One of my favourite catchphrases from the early days of this website nearly 20 years ago is “girl sh-t is the best sh-t”. And, well, is there any other popstar who girl sh-ts as much as Taylor Swift? To be clear, nobody is complaining here. Taylor has always been good for gossip and given how prolific she is as a songwriter, we’ve been well fed. 

 

Obviously The Life of a Showgirl has been a huge story all weekend as people continue the forensics into her lyrics and imagery. In my post on Friday, I wrote about how the song “CANCELLED!” is undoubtedly about and/or for Blake Lively, in support. Two more pieces of evidence that emerged that I didn’t include in that article – this Daily Mail headline from August 2024: 

The Daily Mail's Blake Lively headline 
 

“Cancelled” in all-caps is pretty slamdunk, as is “tone deaf” which is a lyric in the song. But also, the jewellery she’s wearing in one of the versions of the album, specifically the bracelet and the earrings: 

And then there’s the line “girlboss too close to the sun”. I don’t listen to Candace Owens but apparently at one point this is a phrase she used to describe Blake months and months ago though she herself did not coin the expression originally. 

 

So for alllllll that reporting that Taylor was done with Blake that we’ve been hearing for months… pretty sure I don’t have to finish that sentence? Right now the same outlets that reported that Taylor and Blake broke up are swinging back to the other side. Who were their initial “sources” and have they checked back in with them? 

 

That’s Taylor defending a friend, and doing it well, I love that song. I do not, however, love “Actually Romantic”, it’s a skip for me. That said, I do like what she’s started or, perhaps more accurately, what she’s extending. Because this doesn’t seem to be a fight she’s walking away from. Obviously we’re talking here about Charli xcx and whether or not “Actually Romantic” is a response to Charli’s “Sympathy is a Knife” – most gossips are convinced that this is, indeed, Taylor’s latest addition to her growing library of diss tracks. And, by the way, if you want the backstory to the beef, here’s a pro-Taylor summary of where it started and how it’s going: 

 

Taylor claims she doesn’t love mess (some would argue that she does). Charli, on the other hand, loves mess and is messy AF. In more ways than one, probably, because people who do a lot of coke have really messy sh-ts. So it’s probably not likely that Charli will be walking away from it either. Over the weekend she posted this: 

 

So Charli’s in the studio, working on something. And my first thought was – is that a violin? My ears aren’t that sophisticated but that was what I was hearing so I hit up my violin expert, Duana, aka The Name Therapist (our girl is multi-talented, she also plays violin), for her analysis and she came with the nerdiest but also most fascinating answer. Duana thinks this is both a violin and a viola, layered.

The violin is noteworthy here because there’s a line on Taylor's album about bringing a “tiny violin to a knife fight”. This is from “CANCELLED!” and not “Actually Romantic” but both of these tracks are girl sh-t coded, and if Duana’s right about Charli playing with a violin and a viola, as in an instrument and its smaller counterpart, is this the story of the big and little bully? 

If you want to get even geekier, Duana’s hearing cello on the last two notes. And a cello is even larger than the violin and the viola so I don’t know what kind of musical artillery Charli might be bringing but, like, are we about to get some girl sh-t in the orchestra?! Squawk your thoughts! (App link here.)

Here's Taylor promoting her album last week at Heart Breakfast in London. 

 

Taylor Swift visited Heart Breakfast in London with various presenters.
Photo credits: Matt Crossick/ Shutterstock for Global

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