Oct. 7, 2025
Taylor Swift is Happy… and Apparently Having Great Sex
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RSS Feed Amy and T.J. spent the day listening to Taylor Swift’s new album “The Life of a Showgirl” and then read all the critical reviews. Taylor’s lyrics appear to highlight her sex life with fiancé Travis Kelce and shine a light on some pop beef she may have with Kelce’s ex Kayla Nicole and singer Charli XCX… details that did not go unnoticed by the critics and fans alike.
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00:00:01
Speaker 1: Hey, there are folks. It is Tuesday, October seventh. Taylor Swift is happy and apparently horny. Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. I didn't that's not me. That is not me. I am relaying what I had no idea this was going on, this conversation around Taylor swift album, So Heart, what did I miss? Am I not in tune enough to pop culture? I thought she's had a record setting album and we're going about our business.
00:00:32
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that can all be true. At the same time, I think look, right away, people were writing about how this was a departure, not from the way it sounds the music necessarily, but certainly the subject matter. I mean, she's often talked about breakups and heartbreak and all of that. Now she's in love and apparently she's having amazing sex because there is and I haven't seen this for some fairly adult themes in her music, where you know, typically she was you know, selling to a younger audience. She started when she was a teenager, but we have to remember she is thirty five years.
00:01:08
Speaker 1: Old now, Yeah, very grown woman.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: So she's fully capable of talking about and writing about and singing about sex. But it just is a little It threw me a little bit when I read some of the lyrics.
00:01:19
Speaker 1: I guess her fans are. Is that what we were dealing with here, So let's start with that Life of a Show Girl came out last Friday to record numbers over the two point seven first day, one day, one day, so it beat her own week of sales record with two point seven in the first day. That's just astronomical. And then her movie was number one at the box office over the weekend. Everything is cooking for this young lady when it comes to her music. I am not used to robes and this threw me. She's almost certainly critic proof, but she has made I guess she doesn't have a lot of projects that not a lot of people are bold enough to go after her and to go after her music, to go after her lyrics, and I have never seen it. I'm not the biggest Swift follower, but there is a different tone to what I'm seeing, or I guess more in the masses of what I'm hearing about her music.
00:02:20
Speaker 2: Yes, you think what you're saying is basically there are media outlets, magazines, and even a lot of folks on social media daring to criticize her work, daring to criticize her lyrics, and that is not something we're used to seeing or hearing.
00:02:39
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know. Something just feels a little. People feel a little more emboldened, or maybe they're going after her art and her life differently now and we can get into the possibility of why this is a young woman, this is period, point blank. I don't give a damn really one way or another, if she ever put out another album. I am a fan of hers, not necessarily her music. It's not my lane. I respect it, but it's just I don't put on Taylor Swift's music. I've seen her in concert one of the best things I've ever seen in my life.
00:03:15
Speaker 2: I love her music, so I run to her music and have obviously because of just our relationship at ABC News, got to meet her several times. She was kind to my daughters. She will always be a superstar to me.
00:03:28
Speaker 1: So if she has taken a turn and produced an album that's different from the rest, talking about things that are different from the rest, and if that has been fed by her personal life and this woman being happy that I'm saying this is the best album of her life. I love if this is what she produces when she is happy. Girl, do you think?
00:03:51
Speaker 2: Look she she writes, she writes her songs, and she obviously famously writes about the ups and downs of her love life. And now she is on a upward trajectory, and she's writing about the good sex. She's writing about the great relationships. She's writing about being engaged. She's writing about maybe even an ex girlfriend of Travis, maybe a friend or an ex friend or never was, a friend who's a fellow singer who they both were dating, someone in the same group. So she's going there and maybe being a little edgier than she's been before.
00:04:29
Speaker 1: You okay with that?
00:04:30
Speaker 2: Yes, of course. I mean if you can't stay in the same lane, you can't be seventeen all your life talking about it's a love story, you know. No, it's she's obviously gone through some shit and she's writing about it, and she's singing about it.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: Dang it. Can can you think of one who successfully with somebody? Obviously we're gonna miss that made that transition and their fans grew up with them that they went from kind of a teeny bopper thing. But you know, what Justin Bieber's is not a bad example.
00:04:56
Speaker 2: That's a great example. I was actually thinking of Michael Jackson. I was thinking about someone who you know, started singing young and was singing about poppy, fun songs and then was able to Yeah, grow the lyrics grew with them.
00:05:10
Speaker 1: Who else are we missing as guy's gotta be something. But yeah, to think about that, Okay, her maybe did her evolution come a little later? Did her the maturity or a grit or a I don't know, a ruggedness to her lyrics about adulthood not come until she's thirty five. I am not familiar enough with her music just be honest there to know what kind of themes. But she talks about heartbreak.
00:05:35
Speaker 2: Yes, and she's she's gotten edgy or her themes have softened. I mean again, when she was young, it was all I mean, I love her early stuff. When she was a young, hopeful, bright eyed, bushy tailed girl who had the whole world in front of her and she was conquering her dreams. Those are sweet fun songs, even twenty two. I'm feeling twenty two. But yes, now she went in like ooh, look what you made me do? Like she starts you know, she's been she's been doing some not the necessarily just pop songs. She's had some fun edge to some of her songs.
00:06:07
Speaker 1: So is this then about the sex?
