What does Hate Me mean?

Blue October: Hate Me Meaning

Album cover for Hate Me album cover
Get "Hate Me" on MP3: Get MP3 from iTunes

Hate Me Lyrics

(If you're sleeping are you dreaming
If your dreaming are you dreaming of me?
I can't believe you actually picked me.)

(”Hi Justin, this is your mother, and it's 2:33 on Monday afternoon.
I was just calling to see how you were doing.
You...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Apr 7th 2012 !⃝

    I think this is to his mother, he has suffered from depression. She has been his cheerleader, so to speak. She has been positive, but ineffective...he is still a depressed guy. He feels guilty about this, and she really cannot help. He wishes she would just hate him and then he wouldn't feel so guilty. He would rather she hate him and give up on him, let him just fade away...
    Hate me today
    Hate me tomorrow
    Hate me for all the things I didn't do for you

    Hate me in ways
    Yeah ways hard to swallow
    Hate me so you can finally see what’s good for you

    The responsibility toward someone who loves him is more of a burden than just living with their hatred.

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Aug 9th 2006 !⃝

    Justin has answered this question in interviews. His answers now tend to be vague because he doesn't want to force an interpretation on anyone, but when the album was new he was much more specific. He wrote this song originally about his ex-girlfriend. It was written to be a "please move on" song to her. While he was working on the song he got the voice-mail from his mom that you hear at the beginning, and realized that he had a lot more people to apologize to than just his ex, so he re-interpreted it as an apology to everyone that he'd put through hard times, including both his ex and his mom especially. Then the video director came up with the "it's too late, mom is dead" interpretation, but if you watch the video, the last scene she's actually alive and they're drinking iced tea together, so a little hint of hope at the end.

    Long story short, if you are getting different interpretations of this song, it's because it has multiple meanings layered on top of each other. It is first an apology to his ex, second an apology to others he hurt by his behavior, and third as story about losing his mother.

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    May 6th 2014 !⃝

    This song is clearly about an addiction and it's negative affect on a relationship. Whether it be with a family member or a significant other.

  4. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Feb 5th 2023 !⃝

    Im about 15 years late to the party, but for someone who relates heavily to most of this song, “playing movies in my head that make a porno feel like home,” it immediately only makes me thing one thing. Thoughts about suicide, relapse, etc. not that pornos are home, but that the projector in your head is constantly showing you terrible and emotionally painful things, and compared to them, a porno feels like home.

  5. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 23rd 2020 !⃝

    This is a very triggering song for me. This reminds me a lot of my mother. (I have to block out thoughts of you so I don't lose my head, they're crawling like a cockroach leaving babies in my bed) I haven't really accepted that my mom died 3 years ago and when I think of her I can't because I will go crazy. I lost my mon at 26 and we had an extremely tumultuous relationship. I was mean she was mean we just were so mean to one another. She helped me in so many ways tho, because she loved me but I was so difficult. She out her whole life around me....it made her depressed while she was dealing with cancer. We made up towards the end but I could have appreciated her more and I didn't. I was selfish and young and didn't realize the pain she was experiencing. This song hits me everytime and I lose it.

  6. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 26th 2018 !⃝

    Justin wanted everyone to hate because of his schizophrenia cos then they would leave him alone (what he wanted) and he didnt want the attention.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  7. autumnl1214
    click a star to vote
    Oct 31st 2014 !⃝

    He's been hurting this girl and he loves her but doesn't want to hurt her anymore.

  8. anonymous
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    May 15th 2013 !⃝

    Justin wrote Calling You for his girlfriend as a birthday present--while he was cheating on her the whole time. Hate Me was his apology song. I know this is true because I went to a concert and he told me this.

  9. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 13th 2012 !⃝

    Even though I saw the interview of where Justin says its an apology song to everyone who he didn't treat so well when he was going through some personal issues (alcohol and whatever else,) I tend to agree with the top rated number 2 and 3.

    And if anyone is interested, although she found him passed out on the floor, the grave was his mom's as the sign over it says in loving memory Ro-Anne Furstenfeld.

    I think he is trying to make amends to her for all she did and all he put her through and he wants her to be happy before she dies (as she is alive in the end.)

  10. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 24th 2012 !⃝

    He's apologizing to everyone he thinks he hurt.

  11. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jan 14th 2012 !⃝

    This song reminds me of a friend of mine I really fell hard for; we dated off and on for a couple months. He finally ended it because we would go through cycles of being at the top of the world, and then come crashing down after a fight about something. For a while, I wondered if it would be better if he hated me, if none of it had ever happened, etc. The last verse gives me chills because as much as I "make a smile come back and shine the way things used to be," it's never going to be the same between us. I'm always going to have that little twinge in my heart when he brings up certain topics, a rush of resentment when he mentions others.

  12. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 4th 2011 !⃝

    When I first heard this song, I thought of a best friend I had that I belive had Borderline Personality Disorder. (look it up). This song reminds be of what any kind of relationship or friendship with a borderline is like.

  13. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 26th 2011 !⃝

    This song is originally about Justin disappointing his mother. If you listen to the full song with the tape record playing in the beginning, it's his mother leaving a message and wondering how Justin is doing with his rehab. The song IS about how he was addicted to drugs and his mother helped him off his addiction, ("I'm sober now, for three whole months, that's one accomplishment that you helped me with"). But he is telling his mother personally (inferred in the song): hate me so you can live happily, and don't die in disappointment in me.
    Justin doesn't want his mom to die with such huge disappointment in him, so it's inferred she died in disappointment, which is what Justin doesn't want. And the whole "Hate me, today....Hate me tomorrow..." and the rest of the chorus is him telling his mother to hate him, and if she does hate him then she won't care and she wouldn't bother with him so she can be happy with her life and not in disappointment in him which Justin fears might happen.
    In the end she loves him and she will never hate him because the love she has for her son Justin is very strong.

  14. Mina
    click a star to vote
    Aug 23rd 2011 !⃝

    To me, the song envokes the same feelings that Hinder's 'Better Than Me' does ... a guy who screwed someone over who was always there for him and forced an end to it for the better of that other person. The song is raw and powerful, but seems to end on a strong note because the storyteller is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

    The lead singer reveals the meaning behind the song in a 2006 interview that can be read at:
    http://www.ink19.com/issues/june2006/interviews/blueOctoberReality.html

  15. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jun 23rd 2011 !⃝

    Its all about his drug or drinking addiction. His mother calls in the beginning which she never gives up on him. Wants to know if shes ok. He talks the first paragraph about what he is going through with quiting his addiction. Then second paragraph talks about how his mom is there know matter what he went through, suicide, etc. Last paragraph he talks about trying to get rid of it and why won't it go away. Hate me today, he hates himself and tomorrow because he can't stop. But his loved ones still love him even though they hate his addiction.

  16. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Apr 19th 2011 !⃝

    this song is about how a son has caused his mother to have alot of pain. the song is telling the mother to move on and forget al that he has done to her. in the song the son doent want to think about the things that he's done and his mother. he also thanks his mother for sticking with him when he was having a "war" with himself.

  17. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 26th 2011 !⃝

    In my interpretation and from previous experiences, I think this song is about someone thanking another person for everything but basically saying hate me and forget it all, because you deserve way better... even though you helped me with so much, I just want you to have the best. The person still loves the other and they with they were yours, but I just want you to be happy with someone who won't hurt you like I did.. because all you ever did was give me the best, and you deserve the best. So just forget me because I never gave you that.

  18. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 12th 2011 !⃝

    Hate me is a song to his mother he wrote this to her as he was trying to get over her death it a good-bye song.

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