Although there might have been a time when Billie Eilish was considered the “anti-Barbie,” her blonde, “clean” aesthetic in the wake of Happier Than Ever allowed people to see her in a new, pinup-y light. Plus, it’s not like Barbie doesn’t have a number of guises to accommodate the “guttersnipe” look Eilish was going for in her “green roots” days. After all, maybe that’s what Barbie was made for: being everything to everyone. Endlessly appealing (just like a pop star…even a reluctant one). Which is why so many outfits are available with which to “trick her out.” A phrase that has a somewhat depressing dual meaning in “What Was I Made For?” as Eilish does actually call out how Barbie is “paid for.” A glorified prostitute (much like the rest of us) that we can all buy to suit our various “fetishes.”
Produced as usual by Eilish’s bro, Finneas, he is also joined by Mark Ronson (the brainchild behind the Barbie Soundtrack) and Andrew Wyatt for the sparse instrumentation that allows all the lyrical existential dread to shine through. Once again favoring the ballad over the bop, Eilish follows up the likes of “TV” and “The 30th” with yet another ruminating slow jam. And yes, her previous soundtrack offerings, “No Time To Die” and “Lo Vas a Olvidar,” are also lush ballads that have a tendency to haunt and taunt with their emotionalism. An emotionalism that might never have materialized were it not for Eilish being able to tell herself that she was writing “about Barbie” or “from Barbie’s perspective” instead of her own. And that much is clear in lines that reiterate the subject matters she’s addressed before, mainly those pertaining to how actually getting famous off her music wasn’t necessarily everything it was cracked up to be (like Lana said, “I’ve got nothing much to live for/Ever since I found my fame”). This much was most blatantly addressed in 2019’s “everything i wanted,” as Eilish remarks, “I had a dream/I got everything I wanted/Not what you’d think/And if I’m bein’ honest/It might’ve been a nightmare.” For a girl whose debut album is called When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, nightmares and dreamscapes continue to go with the territory of her songwriting. Even if such a task has become less pleasurable than it once was when there was also less riding on it. Less pressure to “outperform” the last single or album. This being something Eilish acknowledges on the first track of Happier Than Ever, “Getting Older,” during which she laments, “Things I once enjoyed/Just keep me employed now.”
A similar lyric manifests on “What Was I Made For?” when she sings, “When did it end? All the enjoyment.” For Eilish, probably sometime after the making of The World’s a Little Blurry, which shows viewers, at one point, the moment she decides to direct all her music videos. Something that occurs after being directed by Carlos López Estrada in “when the party’s over.” A video, incidentally, that feels very similar to “What Was I Made For?” in terms of its sparse set design and stark backdrop. Once again taking a simple concept and self-directing it (as Taylor Swift has also taken a shine to doing of late), Eilish especially recaptures something of the “when the party’s over” vibe as she sits in the center of an empty sage green “canvas” wearing a yellow dress (a palette combo not unlike what we saw with the muted tones of Happier Than Ever). This is far from the vibrant hues Barbie World is known for, and it says something about the lusterless experience “this Barbie” is going through in her moment of philosophical inquiry (alas, as Socrates pointed out, “The unexamined life is not worth living”).
With the table and chair being the only “set props” besides the “Barbie kit” she happens to have on hand (filled with clothes, of course), Eilish is reliant on the latter for making anything like “action” happen as the melancholic song plays over the continuous scene. Removing various ensembles that represent actual outfits she’s worn throughout her already storied career, Eilish drives home two key points as the elements (mainly a pelting indoor rainstorm) start to thwart her seamless ability to neatly catalog items (somehow, it starts to look like a particularly intense edition of the Design Challenge from RuPaul’s Drag Race). The first: that a woman is expected to “play a character” based on whatever situation she finds herself in—to mold herself to suit any occasion and accommodate any other personality, all while dimming her own. The second: that we really are all “Barbie girls” in that, throughout our lives (whether young or “old”), we’ll continue to try on different personas in a bid to find something that “fits” us (or the projection we want to represent us). Some women will change their guise a hundred times as they evolve (see: Madonna), and no one better manifests that than Barbie. Not to mention the idea that she is “made for” anything apart from pleasure-giving and being admired (just like a celebrity!). Which, uncoincidentally, is what most women are repeatedly told they’re “made for.” Held up as an “ideal” before being invariably (and joyfully) torn down, usually by the very men who tried to put them on a pedestal in the first place. Because patriarchy.
