Monster
Song Meaning

“Monster” is about Gabbie Hanna’s repeated experience of people drifting away or cutting her off, and the belief that she must be the common denominator, the “monster,” causing it 1. She wrote it while feeling like she was losing many people at once and questioning whether the fault was hers 1. The song frames that self-blame through childhood monster-under-the-bed imagery, portraying her as a scared, vulnerable child underneath a frightening exterior, and ultimately begs listeners to stay rather than assume the worst about her 1.

The meaning

Gabbie Hanna has said “Monster” came from a period when she felt she was “losing a lot of people” in “a lot of different directions” 1, and that the experience made her feel like she’d “done something inherently bad, or wrong” 1. That’s the emotional engine of the song: the self-interrogation that follows repeated loss, the point where “you have to ask yourself, is it me, am I the reason” 1. The opening line, “Layin’ in the bed that I made all alone,” plays directly on that idea, an idiom about sole responsibility that Hanna has confirmed is literal here: “I made it by myself, nobody else helped me here” 1.

What’s notable is that Hanna doesn’t frame every departure as a rupture. She’s described how “naturally people just fall out” without any fight or clear cause, and says that’s “okay” 1, even while admitting her own nature makes that hard to accept, hence the quiet plea buried in the first verse, “I hope you’ll miss me” 1. She’s also clear the song isn’t confined to romance: it covers “any situation where you lose someone you care about,” friendship, family, or otherwise 1.

The pre-chorus lines, “People wanna talk when I’m not around to hear” and “Clearly, I’m the one they’re afraid of,” trace back to a specific frustration: people gossiping or quietly exiting instead of confronting her directly. Hanna has said it’s “easier for people to just cut you out” than to say “I didn’t really like this” 1, and that the self-blame in “they’re afraid of” persists “whether it is or isn’t” deserved, intensified by being ghosted repeatedly 1. “They don’t know what I’m made of” she’s described as carrying a double meaning, toughness, but also something about DNA and family history 1.

The title itself grew out of childhood fear. Hanna said she pictured “a very scared little girl,” and built the monster imagery around “what is scary to a small child... a monster under your bed” 1. She’s also traced the pattern itself back that far, describing a “revolving door” of loss going back to childhood bullying, friend groups, family, and relationships 1, something she didn’t see as normal while writing the song but has since come to accept as “a part of life” 1.

Lines like “You won’t be the last one to leave” reveal how deep that conditioning runs: Hanna called it a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” a learned expectation of goodbyes and a belief she isn’t “worth sticking around for” 1, one she admits can tip into unconsciously pushing people away because there’s “comfort in goodbyes” 1. Even the bridge’s imagery of “cover” nods to how others recast her to fit their own narrative 1. But for all the fear and self-blame, Hanna’s said the song is ultimately a plea to stay: “I’m not that scary, I promise... I’m just this scared little vulnerable thing” 1.

Last updated 2026-08-28