Here’s why I’m convinced Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo is 100% about Taylor Swift, even though I think Olivia added a few lines in the song to throw us off the trail for plausible deniability.

Before I dive in with this lyrical analysis, I’m just going to give context for anyone who doesn’t already know the problematic lore between Olivia and Taylor.

Olivia released the song Deja Vu in 2021 as part of her debut album. Not long after, Taylor’s team came after Olivia claiming that Deja Vu sounded too similar to Taylor’s song Cruel Summer, which came out in 2019.

Before all this happened, Olivia cited Cruel Summer by Taylor as a major inspiration to her.

Olivia also referenced Taylor as one of her biggest idols in the world. She described Taylor as being her inspo for songwriting and she expressed a deep desire to collaborate with Taylor someday.

During Olivia’s interview with Rolling Stone, she was hyping up Taylor’s song Cruel Summer, and talking about how she loved the harmonized yelling versus towards the end of the song. She stated that she wanted Deja Vu to have a similar vibe and style to it.

It was a mistake on Olivia‘s part to compliment Taylor so heavily. It was a mistake for Olivia to bring up her affection and love for Cruel Summer. Mind you, Cruel Summer wasn’t even one of the original singles from Taylor’s Lover album.

It was always a good song, but it faded into the background of notoriety since Taylor released You Need to Calm Down, ME!, and the title track as singles. In other words, no one was checking for Cruel Summer at the time when Olivia was aggressively hyping it up.

After that Rolling Stone interview came out, that’s when Taylor‘s team came after Olivia. It resulted in Taylor getting writing credits for Olivia‘s song as well as royalty earnings.

So just to clarify, Olivia has given up millions of dollars in royalties to Taylor Swift and Taylor’s name is now added to the credits of Deja Vu – even though Taylor was nowhere near the writers room when those lyrics were being written.

And to take it a step further, Cruel Summer and Deja Vu absolutely sound nothing alike. This entire topic actually really pisses me off and makes me very angry.

A Reddit thread was launched about a year ago to talk about the fact that Deja Vu sounds nothing like Cruel Summer and thousands of people have chimed in with their thoughts on the matter.

The person who launched the thread said exactly what I myself think about this whole thing and they wrote, “This is insane. The two songs sound nothing like each other.

Back in the day if another artist openly said they were a big fan of yours and were inspired by your song, that would be like great. Let’s do a live duet.”

And that’s the first thing that came to my mind personally.

Why would Taylor go after her for writing credits instead of hitting her up for a collaboration?

The Redditor went on to say, “I’m angry about this. It’s bad conduct from someone who is now worth a billion dollars… Busy scraping royalties from everywhere possible even if they’re not from her own music, just because she can.”

I have to admit, as a former full-fledged Swiftie who grew up adoring Taylor’s music, this whole debacle between her and Olivia really turned me off and made me reconsider how deep in her fandom I want to be.

I still consider myself a Swiftie, but this whole thing was really disappointing and disheartening.

And that’s not even touching on the fact that I was disappointed by some of the racial undertones in Taylor’s newest album, The Life of a Showgirl.

I would prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that none of the racial undertones were actually legitimate or intentional, but overall, it’s just not a good look, nor is it a good feeling.

Especially seeing as I’ve always considered myself a dedicated Swiftie and I am a Black woman.

So anyways, let’s get into these lyrics of Olivia song, Vampire, and why I really do deeply believe the song is about Taylor, even though I think Olivia creatively wrote the song to make it seem like it’s about a boy so that she could have plausible deniability.

Did the first line of Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo call Taylor Swift out?

The first line of the song is Olivia singing, “I hate to give the satisfaction asking how you’re doing now, how’s the castle built off people you pretend to care about?” This line sounds like it’s aimed towards Taylor.

It sounds like Olivia feeling pressured to be the bigger person and ask how Taylor might be doing, however, also noting that Taylor built a castle off of people she’s pretended to care about through the years.

