“Oh my God.”
“Hey.”
“Hello.”
“What’s up?”
“What’s up?”
“Wait, I lost
you for a second.
You froze.”
“[Singing] What do
you want from me?
Why don’t you run from me?
What are you wondering?
What do you know?”
“When did you first
start making music?”
“Like, when I was like 11.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m 17 now.
I feel like I’ve been 16
for, like, my whole life.
So I’m 17 now.
And then my brother,
he started around 12.
Me and him were both doing the
same thing in the same house.
And we just were like,
we live three feet away
from each other,
why don’t we do this together?
[Singing]
“The creative
production writing
crew of Billie’s debut
album’s two people.
It’s just her and me.
We wrote “Bury a Friend”
on my 21st birthday.
And we were playing
Lollapalooza.”
Singing: “I’ve never
fallen from quite this high.
Falling into your
ocean eyes.”
“I was, like, away
from all my friends.
I couldn’t have a birthday
party or anything.
And so I was like, well,
I love making music,
so let’s rent a studio.”
“And I do remember
having a feeling of,
like, if we spend all
day of my birthday,
we better make something
that, like, comes out.”
“Finneas just started
making this shuffle beat.”
“So it’s [beat boxing]”
[beat playing]
“And I thought it was sick.”
“It feels kind of
like a football chant.
It’s a really body-
friendly rhythm,
if you play it at
the right tempo.”
“Lyrically, where
did you start?”
“I really wanted to
kind of do, like,
a bunch of Ws in a row,
like a bunch of questions.
[Singing] What do
you want from me?
Why don’t you run from me?
What are you wondering?
What do you know?
“And it was like, who
is this character?
And what the hell are they?
And I think just,
automatically, it
was so clear that it was like
the monster under your bed.”
“And then I was
like, that’d be
great to write a song
from that perspective.”
“Why aren’t you scared of me?
Why do you care for me?
When we all fall
asleep, where do we go?”
“What was it about
Billie’s voice
that, even from an
early age, you knew
you wanted to work with her.”
“Her emotionality.
Every time she sang a
lyric, I believed it.
Billie would, like, sing
a ‘Hotline Bling’ cover
by Drake.”
Singing: “You used to call
me on my cellphone late night
when you need my love.”
“And I was just like,
did you write this?
And she was like, no,
it’s ‘Hotline Bling.’
I was like, oh, wow.
When you sing it, it feels
like you wrote it, to me.”
“Where do you normally
write and record?”
“We’ve written and recorded,
like, 90 percent of everything
we’ve ever made in my
bedroom in my parents’ house.
It’s really small,
but it’s really cozy.
Billie will sit on my bed.
And I have, like, a lot of big
Murakami pillows on my bed.
She gets inspired.
Like, we’ll track something.
And I’ll sit, and I’ll
work on production.
Then we’ll work on
lyrics together.
I have a piano in there.
We tend to work
pretty long days.
Mom will just,
like, bring in food,
because we’ll
just keep going.”
“Since he moved out, he’s
lost, like, 15 pounds.”
“Because you don’t
bring snacks?”
“He doesn’t eat enough.”
“He doesn’t know how to cook.”
“What was it like for
you and your husband
when your kids first started
making music together?”
“I mean, Billie was already
singing all the time.
And she had this
beautiful voice.”
Singing: “I don’t want to
live in a world without you.”
“And, like, every year she’d
sing in the home school
talent show.”
Singing: “And I should know.”
“Finneas had a band.
And it was very
all-consuming.”
[Singing]
And so, you know,
it just was kind of this
perfectly natural thing
when Finneas
suddenly was, like,
hey, let me record
you doing this song.”
“Ready?”
“Yeah.
Are you?”
“Maybe.”
“We knew they were amazing.
But nobody in their
wildest dreams
thought anyone would
hear it except, you know,
20 friends.”
[Cheering]
[All singing]
[Cheering]
“All right, so you
have the, like, sort
of nursery rhyme hook melody.
And you had some verses.
When did you first
start incorporating
the spooky noises?”
“I was in the dentist’s chair.
And they were shaving off
my Invisalign attachments.
And it was this loud, like,
[drill sound] [bleep]. And I
thought it was so dope.
And I pull out my
phone immediately
and pressed record.”
[Drilling]
“O.K. Rinse out and
let’s take a peek.”
“I found it very
horrible to listen to.
But it worked
great in the song.”
Singing: “Calling security.
Keeping my head held down.”
“As soon as there was a line
about stepping on glass,
I wanted to hear someone
stepping on glass.
And as soon as there was
a line about a staple,
I was, like, smacking
a staple gun.”
Singing: “Step on the glass.
Staple your tongue.”
“There is also one
called nightmare horse.”
[Sound effect playing]
“Another one I like
is Easy Bake Oven.”
“Yeah.
Singing: “Bury a friend.”
That [bleep] yeah, it’s
literally an
Easy Bake Oven.”
“And then I processed a
ton of her going, like, ah!
And then it ends
up sounding like —
[Sound effect] —
I put that all
over the song.”
Singing: “Cleaning you out.
Am I satisfactory?”
“The song is so weird.
It’s so weird.
And we were, like,
can you understand it
and actually sing along?
And so I remember,
like, we tried
a billion different things.
And then we were,
like, you know
what, this needs a bridge.”
“So how did it
end up sounding?
Can you do a
little bit of it?”
“Like — The debt I owe.
Got to sell my soul.
I can’t say no.
No, I can’t say no.”
Singing: “Then my limbs
all froze.
And my eyes won’t close.
And I can’t say no.
I can’t say no.”
“I like it because it sounds
like a Kurt Weill song
almost, to me.
Do you know what I mean?”
“The structure is super weird.
It’s like, hook —”
“A verse.
A pre-chorus.”
“Drop.”
“A hook.”
“Verse two.
Alternate verse two.”
“Bridge.”
“Pre-chorus.
Drop.”
“And then the hook.”
“Normally songs are like,
verse, chorus, verse, chorus,
bridge, chorus.
Like, that’s pretty much
the way that they are.
There was, like, a
point right at the end
of working on the song
where it was suddenly,
like, much more
traditional song structure.
We were like, all
right, well, now,
we’re making, like,
a pop record here.
So I’m really glad it
ended up being the weirder
version of the song.”
Singing: “Honestly, I thought
that I would be dead by now.
Calling security, keeping my
head held down.”
“I don’t want to be
in the pop world.
I don’t want to be in the
alternative world, or the
hip-hop world,
or the R&B world,
or whatever [expletive],
you know?
I want it to be, like, what
kind of music you listen to?
Billie Eilish kind
of music, you know?
Like —”
“Yeah.”
“The other kind.”
“I’m telling you all now.
This is going to be the
biggest artist, 2019.”
“When the song came
out, I said to Billie,
I was, like, ‘I think we
just get to do
whatever we want, now.’ ”
Singing: “I want to end me.”
“They don’t remember this.
But this is what happened.
One of the other
things I do in life
is a lot of aerial,
like, circus trapeze.
So I was, like,
can you guys write
a song that has the perfect
beat for my warm-up?
And Finneas goes,
oh, shuffle beat.
Yeah, I’ve always
wanted to make something
with a shuffle beat.
They don’t remember
this story.”
“That’s not how it happened.”
“If she feels like she
was part of the impetus
for ‘Bury a Friend,’
like, more power to her.
I don’t personally
remember that being a part
of the genesis of the song.”
“But it happened.”
