The obvious drama on Taylor Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl is “Actually Romantic,” the alleged response track to Charli XCX’s “Sympathy is a Knife.” While the petty lyrics are aimed at a certain someone who calls Taylor “Boring Barbie,” the song sounds directly from Olivia Rodrigo’s guts. Wait, is that feud still a thing? Swift digs deeper on “Father Figure,” a song that posthumously doles out writing credits to George Michael, propping herself up as inspiration and guidance to “a younger version of me.” “I saw potential,” she sings on the outro.
When Olivia Rodrigo emerged from her Disney+ cocoon with “drivers license,” her identity as a devout Swiftie was well documented. She caught the attention of Swift, they mutually posted loving photos together when they finally met at the BRIT Awards, and Rodrigo quickly became a meaningful part of the first “Taylor’s Version” rollout. Rodrigo even intentionally interpolated the piano chords of “New Year’s Day” on her Sour track “1 step forward, 2 steps back.” But her open affection eventually cost her millions in royalties after she gave Swift a retroactive credit on Rodrigo’s hit “Deja Vu” for interpolating the bridge of “Cruel Summer.” Ever since, fans have speculated about a falling out between the two pop stars. Drake and Kendrick, step aside, because breadcrumbs about the rift have seemingly been spread throughout the pop stars’ songs ever since. Below, every lyric that could lead back to the bad blood between the diaristic songwriters. Who’s afraid of this little old beef? You should be.
“Vampire”
Olivia Rodrigo has claimed she was “very surprised” when fans interpreted lyrics from her sophomore album’s debut single as digs at Taylor Swift. Years later, I’m even less convinced by that. The first possible dig at Swift comes almost immediately: “How’s the castle built off people you pretend to care about?” The vision of Taylor, high up in a castle protecting her kingdom, comes up regularly in the fight. Swift has built a… reputation… as a maternal figure fighting for younger artists’ rights, but if we are to believe the rumors about the feud, is it all pretend?
Rodrigo sings, “Six months of torture you sold as some forbidden paradise. I loved you truly.” Yes, this could be her situationship with disgrace-to-my-first-name Zack Bia. But given “drivers license” was released in January 2021, and the songwriting credit was officially doled out to Swift and her “Cruel Summer” co-writers in July that year, could these six months be the brief period in which Taylor took Olivia under her wing?
As with everything Taylor, it always comes back to the money. Olivia sings, “The way you sold me for parts,” and “Bleedin’ me dry like a goddamn vampire.” While Taylor would never “fame fuck” Olivia (I’ll leave another sect of fans to discuss that), these lyrics may point to the financial stakes of Taylor’s team demanding credit for the interpolation on “Deja Vu.”
Finally, the lyrics “And every girl I ever talked to told me you were bad, bad news / You called them crazy, god, I hate the way I called them crazy too,” don’t immediately seem like Taylor call-outs remembering the mentors who have filled the private-jet-sized vacancy left by Swift in Olivia’s life, they could be. Think Katy Perry and Alanis Morissette, who she agreed with about the “bullying and a lot of jealousy” coming from former idols who ended up “being mean girls.”
“The Grudge”
If “the grudge” just sounds like a breakup song to you, it should. Being betrayed by a boy is a slap in the face; being betrayed by your hero is a true gut punch. Nestled in that six months of torture, Rodrigo opens with, “I have nightmares each week about that Friday in May, one phone call from you and my entire world was changed.” Sour was released Friday, May 21, 2021. It’s safe to guess that upon hearing her influence on the album, Taylor reached out to Olivia on the day of its release to start the conversation about royalties. (Even if she needed a week to let her vampiric teeth sink in, Friday, May 28, 2021 is on the table, too.)
Rodrigo sings, “You took everything I loved and crushed it in between your fingers.” Everything is Taylor Nation, naturally. She admits, “I say I don’t care, I say that I’m fine… but you know I can’t let it go, I’ve tried, I’ve tried, I’ve tried for so long.” Olivia’s lifelong “undyin’ love” for Taylor now haunts her. Taylor Swift was everywhere in 2023 (and still is). It makes perfect sense why she’d “hear your voice every time that I think I’m not enough.”
Since Sour’s release, Olivia has tried her best to act cool when asked about Taylor Swift, notably saying she was “too busy” to attend the never-ending Eras Tour, but then she sings, “I say I don’t care, I say that I’m fine.” .
