Meaning of “All The Good Girls Go To Hell” by Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish is not particularly known for being religious. But in this track, she uses a lot of symbols and characters associated with Christianity to get a message across which reads something like heaven does not really exist, or if it does, most people don’t deserve to be there anyway.
Indeed from the onset of this track and in the outro, which Billie respectively utters the phrases “my Lucifer is lonely” and “I cannot do the snowflake”, you can see that she has mischievous intentions. She depicts heaven as a place where basically anyone can enter as either St. Peter is not on his usual guard duty or even when he is does not seem particularly interested in vetting anyone. She also questions why Peter and co. would be interested in “saving” man in the first place since we are generally foolish and self-destructive.
In terms of the titular phrase “all the good girls go to hell, ‘cause even God herself has enemies”, maybe it is meant to allude to self-righteous people being denied access into heaven. Later in the chorus, she makes a comment about God ultimately needing the help of the devil “once the water starts to rise”. That latter phrase sounds like it may in some way be referring to the Great Deluge, which is well-documented in the Bible. But in terms of God desiring “the Devil on her team”, that’s a bit more-difficult to understand.
Moreover in the post-chorus Eilish again states “my Lucifer is lonely. There’s nothing left to save now. My god is gonna owe me.” When she speaks of her “god”, she is likely once again referring to Lucifer, with “nothing left to save now” perhaps alluding to Billie selling her soul, and as such, now Lucifer is in debt to her.
Ultimately this track deals with a lot of interesting and controversial symbolism. Yet it is difficult to find a definitive theme amongst all the complex spiritual and even occultic topics that are being discussed.
What Billie Eilish has said about this track
In multiple interviews, Eilish has stated categorically that the content of the song deals with climate change. Her brother (FINNEAS), who also co-wrote the song, has said the same.
when she said “Cause even God herself” why use the term “herself” who is this ‘she’ she speaks of?
‘herself’ and ‘she’ apply to God, as in God is a woman.
She is refering it to the mother earth
I was considering the EXACT SAME THING… if God as a female symbolizes Mother Earth, then mostly everything else in the lyrics falls in line to create a unified message…
Woah, big brain moment now i understand/see the song in a different way now… so Billie prob. meant in the line “once the water starts to rise and heaven’s out of sight, she’ll want the devil on her team” that mother nature is going to begin punishing humans or that she’ll (mother nature) will want to get revenge on us humans for how we have been causing this planet to begin die slowly…
yes
Idk I was wondering the same thing!!
Maybe “she” is Mary isn’t she a god?
“When the water rises” probably refers to global warming
I think it refers to if it ever happened that it would happen and earth flooded, heave would likely to be drowned and therefore they would have to seek shelter in hell because that part wouldn’t be affected by overground situations and she would have to seek the devil and get her on her team and help her. (in my opinion).
Your actually right, if were going to read the description of the song in YouTube, you can see Billie’s note about climate change….. And at the video it self you can see that billie has wings and then she falls down into an oil like substance which is a thing, and symbolizes like the oil spills that can kill animals, and then things started to burn, which symbolizes that eart is warming up, then at the song she said, “and once the water starts to rise” which is an effect of global warming, the melting of ice caps, which adds water to the ocean, making the water to rise up…. And then she mentions lucifer, which means that earth is a gift to us by God, but we destroys it instead of taking care of it… Even though there’s no heaven or even there is, we are not worthy to go there because we are sinners, so don’t make this song evil because you don’t know the deeper meaning of this… (I was redering to those who hates billie and her songs)
I understand the point you are trying to make about the fact that this song is mostly about climate change and I won’t argue about that. However, with all this imagery and symbolism, I highly doubt that she was only referring to climate change alone. With all the references she makes to the Bible, one can only assume that this song is not just a song making people aware of climate change, it is an angry exclamation of her hate toward the Christian God. I mean, who wouldn’t be angry at a God who claims to be benevolent and just watches humans destroy themselves and each other? I believe she makes a valuable point that we have destroyed the earth and we don’t deserve any love or any grace of that sort, because we don’t. We are imperfect and selfish and we are not even close to deserving any kind of sympathy. I am an atheist, however, I am a theology professor and have been studying religion for 15 years. Many of these deities share these flaws- the same flaws as humans. If you take a look at Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Hindu, and Christian-Catholic religion, you can observe that all these gods/saints have had their flaws yet they are all worshipped. The thing that makes the Biblical Judeo-Christian God different is that He claims to be love and he sent his son to die to save humanity. Yet, we still face immense hardship and suffering. I believe the reason why people make these kinds of songs toward the Judeo-Christian God is because He was the one who appeared to disappoint us the most. This God was claiming to be love, yet here we are destroying ourselves and the world around us.