00:06:10
Speaker 2: Okay, sex, I haven't really And look, I don't know Taylor swift songs the way her fans do the Swifties do, but I don't recall there being much sex talk in any of her lyrics.
00:06:21
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's get to what look people have. And again, there are critics music criigs out. They're doing their thing, and they're supposed to be critical of the music. And I think a lot of those folks have been respectful of it and doing their jobs. But there are three things that are standing out to fans certainly and critics alike, and in particular a song that people are pointing to in particular lyrics having to do about sex. And it's almost no, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put anything you had to influence you, but I'll just tell you the name of the song. It's would, Okay, And now we'll share the lyrics that people are just having a blast with.
00:07:03
Speaker 2: All right, this is I'm actually blushing a little even with these lyrics because yeah, all right, she says, forgive me. It sounds cocky. He amatized me and opened my eyes. You told me amatized is a Yes, it's.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: A she shortened a popular online reference to having sex so good that you have been dimatized. I didn't want to say.
00:07:26
Speaker 2: It, all right, but amatized and opened my eyes Redwood Tree, it ain't hard to see. His love was the key that opened my thighs.
00:07:37
Speaker 1: Heal.
00:07:37
Speaker 2: Yeah again. I'm like, I don't really want to read this, but okay, girls, I don't need to catch the bouquet to know a hard rock is on the way.
00:07:47
Speaker 1: But bump, bump, I mean, and.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: Baby, I'll admit I've been a little superstitious. The curse on me was broken by your magic. Wand man seems to be that you and me we make our own luck new heights of manhood. I ain't got a knock on wood.
00:08:07
Speaker 3: Do you think Taylor if she's happy have fun? Look, Yes, that's fun, it's funny. That's just it's hilarious. How much I always say man rappers are some great writers, because even if they talk about some of the most bulgar things you've ever heard, it's creative And how it's delivered. If she's having fun and talking about sex in this way in a song, and this is more actually one of the more upbeat it has, like the Jackson five with that.
00:08:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like ABC a little bit at the beginning. But you know, I was thinking, sure, I think it's great. She should be able to write about whatever and sing about whatever she wants. And if she's singing about having great sex and being really happy, amazing. I was just thinking about his mom and her mom like that would give me so much pause. But I love that she's risen above that, and it's all for the art. It's all for the art.
00:08:58
Speaker 1: She's a grown woman. However, I will, you know, say okay to the fans who have grown up with her, who have been listening to every line of every album, and to hear that from her might be a little stunning.
00:09:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just I mean, I think if you can. It seems like she's laughing as she's saying it, and so if you can just laugh with her and say, man, if you haven't experienced that one day, I hope I will, you know, just lean in, enjoy it all right.
00:09:32
Speaker 1: The other issue here that some have pointed out is the idea. I guess you put it this way, right, Disney is trying to get away from the princess who needs to be saved in the tower from the prince, and then once he comes, everything is going to be okay. And I guess it's that the life of Ophelia. That song is one that folks are pointing to it and again do you think, sister, But it does have kind of that theme of everything's okay in my life, you know what?
00:10:00
Speaker 2: That is what happened for her, that's I think we again, we can overcoreac overcorrect, excuse me, instead of teaching all little girls that they need a prince to come save her. It's okay. If maybe you were not feel in love and had gotten disappointed so many times, when someone comes and suddenly you believe in love again, I think. And if it took that guy to make you feel that way again, to realize that it was possible, that can be okay too. You know, I don't think it has to be, but I get it. There were some folks online saying things like, please don't tell me that you know Ophelia ends up dying killing herself in Shakespearean tragedy that it is. And she was like, please don't tell me that you know you needed a quarterback so that you didn't, you know, do harm or kill yourself or end up like Ophelia. So the people who've taken it a little too far, like they're personally offended that she's saying she was at death's door until Travis Kelsey came around. But maybe that's true and that's her path and that's what happened with her.
00:11:01
Speaker 1: Yes, the thing, I don't know how, and I haven't heard the breakdown that she does a thing where she kind of goes into each song. I haven't listened to her and the meaning behind this and the story behind it. But I don't know. I didn't think about it until you just said, well, maybe that's true for her, Like we don't know how propable place and I suggesting Taylor Swift with everything. No, but she caring herself.
00:11:22
Speaker 2: She does say this all that time, This is life of Ophelia. All that time I sat alone in my tower, you were just honing your powers. Now I can see it all. Late one night you dug me out of my grave and saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia, so her heart from the Fate of Ophelia where she wanted to die because she was heartbroken. So I think that's okay. I mean, look her one of her big hits that I sang so badly, The beginning Love story is all about a love story. It's a very like a I'm a princess, I'm Romeo, I'm Juliette, You're Romeo like she's She's sung about fairy tales before. So this is a little bit of a darker twist to it with a happy ending.
00:12:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, but again, we're just passing along what some are saying out there. I wouldn't suggest the other thing about it. It's just art, right, Yeah, she's just telling telling a story. Now, that's one part that's being looked out. The other one has to do with Travis Kelsey's ex girlfriend. Now there's no way I would have been able to dig this one out on my own. These folks can spot stuff, can't think, because this takes a little bit of a deep dive.
