Billie Eilish, co-creators dish about the process behind creating Bond theme song
Billie Eilish is having a moment.
From winning the most coveted awards at the Grammys in January, performing at the Oscars, to gracing the March cover of “Vogue” magazine, there’s no denying the fact that singer Billie Eilish is having a moment this year.
“Life is crazy, this is insane. Vogue magazine -- it’s literally like the biggest honor.” Eilish told “GMA,” reflecting on her career so far. “It feels like I’m in a dream and I’m going to wake up and it’ll all be over and I’ll still be a little pimply, chubby eleven-year-old.”
Now, the singer is making her next big splash in films with the theme song for the 25th James Bond film, “No Time To Die.”
The song, which has the same name as the movie that will be released in April of this year, was co-written with her brother, Finneas O’Connell.
“It was crazy, it’s literally been something that, like, Finneas and I have wanted to do for years,” said Eilish. "We were always telling everybody on our team like if anything ever comes up that has to do with Bond, like we want to be involved, like anything we can do just pitch us."
“We knew we wanted the song to be the same title as the film, too,” added her brother. “We lucked out on the title. So it wasn’t called ‘The Quantum of Solace.’ Wonderful, wonderful film title, wonderful film, but hard title to write.”
The two artists, who worked collaboratively on Eilish’s award-winning debut album, “WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?,” released the Bond theme song just last week and also worked with legendary film composer, Hans Zimmer, who took the lead on the orchestral arrangement.
Once Eilish and O’Connell signed on to the project, the two hopped on a plane to meet Zimmer, who was also the composer behind the film, and watched a cut of the movie in its entirety to write the lyrics to the Bond ballad.
“We ended up having, you know, essentially total creative freedom in the writing process,” said O’Connell.
He added, “Hans was so nice -- I’ve loved Hans’s scores my whole life … So I was like, oh my god, it’s so crazy to be talking to this person.”
Eilish, who made history as the second person ever to sweep the top four awards at the Grammys for record of the year, album of the year, song of the year and best new artist, is making history again as the youngest artist to record a track for the Bond Franchise and joins a list of superstars who have recorded theme songs in the past for a 007 film including Madonna, Adele and Sam Smith.
And while Adele and Sam Smith have won Oscars for their Bond songs in the past, Eilish, who performed at the Oscars earlier this month for the show’s “In Memoriam,” may just be returning back as a nominee.
But Eilish is taking each day in stride and letting each moment sink in -- after all, she’s only 18.
“I’m excited for next year and this year and every year. I’m really just looking forward to my life,” she said. “People forget that I’m 18. It’s, like, funny, like, my life is so professional. And then after a couple amount of hours -- like a certain amount of hours, I just turn into like a teenager.”
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