Sixteen and Already Knows

Probably at my age I shouldn’t find a sixteen-year-old this impressive, but I genuinely can’t help it. Billie Eilish—full legal name Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell, which is either the most rock-and-roll name in existence or a curse her parents put on her, possibly both—is the coolest person I’ve encountered in pop music in years. Born into a family of actors and musicians in Los Angeles, already responsible for songs like Bellyache, Ocean Eyes, and Bitches Broken Hearts. I wish I were half as settled in myself as she appears to be.

She sat down with Genius—the site that started as a lyrics annotation database and eventually expanded into interviews and music commentary—to talk about music, art, and the specific experience of having everyone around you constantly try to manage who you are. Because being sixteen and visible means every adult in the room has an opinion about what you should wear, what words you’re allowed to use, how polished and palatable and inoffensive you need to be. The usual.

She’s not having any of it. Not defensive about it—just completely unbothered, which is somehow more irritating to the people doing the telling. There’s something almost enviable about watching someone that young have already figured out that other people’s discomfort with who you are is their problem and not yours. I didn’t arrive there until embarrassingly late. Some people never manage it at all. She’s sixteen.