Why is the success of Billie Eilish’s Barbie song is “devastating” to her?

The movie “Barbie” has undoubtedly made a significant mark this year, thanks in no small part to its standout soundtrack. A collaboration of some of the finest artists in the industry, the original songs serve as a perfect complement to Greta Gerwig’s film. From the uproarious “I’m Just Ken” to the poignant “What Was I Made For,” the soundtrack effectively encapsulates the film’s emotional spectrum.

Among the tracks, Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” has been nothing short of a sensation since the release of “Barbie.” Not only did the song make waves in the music charts, but it also took TikTok by storm. Women on the platform utilized the song to delve into their own reflections on girlhood. This TikTok trend serves as compelling evidence that “Barbie” is undoubtedly one of the standout movies of the year.

However, in an interview with Allure, Eilish revealed that the song’s TikTok success had an unexpected impact on her. She confessed, “The way the song has been heard and seen by women is so special to me. All the videos are devastating. I go on TikTok, and it’s video after video of how hard it is to be a woman, with that song playing.”

Interestingly, the process of creating the song was far from straightforward for Eilish. She explained that she was grappling with writer’s block at the time, saying, “We wrote it in a period of time where we couldn’t have been less inspired and less creative. That day we were making stuff, and were like, ‘We’ve lost it. Why are we even doing this?’ And then those first chords happened, and ‘I used to float / now I just fall down’ came out and the song wrote itself. I have the whole video of us writing the song, and the first thing we wrote were those lines in the first ten minutes.”

Eilish went on to share, “We wrote most of the song without thinking about ourselves and our own lives, but thinking about this character we were inspired by. 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.”