Billie Eilish records new track inspired by Roma movie

Singer Billie Eilish is such a fan of acclaimed new movie Roma, she has written a new song for an album full of tracks inspired by Alfonso Cuaron’s film.
When I Was Older, which was written by Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell, will appear on the upcoming Music Inspired By Roma album, and the star explains that when the siblings were composing the song, they watched the Netflix movie over and over again – and they used sounds from the project in the tune.
“We wanted to write from within the narrative of the movie and the scenes that struck us the most from it,” she says. “Having access to the sounds used in the film proved to be invaluable to help us convey this. Lines like, ‘Memories burn like a forest fire’ are accompanied by the sounds of the trees burning in the woods outside the house (in the film).
“The chorus has the ocean sounds overplayed on it. We were also able to take sounds like the student protest shouts and (family dog) Borras barking and turn them into rhythmic percussive elements to help drive the song. Nothing about this song would exist without the film, which is exactly what we love about it.”
The title was inspired by child actor Marco Graf’s odd line in the movie, “When I was older I used to be a sailor, but I drowned in a storm.”
Music Inspired By Roma will feature various artists hand-picked by director Cuaron himself.
His movie has won acclaim and awards around the world, most recently picking up Best Director and Best Foreign Film gongs at the Golden Globes on Sunday (06Jan19). The black and white film chronicles the life of a young maid, who works for a family in the middle-class neighbourhood of Roma in Mexico City.