I guess the point I am trying to get across is to not make this song seem like it’s just about climate change. It’s way more than that. This song does talk about climate change and all these metaphors and symbols could point towards us making these terrible mistakes causing climate change. However, this song is also a hate letter towards this God. It’s is blatantly obvious that this is not just about the world itself. It’s about how much the narrator and a bunch of people hate God.
I agree with you Nessle,
Well said, But it also makes me wonder if Billie eillish takes part in the occult,(the selling your soul stuff) I don’t really believe it but I am open to the possibility that these supernatural entities might exist. In the end she says my lucifer is lonely my God is gonna owe me, which indicates that she believes lucifer to be God, I don’t think she is a devil worshipper but yeah it all tells that this song is definitely not only about climate change.
I really love your comment… Now I totally understand.. Thanks ?
We all know lucifer fell from heaven thats a clear visual no hidden meaning. My lucifer is lonely she’s declared that is her God. She believes lucifer will be in debt to her because of the number of souls she is leading to him. Nothing has a hidden. Message if you know anything about the Bible the fight for your soul is real rather people believe it or not and it’s not clear Message here but people are so spiritually blind they don’t need to HIDE it anymore. You either live for Yeshua/YAHVAH or Lucifer/Satan
who is peter in the song? and i agree
I may be wrong, but I think Peter is Saint Peter from the bible.
sorry it appeared twice, that was an accident
What the heck does “I cannot do this snowflake” mean? It just sounds like something Billie Eilish would say! ^_^
I think in one of her interviews she said “I cannot
do this snowflake” was recorded on accident as
she was doing a paper snowflake for a friend (not
100% sure but I remember watching a interview
her saying that) and she just add it to the end of
her song 🙂
I do not like the feeling I get from the interpretations of this song
Then get a life snowflake
I think “she’ll want the devil on her team” might mean “when the water starts to rise” she’ll (God? Mother nature? Idk anymore bruh) need to unite with the devil to do something??????? Random guess…
…..Im a christian and I dont know how to feel bout this song to be honest. I mean i looked it up and Billie Ellish is not a satanist. she was actually really religious at one point but then didn’t stick to one religion. She said that all religions interested her or something idk. But the way the music video and lyrics are….i mean I can see how it could be about global warning but……idk how to feel about this i think i might stop listening to her music. Its a shame cause I really like some of her songs but i don’t want to be associated with that…and even though shes apparent not a satanist…the lyrics and music video are ……questionable to say the least. It might be symbolism…who knows. I mean im a hardcore bts fan and they did a song called blood sweat and tears . In the music video the statue of Mary holding Jesus broke so I also was going to stop being a fan of them. But then I read the meaning of the song and it made sense. It was about the struggle of fighting evil and staying good and how everybody chooses a path. The symbolism was really good kudos to the director. So yeah I’m fine with that but…..all good girls go to hell is really really questionable im not hating on her who knows maybe shes not a satanist..but…i think i might stop listening to her music.
billie eilish is refering to climate change
Maybe it’s mother mary or… awe man i dunno
Climate change, Mocking God, and her selling the soul…its all true.
If you listen carefully the whole thing is actually about global warming, and it’s proven by an interview. “There’s nothing left to save now” Is the overuse of non-renewable resources. “Hills burn in California, my turn to ignore ya” Is basically the climate change and fire. “Once the water starts to rise”, “Don;t say i didn’t warn ya” Are also other lyrics that relate to climate change.