Songfacts®:

• This fuzzy ballad's title is a reference to Xanax, an anti-anxiety prescription drug that has a particularly high risk for misuse and dependence in the hip-hop community. Here, Billie Eilish talks about the drugged-up friends surrounding her.
  
  I don't need a Xanny to feel better
  On designated drives home
  Only one who's not stoned
  Don't give me a Xanny, now or ever
  
  Speaking to The Guardian, Eilish explained that she's never done recreational drugs of any kind herself. "I've never got high, I've never smoked anything in my life. I don't give a f--k, I never have," she said. "It's just not interesting to me. I have other s--t to do."
• Eilish explained to The Guardian that the song's message is not so much "don't do drugs"; it's more "be safe."
  
  She added that her plea is deep-rooted in her own experiences with loss as she doesn't "want my friends to die any more."
• The distorted ear-splitting bass in the chorus was designed to sound uncomfortable. "If you're just sitting in a room and you listen to this song, the chorus kind of, like, throws itself at you. Like 'I'm in their secondhand smoke,'" Eilish said to MTV News of what she describes as "broken-sounding bass."
  
  She added, "I just wanted it to sound the way that it feels to breathe in recycled breath. Recycled, poisonous breath, I may add. I just wanted it to feel miserable."
• The haunting video sees Eilish singing on a padded bench while unseen people put out cigarettes on her face. Her face is covered in tiny, dark burns as the secondhand smoke, referenced in the lyrics, fills the room. The clip, which marks Eilish's directorial debut, highlights the discomfort some people can feel when other people are smoking.