What Was I Made For? Some Things I’ll Never Know since there’s a Space In My Heart for Beautiful Things

Hello Monday! Where did February go? Is it just me, or did that month fly by fast? We even had an extra day because of leap year! Well, since it is Monday, you know that Monday means music! This week is a freebie week, so grab your favorite tune(s) and come dance with us, won’t you? 

Let’s start with a song that this favorite artist and her brother wrote for the feature film Barbie. The songwriting process started when the writer and director of the film showed the two a rough cut of the film at the studio in California. Deeply moved, the siblings wrote almost the entire song that night at their home studio in Los Angeles. 

Barbie dolls are perceived as mere playthings, swiftly acquired and discarded by children. But in the film, these dolls emerge as distinct individuals in the utopian Barbie Land. After being cast out from their idyllic homeland, Barbie and Ken face new challenges. No longer part of the plastic world, Barbie undergoes an existential crisis. This song parallels the movie’s plot and plays during pivotal moments in the film.

Entering the studio, the artist grappled with a sense of apprehension, concerned that anything she did for the Barbie project would fall short of expectations. Once she and her brother started working, her anxieties dissolved into thin air. It was only after she’d written the lyrics that she realized she’d expressed some personal feelings related to Barbie’s plight. She said:

“The start of writing this song, the first day of writing, Finneas and I, especially me because it’s from my perspective, we were purely only thinking about Barbie. I did not think about myself once in the writing process. So that’s full first verse, pre-chorus, chorus, maybe second verse, all in one night. Didn’t think about my own life. Didn’t think about how I feel. Didn’t think about anything. I was purely inspired by this movie and this character and the way I thought she would feel and wrote about that.”

In the subsequent days, as she listened back, she had a revelation about her own connection to the song:

“I do this thing where I make stuff that I don’t even know is… like I’m writing for myself and I don’t even know it. It is one of the most incredible things I get to experience in my life. Dude, the next week I was playing it in the car all day and playing it for everybody. And I was like, ‘This is exactly how I feel. And I didn’t even mean to be saying it.'”

This took Song Of The Year at the Grammy Awards in 2024, which seemed to genuinely surprise the artist, who performed it with her brother earlier in the ceremony.

Give a listen to Billie Eilish (From The Motion Picture “Barbie”) with “What Was I Made For?”:

Next up this artist was sick when she joined a fellow artist to add her vocals a reworked version of one of his emotional ballads. She’d come down with a cold on the day she was set to record the track, but trudged ahead – with surprisingly satisfying results. She said:

“I was a little bummed that it was the only day I could do the vocal and I was sick. And so [the co-writers] were assuring me that it still sounded good, even though I felt so stopped up in it. But it maybe added to my heartbreak in the vocal.”

When all was said and done, she feels that her illness may have even added a special something to song, as she was able to let go and really feel the emotion behind the lyrics.

“It was definitely an experience that I’ll never forget, just because I didn’t think about hitting certain notes perfectly. I wasn’t overthinking or over analyzing. I was just so in the emotions of Teddy’s vocal, and just found my footing throughout the second verse, and just feeling like you see God or something when you get to harmonize with a vocal like Teddy’s.”

The track has deeply affected the other artist too, who says he hasn’t quite been able to sing it yet “without crying like a little baby about it. He said:

“There’s things about people that leave your life and you never truly get closure. Even sometimes people need space, and I’ve always been really bad at giving people space because I’m like, ‘What can I do to fix this? Please just tell me what can I do?’ When you do that to people who need space, sometimes you push them further away, which also sucks, and I’m very bad at that… I don’t think closure exists when it comes to relationships. And the older I get, the more I’m like, ‘Man, maybe closure… It’s not real. It’s reconciliation within yourself rather than closure.”

Without further ado, here’s Teddy Swims featuring Maren Morris with “Some Things I’ll Never Know”:

Next up, this artist is revisiting his 2022 single “Espacio en tu Corazón,” but this time releasing it in English as a duet with one of my favorite country stars. The track is an English-language reimagining of the Spanish artist’s ballad from two years ago. The Spanish version hears the artist sing to a love that got away.

The single is set to be featured on his album that is slated to be his last album. In an interview, he said that the album was “completely finished” and that he had been working on the project for “quite a bunch of years.”

“And for me, it was always like I said, my final album… this is it. I don’t think — no, I know, I won’t be doing any more albums..”

Give a listen to Enrique Iglesias and Miranda Lambert with “Space In My Heart”:

Last, but certainly not least, is a pop-rock ballad where this artist contemplates life’s unpredictable nature and the fear of losing the beautiful things he cherishes. He thanks God for the gifts he has received while hoping his current happiness will endure.

The song explores the universal fear of impermanence. It confronts the fragility of happiness, the fleeting nature of time, and the constant shadow of loss that looms over even the most beautiful moments.

In the music video, the artist and his band perform on a mountaintop. His choice of a mountain for the visual isn’t accidental – the soaring heights reflect the song’s yearning for permanence, and the treacherous slopes remind us that happiness is fraught with impermanence. The artist wrote this song at his piano on September 29, 2023, shortly after relocating to Los Angeles.

He couldn’t sleep one night and, feeling restless, descended to his living room where he had placed his grandmother’s old piano. There, he began playing and created the melodies for this song. The following day, during a studio session, he brought the piece to life. The lyrics were inspired by a relationship he had just gotten into. He said:

“For the first time in my life, I felt like I was extremely out of control of the way this relationship would turn out.”

He had always confidently ended past relationships, believing himself the architect of his romantic destiny. Now, facing the potential loss of something truly precious, he grappled with an unfamiliar and potent fear: the fear of being left. The tables had turned, and the prospect of abandonment gnawed at him with an intensity he’d never known.

Without further ado, here’s Benson Boone with “Beautiful Things”:

That’s a wrap for this week – have a great Monday! See you on the dance floor!

Now onto the particulars of Monday’s Music Move’s Me:

I have the supreme honor and privilege of being a co-host with the inimitable Xmas Dolly and our musical cohort, the awesome Cathy from Curious as a CAThy, and Alana of Ramblin’ with AM!

Want to join in the fun? It’s easy – just find a tune that rocks your boat, post it and link up – don’t forget to grab Xmas Dolly…er, um, I mean her button…over at her place here. Check out Xmas Dolly’s sidebar for the random themes we sport each week – and you can always ask for a specific theme of music you like, too. Check out the other music lovahs and let’s jam!