Years apart, “This Is Me” from “The Greatest Showman” soundtrack told the same writer entirely different stories about herself
Some songs arrive like old friends—familiar, comforting, unchanged. Others show up as mirrors, reflecting back whoever we’ve become since we last pressed play. For one listener this week, “This Is Me” from The Greatest Showman did the latter, revealing just how far she’d traveled from the person who’d first heard it.
The current encounter was joyful, almost reckless. Alone in her car, she played the anthem on repeat, belting the empowerment-laced verses with full commitment—hand gestures, facial expressions, the works. Never mind the passersby. Never mind her self-admitted lack of dancing prowess. The song demanded performance, and she delivered.
But rewind several years, and the same track prompted an entirely different response: tears streaming down her face on a drive home from work. She still remembers the specific road, the way the opening verse about hiding broken parts and learning shame hit like an emotional ambush. At the time, the song’s arc—from criticism to self-acceptance to defiant triumph—felt unreachable. She was stuck in the first act, learning to live with her scars rather than rise above them.
“I thought I needed to let go of aspirations to be truly happy,” she writes, “believing my voice carried no real weight. I lost all confidence in my ability to be a leader.”
The transformation wasn’t instant. It required what she now calls learning to be “comfortable being uncomfortable”—a gradual recalibration of how she saw herself and what she believed she deserved. This week, when the song came on again, it landed differently. The lyrics about bursting through barricades and not letting shame sink in felt less like aspirational fiction and more like autobiography.
“I am a warrior,” she declares. Then, crucially: “Matter of fact, WE are warriors. I want everyone to know that.”
It’s a small pivot—from “I” to “we”—but it signals something larger. The song that once isolated her in grief now connects her to others still fighting their way toward self-acceptance. The personal breakthrough becomes communal invitation.
This is what great songs do when we give them time. They don’t change—we do. The melody remains constant while we cycle through different versions of ourselves, each one hearing something new in the same arrangement of notes and words. “This Is Me” didn’t become a different song. It simply waited for its listener to become a different person.
From despair to resilience, from tears to triumph, the arc of one song mirrored the arc of one life. The beauty isn’t just in the music itself, but in the stories we layer onto it—evolving, resonating, surprising us with what we’re capable of becoming.
Sometimes the most powerful performance isn’t the one happening onstage. It’s the one happening inside us, soundtracked by whatever song happens to be playing when we finally figure out who we are.
—Based on a personal essay by Loretta Tappan, of RoLo Entertainment
“This is Me” Lyrics
I am not a stranger to the dark
“Hide away, ” they say
“‘Cause we don’t want your broken parts”
I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars
“Run away, ” they say
“No one’ll love you as you are”
But I won’t let them break me down to dust
I know that there’s a place for us
For we are glorious
When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown ’em out
I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I’m meant to be, this is me
Look out ’cause here I come
And I’m marching on to the beat I drum
I’m not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh, oh
Another round of bullets hits my skin
Well, fire away ’cause today, I won’t let the shame sink in
We are bursting through the barricades and
Reaching for the sun (we are warriors)
Yeah, that’s what we’ve become (yeah, that’s what we’ve become)
I won’t let them break me down to dust
I know that there’s a place for us
For we are glorious
When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown ’em out
I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I’m meant to be, this is me
Look out ’cause here I come
And I’m marching on to the beat I drum
I’m not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh, oh
This is me
and I know that I deserve your love
(Oh-oh-oh-oh) there’s nothing I’m not worthy of
(Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh, oh)
When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown ’em out
This is brave, this is bruised
This is who I’m meant to be, this is me
Look out ’cause here I come (look out ’cause here I come)
And I’m marching on to the beat I drum (marching on, marching, marching on)
I’m not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me
Whenever the words wanna cut me down (oh-oh-oh-oh)
I’ll send a flood to drown ’em out (oh, oh-oh, oh-oh)
I’m gonna send a flood (oh-oh-oh-oh)
Gonna drown them ’em out (oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh, oh)
Oh
This is me
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Benj Pasek / Justin Paul
This Is Me lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Walt Disney Music Company