Billie Eilish is Asking Good Questions
What was I made for?
That's the title一and repeated refrain一of Billie Eilish's latest single, a hauntingly beautiful piano ballad that's part of the new Barbie movie soundtrack and narrates the woeful reflections of a plastic toy who's disenchanted with her shallow existence.
Though I expected the Barbie movie to peddle a predictable message about "being yourself" or the "underrated value of inner beauty," after seeing it last weekend, the film—and the music surrounding it—takes some insightful turns.
Holy Disruption
This song is born at a juncture, when life as it was can no longer satisfy:
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?
Takin' a drive, I was an ideal
Looked so alive, turns out I'm not real
Just somethin' you paid for
What was I made for?
Reading these lyrics, I'm reminded of the moment in Toy Story when Buzz Lightyear sees himself in a commercial and realizes he's a toy, not a heroic space ranger. Deflated, displaced from his mission, he realizes he's not "made for" anything other than commercial consumption. Margot Robbie’s character (in the Barbie movie) has a similar moment, when her idealistic identity crumbles as she’s thrust into the real world.
Like Barbie Land一loud in its praise of things that are glittery, powerful, and skin-deep一we live in an age with little tolerance for asking life's most important questions, which is why it's refreshing that this song beelines to the punch line: What was I made for?
Without projecting autobiographical assumptions into the song, I can't help but reflect on Eilish's meteoric rise to fame. At age 13, after posting a song called "Ocean Eyes" to SoundCloud (which accrued 200 million Spotify plays), she's toured the world and boasts 106 million Instagram followers. Undoubtedly one of the most commercially successful artists of our time, our compassion should extend to a young woman who's surely felt disoriented by the millions who idealize her.
We all have some sense of purpose, but it's not until some holy disruption ensues that we realize we've been living for other things. Subconsciously, we try to scratch our itch for significance through sex, career, family, influence, appearance, affirmation一but rarely pause to grapple seriously with why we're here.
As Christians, we know the right answers: I'm made for God. To bring him glory. To use my gifts. To cultivate the earth. To be fruitful and multiply. To worship. To bless others. But too often, the church tends to imitate the world, not the other way around. Right answers do not guarantee we're actually living for the things we claim to.
This song is an invitation to welcome that holy disruption, and interestingly provides the only reverent moment on the Barbie movie soundtrack, which otherwise bounces along with one sugary, bob-your-head pop tune after another. Slowing down enough to identify what drives our lives will always be a dissonant act in a distracted age.
Disruption is painful, but its fruit is clarity.
Living as Holy Disruptors
Disruption must start with the people of God. How unfitting for kids of the King to clamor aimlessly about his kingdom, dragging idols behind while hunting for new ones. Christ is our treasure, thus we welcome those stinging moments when he reminds us what we're made for. Kicking and screaming, clutching at those things we don't want to give up, leveling with our limitations ... he slowly shows us the riches of his heart, which satisfies a thousand-fold more than the chaff we chase.
To be a Jesus follower is to be "one who has been disrupted." The old is gone, the new is here. It's a past-tense, it already happened reality (justification) but also a day-by-day, it's still happening reality (sanctification).
It's God's mercy that in the pain of those purifying moments, he meets us, holds us, loves us. For the rest of the world, those moments of clarity are devastatingly lonely, as voiced in the song:
When did it end? All the enjoyment
I'm sad again, don't tell my boyfriend
It's not what he's made for
What was I made for?
How miserable to want more一to long for meaning and identity一while having no one to turn to except those who will propel you down the same dead-end street you've always known. How hopeless to see something sparking in the distance, eager to make the journey, only to discover your closest companions are uninterested in joining you. Slowly, disruption yields to distraction. Life drones on. That song that beckons you to live for something real is drowned out by a superficial soundtrack that pacifies your curiosity.
Follower of Jesus, as you gratefully receive the disruptions he brings into your life, be ever-ready to help others interpret their moments of disruption. The world aches for what it does not know.
Let’s be holy disruptors一a safe place一for those willing to pause and ask: What was I made for?
