Hailee Steinfeld's song Starving talks about the sudden realization of her hunger for a love so passionate and strong that all others life experiences seem insipid compared to it. Starting the first verse with "You know just what to say/Shit, that scares me, I should just walk away/But I can't move my feet", Hailee depicts the tremulous feeling of a self-awareness of the intensity of the situation, yet she feels powerless to do anything about it. In the lines "I was so much younger yesterday, oh/I didn't know that I was starving till I tasted you", Hailee metaphorically compares her pre-love life to the state of being hungry and unfulfilled, that is to say, something was always missing, and she couldn't figure out what it was until she tasted the feeling of love.

As the song proceeds, the chorus "I didn't know that I was starving till I tasted you/Don't need no butterflies when you give me the whole damn zoo/By the way, by the way, you do things to my body/I didn't know that I was starving till I tasted you" reflects her awe at the feeling of experiencing true love which, in her view, is worth more than just momentary infatuation, shown by the line 'Don't need no butterflies when you give me the whole damn zoo'. The bridge emphasizes the physical and emotional effects of this love-like earthquake: "You know just how to make my heart beat faster/Emotional earthquake, bring on disaster/ You hit me head-on, got me weak in my knees." With these lyrics, Hailee describes the overwhelming nature of the love she feels, which makes her so vulnerable, yet she chooses to embrace it because she has never felt this complete.

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