Today, we look at who the “boy” is that Sabrina Carpenter was referring to in “because i liked a boy.”
This is “What It’s All About,” a new feature that explains what certain notable songs were written about, provided that the song wasn’t written about the work of another famous person (in which case that’d be a Meta-Message).
One of the problems with talking about songs written about relationship drama between multiple famous people is that you never really know whether this stuff is real, or just publicity-driven fiction to help keep the fans engaged. So with that mind, let me note ahead of time that all of the stuff surrounding Sabrina Carpenter’s “because i liked a boy” might be nonsense (but not like Sabrina Carpenter’s “nonsense”).
In any event, as I wrote about a while back, Olivia Rodrigo famously wrote a bunch of great pop songs about her ex-boyfriend, Joshua Bassett.
That, in turn, led to Sabrina Carpenter, who dated Bassett after Rodrigo, doing an album, emails i can’t send, that ALSO was greatly about Bassett! When the album came out, I wrote about the oddity of Bassett having two good pop albums written, in great part, about him, but let me now just take a look at one of the standout songs off of Carpenter’s album, “because i liked a boy.”
In the tune, Carpenter opens by discussing her relationship with Bassett, and how the success of Rodrigo’s songs about her breakup with Bassett led to Carpenter being demonized by thousands of teen fans:
Who knew cuddling on trampolines could be so reckless
We bonded over black eyed peas and and complicated exes
Fell so deeply into it
It was all so innocent
Now I’m a homewrecker, I’m a slut
I got death threats filling up semi trucks
Tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice
All because I liked
I’m a hot topic on your tongue
I’m a rebound gettin’ ’round stealin’ from the young
Tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice
All because I liked a boy
Carpenter hones in on the irony that she and Bassett were not even dating any more when Rodrigo’s songs blew up:
And all of this for what?
When everything went down we’d already broken up
Please tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice
All because I liked a boy
I think Carpenter handled the situation well.
Okay, folks, if you have any suggestions for more What’s It All About installments, drop me a line at brian@poprefs.com!