00:12:28
Speaker 2: Well, people know all the ins and outs. We did not. I actually I knew what Travis Kelsey's ex girlfriend looked like, but I didn't really know anything about her, So yes, I would never have been able to figure this out. But it is all in the song Opaighte and she describes a scene, or at least a past love of the person she's writing about that very much mimics something that happened in real life between Travis Kelcey and his now ex girlfriend Kaylin Nicole. She writes, you were dancing through the lightning strikes sleepless in the Onyx Night. We should point out that Travis Kelcey's ex girlfriend is black, so there is that people are pointing to Onyx Knight. But now the sky is opal light. Oples are white. Oh oh oh oh, my Lord never made no one like you before. You had to make your own sunshine. But now the sky is opal light.
00:13:25
Speaker 1: I think that's a stretch for anybody to try to I don't think that's what she was singing about. That's just me, and that's that's some folks out there. Really, it could.
00:13:33
Speaker 2: Have just been a dark night, like a black night, like meaning you were depressed, you were sad, but there was a specific lyric. This is where they really pointed to Kayla Nicole. This was different, yeah, she said, and this is speaking of her person she's singing about. We can't say it's for sure, Travis Kelsey, but people, of course are connecting the dots. You couldn't understand it. Why you felt alone? You were in it for real. She was in her phone and you were just a poet. And why don't we try to love love? We give it all we got. You finally left the table, and what a simple thought. You're starving till you're not the phone thing. There is a story behind that.
00:14:11
Speaker 1: Yes, there was a video out there that was posted that showed Travis Kelsey in an interaction interaction with the ex girlfriend in which there was a back and forth over the phone, essentially in attention, if you will, a focus in the relationship, paying more attention to the phone in that moment than they were to each other. So that's the backstory there. It's hard to look at this one and see what a quinkie dink.
00:14:35
Speaker 2: Yes, well, and here's another quinky dink. So on the very day October three, that Taylor's album came out and the song Open LIGHTE and its lyrics were out for everybody, Caylin Nicole posted this to her story without any reference to anything she re shared in America's Next Top Model clip that featured Tyra Banks asking a contestant, how do you compare yourself to the other girls out there? That contestant said, I don't compare myself to other girls. I'm no comparison to anyone else. Kuwinki deeck.
00:15:08
Speaker 1: Maybe she's a producer on the show and she's trying to promote it in the new season.
00:15:13
Speaker 2: I love how everybody now, well, if you, I guess, if you can't write a song for millions to hear. We all have our social media feeds and don't people just love to send veiled messages.
00:15:24
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good one, I.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: Do. I agree because it wasn't mean.
00:15:29
Speaker 1: It wasn't me at all. She's just and you know, as she turned it back on herself. I don't know this show.
00:15:34
Speaker 2: It was well done.
00:15:35
Speaker 1: That's kind of well done. Give it all this so we haven't even got to another one of the big big mysteries. It does Taylor Swift have pop beef? They've been listening to Drake and Kendrick Lamar too long? Stay with us, folks, All right, folks, welcome back here now. Yes, there's a possibility of a pop beef. I didn't know this was a real kind of funny thing. But yes, it's not. The Life of a Showgirl is out now setting records, but a lot of folks have been de siphering a bunch of songs, the lyrics, the meaning behind them, and surprisingly it's I didn't this. The Metacritics score for this her twelfth album is in the bottom two of all of her wow previous albums. So those are critics speaking up. We'll get you assume some of what the critics are saying here in just a second. But Charlie xc X, Now, I didn't know these two had any type of relationship of any kind, and certainly didn't know there was something bull bubbling at the surface, I should say. But she's a British singer and a big deal who has blown up over the past few years.
00:16:48
Speaker 2: Yes, and I didn't know this either, but apparently at one point they were both dating a member of the same band and so.
00:16:57
Speaker 1: Very important to the backstory.
00:16:58
Speaker 2: Yes, so Charlie XCX's song Sympathy is a Knife came out first.
00:17:03
Speaker 1: I think it was last year.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, last year. And the lyric in Charlie XCX's song is this one girl taps my insecurities. Don't know if it's real or if I'm spiraling. Don't want to see her backstage at my boyfriend's show, fingers crossed behind my back. I hope they break up quick. And then there was also a reference to a boring blonde, sorry, a boring did I get it wrong? Boring Barbie Barbie.
00:17:28
Speaker 1: That's h Taylor Swift picked up yes on that line in her song, but that's very important. I didn't know this. So these are two women who were dating guys in the same band. That's the backstory. Now that lyric comes along and all the fans are piecing this together. So now Taylor Swift on this new album has a song called actually Romantic and robes. They picked up on this immediately.
00:17:51
Speaker 2: It seems like it might be all about Charlie XCX. So here's what Taylor Swift sings, high five my ex and then said, you're glad he goasted me, wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face. Some people might be offended, but it's actually sweet. All the time you've spent on me, it's honestly wild, all the effort you've put in. It's actually romantic. I really got to hand it to you. No man has ever loved me like you do.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: You couldn't even get through it, could you.
00:18:20
Speaker 2: Oh? I was just dripping with sarcast So that.
00:18:24
Speaker 1: Is the lyric everybody's pointing to. And also at the top, what's the top lyric about the one you were just trying to pull up about the the Barbie boring Barbie line where she and accused her of being bold because she's on coke. Oh, yes, that line. So apparently this has been going back and forth, and mind you, folks, we should put this out there. We didn't say, did we. Charlie XCX has opened for Taylor Swift on tour before, so these two know each other pretty doll going well, I don't know if any of this is real. Taylor Swift has put out not a statement, but she explained some of the songs lyrics, and she says, you know what, get that lyric first, and then I'm gonna read this quote. How are you doing over there?