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In one of the song’s most damning lines, “And we both drew blood, but, man, those cuts were never equal,” she reintroduces the (bad) blood motif from “Vampire,” tying the songs together thematically. She even appears to address the “cuts” of the profits that Taylor received from Sour. “Do you think I deserved it all? Ooh, your flower’s filled with vitriol,” paints a vivid picture of Taylor, vindicated in teaching Olivia a lesson she deserved to learn, possibly sending make-up flowers to prove her point. In the aftermath of “drivers license,” it seemed Taylor was thrilled to have a protege? All signs on social media pointed to a fruitful mother-daughter partnership (Taylor commented “I say that’s my baby and I’m really proud” on Olivia’s post about being two spots below her idol on the iTunes charts.), but instead Olivia cries, “You built me up to watch me fall.”
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In the climax of the song, Olivia belts, “You have everything, and you still want more.” Taylor is a billionaire. She does “have everything.” But for some reason, she needed a songwriting credit from a similar-sounding bridge on a 17-year-old’s debut album.
“Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”
Possibly the most intentionally scary she’s ever written (with recent addition “CANCELLED!” as a close second), this searing rant could be about any number of beefs Taylor Swift engages in. “The scandal was contained. The bullet had just grazed. At all costs, keep your good name,” she sings.
In my vision of Taylor’s Female Rage: the Musical, she wrote this song immediately after hearing “The Grudge.” She whispers, “So tell me everything is not about me. But what if it is?” – stunned that someone would write a diss track about her. The first substantial clue that the song could be about Olivia comes from the lyrics “So all you kids can sneak into my house, with all the cobwebs.” There are plenty of breakup songs on The Tortured Poets Department – and Taylor has a long list of revenge songs about Scooter Braun and the music exec who sold her masters, Scott Borchetta – but no one’s calling them “kids.”
The most obvious lyrics — “That I’ll sue you if you step on my lawn,”– reference the legal back and forth that happened when Rodrigo metaphorically stepped on Swift’s lawn by borrowing her chorus structure.
“Put narcotics into all of my songs. And that’s why you’re still singing along,” seems to directly reference “The Grudge,” when Olivia sings, “Even after all this, you’re still everything to me.” Taylor knows that even after all this battle, Olivia still loves her idol’s music – taunting her with her complicated devotion.
“Father Figure”
The latest entry in this canon of beef is “Father Figure” from The Life of a Showgirl. Could the central interpolation of George Michael’s 1987 year hit meant to drag Olivia for the songwriting credit that started the feud? She paints a picture of taking a younger, poorer artist to the Chateau (no, not Audrey Hobert), singing, “You remind me of a younger me. I saw potential…” This twists the closing lines on The Tortured Poets Department: “You look like Taylor Swift in this light. We’re loving it. You’ve got edge; she never did. The future’s bright, dazzling” from “Clara Bow.”
In the second-most cringe-inducing “dick” mention on TLOAS, Taylor brags, “I can make deals with the devil. Because my dick’s bigger.” She’s puffing her chest with business acumen. “This love is pure profit, just step into my office,” she sings.“I dry your tears with my sleeve.” These lyrics make more sense remembering that the initial feud happened as Taylor was deep in her fight with Shamrock Capital, the owners of her original masters. She sneers, “Said, ‘They want to see you now. They don’t want you to reign.’ I showed you all the tricks of the trade.” Olivia herself once noted she was inspired by Taylor’s tricks of the trade when she signed her record deal and maintained control of her masters from the start. So when Taylor vows, “I protect the family. Leave it with me,” is she implying that if Olivia had left the “Deja Vu” songwriting credits with her, she’d be protected by Taylor Nation?
“Your thoughtless ambition sparked that ignition of foolish decisions, which led to misguided visions,” could reference Olivia’s ambition to echo Taylor’s writing on “Deja Vu,” but she “foolishly” didn’t offer credit at first. “Then to fulfill your dreams, you had to get rid of me.” Once the feud dissipated, Olivia stopped mentioning Taylor Swift entirely.
“You want a fight you found it. I got the place surrounded.” isn’t a direct reference, but four years after the initial songwriting-credit fallout, Taylor has befriended pop girls who allegedly appear in Rodrigo’s songs: Sabrina Carpenter and Gracie Abrams.
In one of the more haunting deliveries in Taylor’s discography, “All I ask for is your loyalty. My dear protege,” she clearly draws a line between herself and her younger-me. But the bridge throws in a possible red herring: “I saw a change in you, my dear boy.” Is the song actually about Troye Sivan, her once-opener who has since gone distinctly team XCX? Or could she be shading another former devout Swiftie – Olivia Rodrigo’s best friend Conan Gray, who helped promote early snippets of Fearless (Taylor’s Version). “They don’t make loyalty like they used to,” clearly, because Conan Gray famously didn’t listen to Midnights for months after its release. Maybe the song is about all of the attached-at-the-hip former Swifties.
