Taylor Swift has explained the lyrics to ‘Actually Romantic’, the song widely rumoured to be a diss track directed at Charli XCX.
Swift released her 12th studio album ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’ today (October 3), the follow-up to last year’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, and of the 12 new songs, none has been dissected quite as closely as ‘Actually Romantic’.
Many fans have interpreted the lyrics to the song to contain a swipe at Charli XCX. “I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave,” Swift sings. “High-fived my ex and then said you’re glad he ghosted me/ Wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face/ Some people might be offended/ But it’s actually sweet.”
Many have considered this a rebuttal to Charli’s ‘Sympathy Is A Knife’ from ‘Brat’, on which she sang: “Don’t know if I’m spiralling/ One voice tells me that they laugh/ George says I’m just paranoid/ Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show/ Fingers crossed behind my back/ I hope they break up real quick.”
This line stuck out to fans upon the track’s release, as Charli XCX is now married to The 1975 drummer George Daniel, while Swift was in a brief relationship with that band’s frontman Matty Healy in 2023.
Now, Swift has cast some light on the meaning of ‘Actually Romantic’, in an audio track-by-track breakdown of the new album for Amazon Music.
She described ‘Actually Romantic’ as “a song about realising that someone else has kind of had a one-sided, adversarial relationship with you that you didn’t know about. And all of a sudden they start doing too much and they start letting you know that actually, you’ve been living in their head rent-free and you had no idea.”
She continued: “It’s presenting itself as them sort of resenting you or having a problem with you but you take that and just accept it as love and you accept it as attention and affection, and how flattering that somebody has made you such a big part of their reality when you didn’t even think about this.
“It’s actually pretty romantic if you really think about it.”
Charli has not responded to ‘Actually Romantic’ yet, but she and Swift have both publicly defended each other since the release of ‘Sympathy Is A Knife’ last year.
At a concert in Brazil in June last year, a fan shouted “Taylor Swift is dead”, prompting Charli to criticise the fan: “Can the people who do this please stop. Online or at my shows. It is the opposite of what I want and it disturbs me that anyone would think there is room for this in this community. I will not tolerate it.”
In August last year, Swift said: “I’ve been blown away by Charli’s melodic sensibilities since I first heard ‘Stay Away’ in 2011. Her writing is surreal and inventive, always. She just takes a song to places you wouldn’t expect it to go, and she’s been doing it consistently for over a decade. I love to see hard work like that pay off.”
Charli has also denied that ‘Sympathy Is A Knife’ was written about Swift: “People are gonna think what they want to think. That song is about me and my feelings and my anxiety and the way my brain creates narratives and stories in my head when I feel insecure and how I don’t want to be in those situations physically when I feel self-doubt.”
In 2019, Charli also spoke to Pitchfork about the experience of opening for Swift on her ‘Reputation’ stadium tour, saying that while she was “really grateful” for the opportunity, “it kind of felt like I was getting up on stage and waving at five-year-olds”. She later clarified that “there is absolutely no shade and only love” between the two artists.
As soon as ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’ dropped, fans have been sharing their thoughts on the record, with some calling it “her best album” and the return of “pop perfection”, and others declaring it “the worst Taylor Swift album yet” and “boring and basic”. You can also explore the range of Easter eggs and references on the album here.
She has also indicated that she has no intention of heading out on tour again anytime soon, after the gargantuan effort that went into her record-breaking ‘Eras’ tour.
