What does "everything I wanted" by Billie Eilish mean?
Lyrics Meaning of “everything I wanted“
(The following blog post is a transcript created by Xalma of the below video.)
Today we're talking Billie Eilish's new song 'everything I wanted'; she just released it, it's #2 on Trending on YouTube, so it's a brand new song at the time of writing this; and we're going to be talking about what it means exactly, we're going to break down each of the lines, and we're going to go through it.
There's already a lot that we need to consider in this case, because Billie seems to be doing something that a lot of artists have started doing recently, and that is recognising that albums just don't sell as well as they used to, and it's really all about streaming; so in a lot of ways, artists are becoming more like content creators, where you kind of have to keep up a regular presence, and be putting out regular videos, so the audience stays alert and awake to what you're doing; Billie Eilish is just doing an excellent job of that; the past couple of projects that she put out have been preceded by a bunch of little songs, and some would call them singles; but it seems to me that she just puts out music as she creates it, and then eventually those songs that she put out become part of an album later on; of course there's a lot of stuff that goes into that, as far as the marketing and everything, but she's put out this most recent song 'everything I wanted' in collaboration with her brother, Finneas; and there's a lot to break down in this song, because ultimately, the song is actually kind of about Finneas.
Verse One
I had a dream
I got everything I wanted
Which if you're a young pop star like she is, it would be true; I mean, she's got tons of money, she's one of the most currently listened to people on Spotify, last I checked she had 45 million monthly listeners, which is higher than twenty one pilots, Taylor Swift, and just about everybody else that I checked; it's insane, she's super popular right now.
Not what you'd think
And if I'm bein' honest
It might've been a nightmare
To anyone who might care
So in this dream situation, she's having this nightmare, in which she has everything she wanted, yet there is something not right; a lot of you are just looking at her and are saying "you're so wealthy, you must be so happy", and nobody is really thinking that maybe this isn't actually what she wanted.
ps: Because she committed suicide in that dream, like what were’re going to talk about in the next few lines, she is saying that the fact of her killing herself might have been a nightmare to the people who actually cared about her, "it might have been a nightmare, to anyone who might care"; and because “they” didn’t care, she knows it was just a dream, and if she’s being honest with herself, she’d know that if that would happen, her family, friends, and real fans who care about her well-being will be devastated.
Thought I could fly (Fly)
So I stepped off the Golden, mm
April (Cliff's wife) has talked about dreams that she had when she was a young kid, where she thought she could fly, and she would jump thinking that she'd be flying, but one time she did, and she wasn't able to fly, so she like split her chin up, and it was pretty intense. So this kind of a dream is something that a lot of people have, including me (Xalma); so she's going to step off the Golden Gate Bridge, and although she says "thought I could fly", bear in mind, a lot of the discussion of the song suggests that she's actually committing suicide in this case, especially that the Golden Gate Bridge is apparently a popular place to commit suicide; and this is actually true, you can even listen to Billie explain the real story behind this song in this clip of an interview she had with BBC Radio 1
https://twitter.com/BBCR1/status/1194776331462025216
ps: you can also see the bridge in the artwork for the song.
Nobody cried (Cried, cried, cried, cried)
Assuming that she died in this scenario, as she couldn't fly, and fell to her death.
Nobody even noticed
I saw them standing right there
Kinda thought they might care (Might care, might care)
She could be talking about fans, friends, family, everybody and anybody really; but it's still ends in the same way, nobody cared and it's really sad.
Then we'll go to the second verse; we will be coming back to the chorus and pre-chorus because they're what saws everything up at the end.
Verse two
I tried to scream
So she tried to ask for help, to try to get somebody to save her.
But my head was underwater
They called me weak
And that's probably them referring to the suicide.
Like I'm not just somebody's daughter
This line is really confusing; I've spent like five minutes just sitting there staring at it, but I'm still not able to figure this one out, because usually when we refer to somebody not being just someone's daughter, we use it in this argument where guys will say "you shouldn't be sexually aggressive or sexually abusive to this person, because she's somebody's daughter", and we shouldn't really, because it's as if the reason we should be nice to people is because of the men that they're related to in their life or something; which is the language that she uses here, but she's saying "they called me weak, like I'm not just somebody's daughter", and it doesn't quite make sense; so if you have a better explanation, please let me know. That is one of the more confusing lines here that I've not been able to find anyone else who can explain it; and part of me just wonders if it's kind of a mistake, or not completely well thought through.
