Marilyn Monroe

Pharrell opens his G I R L album with a cinematic suite of opulent strings composed with film composer and personal hero Hans Zimmer and played by a 30-piece orchestra. The pair previously worked together when they scored the 2012 Academy Awards and also collaborated on the 2014 The Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie.

The extended string reveille leads into this song, in which Pharrell dismisses famous women including Marilyn Monroe, Cleopatra and Joan of Arc, in favor of a girl who is "different." He explained at the album's listening party that his intention was to write a tune that said that ideals of feminine beauty are redundant. "You don't have to be a certain weight, a certain height," Pharrell said. "For me, she doesn't have to be the statuesque American standard of what beauty is."

Pharrell explained the song's lyrical content to The Sun: "I called the song 'Marilyn Monroe' because she was beautiful. Then the lyrics name check Joan of Arc because she was heroic, and Cleopatra was wise. Women don't have to be any of that to be beautiful. You can just be your own thing." "Most things one day will never lose their value," he continued. "Women never do. They are unique and individual. I love women and often admired their eyes, lips and other features of their bodies in a sometimes suggestive way." "But I respect and hold what would be called 'a feminist view' too," he added. "I want to spread the message of the pertinence of women on this planet. It calls for the equivocation of women in society."