new video loaded: Who Is Taylor Swift’s “Truly Romantic” About?
transcript
transcript
Who Is Taylor Swift’s “Truly Romantic” About?
Who’s Taylor Swift’s diss observe “Truly Romantic” really about? Our critic Jon Caramanica breaks it down.
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Taylor Swift needs all of the smoke. Get in. Let’s discuss it. All proper, so that you’re listening to The Lifetime of a Showgirl, the brand new Taylor Swift album, and I do know that there’s principally just one query that you’ve got. And no, it’s not about Travis Kelce’s non-public components — Who’s “Truly Romantic” about? Folks appear to assume it’s about Charli XCX. I’ve a concept that’s perhaps iteratively one step past that. Once you hearken to the lyrics of “Truly Romantic” what you’re listening to is Taylor singing about somebody who candidly appears to be sounding quite a bit like Charli. On “Sympathy Is a Knife,” Charli gave the impression to be shading Taylor. Taylor, as , was previously linked to Matty Healy from The 1975. Charli was just lately married to George from The 1975. I’m open to this learn, however I’m listening to the music and I’m listening to a Pixies music, a Nirvana music. Sure, an Olivia Rodrigo music. As many individuals Taylor has been in form of a Chilly Battle with Olivia Rodrigo on and off since Olivia’s first album. There was the sense that Olivia, who was clearly an heir of Taylor, wasn’t demonstrating enough fealty. So once I hear the crunchy guitars on this music, once I hear the type of whining vocals I hear Olivia Rodrigo’s voice. Previously, Taylor has used the instruments of her enemies in opposition to them in music. She did it on “Expensive John” with John Mayer. She’s performed it with Matty Healy from The 1975. She could be utilizing Olivia Rodrigo’s music instruments in opposition to her. In order that’s the gossip, proper? However as music, does it work? To me, this is among the strongest songs on The Lifetime of a Showgirl. And it’s attention-grabbing that in an album that’s marketed as Taylor’s love album, as her arrival into future marital and probably sexual bliss, it’s placing that a number of the greatest songwriting on this album comes not about that, however slightly when she’s dispatching along with her outs.
By Jon Caramanica, Arjun Srivatsa and Joe Coscarelli
October 6, 2025