Camila Cabello’s new album, Romance, is due out next Friday, December 6. A few tracks have already been released including, of course, her smash hit with Shawn Mendes, “Senorita”, and there’s no mistaking what the music on her second album is about: love...specifically being in love with him.
It’s not a f-cking secret, obviously. The fact that it’s so NOT a secret is what’s tripping people up. The psychology and the reverse psychology and the reverse reverse psychology and the reverse reverse reverse psychology of this relationship could take months. These days, a denial is a confirmation and a confirmation is a denial. If they don’t admit to a romance, or they hide the romance, it means it’s a romance. If they don’t hide the romance, it means it’s a showmance. But if they know that’s how people think, then why wouldn’t they hide the romance to make people think it’s actually real? Or maybe they need us to think it’s so real so that she can sell records?
For a while there, Camila would talk about their relationship but would avoid actually saying Shawn’s name. Now that she’s promoting the album though, Camila is open to talking about Shawn during this press tour. “I don’t want to talk about my personal life” is not in her vocabulary. And that may be because she can’t separate her personal life from her professional life since almost all the songs are about him. As she tells the LA Times, “That’s my boyfriend. This is real.”
And apparently this album is about how they started out as friends and collaborators and became lovers. She sings about the “stretch marks around [her] thighs” turn him on and meeting his family, about their first kiss in San Francisco which was the catalyst for setting the tone of the album as, when she first started trying to write in March, it wasn’t going anywhere. And according to co-songwriter Finneas O’Connell (Billie Eilish’s brother), Camila called a few months later with all kinds of inspiration after taking her relationship with Shawn to the next level.
And it doesn’t stop there. “Liar” is a song about sex, how he’s got her “begging for more”. So we’re way past the point of being coy now, if we ever stopped at coy at all. And she’s quite clear with the LA Times about where they stand: “We’re just two kids in love”.
Again, it’s the psychology and the reverse of it all. Like the mirror sibling of “thou dost protest too much”. What is that? Thou dost insist too much?
But if you’re willing to think that this is a manipulated situation, wouldn’t these “two kids in love” also know what’s being said about them online and how this game works and dial it back? That’s the cynicism of it all, and in this case, I can’t decide whether or not cynicism should trump earnestness.
Click here to read more about Camila Cabello at the LA Times.
Attached - Shawn and Camila at the AMAs on Sunday and Shawn in Sao Paulo yesterday.
