What is the meaning behind “I’m the bad guy”? bad guy by Billie Eilish
- by imrk
- March 04, 2023
Billie explained the “bad guy” lyric in a August 2019 Billboard interview: It’s a weird thing to hear come out of a girl’s mouth. I think Nicki Minaj said in one of her songs that she’s the bad guy, and I didn’t realize that until recently….It’s such a cool juxtaposition of that sentence. Why do people resonate with it? I know why I resonate with it, but they’re all my own reasons. The Nicki Minaj song that Billie refers to is “Chun-Li,” where Minaj raps: Oh, I get it, huh, they paintin' me out to be the bad guy Well it’s the last time you gonna see a bad guy do the rap game like me Both Eilish and Minaj’s “bad guy” lines reference a scene in the 1983 movie, Scarface , where Tony Montana complains : Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There’s a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way! Billie further explained the idea behind the line in a July 2019 KIIS FM interview : It’s basically making fun of everyone and their personas of themselves…. In general, I feel like you will never catch a bad bitch telling everyone she’s a bad bitch…. If you’re going around all the time saying, like, ‘Yeah, I’m bad, I’m always breaking rules and doing this and doing that.’ You’re not. I know that because I used to say that and I wasn’t. Bad kids, bad boys, bad bitches, whatever, they do that shit and they don’t even know.