Billie Eilish’s ‘Therefore I Am’ Is a Middle Finger to Her Body Shamers

Descartes would be proud of Billie Eilish’s “Therefore I Am” lyrics. The 18-year-old singer showed out like a true #scholar after quoting the 17th-century French philosopher’s famous statement “cogito, ergo sum,” a.k.a., “I think, therefore I am,” on her new single released on Thursday, November 12, alongside an accompanying music video. But without turning this into Philosophy 101, let’s break down what Billie Eilish’s “Therefore I Am” is really all about.

Basically, Billie is serving up her own 21st-century version of ~consciousness~ on “Therefore I Am”—all while calling out the people who think they know her better than she knows herself. You know, like the haters who body-shamed her again and again and again. Without getting too deep into Descartes’s quote (and, sorry in advance to all the philosophy majors out there), let’s just say that it represents the idea that a person cannot doubt their existence if they are capable of having that doubt in the first place. Your self-consciousness is what establishes you.

But how does Billie use this idea in her song? On “Therefore I Am,” she sings, “I’m not your friend or anything/ Damn, you think that you’re the man/ I think, therefore, I am.” She’s saying that she’s the only person who can assert her existence, and nobody else’s opinions of her really matter there. Her music video drops more hints: She runs around an empty mall, eating literally anything she wants—Chipotle, pretzels, slush puppies, you name it—and there’s no one around to police her body for what she puts in it.

And if that doesn’t sound like a slap in the face to her body shamers, then maybe this lyric does: “Stop, what the hell are you talking about?/ Get my pretty name outta your mouth.” You heard her, folks.

Catch the music video below, and for the rest of Billie Eilish’s “Therefore I Am” lyrics, just keep on reading.

Published in Billie Eilish, Entertainment and Music

The Citizen