo perspective it's like if something's going on over here something's going on over here so that it balances I've gone on record of saying this but like the fantasy is that your vocal is unbelievable and the one instrument playing along to it the piano or the guitar is great and that it's you know you're like Bob Dylan and it's just that the art part of production to me is just to enhance the emotionality it isn't to gild a lily or something so we just tried to be inventive and add to the sort of narrative components of it one of my favorite components of the production on this I've spent a lot of time just handing Billy some instrument that's in my studio because I'm more interested in what she's going to do experimenting with it she has less years of standing you know behind a keyboard on a stage than I do I don't really know what I'm doing and that's excited as a producer the idea that they're going to come up with is so much less theoretical and I love that and so I have this toy this little keyboard that custom vintage gave me it's literally like yellow it's like toy colored yellow and red like as if it was from Toys R Us we had a patch on it and I just was like around and I ran it through uh a plugin called sketch cassette that I love cassette that just up the sound more which made it feel really good but she's mainly playing along to The Melodies and it's is so sad like sorry that's so sad tired wait keep it and here's how it's interacting with the [Music] lead when it comes to production and recording instrumental Parts I'm much more interested in the first pass and the sort of guesswork that goes into that I'd much less like to have her sort of sit there for hours and figure out exactly what she wants to play for the verse I want to kind of improvisational M play the like ending of that one just the outro [Music] yeah [Music] out but it I had to boost it so much to even have you hear it just now it's so quiet in the mix also underneath it are bunch of adlibs that she did but they're so bar adbs oh my God I could do a whole interview about adlibs nobody ever asks me about adlibs they make songs so special you don't even know [Music] dude but they're that quiet they're [Music] so this one and again under the lead I don't know how to feel I love that one I don't know how to feel love it oh it makes me so excited I had this idea for the the one on the second half of the first verse when it says taking a drive I love this is here Tak a drive I just wanted it to have this weird kind of euphoric thing happening so I I said Woo I recorded that do you want to hear what it sounds like with no plugins I forgot and then I ran it through an overdrive and a channel EQ and a Reverb plugin it sounds like this and then I turned it way down and it plays at the same time as a big thumpy um drum a drum hitting and also a Basse starting and the the three of them together taking a drive night it does like an emotional thing to you I feel the same way about the little uh what reminds me of like a Nintendo DS or something which is this like arpeggiated organ I love this I think this does so much for the S it plays so quietly it just kind of Peaks out when the vocal goes away it's so nostalgic to me sounds it's nostalgic sounds like a it sounds fake sounds like a barf it's like so sentimental also a bunch of uh melron patches it reminds me of like Sims I really wanted a whole thing to sound like Animal Crossing I think that was a big there's some really really distant huge [Music] guitars so cool I love that that's hidden underneath it's so funny producing music because when you record something like that you inherently have to record it super loud cuz part of the way that a guitar sounds is the feedback you have to record it loud enough that the speaker the pickup on the guitar is picking up the noise from the speaker so you're like you're playing your normal song and you're destroying your song with this like you know butt rock guitar part and you know as a producer that you're like I'm going to Chuck it as far in the background as humanly possible no one would ever like think that that's in there it adds it adds so much yeah there's Just Energy that that's providing um and that's sort of the again that's like the physics of it like it would never sit in that song If We Had it you know super loud yeah when we were writing this we were very very much writing about you know a character and we were writing from the perspective of a character and her life and the way she sees the world through her eyes and her experiences and it wasn't until like 2 days later that I was listening to it and I was like this is me this is my life and how I feel and it was pretty weird to like not realize that my subconscious was doing that and and also just that I related a lot to this character I think it's an excuse to be a little braver than you might be willing if you are writing something that you know people are going to receive as autobiographical so true I think if you write a lyric like I'm sad again don't tell my boyfriend and you know your boyfriend is going to hear it and think Jesus Christ that takes a different amount of Courage than being like bar about you no it's literally not about you yeah no it's a character that's what I was I was hitting that the next day I'm sad again don't tell my boyfriend not what he when we were with Greta we saw the first 35 40 minutes straight that was edited at the time and then we saw sort of moments key moments that she wanted us to see and we we were shown what at the time was the scene that the song ends up in which is the the now feel scene which made me cry watching that and at the time had no uh music montage oh yeah no Montage no life Montage which later found out as like footage of the crew and casts family members which is beautiful but at the time it was just a one shot of Margot crying in this like white room but we loved that moment in that line and she had sort of said we're missing what she was referring to as Barbie's heart song yeah so we had all that in the back of our minds when we went into write that pressure like almost doesn't exist when it's just us to you know in the studio in his house like you know we're we're eating like donuts and and like making music and playing pickle ball and stuff it's just like the pressure of of whoever the fat suits are I don't know yeah how do I quiet the noise I'm not really listening I'm not really listening the team canest not to throw Billy under the bus but you you're asking how she quiets the noise and Billy's like what's going who's what's I I don't know what the hell is going on I'm I have i l little noise gets in there I have I have 1,461 unread texts right now I'm not looking at that stuff I never really questioned the song I was like is that is that enough of a chorus just like repeating cuz I cuz I I don't know how to feel I just was like don't know how to feel like am I saying enough like does that convey what I mean and I think that it so did I was just nervous that it wasn't you know saying enough but in a way it was like saying way enough you know it it was really the perfect like simple way to be like I don't know what I'm doing you know I don't know how to feel I don't and I think that it's that's kind of one of the most special parts of the song is just this like simple like statement that somebody could just say I've said that I've said that before in my life I think all of us have probably been like I don't know how to feel and literally that she doesn't know how to feel like physically we made the song early enough in the um process of them scoring the film that after we'd written the song they started using the Melodies that we'd written for the song in the film score and so there'd be scenes where there's an orchestra playing The Melodies that are in this song in the film kind of Full Circle the the orchestra that they'd recorded of The Melodies of our song that they'd put in the movie I was like well why can we get a pass of of the orchestra playing just sort of chords underneath um the song so that it sort of ties all into the film score this is like a breakout of like the orchestra stems it's like a million microphones but there's some [Music] horns marker Andrew who was his uh composing partner he sent over like like four tracks he sent over like strings horns cs80 harp one of my favorite parts that he added is the ascending [Music] harp every time it hits it oh my God it just it's really I love that the song means a lot to me it means a lot to me I think that it's hard to like listen to I think there's some things in this world that don't like they kind of don't stay yours especially when they are consumed by the public and things like that and I think that this song no matter what happens with it I think it'll always be mine and I'll feel like it's right here because it is for me I think it's just about changing and I think when you grow and when you change is sort of inherently an identity crisis that sort of metamorphosis as a person which is like the most cathartic important part of living your life and aging is also this like devastating experience and can really put you in crisis growing up is scary yeah and growing up doesn't stop when you turn 18 or reach the height that you're going to be for the rest of your life growing up is just lived experience continuing to wash over you like waves on a beach until you're worn smooth like beach glass and then you die um Jesus Christ and uh that's fine

Channel: Vanity Fair

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Keywords: barbie movie, barbie soundtrack, billie and finneas, billie eilish, billie eilish album, billie eilish barbie, billie eilish brother, billie eilish finneas, billie eilish music video, billie eilish oscar, billie eilish recording, billie eilish song, billie eilish songs, billie eilish what was i made for, finneas, music, music production, music score, oscar, oscars, song breakdown, vanity fair, what was i made for music, what was i made for music video

Id: mewdcHIvMmA

Length: 18min 35sec (1115 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 07 2023