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.

So… 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.