The Real Meaning Behind The Weeknd's 'Can't Feel My Face'

Publish date: 2024-03-17

If the name of The Weeknd's song "Can't Feel My Face" sounds familiar, that may be because it's a line that can be heard in 2001's Blow, a film that features a lot of cocaine use. After doing a line of cocaine, Bobcat Goldthwait's character Mr. T tells the other men that he's with, "I can't feel my face. I mean, I can touch it but I can't feel it inside." Does that mean that The Weeknd's song is about cocaine? Some people think so... Sort of.

Perhaps due to the fact that The Weeknd has been open about his own drug use, there are those who think that "Can't Feel My Face" is, per Genuis, a song that "personifies drug addiction, likening it to the love of a woman..." On the other hand, philosophy graduate Martin T. Hadley broke things down for Vice by claiming that the song "is about dependence, desperation, a lack of inhibition, isolation, and relatedly, self-esteem, anxiety, misery, and ultimately, a pained and inauspicious death." Hadley suggests that the song is an "extended metaphor" of the artist's devotion to a lover.

The Weeknd happened to be with model Bella Hadid around that time, but when she was asked if any of his music was about her, she told Entertainment Tonight, "There's a lot that goes on his mind, so I don't know if it's about me..."

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