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Billie Eilish has revealed that one of her songs was inspired by fellow Grammy winner Olivia Rodrigo. In her recent interview with the LA Times, Eilish shared that she feels a kinship with Rodrigo. "I think everybody’s experiences are so individual. Nobody has had anybody else’s life, you know? But I do feel a protectiveness over Olivia," she said.
Eilish went on to reveal that the track "Goldwing" from her 2021 album Happier Than Ever was actually inspired in part by Rodrigo. "It’s not only about her. I was just thinking about her when I was writing it,” Eilish said. “She was coming up, and she was younger than me, and nobody had ever been younger than me.” On the track, Billie sings of the music industry, "They’re gonna tell you what you want to hear/ Then they’re gonna disappear/ Gonna claim you like a souvenir/ Just to sell you in a year."
“Olivia was getting big, and she was just, like, this little dainty child,” Eilish said. “I felt so nervous. I was worried about her. She came up in that acting world, and people are so weird. I don’t know — I just felt very protective over her.” She added that she can “see myself in all these young girls. And it’s the girls, man. Boys can handle themselves. They’re dudes — they don’t have to deal with it like we do. I just want to hold everybody in a little glass box and never let anything touch them.”
As Eilish continues to work on her highly-anticipated third studio album, she reflected on it being the first she will have put out as an adult. "It feels somehow very different from the rest of what I’ve ever put out,” she said. “Like, now I’m in my 20s — oh, my God, that’s so weird — and I’ve never been an adult putting music out before.”