00:19:12
Speaker 2: Because I'm trying to find I'm trying to find exactly where the boring Barbie came in. Okay, wait, hold on, So Charlie XCX said there are no diss tracks on her album, but.
00:19:29
Speaker 1: The song the top of the song is where I have it here and take this with starts. The first line of the song is I heard you call me boring Barbie when the Kochs got you brave. That's how the song starts. Now that's some I mean, even Kendrick Lamar is applaud that whoever he's talking about. So I don't know how much of this is real. And the back and forth of Charlie XCX is now put out a video something online in which it's a recording studio and you hear just a couple of notes, essentially, I give your heads up, I'm in the studio.
00:20:10
Speaker 2: I'm working you like that. Huh, that's good. I got a new album coming out.
00:20:13
Speaker 1: That's good, rap beep stuff. Now folks are saying Taylor explained what the lyric and what the song is about the robes and reading her explanation, it didn't turn me away from it, said, oh, she's confirming.
00:20:25
Speaker 2: Yes, thinking she didn't say yes it was Charlie XCX, but she explained the exact scenario in which these two, it seems, have found themselves. So Taylor said, it's a song about realizing 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. That kind of sounds exactly what we just described.
00:20:53
Speaker 1: That's more brutal than the lyrics. Yeah, oh so, I I don't know Charlie XCX saying.
00:20:59
Speaker 2: No one's love no man's loved me the way you do that, that's pretty. That's that's a big poke.
00:21:05
Speaker 1: That's a compliment and the greatest insult ever. We want to hit you with a few reviews here, just from the New York Times Robes, because some of this stuff is really good, oh says while the album goes down easy, it's not a hard pivot or a grand leap. It's another missive from the inner world. The most famous politician of our generation.
00:21:26
Speaker 2: Musician, you said, politician.
00:21:29
Speaker 1: Famous musician. Well, she did well. She was out in the campaign.
00:21:33
Speaker 2: Drill, wasn't She's a musician, Well, the.
00:21:36
Speaker 1: Most famous musician of her generation set to meticulous mid tempo creations that often glisten and sometimes trip over themselves.
00:21:45
Speaker 2: She said. They say. In nearly every song, the music makes a sparkling first impression, but as the album unfolds, the lyrics undermine those pop satisfactions. As the words sank in, I was left wondering how many scores does Swift still need to settle.
00:22:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting that I'm telling you she's got She's creating pop Beef's.
00:22:06
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe it's brilliant. Look at what it did for Kendrick Lamar and even look at what it's done for Drake in terms of album sales. You keep pulling up Spotify and Drake's like number one, number two, number.
00:22:17
Speaker 1: I mean, he just got back to work.
00:22:19
Speaker 2: Look at the end of the day. Well, even if that rap beef kind of ignited a fire in him and his fans to say, hey, we like him too, this could be brilliant marketing.
00:22:28
Speaker 1: Babe. Wow, all right. Now are a few folks critics of this album. One says we may have seen Taylor on far better songwriting form than with the Life of a Show Goal, but perhaps now more than ever, she is making music for herself over anyone else. I buy that.
00:22:46
Speaker 2: Simon Cowell calls that indulgent on American idol, but you know what, she's earned the right to be. I feel like my personal opinion this one also is she leans fully into the idea of her sona as a work of artifice. The twelve songs here are either a peak under the mask or are another mask altogether. From a critical perspective, that pivot makes it at least a little bit interesting as an exercise. But what's most surprising about the Life of a Showgirl is the extent to which it's off putting, both as a pop album and as a Taylor Swift album.
00:23:23
Speaker 1: That's why I put in parentheses before that one. This is the best quote. This is the best critic The best way I've seen it put is that people don't like it as a Taylor Swift album.
00:23:33
Speaker 2: Right.
00:23:34
Speaker 1: I thought that was a good way for them to put that.
00:23:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, that does make sense, But I do you know, I do appreciate hmmm. This one's tough. The Life of a Showgirl isn't a particularly bad album, but given Swift's immense back catalog, too much of it sounds like an artist on auto pilot. That's tough.
00:23:53
Speaker 1: Upfront, The one two up says it's kind of the same thing at the end appears a signal of disinterest in evolution. Again, these are folks who, again I'm familiar with her, Yeah, but there's are folks who pay attention and know her, know her music, know all of those albums. I was shocked, Grobes. I was sitting up there with Savine earlier and asked, can you name any of the other I really could not name a Taylor Swift album. I couldn't think of the name of even of them. See Sabine popped off all twelve.
00:24:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh wow, that's impressive.
00:24:27
Speaker 1: Without even trying. So I'm for her to be at this place, to have that reach, to evolve that this may be the album she's been singing about eleven previous albums.
00:24:37
Speaker 2: You know, I feel like the song the sound does sound the same, but it's just the lyrics that have changed a bit, and I appreciate that. And look, you know, she's it does seem she's very proud of it. The fans are gobbling it up, and she looks happier than she's ever been before, and that makes.