Some of those individuals include Katy Perry, who she’s friends with now, but they did temporarily have a fallout that led to Taylor releasing the song Bad Blood and Katy releasing the song Swish Swish.

In a legendary tweet from 2014, Katy wrote, “Watch out for the Regina George and sheep‘s clothing”

And it’s widely believed she was talking about none other than Taylor because Taylor allegedly tried to poach Katy‘s backup dancers.

Their beef ended in 2019, but not before the pop culture world went absolutely insane over it.

And then who could forget Taylor‘s feud with Demi Lovato? Tensions were high when Demi‘s former best friend Selena Gomez started buddying up with Taylor.

From an outsider’s perspective, it looked like Selena and Taylor were icing Demi out.

When a fan asked Demi how Selena was doing on camera, Demi famously clapped back, “Ask Taylor!”

Now, we can seemingly add Olivia to this list. Although, Olivia has gone out of her way to shut down the narrative that there is any drama between her and Taylor.

But based on what we know about the royalties and writing credit situation, it’s hard to ignore that there probably is a lingering issue between them.

Olivia mentions her worst mistake in “Vampire” – Is it a Taylor reference?

Later in the intro, Olivia sings, “I loved you truly. You gotta laugh at my stupidity” which goes hand-in-hand with the fact that she idolized Taylor and she was one of Taylor’s biggest fan girls. Yet Taylor left her feeling stupid for loving her so much.

Then Olivia saying, “Cause I’ve made some real big mistakes, but you make the worst one look fine.”

This line is extremely thought-provoking and deep because it goes to show that of all the mistakes Olivia has made on her rise to the top in the music industry, sitting down for that Rolling Stone interview and speaking so positively about Taylor’s song was the worst mistake she made.

So much so that it made every other silly dumb mistake in Olivia’s history look like a breeze in comparison.

Did Olivia reference “Midnights” by Taylor in “Vampire”?

Then Olivia sings, “I should’ve known it was strange, you only come out at night.”

It’s pretty subjective, but I feel this line could be referencing Taylor’s album Midnights, which is arguably considered Taylor‘s most vulnerable album of all time.

In this context, Olivia is saying it’s strange you only come out at night — as in Taylor only showed true vulnerability after releasing her Midnights album with songs like Antihero and Lavender Haze really shedding light on the type of thoughts and beliefs Taylor has about herself.

Then Olivia sings, “I used to think I was smart, but you made me look so naïve.”

Again, Olivia naively sat there for that Rolling Stone interview heavily complimenting Taylor, fan girling over Taylor, and saying things that she hoped would bode well for her in Taylor’s favor. But she ended up looking naïve for doing that.

Opinion: Olivia’s “Vampire” lyrics are seemingly about Taylor

Olivia sings, “The way you sold me for parts, as you sunk your teeth into me. Blood sucker, fame fucker. Bleeding me dry like a GD vampire.”

Taylor going after Olivia for writing credits and royalties feels like she sold Olivia for parts.

The act of what happened is giving emotional violence and manipulation. The fact that Olivia has missed out on millions of dollars in royalties explains the line about bleeding her dry like a GD vampire.

In this song, Taylor is the vampire who is sucking Olivia dry, emotionally, spiritually, creatively, and energetically.

Instead of being a classy veteran in the game who could have built Olivia up, collaborated with her, and been good friends in the industry, Taylor went the opposite direction.

Taylor had the opportunity to come across like a girl’s girl. Or to prove that she wasn’t intimidated by Olivia’s legendary storytelling writing style.

The way this played out makes it look like Taylor was intimidated by Olivia. Point blank.

The phrase “never meet your idols” couldn’t be more relevant in this scenario. Taylor had the chance to actively be everything Olivia dreamt her up to be, but instead Taylor went in the opposite direction.

These lyrics from Olivia REALLY make me think of Taylor

Then Olivia sings, “Every girl I ever talked to told me you were bad, bad news. You called them crazy, God I hate the way I called them crazy too.”