Thus, Eilish refers as much to herself as she does Barbie when she says, “Takin’ a drive, I was an ideal/Looked so alive, turns out I’m not real/Just somethin’ you paid for/What was I made for?” That line about being “paid for,” in Eilish’s case, refers to the fans who pay to “interact” with her in various ways, whether through live performances, merchandise, etc. Thereby fortifying the increasingly unhealthy phenomenon of parasocial relationships. Something Barbie is just as familiar with. In fact, it seems Billie and Barbie truly are one throughout the song as the former also laments, “I’m sad again, don’t tell my boyfriend.” Having recently broken up with Jesse Rutherford, the line feels all too deliberate, particularly as an older man usually relishes dating a younger woman just so he can not only more easily manipulate someone who “doesn’t know better” (hear: Eilish contemporary Olivia Rodrigo singing “vampire”), but also feed off her theoretical “effervescence.” But Eilish was never exactly one to exude “bubbliness.” Or “malleability” (again, The World’s a Little Blurry makes that abundantly clear during many instances beyond the “when the party’s over” video shoot), for that matter.
And yet, perhaps the one person who can achieve something like helping to “mold” Eilish is her elder brother/producer. He being the influence to suggest they do a song for Barbie in the first place. This suggestion arriving after a period of rather stalled creativity, despite attempts at “productivity.” Something that neither sibling had been accustomed to since the days of composing Eilish’s first single when she was just thirteen. Eilish admitted that both she and Finneas endured a long few months of feeling largely uninspired in spite of trying to come up with concepts for new songs that might eventually comprise Eilish’s inevitable third album. And yet, it wasn’t until Greta Gerwig invited them to watch Barbie that the spark was reignited for both of them again. This after Eilish feared that perhaps her “gift” was only some sort of youth-oriented lark (as though being in one’s early twenties is somehow a signification of “elderliness,” but such is the society we live in).
That fear of “losing her gift” might have briefly made her wonder if she would, at some point, have to join the hoi polloi and get a “real” job (the concept of “real” versus “fake” being what this song—and Barbie—are all about). And, if we’re being honest, a question like, “What was I made for?” ultimately translates to, “Why the fuck was I born?” Something that one is likelier to ask when they fear they have no money-making value in the world (because capitalist brainwashing is that severe). In short, you don’t have to be a “genius” to wonder what the fuck you’re doing on this planet. Plastic or not (and hey, we’re all [micro]plastic now).
At the conclusion of all this soul-searching, and not wanting to be too downbeat (this is, after all, Barbie, for fuck’s sake), Eilish decides to leave things on a positive note for the outro, promising her listeners, “Think I forgot how to be happy/Somethin’ I’m not, but somethin’ I can be/Somethin’ I wait for/Somethin’ I’m made for.” It’s a verse that mirrors what she said in 2020’s “my future,” wistfully remarking, “‘Cause I, I’m in love/With my future/Can’t wait to meet her/And I, I’m in love/But not with anybody else/Just wanna get to know myself.”
That appears to remain true for Eilish on “What Was I Made For?” Even so, although the single is highly personal, Eilish, at times, seems to want to slightly backtrack from declaring, “This song is exactly how I feel” by adding, “It’s your voice, it’s anybody’s voice.” Perhaps remembering that capitalism means generalizing things as much as possible through the specific in order to sell more. Barbie certainly knows something about that. Which is just another way in which Billie and Barbie were made for each other—if being “made for” no other reason than that.
