#but the way there’s a significant amount of focus on the speaker’s image/what ppl are saying to HER

[clarabowmp3]

I’m so interested in your take on but daddy I love him. The song bothers me because it’s clearly about/inspire by the Matty backlash, which was so justified. That man should literally be in prison. But if you can ignore that, and I know that’s a big if but it’s a little easier now that he’s not on the scene. I do like the song and the eras tour performance of it as a sort of slam on church-going do-gooders who don’t accept anything but what they themselves know to be good and pure.

oooh this is interesting cuz I’ve never rlly had the stomach to think abt it outside of the matty context! It’s not that bad of a song at least in the first half, but then it suddenly gets so much more extreme in the second half. Tbh i still dont like it much overall cuz:

I think the song goes off the rails around the ‘judgemental creeps’ line. Like I get a big theme in the song is going against/ignoring what others have to say, so I still get the ‘not wanting to listen to all the bitching and moaning’ line but then the next verse is her doubling down and dragging them (‘vipers in empath’s clothing,’ ‘sanctimonious’ etc) and although it’s just a few lines there’s so much potent vitriol packed in them. I think it’s esp jarring compared to her more subtle expression of the romance (which I’m fine with btw! for me less is more yk). It feels like a bad diss track poorly disguised as a forbidden love song

the tone is veryyy bitter, I’m sorry 😭😭 from the very first verse (“cuz they HATE you”) she fumes about these outsiders in a pretty childish tone too (which I guess fits in the context of a child rebelling against a parent but it’s not like love story which portrays them being kept apart as tragic and hence encourage ppl to root for the speaker - my point being, the childish tone hinders the portrayal of the romantic aspect of the song, so the bitter parts seem more prominent). Around the part i mentioned above ^^ it starts to sound more like a tantrum. The lackluster outro kind of returns the focus back to the relationship but it’s kind of ruined by how she throws in that one last dig (‘wine moms’)

the sentiment feels pretty juvenile. I get feeling irritated by constant scrutiny and unwarranted criticism but it feels very annoying to see the speaker acting like she doesn’t care (soliloquies I’ll never see) when she so clearly does care?? And I don’t mean in real life, i mean the whole verse abt ‘sanctimonious soliloquies’ etc. Like, the vitriol i mentioned earlier plus this being the longest song on the album which is 60% her acting hypocritical in this way. i way way prefer love story because the whole point is abt their love story. I guess the name of this song itself gives it away - it’s more abt her expressing her love for this person to others rather than to the person themselves. On top of that, she acts so petulantly abt what these elders have to say that it just feels exhausting, not compelling

All in all I think it depends what theme/msg you want to get out of the song. Personally for these kinds of songs I prefer the ‘loving against all odds’ msg over the ‘fuck the odds’ msg. Like reputation is one of my fav albums of all time and I think the songs on there do a much better job of expressing this duality (eg ciwyw, don’t blame me, dwoht). It might be because the underlying message of her being in love is more consistent there, which is what I prefer. Music is all subjective anyway but these are my thoughts :)