00:24:56
Speaker 1: It a great album, folks. And with that, always appreciate you hanging thus for now, I'm teaching.
00:25:01
Speaker 2: Hold and I'm Amy Robot. We'll talk to you soon.
00:25:04
Speaker 1: M m m mmm
00:25:07
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm mm
Speaker 1: Hey, there are folks. It is Tuesday, October seventh. Taylor Swift is happy and apparently horny. Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. I didn't that's not me. That is not me. I am relaying what I had no idea this was going on, this conversation around Taylor swift album, So Heart, what did I miss? Am I not in tune enough to pop culture? I thought she's had a record setting album and we're going about our business.
00:00:32
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that can all be true. At the same time, I think look, right away, people were writing about how this was a departure, not from the way it sounds the music necessarily, but certainly the subject matter. I mean, she's often talked about breakups and heartbreak and all of that. Now she's in love and apparently she's having amazing sex because there is and I haven't seen this for some fairly adult themes in her music, where you know, typically she was you know, selling to a younger audience. She started when she was a teenager, but we have to remember she is thirty five years.
00:01:08
Speaker 1: Old now, Yeah, very grown woman.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: So she's fully capable of talking about and writing about and singing about sex. But it just is a little It threw me a little bit when I read some of the lyrics.
00:01:19
Speaker 1: I guess her fans are. Is that what we were dealing with here, So let's start with that Life of a Show Girl came out last Friday to record numbers over the two point seven first day, one day, one day, so it beat her own week of sales record with two point seven in the first day. That's just astronomical. And then her movie was number one at the box office over the weekend. Everything is cooking for this young lady when it comes to her music. I am not used to robes and this threw me. She's almost certainly critic proof, but she has made I guess she doesn't have a lot of projects that not a lot of people are bold enough to go after her and to go after her music, to go after her lyrics, and I have never seen it. I'm not the biggest Swift follower, but there is a different tone to what I'm seeing, or I guess more in the masses of what I'm hearing about her music.
00:02:20
Speaker 2: Yes, you think what you're saying is basically there are media outlets, magazines, and even a lot of folks on social media daring to criticize her work, daring to criticize her lyrics, and that is not something we're used to seeing or hearing.
00:02:39
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know. Something just feels a little. People feel a little more emboldened, or maybe they're going after her art and her life differently now and we can get into the possibility of why this is a young woman, this is period, point blank. I don't give a damn really one way or another, if she ever put out another album. I am a fan of hers, not necessarily her music. It's not my lane. I respect it, but it's just I don't put on Taylor Swift's music. I've seen her in concert one of the best things I've ever seen in my life.
00:03:15
Speaker 2: I love her music, so I run to her music and have obviously because of just our relationship at ABC News, got to meet her several times. She was kind to my daughters. She will always be a superstar to me.
00:03:28
Speaker 1: So if she has taken a turn and produced an album that's different from the rest, talking about things that are different from the rest, and if that has been fed by her personal life and this woman being happy that I'm saying this is the best album of her life. I love if this is what she produces when she is happy. Girl, do you think?
00:03:51
Speaker 2: Look she she writes, she writes her songs, and she obviously famously writes about the ups and downs of her love life. And now she is on a upward trajectory, and she's writing about the good sex. She's writing about the great relationships. She's writing about being engaged. She's writing about maybe even an ex girlfriend of Travis, maybe a friend or an ex friend or never was, a friend who's a fellow singer who they both were dating, someone in the same group. So she's going there and maybe being a little edgier than she's been before.
00:04:29
Speaker 1: You okay with that?
00:04:30
Speaker 2: Yes, of course. I mean if you can't stay in the same lane, you can't be seventeen all your life talking about it's a love story, you know. No, it's she's obviously gone through some shit and she's writing about it, and she's singing about it.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: Dang it. Can can you think of one who successfully with somebody? Obviously we're gonna miss that made that transition and their fans grew up with them that they went from kind of a teeny bopper thing. But you know, what Justin Bieber's is not a bad example.
00:04:56
Speaker 2: That's a great example. I was actually thinking of Michael Jackson. I was thinking about someone who you know, started singing young and was singing about poppy, fun songs and then was able to Yeah, grow the lyrics grew with them.
00:05:10
Speaker 1: Who else are we missing as guy's gotta be something. But yeah, to think about that, Okay, her maybe did her evolution come a little later? Did her the maturity or a grit or a I don't know, a ruggedness to her lyrics about adulthood not come until she's thirty five. I am not familiar enough with her music just be honest there to know what kind of themes. But she talks about heartbreak.
00:05:35
Speaker 2: Yes, and she's she's gotten edgy or her themes have softened. I mean again, when she was young, it was all I mean, I love her early stuff. When she was a young, hopeful, bright eyed, bushy tailed girl who had the whole world in front of her and she was conquering her dreams. Those are sweet fun songs, even twenty two. I'm feeling twenty two. But yes, now she went in like ooh, look what you made me do? Like she starts you know, she's been she's been doing some not the necessarily just pop songs. She's had some fun edge to some of her songs.
00:06:07
Speaker 1: So is this then about the sex?
00:06:10
Speaker 2: Okay, sex, I haven't really And look, I don't know Taylor swift songs the way her fans do the Swifties do, but I don't recall there being much sex talk in any of her lyrics.
