Was Billie Eilish's When the Party’s Over music video inspired by fan art?

While Billie Eilish has a global reputation for her music, the 22-year-old has multiple talents showcased throughout her time in the music industry. Besides her husky tone, which, according to fans, makes her songs unforgettable, the singer-songwriter has also written lyrics and directed videos.

Eilish has self-directed most of her music videos - Therefore I Am, Xanny, What Was I Made For?, Your Power, and Lunch are just some names among the many. And while the music video of Eilish's when the party's over wasn't self-directed, her vision was brought to life in it. And that vision was inspired by fan art she had received in Montreal.

Talking to NME about the music video, Billie Eilish revealed that it was inspired by a portrait of her drawn by a fan artist, which had captivated the Ocean Eyes singer, further saying:

"I remember standing there, looking at this drawing of me, and my eyes were black and there was black ink dripping from my eyes, and I just stared at it and I feel like I got star-struck by this image, this drawing of me."

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Billie Eilish was "star-struck" by a fan art that inspired the video of when the party's over

Billie Eilish's when the party's over was released as a single on October 17, 2018, and its music video followed 8 days later, dropping on her YouTube channel on October 25. It has since amassed 930 million views and 13 million likes.

During her talk with NME, Billie revealed she wanted to capture inspiration as soon as it hit and asked her mother, Maggie Baird, to enact how the video would look while she filmed it to show the director. Recalling the experience, the singer-songwriter said:

"I like made my mum go outside and sit on a chair, with a little table, like a very small table, in exactly the position I wanted it. I put the glass right where I wanted it. And then I started filming, and I was like, 'OK, so it's gonna start on this shot, it's gonna zoom in on the face,' you know, 'drink, put it down, wipe your face, do that weird movement."

She added:

"And I have the video of me, being a f***ing d***, because I'm like filming and, basically, I was making it for the director."

Even after the idea of the music video was settled on, there was still a lot of work left. Billie Eilish, who was going to be featured in the video, needed to find a suitable substance that would come gushing out of her eyes.

In the end, the glass was filled with Xantham gum mixed with charcoal water to achieve the desired thickness. It took her four swallows to drink all the liquid in the video, which turned out just the way Eilish wanted. Speaking about the filming experience with NME, Billie Eilish said:

"Dude, I bring the most miserable thing onto myself. I just do, I don't know why I do it, but I do it. I just love pain, I've always loved pain. I love being uncomfortable."

In March 2019, when Billie Eilish's debut studio album - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? - was released, the track was included.

Elsewhere in the NME interview, Billie Eilish talked about how Eilish first heard her brother, Finneas, playing when the party's over in the other room, soon after which he called her into the room, saying, "Billie, come here, I just wrote this f***ing crazy song." The Bellyache singer's first impression of the song was:

"I feel like the melodies in that song get you, you know what I'm saying."

However, despite Finneas writing and producing the song and Billie loving it, it still took the sibling duo a long time and plenty of hard work. Talking about it, the Grammy winner said:

"We played it live for like three months, but it was kind of impossible to then create, because we got home and it was just, like, I don't know, we just had such high expectations for it that we didn't know what the f*** to do, but we worked really hard, and I killed myself for that song, dude. Because recording that song is impossible."

It appears that all their hard work paid off in the end, as the song peaked at no. 29 on the US Billboard Hot 100 after its release.