Billie Eilish’s Your Power Lyrics Meaning: A Whispered Confrontation with Exploitation

Billie Eilish’s Your Power doesn’t explode, and it certainly doesn’t simmer.

It haunts in plain sight, quietly unspooling its message while the music stays deceptively still.

With little more than acoustic guitar and breath-soft vocals, Eilish delivers a track that sounds intimate but stares directly into the face of systemic abuse.

Released on April 29, 2021, as the third single from her second studio album Happier Than Ever, the song marked a tonal pivot from the gothic surrealism of her debut.

Here, the focus narrows: the scale is smaller, the target is clear, and the damage is intimate. It’s not just a musical statement—it’s a cultural one.

Eilish has noted that the song isn’t just about her own story but a broader, troubling reality.

She’s spoken about how the lyrics reflect a problem far bigger than any one person: a culture where people are taken advantage of daily, often by those in positions of power.

For her, this was never just an artistic catharsis—it was a way to speak out without pointing fingers.

As she put it, the experiences behind the song are shared by “hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands and millions of people.”

“Try not to abuse your power”

This line slips in like an aside, but it holds the weight of an accusation.

There’s no dramatic swell, no righteous fury. Eilish doesn’t dramatise the offence—she quietly lays it bare.

The absence of rage makes the message sting deeper, like disappointment thick in the air.

“She said you were a hero / You played the part / But you ruined her in a year”

These lines strip the myth of the benevolent older man down to its skeleton. He wasn’t a protector. He was a predator playing dress-up. It’s a story people know too well, even if they wish they didn’t.

“She was sleeping in your clothes / But now she’s got to get to class”

An image as jarring as it is revealing. The song doesn’t need metaphors when the truth already sounds like fiction.

One minute she’s in his world, the next she’s back in school—still a child, now bruised by the fallout.

“I thought that I was special / You made me feel like it was my fault you were the devil”

This verse peels back the self-blame baked into toxic relationships. The lines read like a revelation turned inward.

It’s not just recounting abuse—it’s dissecting the emotional fallout, the warped logic victims are left to untangle.

“Does it keep you in control? / For you to keep her in a cage?”

The metaphor dissolves into something disturbingly tangible. And if the lyrics don’t paint it clearly enough, the video does: an 80-pound anaconda coils around Eilish’s body, slow and suffocating.

There’s no need to scream—this kind of power tightens gradually.

Set against the desolate backdrop of Simi Valley, the video is minimal and unnervingly still. Eilish sits alone on a barren cliffside as the drone camera creeps inward.

The silence of the space mirrors the silence that often surrounds abuse. It’s not loud. It doesn’t announce itself. It creeps in, and by the time you recognise it, you’re already entangled.

The anaconda, slowly winding itself around her torso, isn’t just a striking visual—it’s a metaphor for control disguised as affection, for power that chokes while pretending to hold.

The choice to direct the video herself reinforces the song’s autonomy: it’s Billie telling the story, and reclaiming it on her terms.

The final shot—her body almost fully constricted as the screen fades to black—doesn’t offer closure. It offers recognition.

“You said you thought she was your age”

No poetic licence here. Just the familiar, nauseating excuse echoed by men caught mid-exploitation. 

“Will you only feel bad if it turns out / That they kill your contract?”

The most brutal line in the song isn’t about emotion—it’s about economics.

Eilish exposes how remorse often depends on reputation, and how the industry she’s a part of thrives on that transactional morality.

FINNEAS, Billie’s brother and collaborator, keeps the arrangement spare and unvarnished.

Just a single guitar, minimal layering, and a voice that never raises itself. It’s a production style that’s not holding back to sound delicate—it’s purposeful in its clarity.

The result is a kind of sonic stillness that refuses to distract from the discomfort.

Your Power isn’t just Billie’s story—it’s one that echoes across industries, relationships, and cultural blind spots.

The lyrics never name names, but they don’t need to. Everyone already knows. That’s why it lands. It’s familiar. It’s damning. It’s exhausting.

The snake in the video doesn’t lunge. It wraps slowly.

Just like power.

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Billie Eilish Power Lyrics

Chorus
Try not to abuse your power
I know we didn’t choose to change
You might not wanna lose your power
But havin’ it’s so strange

Verse 1
She said you were a hero
You played the part
But you ruined her in a year
Don’t act like it was hard
And you swear you didn’t know (Didn’t know)
No wonder why you didn’t ask
She was sleepin’ in your clothes (In your clothes)
But now she’s got to get to class

Pre-Chorus
How dare you?
And how could you?
Will you only feel bad when they find out?
If you could take it all back
Would you?

Chorus
Try not to abuse your power
I know we didn’t choose to change
You might not wanna lose your power
But havin’ it’s so strange

Verse 2
I thought that I was special
You made me feel
Like it was my fault, you were the devil
Lost your appeal
Does it keep you in control? (In control)
For you to keep her in a cage?
And you swear you didn’t know (Didn’t know)
You said you thought she was your age

Pre-Chorus
How dare you?
And how could you?
Will you only feel bad if it turns out
That they kill your contract?
Would you?

Chorus
Try not to abuse your power
I know we didn’t choose to change
You might not wanna lose your power
But power isn’t pain

Outro
Mmm
Ooh
La-la-la-la-la, hmm
La-la-la-la-la-la, la-la