Turns out one of Billie Eilish’s most revelatory and sorrowful songs was inspired by her fellow singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo.
Speaking to the L.A. Times, Billie Eilish was asked about her relationship with Olivia Rodrigo, given their similar paths and how close in age they are. While Eilish said she thinks “everybody’s experiences are so individual,” she did admit she feels “a protectiveness over Olivia” and took the chance to explain how Rodrigo actually inspired her song “Goldwing,” off her 2021 album Happier Than Ever, which, though brief, deals with the price of fame and expectations that come with it.
“[‘Goldwing’ is] kind of about her. I’ve never said that to anyone,” Eilish told the publication before elaborating. “It’s not only about her. I was just thinking about her when I was writing it. She was coming up, and she was younger than me, and nobody had ever been younger than me.”
“Olivia was getting big, and she was just, like, this little dainty child. 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,” Eilish continued. “And I feel that way [about] everyone. I just 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.”
If you’ve been paying attention to Eilish for a while, you’d know this isn’t the first time she’s expressed this exact sentiment while also name-checking Rodrigo. In December 2021, she opened up about that same sense of protectiveness in an interview with Howard Stern. “I just want to shove her in a glass box and protect her from everything,” Eilish also said at the time.
The GUTS singer actually reacted to the comment with Entertainment Tonight in 2022. “I just think she’s incredible,” Rodrigo said of Eilish. “It’s so cool to be able to look up to someone like her. I just really admire how confident she is and how she just marches to the beat of her own drum.”
She might not have known she directly inspired “Goldwing” then, but Rodrigo certainly felt a connection with Eilish’s Happier Than Ever from the get-go. In an interview with the Guardian from earlier this year, Rodrigo admitted that listening to Eilish’s album felt like “this b*tch read my diary!” before revealing Eilish had been “really sweet and supportive” to her. We love a powerful friendship duo.
This story originally appeared on Teen Vogue.