On “Good Girl,” Paris Paloma dismantles patriarchal beauty standards through dance-pop defiance and unflinching honesty.

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Stream: “Good Girl” – Paris Paloma

Heaven is a fed girl / Somebody’s got to, somebody’s got to / And if you call me “good girl” / One more time, then my fist will meet your skull…

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“Good Girl” doesn’t begin with melody so much as truth.

Before the music fully arrives, Paris Paloma opens the song with spoken word – observations on body image and self-worth delivered plainly, insistently, as if daring the listener to look away. It’s an arresting choice, and an intentional one. The opening demands attention, not admiration; it asks you to listen closely, to sit with discomfort, to recognize yourself in the quiet rage beneath the words. What follows feels like permission – to nod along, to take notes, to scream softly in a register that has never been considered acceptable or feminine. In conversation with her earlier single “Good Boy,” “Good Girl” feels both like a continuation and a rupture: a refusal that arrives dancing.

I sometimes walk naked,
a child in the garden, and
I pretend that there is no other way
Despite the distant shadow
of incredulous laughter,
echoing as if I should
know why it’s there

But I like the feeling,
I’m at the beginning of time,
and no thoughts of who I am
have entered my mind
I bend over the river
and catch the glimpse of
something that’s none of my business
As I scoop some up to drink,
I disperse whatever it was

And you can scream at me
all you want that the greatest
love affair is with myself
That it should be passionate, unwavering
No shadow of a doubt that
I am in love with my body,
and my body is in love with me
But I am not, the water is not
in love with the cup
that I drank from

Released on January 30, 2026, “Good Girl” is the latest standalone single from Paris Paloma, one of the most vital feminist voices in contemporary pop. Known for weaving myth, rage, and tenderness into her work, Paloma has built a career on confronting systems that ask women to shrink themselves – most famously with her Gold-certified cultural lightning rod “labour.” “Good Girl” follows “Good Boy,” the razor-sharp counterpart critiquing the manosphere, and together the two songs signal a new chapter in her work – one that is louder, bolder, and less interested in compromise.

Sonically, “Good Girl” marks a striking shift.

While traces of Paloma’s folk-rooted storytelling remain, the track leans unapologetically into synth-pop, flirting with dance-pop in a way that feels both liberating and defiant. There’s something of early CHVRCHES here – the pulse and propulsion of The Bones of What You Believe, the communal lift of songs like “The Mother We Share.” The chants echo the ritualistic energy of “Hunter,” but the sound is brighter, more kinetic, built for movement. It’s music that invites the body back into the room – not as an object to be judged, but as something alive, capable of joy and rebellion at once.

Heaven is a fed girl
Somebody’s got to, somebody’s got to
And if you call me “good girl”
One more time, then
my fist will meet your skull

Lyrically, Paloma remains as incisive as ever. Lines like “Getting out and wading back in through the quagmire of who I might be / Balancing the scaffolding of skin” capture the exhausting intimacy of inhabiting a body under constant surveillance. Later, she sings, “I’ll die gnarled and happy, an old animal / I’d gnaw off my leg to escape it all,” choosing ferality over obedience, survival over performance. The song articulates what so many women live daily: a fraught relationship with their own bodies shaped by diet culture, patriarchy, and the relentless pressure to be pleasing. Healing, Paloma suggests, is not graceful. It’s messy, painful, and necessary.

For God’s sake, how could I even begin
To clean up the mess of this relationship
With my body? That third eye
turnin’ inwards on me
Runnin’ as if in a dream,
gettin’ out and wadin’ back in
Through the quagmire of who I might be
Balancing the scaffolding of skin
And I grieve it
I grieve the world where
I am a child in the garden

Heaven is a fed girl
Somebody’s got to, somebody’s got to
And if you call me “good girl”
One more time, then my
fist will meet your skull
Heaven is a fed girl
Somebody’s got to, somebody’s got to
And if you call me “good girl”
One more time, then
I will break your nose

What makes “Good Girl” resonate so deeply is how personal its defiance feels.

In statements surrounding the release, Paloma has spoken openly about the violence embedded in patriarchal beauty standards – the way they encourage women to commit harm against themselves in pursuit of approval, mistaking social validation for empowerment. The song becomes an act of refusal: a rejection of the idea that a woman’s body exists for consumption or ornamentation, insisting instead on bodily autonomy and self-definition.

On a personal level, “Good Girl” feels like a door opening. For listeners who grew up without artists like Paris Paloma to look to – especially women now navigating their thirties and beyond – the song unlocks grief for what was missing, alongside hope for what’s possible. It imagines a future where younger generations might pause before making themselves smaller for desire, approval, or love. Emotionally, it invites gentleness toward the self; thematically, it reinforces why feminism and conversations around patriarchy remain urgent, unfinished work.

“Good Girl” doesn’t ask women to be palatable or polite. It offers something better: a feminist dance floor where nobody is performing, everybody is sweating, and joy itself becomes an act of resistance. If this song signals the beginning of a new era, it’s one rooted not in perfection, but in freedom – and Paris Paloma is only just getting started.

And I say it to myself, “Somebody’s got to”
And I repeat it in my teeth, “Somebody’s got to”
Cut free and let the soft down grow on you
Never let the tide be one more drop full
Go under the knife, make a new normal
Or die gnarled and happy, an old animal
I’d gnaw off my leg to escape it all
Let time take me, weather like the tree
How clever to make a girl’s own face the enemy
In the half-light, she’ll agonise to be evergreen
A “Good girl always look and never be”

Heaven is a fed girl
Somebody’s got to, somebody’s got to
And if you call me “good girl”
One more time, then my fist will meet your skull
Heaven is a fed girl
Somebody’s got to, somebody’s got to
And if you call me “good girl”
One more time, then I will break your nose

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