And at the end of that section, Olivia sings, “Cause girls your age know better.”

These lines make me curious to know about the conversation. Olivia and Taylor might’ve had with each other before this fallout.

If Taylor had warned Olivia that there would be shit talkers who have bad things to say about her and encouraged Olivia to just not listen to any of them.

The age line is really eye-opening because you have to remember that Olivia was 18 or 19 years old when Deja Vu came out in 2021 and Taylor was about 32 years old.

So we’re talking about a 14 year age gap here. We’re talking about more than a decade of time between a well-known and beloved veteran in the industry and a newbie who was just breaking into the music scene for the first time.

The truth of the matter is that the majority of Olivia‘s fans feel that she was taken advantage of and find it really disgusting and disturbing that so many people went along with this. In an interview with Time Magazine, Olivia said, “It was really frustrating to see people discredit and deny my creativity .“ In a separate interview with Teen Vogue, she said, “Every single artist is inspired by artists who have come before them. It’s sort of a fun, beautiful sharing process. Nothing in music is ever new. There’s four chords in every song. That’s the fun part — trying to make that your own.”

Which is all true, so why did Olivia get screwed over? And by the way, Taylor isn’t the only one who did this to Olivia. Hayley Williams from Paramore did the same thing claiming that Olivia‘s song Good 4 You sounded too similar to Misery Business by Paramore. Again, the songs sound nothing alike, and from an outsider’s perspective, it’s just incredibly frustrating knowing that veterans in the industry came after Olivia in the way they did. I still absolutely adore Hayley Williams, especially for the fact that she is super outspoken regarding human rights and she’s on the right side of history. I also love her voice and I think she’s a legendary singer-songwriter. Some of my favorite songs by Hayley are Decode, All I Wanted, and The Only Exception. These songs are undeniably beautiful. Oh, and I have to mention Brick by Boring Brick. I think that song is incredible as well. It’s just bothersome because I have so much respect for artists like Taylor and Hayley, so I really don’t get why they had to go after Olivia. Because my opinions of them are tainted in a way now, and I’m not the only person who feels this way. Thousands of people who share my opinion have made their thoughts known across social media, and I am not alone in this.

When Olivia was asked about giving retroactive writing credits away to Taylor and Hayley, she admitted to Rolling Stone that she was “a little caught off guard“ when it happened. She said, “At the time it was very confusing. I was green, bright eyed, and bushy tailed. Is that the phrase? It’s not something that I was super involved in. It was more team on team. So I wouldn’t be the best person to ask.“

In other words, Olivia was so overwhelmed and fresh in the industry when all of this was happening that she ended up agreeing to things that a lot of her fans wholeheartedly disagree with. A lot of us don’t think that Taylor or Hayley should’ve gotten writing credits or royalties for her music. However, what’s done is done and we can’t go back in time now.

Opinion: The climax of Vampire by Olivia speaks volumes about Taylor

The climax of Vampire really seals in stone to me that the song is about Taylor because Olivia sings, “You can’t love anyone, cause that would mean you had a heart. I tried to help you out, and now I know that I can’t. Because how you think’s that kind of thing I’ll never understand.”

So to break that down, the person who Olivia is singing about doesn’t have a heart.

What happened to Olivia with the writing credits and royalties thing was extremely heartless.

When Olivia said, “I tried to help you out, but now I know that I can’t,” it’s goes hand-in-hand with Olivia heavily complimenting Taylor, building Taylor up, and saying positive things about Taylor thinking she was helping Taylor, but later finding out how wrong she was to have done that.

And then Olivia sings, “How you think is the kind of thing I’ll never understand.” And I get that. Because I can’t wrap my head around how a person could do what was done to Olivia. That type of thinking is something I will never understand either.

So anyway, there is a chance that this song is about a boy who screwed Olivia over because she added a few lines in the song throughout that offer plausible deniability. But I still believe what I believe.