10. CANCELLED!

1. Musical Style: Disney Villain Song

2. Literary References: "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare (Something wicked this way comes); "Underworld" relates to Hades, either the Greek Mythology version or James Woods's masterclass Disney villain performance.

3. Key Lyric: "Can't you see my infamy loves company / Now they've broken you like they've broken me / But a shattered glass is a lot more sharp"

4. Favorite Lyric: "Tone deaf and hot, let's fuckin' OFF HER!"

5. Taylor's Callback: "Look What You Made Me Do" x "The Man" x "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?"

6. TL/DR: Fuck the Patriarchy!

7. Previous Track 10s: Mary's Song, The Way I Loved You, Better Than Revenge, The Last Time, How You Get the Girl, King of My Heart, Death By a Thousand Cuts, illicit affairs, ivy, Labyrinth, Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?

If I had to pick my favorite song on Showgirl, "CANCELLED!" would be my top choice right now. I adore this song, mainly because it's Petty Taylor at her best.

I've heard some critics and fans denigrate this song because they think it has something to do with "cancel culture," or they try to decode whether she's singing about Blake Lively or Brittany Mahomes. They're all wrong on both accounts. 

If you listen to the lyrics, it's obvious that this song is two things. First, it's "The Man" if it had been a track on "Reputation." She's singing about the patriarchy, and it's clearly stated in the first two verses.

In verse one, she sings, "Did you girl-boss too close to the sun? / Did they catch you having far too much fun?" The sun references the myth of Icarus, who died because he flew too high, and the sun melted the wax off his wings, and he fell into the ocean. In the song, a woman was in charge but exceeded her limits and was having more fun that the men who run the world allotted for her.

In verse two, the lyrics are, "Did you make a joke only a man could? / Were you just too smug for your own good? / Or bring a tiny violin to a knife fight?" These are all condemnations of women's behavior and attitudes on the part of a patriarchal society. The punishment is, of course, cancellation. 

The beginning of the second verse is an indictment of the music business, where she says a woman's popularity is celebrated because "everyone prospers." But one mistake spells disaster: "One single drop, you're off the roster / Tone deaf and hot, let's fuckin' OFF HER!"

The second meaning of the song is a further development of "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" The image of the woman/witch she created on TTPD extends here with the line from Macbeth (Something wicked this way comes), spoken by the three witches. 

Furthermore, the answer to the question, "Who's afraid?" is "You should be." That's even more true here. Like she said in "Look What You Made Me Do," the old Taylor can't come to the phone...because she's dead. But in "CANCELLED!", the new Taylor has already been to the Underworld and come back as an indestructible force.

So the Kanyes and Kims of the world can do their worst; she's already been cancelled and come back from the dead. Her friends—the ones with the matching scars—have experienced the same thing, and now she, like Hermes, is their guide to emerging back to Earth, scarred but powerful.

The music and the lyrics are straight out of the very best of Disney villain songs, with the very best of these being Ursula's "Poor, Unfortunate Souls" from "The Little Mermaid." Taylor sings with the same confidence, and the music is as theatrical as the lyrics demand.

The most memorable part musically, for me at least, is in verse three, where the music is a repeating series of dark chords in a minor key that build toward the dramatic final chorus. The song has the same structure, dynamics, and drama as the most memorable Disney villain songs (I'll add Scar's "Be Prepared" here as another example, because "The Lion King" is based on "Hamlet" by Shakespeare, and now you see why Swifties get lost in rabbit holes chasing Easter eggs...).

The final chorus brings all these elements together both musically and lyrically, with the full instrumentation of a film score, the underlying backup vocals and call-outs, and the lyrical theme, with the first meaning expressed in the line, "I salute you if you're much too much to handle," directed at the women who don't submit to male expectations.

The second meaning comes out in what I identified as the key verse: "Can't you see my infamy loves company / Now they've broken you like they've broken me / But a shattered glass is a lot more sharp." The men in power think they've broken them, but they've only exposed the sharp edges of their defiance, making them stronger than they were before.

I'm begging the universe for a video for this song with Taylor dressed as an evil queen and her celebrity friends (Selena Gomez and Sabrina Carpenter for starters) being transformed from princesses to villains as the song goes along. She's already done the fairy tale twist with "Bejeweled"; this would be the final jewel in her crown.