Song: ‘Actually Romantic’
Artist: Taylor Swift
US chart peak: 7 (so far)
Release date: October 3, 2025
Writers: Taylor Swift, Max Martin, Shellback
Producers: Taylor Swift, Max Martin, Shellback
Quintessential Max moment: The way “sweet” and “wild” stretch at the end of each line of the chorus, adding extra hooks that slowly burrow their way in.
Video synopsis: It’s a ‘visualizer’, apols.

When I interviewed AG Cook a year or so ago, pre-‘Brat’, he was talking cleverly about attention spans and culture’s lack of focus. ‘Cowboy Carter’ had come out but felt like it had faded away pretty rapidly, with only Taylor Swift’s dominance a sign of some sort of monoculture. Cook talked about how Charli xcx, with his help, was keen to change that with ‘Brat’, and that the plan was to keep evolving the album as an entity. So that it wasn’t a bunch of pre-release singles, the album, a tour and then back to the grindstone. That the songs themselves were never the definitive versions. Obviously, we all know what happened next: ‘Brat’ turned the world a lurid green, dominating everything from fashion to political discourse, while an expertly curated remix package made ‘Brat’: The Album feel reflexive and musically light on its feet.

I mention this for two reasons; firstly, three weeks into the campaign for ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ and things are feeling a little flat. Sure it’s still at number 1 in most countries, and the songs are sticking around, but this feels more like the fumes of a big explosion. Without a tour to keep things rolling, or a slew of new visuals, or a sense that people are enjoying the album out of desire as opposed to obligation, it feels like its peak is over. Obviously, the second reason for a mention of ‘Brat’ is because it includes ‘Sympathy is a knife’, a complex song about insecurities related to female comparison in pop that is largely thought to be about Taylor. She’s not mentioned by name, but various mentions of boyfriends in shared bands means it’s all pretty obvious (Taylor used to date Matty Healy, while Charli is now married to his 1975 bandmate, George Daniel).

Over a pulverising synth clatter Charli sings: “I couldn’t even be her if I tried / I’m opposite and on the other side”, trying to pick apart her feelings. ‘Actually Romantic’ is Taylor’s less nuanced response. On the song, Taylor doesn’t name Charli, obviously, but the connection is made clear via references to “an ex” (Healy), and ‘Sympathy is a knife’ (“Wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face”). In Taylor’s world, where subtlety isn’t always catered for, Charli is a small chihuahua yapping in a tiny handbag, and coke fiend who calls Taylor “Boring Barbie”. Charli is, like, totally obsessed with Taylor! It’s full Taylor Mean Girls cosplay – ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ was released on 3 October, aka Mean Girls Day – and misses the point by a couple of hundred miles.

BUT it’s also musically more interesting than most of what’s on offer elsewhere. A short, rock-adjacent splurge that sounds a bit like the Pixies, and a bit like Taylor’s other – alleged!! – enemy, Olivia Rodrigo, it lurches around scratched guitar riffs and slowly builds to something close to a mild freakout. It would have been nice to hear Taylor leaning into that side a bit more. It’s also home to the line “It’s kind of making me wet”, which, strangely, is the closest Taylor comes to convincingly talking about sex across the whole album. Bad news for Travis, surely? Speaking of Travis, is it not another weird dig to have the line “No man has ever loved me like you do” repeated throughout?

Anyway, it’s a mess, basically. But a sort of fun mess, which in its own way manages to encapsulate more of the ‘real’ Taylor than anything else on the album. Taylor is Regina George, and she’s been telling us that for a long time now.