When Shakira and Miley Cyrus settle accounts with their exes through songs

In 2023, “women no longer cry, women charge”. The year has just begun as singers Shakira and Miley Cyrus have already settled their accounts with their former partners.

As early as January 11, Colombian star Shakira set social networks in turmoil with the publication of a song entitled BZRP Music Session #53, co-written with Argentinian producer Bizarra. A title addressed to former Spanish footballer Gerard Pique, who shared his life for twelve years. A week later, the song had racked up over 141 million views on YouTube and 65 million plays on Spotify.

Shakira therefore opens the slap box there and attacks the father of her two children, but also the new companion of the latter, the Spaniard Clara Chia Marti, 23 years old. All this with a lot of shocking phrases: “A lot of gym, but also work your brain a little” ; “You changed a Ferrari for a Twingo” ; “A Rolex for a Casio” ; “I outdid you and that’s why you’re with someone like you.” » And in case there are still doubts about the recipients of her sharp rhymes, she goes so far as to use puns with “Piqué” and “Clara”.

After Te Felicito and Monotonia, this is the third song she has dedicated to their breakup, recorded in June 2022. In November, Shakira and Gerard Piqué announced that they had reached an agreement for the custody of their children, Milan and Sasha. The singer has neither married the ex-FC Barcelona player nor shared her property with him, and says she wants to leave Spain, where a tax evasion case has been opened against her.

Miley Cyrus, the former idol of pre-teens in the United States, is not left out. After Wrecking Ball, Slide Away Where Midnight SkyShe goes out Flowers. This title, which will appear on the album Endless Summer Vacation – expected in March – has already accumulated 47 million plays on Spotify and 46 million views on YouTube.

She talks about her relationship with Australian actor Liam Hemsworth, from whom she has been separated since August 2019 and divorced since January 2020. The release of the song, on January 13, coincides with the birthday of the ex, who was celebrating his 33 years.

Taylor Swift, specialist in “revenge songs”

“We built a house, then we watched it burn”, sings in particular the native of Tennessee. A double-meaning phrase, when we also know as the couple’s home in Malibu had been destroyed by the Woolsey Fire, one of the fires that tore through Southern California in 2018.

Scholars have noted the similarities between the refrain of Flowers And the one of When I Was Your Man (2012) by Bruno Mars. Where the singer spoke of a bygone relationship, the singer celebrates her independence and says she doesn’t need anyone.

Settlements of scores by interposed songs are nothing new. In 2016, on the album Lemonade, Beyonce “paid tribute to the perseverance of black American women, while looking back on her complicated life alongside rapper Jay-Z”euphemised The world in 2016. In this very personal opus, the singer recounted in detail the phases she had gone through to rebuild herself and rebuild her couple, after her husband and father of her children cheated on her.

But the undisputed specialist in revenge songs remains Taylor Swift, who has dedicated several titles to her exes. In 2016, the magazine’s website RollingStone had even made an inventory of it: Picture to Burn (dedicated to Jordan Alford), Teardrops on My Guitar (Drew Hardwick) Hey Stephen (Stephen Barker Liles), Forever and Always, Better Than Revenge, Holy Ground (Joe Jonah) Mine (Cory Monteith) Dear John, The Story of Us (John Mayer), Back to December (Taylor Lautner) We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and All Too Well (Jake Gyllenhaal) star light (Conor Kennedy) Style and Out of the Woods (Harry Styles).

The enigmatic “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon

At the beginning of the 1970s, the most emblematic of the “divorced” couples sent each other a few well-felt and not very subtle spades. After the separation of the Beatles, Paul McCartney and John Lennon are torn apart. On Too Many People, the first attacks the political commitments of the second. who responds with How Do You Sleepin which he claims that “Macca” makes elevator music and that the only good thing he did was Yesterday. In 1972, on Back Off Boogaloo, it’s Ringo Starr, the drummer of the “Fab Four”, who enters the dance and attacks the pieces recorded solo by McCartney. George Harrison is not to be outdone: with wah wah he evokes the lack of consideration he suffered from Lennon and McCartney.

However, the most famous settling of scores in song remains You’re So Vain, title of Carly Simon released in 1972. For more than forty years, the New Yorker has maintained the mystery about the identity of this lover to whom she launches: “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you. »

In 1983, the singer assured the washington post that the title was not about Mick Jagger, the leader of the Rolling Stones, which nevertheless corresponds more or less to the composite portrait. And then she added: “Looks like it’s about Warren Beatty. He certainly thought it was on him. He called me and said thank you for the song. »

Thirty years later, she explained to the magazine People that the second verse actually referred to the famous actor. And still having fun: “Warren thinks it’s all about him!” » In fact, the rest of the song is about two other men – the names of David Bowie, David Cassidy and Cat Stevens have been mentioned – but it continues to keep their identities unclear.