Songfacts®:

• This rousing song of self-acceptance was written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul for the P.T. Barnum musical biopic The Greatest Showman. Pasek and Paul's resume also includes the music for the Oscar-winning film La La Land as well as the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen.
• The defiant song is sung by Hawaii native Keala Settle who portrays the bearded lady, Lettie Lutz, in the biographical drama. The Lettie Lutz portrayed in The Greatest Showman was in real life Annie Jones Elliot (1865 –1902), an American bearded woman, who spent much of her career with P.T. Barnum in his "Greatest Show on Earth." Jones was known for her musical talents and gracious etiquette and acted as a spokesperson for Barnum's "Freaks."
• "This Is Me" is a fight song for people who are not accepted by society. It is sung by Lettie Lutz after she and the rest of the circus troupe are barred by Barnum from an after party following Jenny Lind's performance. The bearded lady refuses to be cut down by the fact that the showman is embarrassed by them.
  
  "It was really inspired by the group of oddities in the film, and what they came to represent and what [director] Michael [Gracey] talked about them representing," Pasek told Billboard. "People who had lived in the shadows their whole lives and for the first time wanted to feel love and acceptance, and even when P.T. Barnum turns his back on them, they make a statement - not only to him, but to themselves - that they declare to love themselves for the first time."
• This won the best original song award at the 2018 Golden Globes. The victory meant that Pasek and Paul were back-to-back winners in the category, after they nabbed the statue in 2017 for La La Land's "City of Stars," co-written with the film's composer Justin Hurwit.
• Kesha recorded a cover version for an album containing interpretations by contemporary pop artists of the songs on The Greatest Showman soundtrack.
• The song was inspired in part by the struggles that Benj Pasek endured in his own life. "I'm a gay man who grew up in the closet when I was a teenager," he explained to Billboard. "You experience the world telling you that you're not lovable, you're unwanted, or something about you is broken, and you feel like you have to fix yourself or hide yourself."
  
  "I think it's amazing to work on a song that you think is your own private struggle and you realize that once you shine a little bit of light on it, there are a lot of other people sort of huddling in the dark there too," Pasek continued. "And that other people relate to that idea or relate to that message and can find a sort of communion in that message."
• "This Is Me" was written as an internal monologue for the bearded lady, after the scene where Barnum rejects Lettie Lutz and the rest of his troupe at the high society party. The song later transforms into a communal moment for all the "freaks", as they all sing together in an ensemble. Justin Paul explained to Genius:
  
  "We always wrote it knowing that it could be an internal moment for her. Like expressing what she's feeling in that moment of having being let down, or just so broken. I think the way we wrote it she was talking to herself. It becomes much more external and much more for everyone else, and she kinds of rallies those troops so to speak. Claim the moment and say this is us. But that was her internal monologue."
• This was nominated for the Best Original Song Oscar, but lost to "Remember Me" from the film Coco. Settle's emotional performance was a highlight of the ceremony as she sang her way through tears to deliver a powerful anthem with the help of a diverse troupe of backup dancers/singers.
• The song featured in an NBC Sports Winter Olympics promo.