Original photo by Peter Leong
Teen pop singer and songwriter Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell (Billie Eilish) started her career in 2015, gaining prominence with her single Ocean Eyes. She released her first EP, Don’t Smile at Me, in 2015. She followed-up with Up Next Session: Billie Eilish that same year. her debut album, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? and live album, Live at Third Man Records, came out in 2019.
Eilish received five Grammy’s, two American Music Awards, two MTV Europe Music Awards, three MTV Video Music Awards, two Guinness World Records, one NRJ Music Award, and one Brit Award for her work.
Lyrics can be found at https://genius.com/Billie-eilish-all-the-good-girls-go-to-hell-lyrics.
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1. What message does the song communicate?
Eilish claims that this song is about global warming and climate change. I can see that interpretation outlined in Pre-Chorus; However, there are too many underlying points to conclude the entire song is about climate!
Eilish is inviting her audience to a life of rebellion against God. She:
- Believes the Devil can use company
- Commits crimes out of boredom
- Rejects a mischaracterization of heaven, that entry is only for those who are good enough to enter
- Loves her friends more than she loves God
- Loves nature more than she moves humans
- Thinks that God will be dethroned
- Asks her listeners, though the voice of Satan, to reject saving humans
Though there are a few accuracies in this song (see the intro to section 2), her overall message is contrary to the will, commands, and nature of God.
Score: 0/10
2. How much of the lyrics line up with Scripture?
Despite this song’s blasphemous and unbiblical lyrics, there are a few things that Eilish got right:
- The gates are pearly (Verse 1, line 5)
- God has enemies (Chorus, line 2)
- Those who entertain Satan’s briberies are slaves to sin (Verse 2, line 3)
- Man’s attempts to cover sin don’t work (Verse 2, line 5)
- Men are foolish and don’t deserve salvation (Verse 2, line 6)
[Intro]
Line 1: That is, Eilish claims that the devil can use more occupants in the lake of fire; However, Scripture informs us that Satan will have plenty of roommates to join him (Matthew 7:13).
[Verse 1]
Line 1: Idle hands make devils out of all of us (Proverbs 16:27).
Line 2: Given that the human heart is deceitful above all other things (Jeremiah 17:9), it should not surprise us that some will turn to a life of crime.
Line 3: There is a common trope that Saint Peter guards the pearly gates of heaven that is unsupported by Scripture. If we assume Eilish’s imagery is correct, Peter on holiday represents an “open invitation” to commit evil acts, contrary to loving neighbor as self (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:34-40, and Luke 10:25–37).
Line 4: I have no idea what this means in the context of this song.
Line 5-8: Eilish is correct in that the gates are pearly (Revelation 21:21). The “picket fence” is a reference to the typical American dream home that contains a white, picket fence. It represents boundaries that her friends cannot cross because they aren’t good enough to get in. Eilish believes that, if she goes to heaven, it will separate her from her friends. She’s probably correct.
These lines come from a misunderstanding of Christianity, that heaven is for people who do good works. Eilish’s friends cannot enter because, just like the rest of us, they broke God’s laws (Psalm 14:1-3, Psalm 53:1-3, Job 15:14, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 3:10, Romans 3:23, and 1 John 1:8-10). She does not understand that salvation comes through grace, not works (Matthew 5:20, Luke 18:9-14, Acts 13:39, Romans 3:20-30, Romans 4:1-7, Romans 8:3, Romans 9:16, Romans 9:31-32, Romans 11:6, Galatians 2:16, Galatians 2:21, Galatians 3:10-12, Galatians 3:21, Galatians 5:2-4, Ephesians 2:8-9, Philippians 3:3-9, 2 Timothy 1:9, Hebrews 6:1-2, and James 2:10-11).
I get the sense that Eilish values her friends more than she values God. They have become her idols (Exodus 20:4-6).
[Pre-Chorus]
Lines 1-3: References the recent Californian forest fires that destroyed homes and lives. Eilish believes God either doesn’t exist or is absent, ignoring the cries of human suffering. She “joins God” in turning a blind eye to the misfortunes of others, telling others to do the same. This spits in the face of the love God shows us by sending Jesus to die for our sins (John 3:16 and Romans 5:6-8) and shows impatience for God to fulfill His promises based on His timing rather than ours (2 Peter 3:9).
[Chorus]
Line 1: Hell is an unclear term. It could refer either to hades (the realm of the dead) or Gehenna (the lake of fire), depending on the translation. We’ll assume the lake of fire for this review.
Having said that, this line is incorrect. As mentioned in my commentary of Verse 1, lines 5-8, we’ve all broken God’s Laws. The Biblical standard of goodness is moral perfection, also known as holiness or “set apart” (Leviticus 11:44, Leviticus 19:2, Leviticus 20:7, Philippians 3:15-17, 1 Peter 1:16). Since none of us have achieved this standard, good people won’t burn for eternity!