00:06:21
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's get to what look people have. And again, there are critics music criigs out. They're doing their thing, and they're supposed to be critical of the music. And I think a lot of those folks have been respectful of it and doing their jobs. But there are three things that are standing out to fans certainly and critics alike, and in particular a song that people are pointing to in particular lyrics having to do about sex. And it's almost no, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put anything you had to influence you, but I'll just tell you the name of the song. It's would, Okay, And now we'll share the lyrics that people are just having a blast with.
00:07:03
Speaker 2: All right, this is I'm actually blushing a little even with these lyrics because yeah, all right, she says, forgive me. It sounds cocky. He amatized me and opened my eyes. You told me amatized is a Yes, it's.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: A she shortened a popular online reference to having sex so good that you have been dimatized. I didn't want to say.
00:07:26
Speaker 2: It, all right, but amatized and opened my eyes Redwood Tree, it ain't hard to see. His love was the key that opened my thighs.
00:07:37
Speaker 1: Heal.
00:07:37
Speaker 2: Yeah again. I'm like, I don't really want to read this, but okay, girls, I don't need to catch the bouquet to know a hard rock is on the way.
00:07:47
Speaker 1: But bump, bump, I mean, and.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: Baby, I'll admit I've been a little superstitious. The curse on me was broken by your magic. Wand man seems to be that you and me we make our own luck new heights of manhood. I ain't got a knock on wood.
00:08:07
Speaker 3: Do you think Taylor if she's happy have fun? Look, Yes, that's fun, it's funny. That's just it's hilarious. How much I always say man rappers are some great writers, because even if they talk about some of the most bulgar things you've ever heard, it's creative And how it's delivered. If she's having fun and talking about sex in this way in a song, and this is more actually one of the more upbeat it has, like the Jackson five with that.
00:08:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like ABC a little bit at the beginning. But you know, I was thinking, sure, I think it's great. She should be able to write about whatever and sing about whatever she wants. And if she's singing about having great sex and being really happy, amazing. I was just thinking about his mom and her mom like that would give me so much pause. But I love that she's risen above that, and it's all for the art. It's all for the art.
00:08:58
Speaker 1: She's a grown woman. However, I will, you know, say okay to the fans who have grown up with her, who have been listening to every line of every album, and to hear that from her might be a little stunning.
00:09:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just I mean, I think if you can. It seems like she's laughing as she's saying it, and so if you can just laugh with her and say, man, if you haven't experienced that one day, I hope I will, you know, just lean in, enjoy it all right.
00:09:32
Speaker 1: The other issue here that some have pointed out is the idea. I guess you put it this way, right, Disney is trying to get away from the princess who needs to be saved in the tower from the prince, and then once he comes, everything is going to be okay. And I guess it's that the life of Ophelia. That song is one that folks are pointing to it and again do you think, sister, But it does have kind of that theme of everything's okay in my life, you know what?
00:10:00
Speaker 2: That is what happened for her, that's I think we again, we can overcoreac overcorrect, excuse me, instead of teaching all little girls that they need a prince to come save her. It's okay. If maybe you were not feel in love and had gotten disappointed so many times, when someone comes and suddenly you believe in love again, I think. And if it took that guy to make you feel that way again, to realize that it was possible, that can be okay too. You know, I don't think it has to be, but I get it. There were some folks online saying things like, please don't tell me that you know Ophelia ends up dying killing herself in Shakespearean tragedy that it is. And she was like, please don't tell me that you know you needed a quarterback so that you didn't, you know, do harm or kill yourself or end up like Ophelia. So the people who've taken it a little too far, like they're personally offended that she's saying she was at death's door until Travis Kelsey came around. But maybe that's true and that's her path and that's what happened with her.
00:11:01
Speaker 1: Yes, the thing, I don't know how, and I haven't heard the breakdown that she does a thing where she kind of goes into each song. I haven't listened to her and the meaning behind this and the story behind it. But I don't know. I didn't think about it until you just said, well, maybe that's true for her, Like we don't know how propable place and I suggesting Taylor Swift with everything. No, but she caring herself.
00:11:22
Speaker 2: She does say this all that time, This is life of Ophelia. All that time I sat alone in my tower, you were just honing your powers. Now I can see it all. Late one night you dug me out of my grave and saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia, so her heart from the Fate of Ophelia where she wanted to die because she was heartbroken. So I think that's okay. I mean, look her one of her big hits that I sang so badly, The beginning Love story is all about a love story. It's a very like a I'm a princess, I'm Romeo, I'm Juliette, You're Romeo like she's She's sung about fairy tales before. So this is a little bit of a darker twist to it with a happy ending.
00:12:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, but again, we're just passing along what some are saying out there. I wouldn't suggest the other thing about it. It's just art, right, Yeah, she's just telling telling a story. Now, that's one part that's being looked out. The other one has to do with Travis Kelsey's ex girlfriend. Now there's no way I would have been able to dig this one out on my own. These folks can spot stuff, can't think, because this takes a little bit of a deep dive.
00:12:28
Speaker 2: Well, people know all the ins and outs. We did not. I actually I knew what Travis Kelsey's ex girlfriend looked like, but I didn't really know anything about her, So yes, I would never have been able to figure this out. But it is all in the song Opaighte and she describes a scene, or at least a past love of the person she's writing about that very much mimics something that happened in real life between Travis Kelcey and his now ex girlfriend Kaylin Nicole. She writes, you were dancing through the lightning strikes sleepless in the Onyx Night. We should point out that Travis Kelcey's ex girlfriend is black, so there is that people are pointing to Onyx Knight. But now the sky is opal light. Oples are white. Oh oh oh oh, my Lord never made no one like you before. You had to make your own sunshine. But now the sky is opal light.
