Song: ‘Father Figure’
Artist: Taylor Swift
US chart peak: 4 (so far)
Release date: October 3, 2025
Writers: Taylor Swift, Max Martin, Shellback, George Michael
Producers: Taylor Swift, Max Martin, Shellback
Quintessential Max moment: The key change leading into the perspective-shift final chorus feels like a fun throwback to the Backstreet Boys.
Video synopsis: It’s a ‘visualizer’, apols.

After spending a few years as the biggest popstar on the planet in the late 1980s, Michael Jackson’s music started to curdle. On 1991’s ‘Dangerous’ there was the paranoia of ‘Who Is It’, which was also joined by the spiky, woe-is-me ‘Why You Wanna Trip On Me’, which seemed to be aimed at the press. Jackson’s focus was seemingly getting smaller, as his feedback loop did the same, despite his adoring fanbase – reflecting his brilliance back to him every night – seemingly getting bigger. By 1995’s ‘HIStory’, Jackson’s focus was solely on him as the victim, with his previous lightness of touch deserting him as his bile grew towards a litany of thinly-veiled enemies.

Much of Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ was written and recorded while she was on her gargantuan Eras tour. Each night she’d appear onstage for roughly 15 hours and bask in the brilliance of her own back catalogue. Her fans, trained via a brilliantly orchestrated long-term social media campaign that made them feel included in Taylor’s various battles, ready to fight for her regardless of the specifics of each separate ‘beef’.

During the Eras tour, Taylor released two of her re-recorded albums, ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’ and ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’, a project I’m assuming you know about that was essentially instigated by Scott Borchetta, the former owner of Taylor’s former label Big Machine Records, selling her masters to Scooter Braun in 2019. It was a financial move that plaited together label politics, greed, bullying, feminism, art, questions around ownership and the Kardashians (Braun was Kanye West’s manager at the time), that kept the ‘Swifties’ fully engaged in the behind-the-scenes, political side of pop.

Just prior to the release of ‘The Life of a Showgirl’, Taylor brought her masters back, posing with the albums like she was at a photo booth at a shopping mall. But it wasn’t over. Taylor, as we know, has a good memory, loves to hold a grudge and, in this specific case, does indeed have the right to feel pretty pissed off. So while it’s no huge surprise that she’s tackling the topic on ‘The Life of a Showgirl’, its inclusion immediately made me think back to Michael Jackson. About how untethered to relatability he became and how the specifics of his lyrics and the precise, laser-focused nature of his anger started to alienate people outside of his loyal fanbase. There are more explicit, and less enjoyable, examples of this on Taylor’s album, but in many ways ‘Father Figure’ fits into this thinking.

Thankfully, ‘Father Figure’, which explores a mentor-protege relationship (Swift hasn’t confirmed it’s about Borchetta, but it absolutely is), has a lightness of touch that means it can also be enjoyed away from the Taylor Swift-ness of it all. Inspired by the George Michael song of the same name, and with some very minimal melodic lifts from that track, it finds Taylor returning to the cold steeliness of ‘Reputation’, delivering each line with a crispness that suggests a raised eyebrow and a pursed lip. The chorus melody is so pretty, however, that even when she’s singing about “brown liquor” and the Devil’s dick, it tracks as a buoyant stadium singalong. The featherlight “leave it with me” bits are really lovely, while the opening section of the bridge, complete with fluttering strings, pairs perfectly with the fact that the following chorus – introduced by a big old key change – flips the song’s script with Taylor talking about her own dick (figuratively).

I also really enjoy bossy bitch Taylor Swift and the song’s framing of her as a mafia-style boss protecting her family (her old albums) is a lot of fun. At one point, after the focus shifts and she’s singing to Borchetta (allegedly), who she introduces witheringly as “my dear boy”, she mentions covering up scandals but obviously just leaves it hanging. It’s a cheap shot, sure, and also another irritating Easter egg for her fans to explore, but it’s what Taylor does. And ‘Father Figure’ manages to make Taylor in 2025 seem pretty entertaining for 3m 30secs.