“Actually Romantic” vs. “Everything is Romantic”: Taylor Swift’s Brilliant Linguistic Checkmate
Swift’s latest offering, The Life of a Showgirl, has given us what might be her most brilliantly executed—and wickedly amusing—musical response to date. The track “Actually Romantic” is already dominating conversations from the front rows of Fashion Week to the chicest listening parties in Los Angeles, and for good reason. This is Swift at her most surgically precise, her most devastatingly clever.
While our platinum-selling wordsmith maintains her legendary policy of never explicitly naming names—a brilliant strategic choice that keeps us all guessing—the signs pointing toward Charli XCX are impossible to ignore. Their intertwined history reads like a screenplay begging to be optioned, complete with tours, interviews, and enough subtext to fuel a thousand think pieces.
Rewind to 2018, when Charli joined Swift’s massive Reputation Stadium Tour as an opening act. Fast forward to 2019, when Charli gave an interview to Pitchfork that would become infamous among Swift’s devoted fanbase. Her comment about performing feeling like “waving to 5-year-olds” ricocheted through social media with explosive force. Though she later tweeted a clarification emphasizing her gratitude and praising Swift as “one of the biggest artists of my generation,” the damage—as they say in this business—was done.
The narrative grows infinitely more complex when we consider the romantic entanglements at play. Charli is now married to George Daniel, drummer for the 1975, following their November 2023 engagement. His bandmate? None other than Matty Healy, Swift’s brief but intensely scrutinized spring 2023 romance that provided substantial inspiration for The Tortured Poets Department. Charli has been refreshingly open about her friendship with both Healy and his fiancée, model-musician Gabbriette Bechtel—because modern pop dynamics are nothing if not beautifully complicated.
June 2024 brought us Charli’s critically acclaimed sixth album, Brat, and with it, immediate speculation. “Sympathy Is a Knife”—notably, Charli has her own track titled “Everything is Romantic”—featured lyrics that sent fans into analytical overdrive. Lines about not wanting to share space, forcing smiles, and particularly that scorching verse about hoping for a quick breakup backstage at “my boyfriend’s show” seemed tailor-made for Swift-related interpretation.
The symmetry is almost too perfect: Charli wrote “Everything is Romantic,” and now Swift responds with “Actually Romantic.” It’s the kind of linguistic chess match that makes pop music endlessly fascinating.
What makes this moment so compelling isn’t just the music itself—though that’s undeniably brilliant—but the way these two artists have navigated the narrative. Both have maintained public grace while their work speaks volumes beneath the surface. Swift, ever the master strategist, appears to be closing this chapter on her own terms, with her signature blend of wit, wordplay, and unapologetic honesty.
In an industry obsessed with feuds and drama, this feels refreshingly sophisticated: two artists, two perspectives, and music that lets us decide what’s actually romantic after all.
