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Sabrina Pulled A Taylor And Wrote Half Her New Album About A Situationship We Forgot She Had

Remember when we all thought The Tortured Poets Department was gonna be about Taylor Swift’s six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn ending, and then it was almost entirely about her random Matty Healy fling? Yeah, well, Sabrina Carpenter took a page out of her mother’s playbook when writing her sixth album, Short n’ Sweet. Everyone was expecting a full album of Barry Keoghan content (and don’t worry, we also got plenty of that), because the “Espresso” singer and Saltburn actor have been publicly dating for a while. At this point, I think most of us had totally forgotten about Sabrina’s brief Shawn Mendes situationship. And yet, that moment in her romantic history seems to have inspired a lot of phenomenal music. Sabrina and Shawn were involved in early 2023 before he famously reconciled with Camila Cabello at Coachella in April.

During her obligatory Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe, Sabrina said herself that several of the songs on her album are about brief situationships. “I thought about some of these relationships and how some of them were the shortest I’ve ever had, and they affected me the most,” she reflected. Shawn, what the hell did you do to our 4’11” queen??

Here are all the songs about Shawn Mendes on Sabrina Carpenter’s new album, Short n’ Sweet.

All The Songs About Shawn Mendes On Sabrina Carpenter’s Album, Short N’ Sweet

Is “Dumb & Poetic” About Shawn Mendes?

Shawn Mendes
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This is the roast of Shawn Mendes’ lifetime. I gasped. We all know and love Shawn for being a comfortable-with-his-masculinity, quiet man who’s obsessed with Camila Cabello and self-improvement. I fear he’s a very easy target for Sabrina, who basically has the opposite personality and isn’t afraid to call out men on their bullshit. “You’re so dumb and poetic,” she croons in the first verse. “It’s just what I fall for, I like the aesthetic.” *Cough* Joshua Bassett and Shawn Mendes are the same genre of “dumb and poetic” man. Sabrina references this man’s love of self-help books, how he tries to “come off soft and well-spoken,” and how he “jacks off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen.” Leonard Cohen, mind you, was a Canadian… like Shawn. An easter egg? I think so.

Sabrina also sings about how this person is “so sad” and enjoys meditation and mushrooms. Obviously, Shawn is “so sad” whenever he and Camila split. He also struggled after cancelling his Wonder tour in 2022 for mental health reasons. And yeah, I don’t think he’s done a single interview without mentioning his love of meditation. In the track, Sabrina promises, “The mushrooms aren’t changing your life.” Literally a week ago, Shawn admitted to experimenting with mushrooms. The line that follows, “You’re so empathetic, you’d make a great wife,” is crazy. Insane.

Is “Taste” About Shawn Mendes And Camila Cabello?

Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello
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I’m gonna go ahead and say it’s definitely a possibility. Sabrina sings in the chorus, “I heard you’re back together and if that’s true / You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissin’ you / If you want forever, I bet you do / Just know you’ll taste me too.” The lyrics seem like a reference to the on-and-off nature of Shawmila and also the intensity of that relationship. Clearly, there was a time when Shawn and Camila wanted “forever.” They might still want that, if we’re being honest.

The part about this guy’s humor is also telling. “Hе’s funny, now all his jokes hit different / Guеss who he learned that from,” Sabrina brags. I love Shawn, but the dude is not known for being funny. If anything, he’s known for taking himself super seriously, which is what Sabrina makes fun of him for in “Dumb & Poetic.” She’s flexing here and reminding everyone that she’s funnier than him, which is objectively true.

Sabrina even says, “Yeah, I know I’ve been known to share” in the song, which made me giggle. This seems like her admitting that her love triangle with Shawn and Camila was reminiscent of her love triangle with Joshua Bassett and Olivia Rodrigo.

Is “Coincidence” About Shawn Mendes And Camila Cabello?

I don’t think it’s a “Coincidence” that this song makes you think of Shawmila’s viral Coachella reunion. “Your car drove itself from L.A. to her thighs / Palm Springs looks nice, but who’s playin’ sides?” Sabrina sings in the fifth track of the album. Yes, Coachella Valley is considered Greater Palm Springs. Sabrina observes in the next lines, “Damn it, she looks kinda like the girl you outgrew. Least that’s what you said.” Oof.

In the chorus, she roasts the “Stitches” singer yet again: “What a coincidence / Ooh, wow, you just broke up again / What a coincidence.” Poor Shawn. But also, this woman is a savage genius and I will be streaming this entire album on repeat.

Ilana Frost
Ilana Frost is an entertainment writer at Betches. As a teenage girl in her twenties, she spends her time stanning Olivia Rodrigo, baking cakes for award shows, and refusing to ever leave her Reputation era.