My Personal Life of a Showgirl Rewrites: Honey

As a longtime Swiftie I think it's fair to hold two truths at once. Taylor's new album is fun. And, it's not her best work lyrically.

What's great about music is that we can all enjoy different albums for our own reasons. If you love a spunky, boppy, well-produced glitter gel pen song, you might love TLOAS as-is. But me? As much as I love the sound of this album (and I do!) I find myself really wishing the lyrics were just a little more interesting and a little less repetitive.

So for my own sanity, I've decided to tweak some lyrics to my personal liking. My goal is to find replacements that keep the rhythms intact and the sounds mostly the same. And where possible, I hope I can find ways to build on the themes and metaphors that I see in the songs.

I'm starting with a song I really like overall: Honey.

This song is a lovely nod to how being in a good relationship can change your perspective. Things like pet names and other cringey behavior can suddenly feel fun and sweet if it's coming from a genuine place.

My biggest critique of the song is found in the highly repetitive lines. On the one hand, I do see the benefit of this ultra-repetition in a pop song. The longer I sit with the song, the more I think I'd actually be completely fine with one instance of "You can call me "honey" if you want because I'm the one you want." But I'd like to see that line altered when it comes back around.

Original lyric: You can call me "honey" if you want because I'm the one you want

My re-write: You can call me "honey" if you want, because you're calling me the one.

Second time: You can call me "honey" if you like, on your lips it's only right.

Third time: You can call me "honey" if you want, because you call me what you want. (As a call back to Taylor's track on Reputation "Call it what you want.")

Next, I found "all those blues" a little vague and unrelated to the theme of the song. So, I wanted to make a more direct reference while keeping the essence of the line the same.

Original lyric: But you touched my face / Redefined all of those blues when you say "honey"

My re-write: No longer stung, I'm in bloom when you say "honey"

The repetition of "meaning" and "mean it" is nice here, but I didn't love the ending of this line. I feel like there are probably better ways to re-write this whole phrase, but in trying to keep the syllabic pattern the same, I decided to tweak it only slightly.

Original lyric: You give it different meaning 'cause you mean it when you talk

My re-write: You give it different meaning, 'cause it means I'm what you want

Second time: You give it different meaning, 'cause it means that I'm the one

I almost left this line alone, not because I like it, but because I couldn't figure out what the intention was. Ultimately, I gave up on replacing it perfectly thematically and simply picked something I felt fit with the rest of the song.

Original lyric: We can bed down, pick me up, who's the baddest in the land, what’s the plan?

My re-write: We can bed down, pick me up, pillow talk until the morning, what’s the plan?

Want to hear all these changes with the music? I made a short acoustic cover with my version here.

What song should I try next?