Is Gracie Abrams’s ‘Death Wish’ About Taylor Swift?
Some people think Gracie Abrams’s new song is about Taylor Swift.
From her album, Daughter From Hell, the song Death Wish is about a very toxic person. The lyrics include digs like:
- “Your power trips and diamond rings”
- “‘Til you twist the knife with a smile while you kill me? And then you ask me to dance if there’s someone around”
•”I fell for your faux fantasy, You poured the wine, there’s poison in it”

Some fans have accused Taylor Swift of being the inspiration behind the song. To be fair, there are some lyrics in Death Wish that could be seen as linked to Swift’s own music. For instance, the line “Your words to kill are evergreen” seem like they could be a reference to Swift’s This is Me Trying where she sings, “And my words shoot to kill when I’m mad, I have a lot of regrets about that.” Death Wish also references a person who keeps girls around, like Taylor’s famous girl squad, has “power trips and diamond rings”, and thrives on drama (“You live to look for enemies”) when Taylor has many famous enemies that she subtly addresses in her own lyrics.

So what’s the history behind these two? Gracie opened for Taylor on the Eras tour and the two collaborated on Gracie’s song “Us”, which earned a Grammy nomination. Gracie has only spoken highly of her time working with Taylor. Given this history, it seems unlikely that Death Wish is about Taylor Swift.
Gracie even attended Taylor’s wedding to Travis Kelce earlier this month, though her boyfriend Paul Mescal was in Ireland attending a family wedding.

At concerts, Gracie has introduced the song by saying it’s about a friend who was in an abusive relationship. Gracie’s producer, Aaron Dessner, told Billboard Wednesday that he does not think the song is about Taylor Swift, saying, “Definitely not. It was written at a time when [Gracie] was writing about a friend’s ex being in a bad relationship.”
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