00:13:25
Speaker 1: I think that's a stretch for anybody to try to I don't think that's what she was singing about. That's just me, and that's that's some folks out there. Really, it could.
00:13:33
Speaker 2: Have just been a dark night, like a black night, like meaning you were depressed, you were sad, but there was a specific lyric. This is where they really pointed to Kayla Nicole. This was different, yeah, she said, and this is speaking of her person she's singing about. We can't say it's for sure, Travis Kelsey, but people, of course are connecting the dots. You couldn't understand it. Why you felt alone? You were in it for real. She was in her phone and you were just a poet. And why don't we try to love love? We give it all we got. You finally left the table, and what a simple thought. You're starving till you're not the phone thing. There is a story behind that.
00:14:11
Speaker 1: Yes, there was a video out there that was posted that showed Travis Kelsey in an interaction interaction with the ex girlfriend in which there was a back and forth over the phone, essentially in attention, if you will, a focus in the relationship, paying more attention to the phone in that moment than they were to each other. So that's the backstory there. It's hard to look at this one and see what a quinkie dink.
00:14:35
Speaker 2: Yes, well, and here's another quinky dink. So on the very day October three, that Taylor's album came out and the song Open LIGHTE and its lyrics were out for everybody, Caylin Nicole posted this to her story without any reference to anything she re shared in America's Next Top Model clip that featured Tyra Banks asking a contestant, how do you compare yourself to the other girls out there? That contestant said, I don't compare myself to other girls. I'm no comparison to anyone else. Kuwinki deeck.
00:15:08
Speaker 1: Maybe she's a producer on the show and she's trying to promote it in the new season.
00:15:13
Speaker 2: I love how everybody now, well, if you, I guess, if you can't write a song for millions to hear. We all have our social media feeds and don't people just love to send veiled messages.
00:15:24
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good one, I.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: Do. I agree because it wasn't mean.
00:15:29
Speaker 1: It wasn't me at all. She's just and you know, as she turned it back on herself. I don't know this show.
00:15:34
Speaker 2: It was well done.
00:15:35
Speaker 1: That's kind of well done. Give it all this so we haven't even got to another one of the big big mysteries. It does Taylor Swift have pop beef? They've been listening to Drake and Kendrick Lamar too long? Stay with us, folks, All right, folks, welcome back here now. Yes, there's a possibility of a pop beef. I didn't know this was a real kind of funny thing. But yes, it's not. The Life of a Showgirl is out now setting records, but a lot of folks have been de siphering a bunch of songs, the lyrics, the meaning behind them, and surprisingly it's I didn't this. The Metacritics score for this her twelfth album is in the bottom two of all of her wow previous albums. So those are critics speaking up. We'll get you assume some of what the critics are saying here in just a second. But Charlie xc X, Now, I didn't know these two had any type of relationship of any kind, and certainly didn't know there was something bull bubbling at the surface, I should say. But she's a British singer and a big deal who has blown up over the past few years.
00:16:48
Speaker 2: Yes, and I didn't know this either, but apparently at one point they were both dating a member of the same band and so.
00:16:57
Speaker 1: Very important to the backstory.
00:16:58
Speaker 2: Yes, so Charlie XCX's song Sympathy is a Knife came out first.
00:17:03
Speaker 1: I think it was last year.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, last year. And the lyric in Charlie XCX's song is this one girl taps my insecurities. Don't know if it's real or if I'm spiraling. Don't want to see her backstage at my boyfriend's show, fingers crossed behind my back. I hope they break up quick. And then there was also a reference to a boring blonde, sorry, a boring did I get it wrong? Boring Barbie Barbie.
00:17:28
Speaker 1: That's h Taylor Swift picked up yes on that line in her song, but that's very important. I didn't know this. So these are two women who were dating guys in the same band. That's the backstory. Now that lyric comes along and all the fans are piecing this together. So now Taylor Swift on this new album has a song called actually Romantic and robes. They picked up on this immediately.
00:17:51
Speaker 2: It seems like it might be all about Charlie XCX. So here's what Taylor Swift sings, high five my ex and then said, you're glad he goasted me, wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face. Some people might be offended, but it's actually sweet. All the time you've spent on me, it's honestly wild, all the effort you've put in. It's actually romantic. I really got to hand it to you. No man has ever loved me like you do.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: You couldn't even get through it, could you.
00:18:20
Speaker 2: Oh? I was just dripping with sarcast So that.
00:18:24
Speaker 1: Is the lyric everybody's pointing to. And also at the top, what's the top lyric about the one you were just trying to pull up about the the Barbie boring Barbie line where she and accused her of being bold because she's on coke. Oh, yes, that line. So apparently this has been going back and forth, and mind you, folks, we should put this out there. We didn't say, did we. Charlie XCX has opened for Taylor Swift on tour before, so these two know each other pretty doll going well, I don't know if any of this is real. Taylor Swift has put out not a statement, but she explained some of the songs lyrics, and she says, you know what, get that lyric first, and then I'm gonna read this quote. How are you doing over there?
