Finneas O'Connell refused to help Billie Eilish write 'Everything I Wanted' over suicide lyrics

13 March 2020, 12:55

By Sophie Thompson

'Everything I Wanted' was released by Billie Eilish and produced by her brother, Finneas O'Connell, in November 2019, and reached number three in the UK charts, and eight in the US charts.

Within the last year, we've all become totally hooked on Billie Eilish, whether we meant to or not.

We've become fixated on her oversized (yet stylish) clothes and eery persona, and things got a whole lot darker when we found out exactly what her song 'Everything I Wanted' was actually about.

READ MORE: Billie Eilish reveals natural hair colour on Instagram

After her sudden fame took off, she wrote the song to deal with the imposter syndrome she was facing, and it's about stepping off the Golden Gate bridge and realising that people didn't like her as much as she thought.

And now her brother and producer of most of her music, Finneas O'Connell, has admitted that he refused to help Billie write the song as he didn't want to 'feel like an enabler' for what she was going through.

He told the New York Times magazine: "It was a period where I was really worried about my sister, and I felt like an enabler in helping her write a song as bleak as that song was.

"Like the musical equivalent of giving an alcoholic another beer: 'I'm not going to support this.'"

He also got into an argument with his sister about it, and Billie admitted: "Finneas was like, 'I don't want to keep making these songs that are only sad and they never get better.'"

"He wanted to make songs that resolve in the end. I was like: 'But Finneas, that's not how things work in life. And I'm not going to lie in a song and talk about how I'm feeling good when I'm not.'"

Billie Eilish - everything i wanted

Billie also admitted that she was "in a bad place mentally" when she created the track (which actually turned out to be a huge hit), and the idea for the storyline was created when she dreamt that she jumped off a building - the iconic line "I had a dream I got everything I wanted" actually being a reference to suicide.

Even though the song came out in late 2019, she actually started working on it in summer 2018, and both Billie and Finneas decided to revisit the idea of releasing it when they found it hidden in a backlog of voice notes, once Billie had been to therapy and worked on her mental health.

Although the song is still packed with depression references (it's something Billie has suffered with throughout her teenage years and she thought was important to keep in), the duo decided to make the song about them both, and the 'as long as I'm here, no one can hurt you' harmonies symbolise them getting through their struggles together.

The 18-year-old has always been super open about issues she's faced, and always turns her music into poignant messaging, whether it be through the powerful anti-slut-shaming visuals she's bringing to her tour, or turning off her Instagram comments because reading them is 'ruining her life', and her transparent approach to writing about real life problems is what makes us love her so much.

Now, drop the next album already.