10 Songs About Hating Yourself & Self Loathing
Self-loathing is the constant feeling of hating yourself that can lead to other worse conditions such as depression and substance abuse. It is constantly pushing the idea that you are not good enough hence you end up feeling like you don’t deserve love. There are consistent negative thoughts that are closely tied to excessive self-criticism. Below is a list of songs about hating yourself:
1. Taylor Swift – Anti-Hero
The track is from the album Midnights (2022) and it debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 marking her ninth number-one single and fifth number one debut. Generally, Taylor sings about a darker self-perception than usual as she goes into detail about what she feels are her personal failures.
In her behind-the-song video, Taylor had this to say about the song:
Anti-Hero” is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. I really don’t think I’ve delved this far into my insecurities in this detail before. I struggle with the idea that my life has become unmanageably sized and I, not to sound too dark, but I just struggle with the idea of not feeling like a person. This song is a real guided tour throughout all the things I tend to hate about myself, and it’s all those aspects of the things we dislike and like about ourselves that we have to come to terms with if we are gonna be this person
2. Tate McRae – Hate Myself
This is the 6th track off of Tate McRae’s debut album. Tate stated that she recorded the song at the night of her breakup when she was sobbing. Lyrically we see the singer saying harsh words directed to herself after breaking up from her significant other and blames herself for making him unhappy.
Speaking to Apple Music, Tate had this to say about the song, “I feel like in [failed] relationships, the first thing people will do is make themselves a victim, because the easiest way to heal from things is to blame something on the other person. And I feel like I’m really opposite in that sense—a lot of the time, I’ll take the blame for everything, and I’ll over analyze everything that I did wrong to wreck something. There’s that line ‘After I just put you right through hell/You couldn’t hate me more than I hate myself’—I think that was a really cool way to approach this situation. I had just recently gone through a fresh breakup the day I wrote this”
3. NF – Hate Myself
Just like other songs in the album The Search, there are themes of self-hatred and it seems to be the biggest problem he is facing. He was facing depression and anxiety following the death of his mother due to an overdose and also emotional abuse from her boyfriends.
NF’s fans want to know more about him and help him become happy but he doesn’t understand why since he can’t see his life in a positive light.
4. Eli – Worthless
Eli starts by singing about how alone he always feels even when surrounded by people that he knows. He says that he has bad traits that tend to destroy his friendships. Now he watches them progress with their lives on his phone and wishes he was as happy as they are.
Eli thinks his life is worthless and just wants to make it worse by harming himself.
5. Blue October – Hate Me
The song was originally written to be about Justin’s ex-girlfriend but the music video was re-framed to be about Justin’s relationship with his mother. He believes that the best thing he can do for his mom and girlfriend or anyone who cares about him in his life is to remove the trouble from their life. He thinks that trouble is himself. He wants them to hate him so that they can see the better things out there for them.
6. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – I Hate Myself For Loving You
This is the first single from Joan Jett and The Blackhearts 1988 album. Lyrically, it is about hating yourself because you love someone a bit too much that you feel like you can’t break away from them.
The song reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was her third and final top 10 hit in the US. It was nominated for Best Rock Performance By A Duo or Group With Vocal at the 31st Grammy Awards in 1989.
7. Pink – Don’t Let Me Get Me
This is the second off the album Don’t Let Me Get Me. It reached #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 and #8 on the Hot 100. The main message in the song is about hating yourself. Pink hates the way she looks and this is lowering her self-esteem. She is tired of being compared to other stars who are prettier such as Britney Spears.
8. I Prevail – Breaking Down
This is the second single from the album Trauma. The music video describes how depression can take control of your life and at the end of the video Brian Burkheiser mentions that he struggles with depression every day.
9. Amy Winehouse – You Know I’m Not Good
In this track, Amy uses her drug and alcohol use to justify her infidelity in a relationship. We also get to see Amy’s lifestyle of heavy drinking and addiction which lead to her death in 2011. She paints a picture of her reckless relationship with her man. Despite all the red flags she displayed, her man still takes her back and looks past all her actions.
10. Radiohead – Creep
Creep tells the story of an inebriated man who tries to get the attention of a woman to whom he is attracted to by following her around. However, he lacks the self-confidence to face her and feels her subconsciously is her.
Thom Yorke stated this was the direction of the song, “to assert a sexual persona and on the other hand trying desperately to negate it.”