On July 15th, 2023, the song ‘What Was I Made For’ by Billie Eilish was released as a part of the soundtrack for the Barbie film, released in the same month. The following August, I was commissioned to arrange an orchestral cover of the song for a friend’s concert entitled Hikari: A Light for the Future.
In September, I finished its first draft and consequently met with the conductor who would be directing my piece. To better conduct the piece, he wanted to understand the emotion and intention I had placed behind the flowing melodies and asked: what message are you trying to convey through this piece?
I remember being stunned for a moment. Perhaps he even thought my Wi-fi had lagged out and that my Zoom screen had frozen. What message was I trying to convey?
In the context of the movie— (although I must admit I never watched it and only read the Wikipedia synopsis)— the song narrates Barbie’s transition from the ‘doll’ world into the ‘human’ world, with lines like ‘I used to know, now I’m not sure now,’ ‘think I forgot how to be happy’— but also lyrics with a tinge of hope: ‘I don’t know how to feel, but someday, I might’ and ‘I don’t know how to feel, but I wanna try’— which really echoed my personal experience, especially as a 16-year-old teenager moving 13,000km from Malaysia to Canada.
Standing now in a pile of pending papers, part-time obligations, and an ever-growing to-do list, the first year of undergrad didn’t seem so bad. I went through a slight identity (and gender) crisis, stood in between friend groups for the better part of the year, and semi-drowned in a tsunami of homesickness (when I realized I wouldn’t spend my 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th birthday with my parents)— but I survived and lived on, nonetheless.
While pale in comparison to the, ah, stress of my second year, my first year still — wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. I wasn’t sad, but I wasn’t happy, either. I smiled, but I rarely laughed. I was excited and so, so awfully lost all at once.
Some days, I woke up to snow outside my window and stared endlessly in awe.
Some days, I despised the freezing cold and longed for the warm sun of my home country.
Some days, I relished in my newfound freedom as an independent person living 13,000km away from their parents to pursue an education.
Some days, I cried for hours and wished I was back home with my mum’s warm meals and my dad’s wise nags.
And that’s okay.
Finally, I had an answer for the conductor— the message I was trying to convey through my piece. ‘What Was I Made For,’ originally sung by Billie Eilish, is a soft-spoken, whispered song. However, the ‘What Was I Made For’ that I arranged, with its melancholy flute, oboe and violin solos; long, drawn-out strings, light, staccato’ed winds, and noble, resonating brass; grand— and also soft— choruses, speaks of a journey. It tells a story where the happy ending is not absolute, where happiness comes and goes, but so do sorrows and hardships.
This is the message behind my piece. That life is not always a one-and-done. That happiness is yours to find, but even when you lose it— know that you will find it again. That even though I started my undergraduate life lost and miserable (“I don’t know how to feel”), I would eventually find my way (“but someday, I might”).
The arrangement ends not on a grand, happily-ever-after symphony of a positive chorus but in a soft violin solo. For me, this symbolizes the reality of life— there will always be things that get us down, and to put it crassly, “Shit happens.” But miserable, rainy days always— eventually, give way to the sun, and such is the same with life. So if you’re in the melancholy, sad violin solo section of your life, that’s okay. Take that step towards a grand chorus, and the rainy skies will pass.
You can watch the live orchestra performance on YouTube, the song starts at 2:10:05.