Billie Eilish dropped “What Was I Made For?” and child actor-turned-pop queen Glüme Harlow has never felt more seen.
Eilish has been teasing the new sob-inducing track she wrote with her brother Finneas O’Connell for the soundtrack of the upcoming “Barbie” film.
“WE MADE THIS SONG FOR BARBIE AND IT MEANS THE ABSOLUTE WORRRRLLLD TO ME, THIS MOVIE IS GONNA CHANGE UR LIVES AND HOPEFULLY THE SONG WILL TOO. GET READY TO SOB,” she wrote on Instagram earlier this month.
On Thursday, she dropped the song and self-directed music video, which features Eilish dressed like a young girl with a blonde Barbie-esque ponytail, sorting through her doll-sized wardrobe. She pulls out ensemble after ensemble, all based on her previous red-carpet looks, and hangs them from appropriately small hangers. But as she plays, she’s disrupted by wind, rain and an earthquake — natural forces that leave her scrambling to pick the pieces.
“I used to float, now I just fall down / I used to know, but I’m not sure now / What I was made for / What was I made for?” Eilish sings.
She ends the heartbreaking ballad, “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.”
Eilish was an accomplished dancer prior to hitting it big in the music industry. At 13, she suffered a growth-plate injury in her hip that ended her dance career. She was later diagnosed with hypermobility, a genetic condition that causes extreme flexibility to the point of pain, according to the Cleveland Clinic. While speaking with David Letterman on Netflix’s “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction,” Eilish opened up about also being diagnosed with Tourette syndrome at 11.
In an Instagram statement posted minutes after her music video’s premiere, Eilish revealed that “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig showed her and Finneas a handful of unfinished scenes from the film. Eilish and her brother were “deeply moved” and wrote almost the entire song that same night.
“This all seemed to happen in a time when I really needed it,” she wrote on Instagram, adding that the video makes her cry.
Glüme Harlow, also known as Molly Marlette, came across Eilish’s new song, and it seemed to come at a time when she also really needed it.
A former child actress who grew up in Hollywood with an overbearing stage mother, Harlow recently bared her soul in her second album “Main Character.” She’d kept it secret for decades that her mother had fed her amphetamines and sleeping pills beginning at age 6, but the drugs resulted in Harlow’s quality of life as an adult severely deteriorating.
She was diagnosed with a heart condition called Prinzmetal angina in 2019. She suffers from lupus, postural tachycardia syndrome and chronic anemia, for which she has to be medicated indefinitely.
“Losing pieces of freedom little by little is more heartbreaking than I know how to cope with, so I don’t,” Harlow captioned an Instagram photo of herself in a wheelchair on Thursday. “I am not allowed to be left unattended, I can’t do too much or too little, I can’t say to myself everything will be okay.”
Prinzmetal angina, she added, “doesn’t give you that hope.”
“When I scream to ‘You’re On Your Own Kid’ by TS [Taylor Swift] and she sings, ‘You’ve got no reason to be afraid,’ I try to ignore that line cause it takes me out of that perfect song and I don’t want to think about that stuff. This Billie song just wrecked me,” she continued, adding that she’s felt like a toy since she was a child and now she’s 35 and struggling financially.
Rolling Stone listed Harlow’s album as one of the best of 2023 so far, writing that her latest offering “is as grandiose as its title might imply … But it’s hardly indulgent; its songs are kept vibrant by Glüme’s playfulness.”
She referenced the distinction in her Instagram post.
“My body doesn’t work. My mind does. Rolling Stone named my album in a list next to Bob Dylan and Paul Simon of best albums of 2023 and I don’t have anything in my bank account. I am not allowed to fly at the moment so I’m applying to a school so I have a student visa and can get a real phone plan and a bank account for my no money. I post amazing photos styled and retouched but what was I made for?” she wrote, referencing Eilish’s lyrics. “The wheelchair order from my doctor was kind [of] the last thing I’d been avoiding. I’m not allowed to sleep if I have heart pain because that’s not safe. What WAS I made for?”
Harlow launched a GoFundMe on Friday after her Instagram post inspired an outpouring of love and support.
“Went to Paris and screwed up my heart during the move,” she wrote on the fundraising campaign. “Not allowed to travel due to heart condition. Had to get a new apartment due to circumstances — found a cheap one, but it’s still a thing. Lost L.A. apartment because I can’t afford two. Can’t be left alone, have had to fund plane tickets for caretakers while my husband closes up our apartment in L.A. Plane tickets back to bring our pets. Medication given months ahead because some of it isn’t available in France.”