Line 2: Though God does not have a gender or sex, all of Scripture refers to God in the masculine, either as “Father” or Jesus, who is called the “Son of God” (Matthew 11:27, Matthew 14:33, Matthew 16:15–17, Matthew 27:43, Matthew 27:54, Mark 1:11, Mark 3:11, Mark 9:7, Mark 15:39, Luke 1:35, Luke 4:41, Luke 22:29, John 1:14-18, John 1:34, John 3:16-18, John 11:27, John 19:7, John 20:31, and Acts 9:20). To purposefully use the feminine pronoun is irreverent and shows a lack of respect for the God we serve.
God’s enemies are those who have rejected Him and joined the world system (Romans 8:7 and James 4:4).
Lines 3-5: Eilish believes that God will be dethroned and kicked out of heaven, perhaps through a revolt of those who went to Gehenna. Yet, we know how the story ends. The waters will rise up, those who follow Satan will fight against God, but Jesus will be victorious (Revelation 17:14-15). Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10), and his followers will join him (Revelation 20:15), never to rejoin God (Romans 6:23, Revelation 2:11, Revelation 20:6, Revelation 20:14-15, and Revelation 21:8).
No, God does not want Satan “on ‘her’ team”!
[Post-Chorus (1)]
Line 1: Repeats Intro.
[Verse 2]
Lines 1 and 2: Satan converses with Eilish’s listeners. The devil will not be their friend without bribery, considered a sin according to Scripture (Exodus 23:8, Deuteronomy 16:19, Judges 16:5, 1 Samuel 8:3, Job 15:34, Proverbs 17:23, Psalm 26:9-10, Ecclesiastes 7:7, Isaiah 1:23, Isaiah 33:15, Ezekiel 13:19, Ezekiel 22:12, Amos 5:12, Micah 7:3, Matthew 27:3-9, Acts 8:20-23, Acts 24:26, and 1 Timothy 6:10).
Line 3: Eilish is correct about those who deal with the Devil: they are slaves to their sin, shackled to the pattern of willful disobedience to God (John 8:34, Romans 6:6, Romans 6:20-22, and 1 Corinthians 6:12).
Lines 4 and 5: This goes back to the misrepresentation of Peter already discussed in my commentary to Verse 1, line 3. Having said that, Eilish explains that humans tend to cover up their sins so that others may not know lest their deeds become exposed (Genesis 3:7-10, Proverbs 4:19, John 1:5, John 3:19-21, and John 11:10). Satan knows that this facade doesn’t work.
Line 6-8: Eilish, along with Satan, asks them to join the rebellion, that we ought to abandon efforts to save humanity. Though Scripture agrees that mankind doesn’t deserve help, God thought it worthwhile to save us through Christ’s sacrifice (John 3:16 and Romans 5:6-8). I sympathize with Eilish’s desire to wipe humanity off the earth given our collective actions; However, death is not the solution. We must run to Jesus, who helps us escape our darkness and become more like Him (Romans 6:1-11, Romans 7:4-6, Galatians 2:19-20, 2 Timothy 2:11, and 1 Peter 2:24).
[Post-Chorus (2)]
Line 1: Repeats Intro, line 1.
Lines 2 and 3: This is idolatry. Eilish believes that her god will owe her, thanking her for her efforts to rid the world of humanity. Yet, as mentioned in Verse 2, lines 6-8, the Bible teaches otherwise. God thought we were worth saving, despite our sinful, rebellious nature.
[Outro]
Lines 1 and 2: According to Eilish, she was recording this song around Christmas time and was crocheting a snowflake, forgetting how to do it and exclaiming “I cannot do the snowflake”. It has nothing to do with the song.
Score: 3/10
3. How would an outsider interpret the song?
Eilish is clear as a bell to unbelievers. They ought to reject Eilish’s mischaracterization of Christianity as though it were the real thing, that heaven is for “good people”, the best people will join Satan to commit atrocities and attempt to overthrow God, and humans aren’t worth saving. The only confusing portions are the “Animals, evidence” that exists in Verse 1 and the song’s ending.
This scoring of 0 does not reflect Eilish’s inability to communicate or cause mass confusion that lower the scores of other reviews. This section is meant to highlight miscommunication that might cause stumbling or prevention to Christ. Eilish did it on purpose. Therefore, I must give it the lowest score I could offer.
Score: 0/10
4. What does this song glorify?
This song glorifies crime, rebellion, and idolatry.
Score: 0/10
Closing Comments
Billie Eilish’s All The Good Girls Go To Hell is a terrible song. Eilish incites and glorifies open rebellion against God by banding together with Lucifer, caring more for creation than the Creator (Romans 1:22-23) and “mother nature” than humanity. Though she is correct about the pearly gates, man’s shackling sin nature, and that we don’t deserve to receive salvation, her ungodly acts and enticement contradict Scripture and places a stumbling block on an unbeliever’s path to Jesus.
I cannot recommend this for corporate worship.
Final Score: 1/10
Artist Info
Track: All The Good Girls Go To Hell (listen to the song)
Artist: Billie Eilish
Album: WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
Genre: Pop
Release Year: 2019
Duration: 2:48
Agree? Disagree? Don’t be shy or have a cow! Calmly and politely state your case in a comment, below.
Updates:
03/19/2021 – Updated per repetition announcement.