00:19:12
Speaker 2: Because I'm trying to find I'm trying to find exactly where the boring Barbie came in. Okay, wait, hold on, So Charlie XCX said there are no diss tracks on her album, but.
00:19:29
Speaker 1: The song the top of the song is where I have it here and take this with starts. The first line of the song is I heard you call me boring Barbie when the Kochs got you brave. That's how the song starts. Now that's some I mean, even Kendrick Lamar is applaud that whoever he's talking about. So I don't know how much of this is real. And the back and forth of Charlie XCX is now put out a video something online in which it's a recording studio and you hear just a couple of notes, essentially, I give your heads up, I'm in the studio.
00:20:10
Speaker 2: I'm working you like that. Huh, that's good. I got a new album coming out.
00:20:13
Speaker 1: That's good, rap beep stuff. Now folks are saying Taylor explained what the lyric and what the song is about the robes and reading her explanation, it didn't turn me away from it, said, oh, she's confirming.
00:20:25
Speaker 2: Yes, thinking she didn't say yes it was Charlie XCX, but she explained the exact scenario in which these two, it seems, have found themselves. So Taylor said, it's a song about realizing 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. That kind of sounds exactly what we just described.
00:20:53
Speaker 1: That's more brutal than the lyrics. Yeah, oh so, I I don't know Charlie XCX saying.
00:20:59
Speaker 2: No one's love no man's loved me the way you do that, that's pretty. That's that's a big poke.
00:21:05
Speaker 1: That's a compliment and the greatest insult ever. We want to hit you with a few reviews here, just from the New York Times Robes, because some of this stuff is really good, oh says while the album goes down easy, it's not a hard pivot or a grand leap. It's another missive from the inner world. The most famous politician of our generation.
00:21:26
Speaker 2: Musician, you said, politician.
00:21:29
Speaker 1: Famous musician. Well, she did well. She was out in the campaign.
00:21:33
Speaker 2: Drill, wasn't She's a musician, Well, the.
00:21:36
Speaker 1: Most famous musician of her generation set to meticulous mid tempo creations that often glisten and sometimes trip over themselves.
00:21:45
Speaker 2: She said. They say. In nearly every song, the music makes a sparkling first impression, but as the album unfolds, the lyrics undermine those pop satisfactions. As the words sank in, I was left wondering how many scores does Swift still need to settle.
00:22:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting that I'm telling you she's got She's creating pop Beef's.
00:22:06
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe it's brilliant. Look at what it did for Kendrick Lamar and even look at what it's done for Drake in terms of album sales. You keep pulling up Spotify and Drake's like number one, number two, number.
00:22:17
Speaker 1: I mean, he just got back to work.
00:22:19
Speaker 2: Look at the end of the day. Well, even if that rap beef kind of ignited a fire in him and his fans to say, hey, we like him too, this could be brilliant marketing.
00:22:28
Speaker 1: Babe. Wow, all right. Now are a few folks critics of this album. One says we may have seen Taylor on far better songwriting form than with the Life of a Show Goal, but perhaps now more than ever, she is making music for herself over anyone else. I buy that.
00:22:46
Speaker 2: Simon Cowell calls that indulgent on American idol, but you know what, she's earned the right to be. I feel like my personal opinion this one also is she leans fully into the idea of her sona as a work of artifice. The twelve songs here are either a peak under the mask or are another mask altogether. From a critical perspective, that pivot makes it at least a little bit interesting as an exercise. But what's most surprising about the Life of a Showgirl is the extent to which it's off putting, both as a pop album and as a Taylor Swift album.
00:23:23
Speaker 1: That's why I put in parentheses before that one. This is the best quote. This is the best critic The best way I've seen it put is that people don't like it as a Taylor Swift album.
00:23:33
Speaker 2: Right.
00:23:34
Speaker 1: I thought that was a good way for them to put that.
00:23:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, that does make sense, But I do you know, I do appreciate hmmm. This one's tough. The Life of a Showgirl isn't a particularly bad album, but given Swift's immense back catalog, too much of it sounds like an artist on auto pilot. That's tough.
00:23:53
Speaker 1: Upfront, The one two up says it's kind of the same thing at the end appears a signal of disinterest in evolution. Again, these are folks who, again I'm familiar with her, Yeah, but there's are folks who pay attention and know her, know her music, know all of those albums. I was shocked, Grobes. I was sitting up there with Savine earlier and asked, can you name any of the other I really could not name a Taylor Swift album. I couldn't think of the name of even of them. See Sabine popped off all twelve.
00:24:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh wow, that's impressive.
00:24:27
Speaker 1: Without even trying. So I'm for her to be at this place, to have that reach, to evolve that this may be the album she's been singing about eleven previous albums.
00:24:37
Speaker 2: You know, I feel like the song the sound does sound the same, but it's just the lyrics that have changed a bit, and I appreciate that. And look, you know, she's it does seem she's very proud of it. The fans are gobbling it up, and she looks happier than she's ever been before, and that makes.
00:24:56
Speaker 1: It a great album, folks. And with that, always appreciate you hanging thus for now, I'm teaching.
00:25:01
Speaker 2: Hold and I'm Amy Robot. We'll talk to you soon.
00:25:04
Speaker 1: M m m mmm
00:25:07
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm mm