It’s 3:00 AM. You’re lying in bed, the blue light of your phone burning your retinas as you scroll through another "life update" from a high school friend. They’re holding a baby. The baby is wearing a tiny beige cardigan. Everyone looks... settled.
Suddenly, your own life—the one you spent your 20s building with sweat, caffeine, and a decent amount of ego—feels incredibly flimsy.
This is the exact nerve Charli XCX hits in charli xcx i think about it all the time lyrics.
The Stockholm realization
The song kicks off with a vignette that feels almost uncomfortably private. Charli is in Stockholm. It’s "ice cold." She’s playing demos on her iPhone, the very picture of a successful, restless musician on the grind. But then she goes to a friend's house.
She meets their baby.
"She's a radiant mother and he's a beautiful father / And now they both know these things that I don't."
📖 Related: Big Brother 27 Morgan: What Really Happened Behind the Scenes
Honestly, that last line is a gut punch. It’s not about jealousy in the "I want your life" sense. It’s the existential FOMO of realizing there is a level of human experience—a "data set" of emotions—that you simply don't have access to yet. She looks at her friend, who is wearing the "same old clothes," and realizes that while the friend looks the same, everything has fundamentally shifted.
The production reflects this. It’s sparse. It’s jittery. It sounds like a heart rate monitor in a quiet room. While the rest of Brat is busy "bumpin' that" and inviting you to the club, this track forces you to sit on the floor and deal with the silence.
"Should I stop my birth control?"
Pop stars aren't supposed to be this blunt. We’re used to metaphors about "biological clocks" or vague songs about "settling down." We aren't used to a global pop icon asking, "Should I stop my birth control?" on a hyperpop record.
It’s a jarringly real question.
Charli captures the specific anxiety of the "career ascent." When you’ve finally reached the top—when you’re finally the "it girl"—the idea of stopping feels like career suicide. She says it herself: "My career feels so small in the existential scheme of it all."
👉 See also: The Lil Wayne Tracklist for Tha Carter 3: What Most People Get Wrong
But there’s a catch. In the music industry, and really any competitive field, there’s this unspoken rule: you don’t stop when things are finally working. If you take a year off to have a kid, will the world move on? Will you still be "brat"?
The Justin Vernon connection
If you’ve listened to the remix featuring Bon Iver, the conversation goes even deeper. Justin Vernon’s contribution adds a layer of universal masculine (and general human) anxiety to the mix. He asks, "Why do you search your heart?" and "When did it get so hard?"
The remix turns a solo internal monologue into a shared grief over the passage of time. It uses a sample of Bonnie Raitt’s "Nick of Time," which is a legendary song about exactly this—the realization that time isn't infinite. Raitt herself called the use of her track "artful," noting that Charli's lyrics about being "cognizant of running out of time" resonated across generations.
The "Brat" dichotomy
The genius of placing this song on Brat is the whiplash. One minute you're listening to "365" and thinking about doing lines in a club bathroom, and the next, you're contemplating the legacy of your bloodline.
It’s messy. It’s contradictory. It’s human.
✨ Don't miss: Songs by Tyler Childers: What Most People Get Wrong
Most people get this song wrong by assuming Charli is saying she wants a baby. If you look closely at the charli xcx i think about it all the time lyrics, she’s actually saying she’s scared of wanting one. She’s scared of the sacrifice.
- "Would it make me miss all my freedom?"
- "Would it give my life a new purpose?"
She doesn't have the answer. She just has the thought. And she has it "all the time."
Why this song isn't just for parents
You don’t have to want kids to feel the weight of this track. It’s about the "roads not taken." It’s about the terrifying realization that choosing one life path automatically kills off a dozen other versions of yourself.
For some, "it" is a career change. For others, "it" is moving across the world. For Charli, "it" is motherhood.
The song ends abruptly. There’s no resolution. No "and then I decided to have a baby" moment. Just the repeated refrain, fading out into the digital ether. It leaves you with that same hollow feeling you get when the party ends and you're walking home alone in the cold.
How to process the "existential scheme of it all"
If you’re currently spiraling because of these lyrics, here are a few ways to actually use that energy instead of just staring at the ceiling:
- Audit your "purpose": Charli asks if a baby would give her life a "new purpose." Take a second to write down what currently gives you purpose. If the list is just "work" and "buying stuff," that’s why the song is hitting you so hard.
- Talk to the "Radiant Mother": If you have a friend who recently had a kid, ask them the hard questions. Not the "is he sleeping?" stuff, but the "do you feel like you lost yourself?" stuff. You’ll find the reality is much more nuanced than a Stockholm vignette.
- Acknowledge the Guilt: Charli mentions the guilt involved in "stopping" when things are working. Recognize that this is a byproduct of a hustle culture that views rest as a failure. It’s okay to want to stop. It’s also okay to want to keep going.
- Listen to the Bonnie Raitt original: To truly understand the DNA of this song, go back to "Nick of Time." It will remind you that people have been having this exact crisis since 1989 (and way before that).
The clock is ticking for everyone. That’s not a threat; it’s just a fact. The real "brat" move isn't having all the answers—it's being brave enough to admit you're terrified of the question.