Billie Eilish: Hostage Meaning

Song Released: 2018

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Hostage Lyrics

I wanna be alone
Alone with you, does that make sense?
I wanna steal your soul
And hide you in my treasure chest

I don't know what to do
To do with your kiss on my neck
I don't know what feels true
But this feels right so stay a...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Oct 10th 2018 report

   In my own interpretation...
   
   
   I think it has to deal with her being the abusive one, She wants to keep him but pushes him away constantly once he gets too close.
   
   In this line she says, "I'll build a wall give you a ball and chain. It's not like me to be so mean you're all I wanted, just let me hold you like a hostage"
   
   She loves him but sometimes she becomes overly aggressive with what she does, he loves her and chooses to stay through the anger and fighting, but it only hurts him at the end and makes him the hostage to her love.
   
   She goes on later to express everything about gold. Gold finger tips, gold leaf across your lips, gold chain, and gold shirt he let her wear home.
   
   Then she says "Gold's fake and real love hurts." She never had someone who actually loved her, she has a past of bad relationships so she treats this one like her last ones. Closed, Hurt, Depressed, and on Edge. Maybe she feels like she even has to "fight" him when things are going bad this could be the abusive side in her.

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   Alii

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   Oct 10th 2018 report

   I think this song is about Obsession and loneliness. Obsession being "Just let me hold--You.. like a hostage" Also "I wanna steal your soul and hide you in my treasure chest" meaning she will do anything in her power to keep him hers

3. 3TOP RATED

   #3 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Oct 8th 2018 report

   i think the song is about loneliness and obsession with one person. example when she says “just let me crawl inside your veins. i’ll build a wall give you a ball and chains” it means she is attached to someone and loves that person but they don’t feel the same way or that she loves that person so much that it hurts.
4. anonymous

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   Jan 27th report

   I think this refers to her or someone elses obbsession with someone. "its not like me to be so mean" this persons obbsesion could have been taken so far that they are so obsesed they will be so mean just to be with that person. they could also be toxic. this song just refers to being a hostage in obsesive toxic love.
5. anonymous

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   Apr 8th 2021 report

   i think that the way she describes wanting to hold them hostage is so that she can have them all to her self and in doing so they become trapped
   
   and the usage of gold shows the rarity and how valuable their touch means too her.
6. anonymous

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   May 26th 2020 report

   she loves him and will trap him to keep it. Billie Eilish wants to be with some one but also can not handle it and wants to leave he but she cant stay away. “I want to be alone, Alone with you - does that make sense? I wanna steal your soul And hide you in my treasure chest” (stanza 1) she wants to hide him from the world and loves him and wants to spend the rest of her days. She is all so asking if he wants to be alone with her.
   
   
   
7. anonymous

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   May 16th 2020 report

   She is in love, in weeb interpretation she is like a Yandere without the killing. She is obsessed with someone and wants to keep that person and be with him forever. Even though he doesn't feel the same, she'll do anything to have him in her heart.
   

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
8. trashed_pineapple

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   Feb 10th 2020 report

   In "Hostage", the narrator (Billie) does nothing but express her immense love for her lover. According to her, her sole aim in life is to keep him hostage. Here, she uses it as a metaphor to describe how much she wants to keep her lover to herself. The intense love the narrator displays for her partner has traces of obsession. Her obsessive desire to have total possession of her partner fits perfectly into obsessive love and psychopathy.
9. anonymous

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   Jan 12th 2020 report

   She is in love with someone and doesnt want to lose that person.
10. anonymous

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    Jan 3rd 2020 report

    I think this song is about heroin. “Crawl inside your veins” “hide you in my treasure chest”. It’s about an addiction to heroin and feeling the best while high on it, imo
11. anonymous

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    Dec 7th 2019 report

    This song is about an addiction that she has to this one person. The person is all she has wanted, so she wants to be with this person constantly. She never wants to leave the person. She would do anything to be with them. She creates this image throughout the song by saying “you’re all I wanted”.
    
12. anonymous

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    Jul 23rd 2019 report

    I think it means that she doesn’t know who she loves. So, she thinks he feels right but yet doesn’t know yet. She wants to hold him hostage or in other words keep him from finding someone until she knows he is the one. She thinks that she loves him but is not certain. So much has happened to her and he’s the one she can turn to in that moment. Idk I could be completely wrong about this but that’s what it means for me anyway. I can relate to it a lot. I can relate to a lot of her songs so much that I feel like some of them are an exact interpretation of my life and what’s going on in it at that exact moment.
13. anonymous

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    Feb 19th 2019 report

    addiction, to anything being the one addicted..or having an addiction and she left it open for anyone to relate it to whatever demons ans addictions they are being held hostage too.
14. anonymous

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    Dec 12th 2018 report

    i think it is something related to sleep demons or demon visitations (succubus and inccubus) during sleep paralysis episodes. when i first heard of this song i felt like she's really narating what sleep demons are and what they want. the line "just let me hold you like a hostage" got me like freak for a moment because that's how it feels when you're on sleep paralysis, you will feel very helpless. i really love biliie

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
15. anonymous

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    Oct 10th 2018 report

    I think it's about taking someone's love for granted. She says "don't lock me up
    Don't you want to feel us." She loves someone but they abuse that love.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
16. anonymous

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    Aug 13th 2018 report

    I think this is about loving someone so much that it hurts

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