Coulda been a nightmare
But it felt like they were right there
So this whole experience feels like it was a dream, but at the same time within the dream it felt so real.
And it feels like yesterday was a year ago
Yesterday being the day before the dream; so this dream feels like it's been forever, it's a really long feeling dream she has been stuck in
But I don't wanna let anybody know
'Cause everybody wants something from me now
And I don't wanna let 'em down
This is why Billie Eilish is such a good lyric writer, because she just says what she feels, she talks about her own personal experiences, she's real, she's vulnerable, and she's honest about it; she is basically saying "I don't want to tell people about this dream, because a lot is depending on me"; there's this whole team of people who are making their jobs, their livelihood, supporting their families off of her ability to make music; her family is depending on her, her brother is depending on her to an extent, a lot of stuff is happening and if she said that she's feeling like she's suicidal, or that she's so depressed that she really needs to take a break, that could be a lot of livelihood that a lot of other people could miss out on; that part of the song is really intense, and this feels like a cry for help.
Here is what she has said in an interview about the song, with Annie Mac on BBC Radio 1,
“Pretty much that whole song is about me and Finneas’ relationship as siblings. We started writing it because I literally had a dream that I killed myself and nobody cared and all of my best friends and people that I worked with basically came out in public and said, like, ‘Oh, we never liked her.’ In the dream, the fans didn’t care. The internet shit on me for killing myself, all this stuff, and it really did mess me up.
I mean, the message behind the song is like my brother is my best friend, and I have these dreams and these things happen, and no matter what happens, he’s gonna always be there for me, and it’s the same the other way around.”
Which is a really cool relationship; and I don't know the last time that I saw a song or anything really that was about the same kind of a theme; so it's really unique, and it's something that you don't really see a lot; and you'll see even we read the pre-chorus and chorus, you would think at first that it was a romantic relationship; is Billie trying to be more commercially viable with the song? I don't think so, that doesn't really seem to be her thing, does it?
The closest thing I can think of -that had a relationship like that- is Disney’s ‘Frozen’, where the whole theme is "sisters got to have each other's back", right? but it's such a rare theme, and especially for a male/female relationship that is platonic and family based; that is really exciting to me, as somebody who explains song lyrics a lot, and I have to wade through so many songs that are about these shallow and basically just sexual romantic relationships, and then to come across a song like this, where she tells a real story about something that actually happened to her, gives her real feelings about it, "I don't want to let anybody know, because everybody wants something from me now", and then she has a solution... This is great, nobody ever writes a song about a brother-sister relationship; like is others would've written this song, 99% of them would be like "yeah, my girlfriend's got me" or "my boyfriend's got me, woohoo", and I would not care, it would be so boring; but Billie is talking about this relationship that's older than most romantic relationships out there, because she and her brother have been friends for so long, and they've grown up together, and most of these other romantic relationships are like three months old, or maybe like two years old (before they break up of course); so this is like a powerful, strong, actual relationship; and I think it's so SO cool.
Pre-chorus
I had a dream
I got everything I wanted
But when I wake up, I see
You with me
Now, the line "I wake up, I see you with me", people would assume it's about a romantic relationship, but it is about her brother, who will be there for her no matter what. If we took it literally, then maybe it's about when she's talking in her sleep because of a nightmare or something, so he comes in to check on her, so she wakes up to see him by her side.
Chorus
And you say, "As long as I'm here, no one can hurt you
Don't wanna lie here, but you can learn to
If I could change the way that you see yourself
You wouldn't wonder why you're here, they don't deserve you"
And that's her brother's words, that's her saying what her brother has said to her; if you read them again carefully, you'll see how powerful they are, like powerful powerful lyrics, from an excellent songwriting team, great voice, great music; this song is not super poppy or catchy, it's just very thoughtful, it sounds very soft, like muted-bedroom-pop, and so I don't think it's going to be on any top charts; but it's a good song, and it's well worth listening to, so I recommend you guys go check it out by clicking on the link down below.
