On Thursday night, Swifties worldwide celebrated the release of The Tortured Poets Department. Many fans, myself included, stayed up until 2:00 a.m. for the release of The Anthology, the second part of the album. Both albums amounted to a total of 31 songs.
My friends and I gathered in Warren Towers’ common room and projected the lyrics on the wall as we played the songs for the first time, silently absorbing them. Among the many songs, though, one caught us by surprise and reminded us of a track on another pop star’s album.
Olivia Rodrigo released her second album, Guts, back in September 2023. One of the singles, titled “Get Him Back,” played in our heads as we listened to the first track on the second part of Swift’s new album, titled “imgonnagetyouback.” It had my friends, as well as many fans on the internet, speculating whether there’s any connection between the two. The lyrics on each track seem too similar to be a coincidence.
Swift sings: “Whether I’m gonna be your wife or / Gonna smash up your bike, I haven’t decided yet / But I’m gonna get you back / Whether I’m gonna curse you out or / Take you back to my house, I haven’t decidеd yet / But I’m gonna get you back.”
Rodrigo sings: “I wanna key his car / I wanna make him lunch / I wanna break his heart / Then be the one to stitch it up / I wanna kiss his face / With an uppercut / I wanna meet his mom / Just to tell her her son sucks.”
It’s hard not to see the similarities in the concept, but is there any meaning behind these parallels?
The two artists are rumored to have beef with one another, but that doesn’t seem to correlate much with the concept of these songs, so maybe they really did just have the same idea.
Olivia Rodrigo fans are saying she should sue, but you can’t really sue for copying a concept. Swift may have actually written her song long before Rodrigo, as there have been claims that The Tortured Poets Department had been in the works for five or more years.
I’m a fan of both artists and wish they would collaborate in the future, but for now, I’ll keep over-analyzing the lyrics like the rest of the world.
Have you listened to the new album?
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