Billie Eilish opens Hit Me Hard and Soft with this soft-yet-exuberant ballad. "Skinny" bridges the reflections on stardom and self-image on her previous album, Happier Than Ever, with a newfound maturity.

People say I look happy Just because I got skinny Eilish lays bare the shallowness of some reactions to her weight loss. She feels judged about a disconnect between the happy facade and the person inside. This isn't new territory for Eilish. She confronted body-shaming before on Happier Than Ever, particularly on "Not My Responsibility" and "Overheated." The singer has also previously discussed her body image in interviews. "Going through my teenage years of hating myself and all that stupid s--t. A lot of it came from my anger towards my body, and how mad I was at how much pain it's caused me, and what I've lost because of things that happened to it... I felt like my body was gaslighting me for years," she told Vogue in June 2023. "I had to go through a process of being like, my body is actually me. And it's not out to get me." There's a deeper self-awareness at play here, though. But the old me is still me and maybe the real me And I think she's pretty There's a desire to embrace her authentic self, to break free from societal beauty standards. It's a subtle but significant shift from Happier Than Ever, where the focus was on societal expectations. Here, Eilish seems to be reclaiming her narrative.

Eilish also contrasts the freedom of performing with the constraints of fame. I'm a bird in a cage I'm a dog in a dog pound The pressure and judgment are relentless, especially for a global pop star.