“Look What You Made Me Do” by Taylor Swift

The first two lines of “Look What You Made Me Do” and her mention of ‘tilted stage’ makes it easy to speculate that this song is about her feud with Kanye West and Katy Perry, who both performed on tilted stages in 2016 and 2017 respectively. The artist could also be using this term to illustrate the corruption that exists in the music industry.

Taylor continues to mention how she may have been framed by the Wests to ruin her reputation. She makes several references to her feud with the Wests concerning how her kindness was exploited and used against her, as well as her sour relationship with Katy Perry.

Taylor, throughout this track, presents herself as one who has been forced to behave a certain way because of the bad treatment and marred reputation she has been subjected to. She no longer trusts anyone and is now bent on getting revenge on all the people who made her look like a liar.

Summary

After all is said and done, “Look What You Made Me Do” is a certified diss track. Rumor has it that the primary targets of this song include Kanye West and his wife Kim and Katy Perry.

The Taylor Swift and Kanye West Feud

This feud dates back to 2009 when Kanye West pulled off one of his most-infamous stunts ever. He crashed the stage while Taylor Swift was receiving an MTV VMA to rather assert that Beyoncé should have been the winner instead. Swift went on to voice her displeasure over the incident. But she didn’t hold a serious grudge, as it appeared she had buried the hatchet with Yeezy as of 2015.

In 2016, Kanye released a song called “Famous”. Most notably he uses the very offensive word “b*t*h” on Taylor. As if that wasn’t enough he went on to state that he was responsible for making her very “famous”.  These are of course insults, and Swift responded accordingly.

Where the confusion sets in is that Kanye asserted that Swift actually approved of said lyrics before he released them. Taylor’s camp countered, and at the heart of their argument was the claim that Kanye actually did let her know he intended to mention her. However, he did make her aware of the aforementioned line (“I made that b*t*h famous”).

Then Kanye’s famous wife, Kim Kardashian, entered the equation. She went on to provide an actual video of said conversation between Kanye and Swift. The video confirmed that whereas Taylor did approve of Kanye making a sexual reference to her, he did not reveal the “b*t*h” line to her which is at the heart of the contention.

So as of the year 2020, it doesn’t appear this conflict is going away anytime soon. Instead someone leaked the full video of the Kanye/Taylor phone call, and in its entirety it becomes more-blatantly obvious that West did not get Swift’s permission to use the “b*tch” line. Swift of course boasted vindication, on top of revealing more way in which Kanye is “two-faced”. Kim K. then counterattacked, basically claiming that Taylor convoluted the issue and used it for her own notoriety.

“Look What You Made Me Do” Facts

Writing: Taylor Swift along with J. Antonoff, F. Fairbrass, R. Fairbrass and R. Manzoli
Production: Antonoff and Swift
Album: Swift’s 2017 multi-platinum pop album “Reputation”
Release: August of 2017

Did Taylor release “Look What You Made Me Do” as a single?

Yes. It was the first single she released from “Reputation”.

Does “Look What You Made Me Do” contain samples?

Yes. It samples Right Said Fred’s 1990s hit song “I’m Too Sexy”. This is the reason Rob Manzoli and the Fairbrass brothers are also credited as its official writers. The trio wrote “I’m Too Sexy”.

Records Breaker

Shortly after Taylor and her team dropped this song, it broke multiple significant records. For example, within 24 hours of being published on YouTube, the song’s official music video accrued over 43 million views. This phenomenal feat broke the record of the most viewed video within a span of 24 hours. Interestingly, Taylor went on to break this record in 2019 with her hit song “Me!“.

The song was also phenomenally successful commercial-wise. For example, in America alone, it sold close to 200,000 digital units within a period of 24 hours – a truly rare feat. It went on to become Spotify’s second most-streamed song in a single day. The first at that time was “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran.

This single gave Swift a No. 1 hit in many countries, including her native country of U.S.A. Here, it occupied said position on the Hot 100 for 3 weeks in a row. Below are the other places where this hit topped the charts:

• United Kingdom
• Slovakia
• Scotland
• Philippines
• New Zealand
• Malaysia
• Lebanon
• Israel
• Ireland
• Croatia
• Canada
• Australia