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Look What You Made Her Do

The Meaning Behind Taylor Swift’s Look What you Made Me Do

April 17, 2018

“The old Taylor can’t come to phone right now. Why? Oh, because she’s dead.”

Swift is well known for writing about the events that have personally affected her. Like a deer caught in headlights, she found herself in the middle of lots of drama. Recent feuds have twisted the pop star’s world upside down.

At the end of summer 2017, Taylor Swift released the song, “Look What You Made Me Do,” and people started to notice that the song related to past incidents Swift has been involved in. There was quite a bit of “shade being thrown.” From Kanye West to Katy Perry, Swift dropped hints at how she truly felt towards the musicians.

Taylor Swift in her Look What You Made Me Do music video surrounded by snakes.
Video directed by: Joseph Kahn

Briana Hamilton explained, “In “Look What You Made Me Do,” Swift has lines stating ‘I don’t like your little games, I don’t like your tilted stage,’ and ‘The role you made me play of the fool–no, I don’t like you.’”

If you have seen the Saint Pablo tour, you would know that Kanye’s stage was tilted. People who knew the reference automatically realized who she was talking about.

The drama between West and Swift all started back in 2009 when Taylor Swift won album of the year. Kanye went up on stage and took the award–saying that Beyonce should have won instead. After that day, Swift vs. West was born.

When everyone had thought they made up, West released a song called “Famous,” in which he claimed that he made Swift famous. When Swift addressed the issue, she made it seem like the song’s claims were false, and she was furious.

Due to Swift throwing West under the bus, West’s wife Kim Kardashian-West clapped back a few months later and exposed Swift. Kardashian-West released a video of a phone call West and Swift had, clearly showing Swift’s appreciation for West’s line in the song.

Senior Briana Hamilton said that after an episode of “Keep Up with the Kardashians,” “[Kim] dropped an audio or video that they recorded during Kanye’s phone call of Taylor, which pretty much shows Taylor giving her blessings to the ‘I made that [girl] famous’ line…even going as far as to be like if the media says anything, I’ll be like ‘It’s cool I gave him permission.’”

Right after she was exposed, celebrities and other people, including Katy Perry, started to comment snake emojis on everything Swift had posted. The emojis represented the sneaky, deceptive nature of snakes, giving Swift the reputation of a liar.

Swift has been hiatus since the feud and many people were wondering what Swift’s next move was going to be. There was no way she would not respond to all the speculation and negativity surrounding her name, especially after her status of writing songs about what goes on in her life.

Another person Swift has had problems with is Katy Perry. Senior Toni Lee stated, “Katy and Taylor were having a fight over backup dancers. And Taylor wrote the “Bad Blood” song about Katy. And Katy wrote “Swish Swish” about Taylor.”

A few years ago, Swift’s backup dancers left her tour to go work for Perry. Swift’s “Bad Blood” was about how Perry stabbed her in the back and now they have “bad blood” between each other.

In June of 2017, after four years of not putting out music, Perry released her album Witness. “Swish Swish” particularly caught fans’ attention. This song was Perry’s way of telling the world how Swift can keep talking about her; meanwhile, she will be the better person. The music video to “Swish Swish” was also in the same movie-styled theme as “Bad Blood,” making the connection between the two artists evident.

While Perry is ready to end this drama, Swift is persistent and will not let it go. Perry just wants an apology for Swift getting mad over her dancers making their own decision to leave–something Perry had no control over.

Right after “Bad Blood,” there were fans who thought she was only going to mention the Katy Perry incident then.

Little did they know, Swift would come back this year with another response: “Look What You Made Her Do.”

Not only does she mock Perry’s new hair cut in the video, but she also sings, “I’ve got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined. I check it once, then I check it twice.” “It was obvious she was taking shots at Katy Perry,” says Lee.

This lyric refers to when Katy Perry said that she felt Swift was basically Regina George from the movie “Mean Girls.” In the movie, Regina and her posse have a book where they write in red a list of the people they do not like.

Overall, Swift’s song and video aired out what she has been keeping in and let her have the final say.

Hamilton exclaimed, “I think the message of her song was to say ‘I don’t care what anyone says, I’ve done a lot of growing and I’m back better than ever!’”

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