Comments
Daniel Konatham
wow just wow. I have no words for this song. I’m just utterly shocked.
me
And? tbh i agree with all religions and my parents and siblings are religious but i don’t think she meant it in that way……..
Vince Wright
me,
Thank you for your comments!
I don’t know how it’s possible to agree with all religions simultaneously. Let me give you three examples.
1) Christianity teaches that Jesus died on the cross and rose again.
2) Islam teaches that Jesus didn’t die on the cross, thus, He cannot rise again since He never died.
3) In Judaism, the consensus is that Jesus died, but did not rise from the dead.
On a fundamental level, not all of these statements can be true simultaneously. Either Jesus died on the cross or He did not. Either Jesus rose again or He did not. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then my faith is worthless and I’m still dead in my sins (1 Corinthians 15:12-17). But, I cannot believe Isalm or Judaism to be correct if Jesus rose again. Sure, there might be some truths in all religions; However, when it comes to core beliefs, not all religions can be true at the same time.
Jesus claimed to be the one and only means to the Father (John 14:6). If that statement is true, then all other religions lead to hell, whether we agree with them or not.
-Vince Wright
Ábel Mike
I think the main mistake interpreting this song was the assumption or the expectation that Images of God, Hell, the Devil and the other christianity – rooted concepts were used in a strictly doctrinal way. However, you can’t ignore the fact that these concepts became quite independent, which is normal, since they were used as metaphors, symbols, redefined, questioned, criticised, depicted in a different way countless times through centuries, and picked up several meanings, interpretations along the way.
Billie Eilish is a secular songwriter, who admittedly didn’t try to depict God or the spiritual realm. Which makes said assumptions or expectations rules that the artist clearly didn’t mean to follow, and doesn’t have to follow. Art was never bound to theology or christianity. It has been inspired by them, and used by them, but the two are different fields. And while the methods used here are useful and needed when we analyze art that claims to align with theology and doctrine to determine the truth to those claims, when not the case, we are the away team, and neglecting the rules is a mistake.
In my opinion the song depicts a picture by details and symbols.
God is more or less the poetic self (also a woman), we see the situation kinda’ from “her”(?) perspective. It changes a few times when describing heaven in the first verse, and in the chorus where the message is summarized: Everyone, even those who didn’t deserve it (the “good girls”) are stuck in the world destroyed by mankind (they “go to hell”). Mankind are “Gods enemies”. And when the destruction is evident and all we have is the wasteland (“Heaven is out of sight”), we become worst than the devil, so God would want him in “her team” (Instead of us).
God speaks on a few occasions:
To mankind in the lines:
“My turn to ignore ya
Don’t say I didn’t warn ya”
“Look at you needing me
You know I’m not your friend without some greenery
Walk in wearing fetters
Peter should know better
Your cover up is caving in”
And to the devil (or whoever is in “her” company, could be Peter but i don’t think so):
“Man is such a fool
Why are we saving him?
Poisoning themselves now
Begging for our help, wow!”
“Hills burn in California” and “The waters rise” are concrete pictures of the consequences of global warming.
My interpretations of some other symbols in the songs:
Peter is a leader figure of some sort. He is the part of humanity attached to Heaven, the symbol of good direction for them and as such he is missing (“on vacation”) or corrupted (“should know better”).
Heaven is “The Good Place”, where God lives, and where mankind could’ve potentially arrive (Peter has the keys of heaven) in a good endgame. But that option either is or will be lost (it’s “out of sight”). Individuals might still enter, but mankind as a whole can’t (“Pearly gates look more like a picket fence / Once you get inside ’em / Got friends but can’t invite them”).
Finally i want to talk about the ending of the song:
“My Lucifer is lonely
There’s nothing left to save now
My god is gonna owe me
There’s nothing left to save now”
Note that god is not capitalized, so it might not refer to “God herself”. I think it could refer to mankinds (might’ve overused the term, sorry for that, it’s lack of synonyms) leaders, who owe us the land they let go to waste. (Very Greta Thunberg-ish, I disagree with it) Lucifer could either be the devil, who is alone in the afterlife, because we already have Hell here. My second interpretation is an Enlightment Age / marxist version, Prometeus (who brought down fire for mankind). In this case he is the one having the solutions, and is lonely because no one listens to him. Works either way.
This is a summary of my interpretation and analysis of the song. I hope you find it interesting and i could provide a new perspective on it. Feel free to disagree or react in any other way.
Samantha Noel McDowell
Thank you for this amazing analysis. Billie Eilish is not a devil worshipper; she is a climate activist. She used biblical terms because many climate crisis dissenters use the bible to refute the science.
Ben P.
Technically the pearly gates are part of the New Jerusalem, not Heaven. If you’re like me and are Postmil or even Amil for that matter (not sure about historic pre-mil) even the New Jerusalem is not literal but an idealized description of the Church, the Bride of Christ free of corruption (the language in Rev 21 lends itself to such an interpretation anyway). So even in that case, Eilish is wrong. To be fair though, many Christians conflate the description of the New Jerusalem and Heaven, but it is clear that they are two separate things. In fact, thr New Jerusalem comes out of Heaven as a separate object.