Date:
Author: Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Winchester
Original article: https://theconversation.com/three-pop-beefs-that-were-more-cutting-than-matty-healy-and-taylor-swifts-248076
There has been a sharp intake of breath among Taylor Swift fans following reports that 1975 frontman and songwriter Matty Healy is soon to release a song addressing their public romance from 2023.
The song in question, God Has Entered My Body, is reportedly the title track of an upcoming 1975 album. According to a report in the Sun, the song includes the lyric “Keep your head up princess, your tiara is falling”. It is reported to be Healy’s response to Swift’s 2024 song The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, which many fans believe was about their relationship.
The 1975 frontman has responded to the rumours in typical Healy style, commenting “huge if true” under a post about the story on social media site Reddit.
This lyrical back and forth is just the latest entry in a rich history of public beefs between pop stars that have been committed to record. Here are some of the most notable examples.
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1. Lennon v McCartney (1971)
The first mainstream pop “diss track” exchange took place long before the term was even coined. It occurred in 1971 through Paul and Linda McCartney’s Too Many People and John Lennon’s How Do You Sleep?
Lennon was incensed by the McCartney lyrics “too many people going underground” and “too many people preaching practices”, which he took as attacks on his and Yoko Ono’s avant garde albums and bed-in escapades. In response, he launched a stinging tirade that accused (Paul) McCartney of creating “Muzak”, being only a “pretty face”, and hanging around with sycophants who fed his ego.
The on-record beef ended there, perhaps because McCartney was too busy to focus on his new band Wings, or simply because he didn’t want to risk another lashing from Lennon’s famously sharp tongue.
Either way, to the relief of Beatles fans everywhere, the two made amends before Lennon’s death in 1980, and Paul finally concluded their lyrical back and forth two years later with the touching Here Today.
2. Buckingham v Nicks (1977)
Recorded amid a backdrop of romantic tension and heavy drug use, it’s a wonder that Fleetwood Mac were even able to complete their 12th studio album Rumours, let alone create something that would go on to sell 40 million copies and spend more than a 1,000 weeks in the UK album charts.
It’d be unfair to say the massive success of the album is due to the lyrical exchanges between the by then estranged couple Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
Buckingham lit the fuse with Go Your Own Way, which accused Nicks of “packing up and shacking up” with different men. It caused Nicks to write Dreams, where she encouraged him to “listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness, like a heartbeat, drives you mad, in the stillness of remembering what you had”.
Decades later, one of the bitterest feuds in pop music continues to rumble on, with Buckingham currently sidelined from the group after being fired in 2018. It won’t come as a surprise that their version of events differs, with Buckingham claiming Nicks was behind his sacking, and Nicks accusing him of revisionism. No Lennon and McCartney thawing of the ice here, then. Yet.
3. Perry v Swift (2014-18)
Swift was involved in another public spat back in the 2010s. If reports are to be believed, the two pop icons Katy Perry and Swift became close friends in 2009, but by 2013, things seemed to have soured.
A rift over some backup dancers, some thinly veiled interview comments and a mutual ex-boyfriend have all been the subject of fan theories about the shift in mood.
In terms of diss tracks, Swift struck first, and relatively mildly, with Bad Blood in 2014, stating in an interview shortly after its release that it was about “a female musical artist”. Although she refused to name names, internet sleuths soon believed they’d figured out it was Perry.
A Twitter spat between Swift and rapper Nicki Minaj then broke out. Minaj complained that her song Anaconda wasn’t nominated for the video-of-the-year award when Swift’s Bad Blood was (stay with me – this will become relevant soon).
If the near-journalistic speed of those Lennon and McCartney tracks were indicative of the music industry in the early 1970s, Perry’s delayed response to Swift’s (perceived) barb is indicative of modern times, where her releases were kept to a strict three- or four-year cycle.
Three years on, then, comes Swish Swish, which included lyrics like “you’re a joke / And I’m a court-side killer queen” and “Your game is tired / You should retire”. It featured Nicki Minaj in the music video to further fan the flames (told you it’d become relevant).
The only problem was that, in the years between their falling out, Swift had transitioned from mere pop musician to word-dominating superstar, so Perry’s insults carried little weight.
When it comes to diss tracks, then, the old adage of striking while the iron is hot is definitely applicable. The pair have since made up, with Perry sending Swift an actual olive branch in 2018.
The pair are pictured embracing during the closing scene of Swift’s 2019 music video for You Need To Calm down. Even the Bad Blood controversy seems to be water under the proverbial bridge now, with Perry videoed singing along to the track by fans earlier this year during one of Swift’s Eras tour concerts.