Songfacts®:

• This sparse atmospheric track was inspired by the Alfonso Cuarón-directed Netflix movie Roma. The film, set in 1970s Mexico, follows the life of a live-in housekeeper for a middle-class family in Mexico City's Colonia Roma neighborhood. The song appears on an album titled Music Inspired by Roma, curated by Alfonso Cuarón.
• When I was older
  I was a sailor on an open sea
  But now I'm underwater
  And my skin is paler than it should ever be
  Hmm
  
  The chorus illustrates a scene from Roma set at Tuxpan beach. Two of the middle class children are swimming in the sea but get caught by the strong current. As one of them struggles underwater, he remembers his past lives.
• Eilish penned "When I Was Older" with her longtime collaborator and older brother, Finneas O'Connell. They set out to write a song about the strain of a relationship "from within the narrative" of Roma and the scenes that struck them most from the movie. The siblings used sound effects from the film in order to 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," explained the duo. "The chorus, has the ocean sounds overplayed on it. We were also able to take sounds like the student protest shouts and Borras barking and turn them into rhythmic percussive elements to help drive the song."