Billie Eilish's 'Everything I Wanted' is a tribute to her brother, a commentary on mental health and suicide
Following her directorial debut with the music video for ‘Xanny’, Billie Eilish gets behind the lens once again with the music video for ‘Everything I Wanted’ and proves that her previous attempt was not a fluke. The young artist’s variety of talents shine through in this simple yet stunning ode to her brother.
'Everything I Wanted’, produced and co-written by Billie’s brother Finneas O'Connell, was originally released in November 2019 after being teased on the artist’s Instagram and Twitter. It is the singer’s first single since the release of her album, ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’.
Describing the meaning behind the song, Billie stated in an interview with Annie Mac: “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.”
The video for ‘Everything I Wanted’ conveys these emotions and thoughts perfectly and often quite literally. It begins with a note that states, "Finneas is my brother and my best friend. no matter the circumstance, we always have and always will be there for each other" and then has the song gently trail in as the two siblings are seen driving down a bridge, totally expressionless.
Billie's attention to detail shines through in this video. The lights along the street and atop the towers all sync up to the instrumental opening of the song, already sucking us into the story long before Billie’s vocals have even kicked in. This theme continues through the video, with every beat reflected in lighting and camera angles — and even in Billie’s blinking! — and every lyric reflected in the imagery all around Billie and Finneas as they continue to drive through it all in total monotony.
Much like with ‘Xanny’ and ‘Everything I Wanted’ shows a rather literal style to Billie’s directorial vision. She has a vision when she writes her music, and she brings her vision to life through her videos. But that does not mean Billie thinks her work should be interpreted literally. On the contrary, she has always advocated for creative freedom and hopes people will find their own meaning in her music.
The song and video also touch on how fame impacts an artist’s mental health. Billie calls out people who refer to her as ‘weak’, a term frequently used against victims of suicide, adding they forget she’s just ‘somebody’s daughter’, highlighting how insensitive such comments can often be. She also conveys the sense of numbness that is often described by many who deal with mental health issues through entirely expressionless faces that emote for one brief moment when Billie and Finneas share a heartwarming smile amidst an impending death.
What stands out in both the song and video, aside from the relationship the siblings share, is how integral the concept of dreams are to Billie’s music. In an interview with Fader last year, Billie revealed, “Dreams are a really intense part of my life. I’ll go through a month where I’ll have the same nightmare every single night—a dream that’s so bad that the whole day is off, or a dream that’s so good that none of it’s true.”
Her debut album, ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’, is written entirely around the singer’s experiences with sleep paralysis, dreams and nightmares. In an interview with NME, she added, “The album is basically what happens when you fall asleep. For me, in every song in the album, there’s sleep paralysis. There are night terrors, nightmares, lucid dreams….I’ve always had really, really bad night terrors. I’ve had sleep paralysis five times. All my dreams are lucid so I control them. I know that I’m dreaming what I’m dreaming, so I don’t even know. Sometimes I’ll have dreams where the thing that was in my dream will happen the next day. It’s so weird. It’s so weird.”
The video for ‘Everything I Wanted’ conveys that sense of unease beautifully. You see Billie appearing to be fully in control, yet she drives her car into the water. You see the siblings hold hands and be there for each other till the end. Much like the lucid dreams and nightmares Billie often talks about, the video shows her fully aware of what is all around her and yet not being able to change how it ends. But despite the horror of it all, Billie and Finneas have each other. And that’s all that matters.