Love Language: Taylor’s “Honey” Lyrics, Explained
Track 11 on Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl is the sticky-sweet Honey.
In this song, our showgirl narrator redefines the language of love, one term of endearment at a time. But what does Honey really mean, and how does it tie into the larger themes of the album?
I’m your Swiftie English teacher, and we’re diving into the real meaning of Honey, line by line.
- Title: Honey
- Track: 11, The Life of a Showgirl
- Written By: Taylor Swift, Max Martin & Shellback
- Pen: Fountain
Honey Narrative Synopsis
- POV: First person, narrated by our “showgirl”
- Setting: In the present, looking back over the past and comparing it to this newfound love.
- Characters: Narrator (“I”), subject (“you”), unnamed others (“they”)
- Mood: Amazed, renewed, grateful
- Conflict: Previous relationships and interactions felt invalidating.
- Theme: Redefining the language of love and trust.
Honey Lyrics Meaning: Line by Line
Before we get into the lyrics, it’s important to note that Honey is an unusual song structure for Taylor. This track begins with an intro, then goes directly into the first chorus. There’s also no real bridge, though the final pre-chorus acts like a bridge within the narrative structure.
I point this out because it fits in with the theme of the song: switching it up, feeling brand new, and redefining what love should feel like. She hasn’t stuck with her old way of doing things in this track, because her characters are also entering a new era of trust and intimacy.
Please note, this is only my interpretation of Taylor Swift’s writing. Art is subjective, and the only person who truly knows what these lyrics mean – or what she intended them to mean – is Taylor herself.
What these lyrics mean to you is really what matters, and there is no single “correct” interpretation. I hope my annotations below I can simply point out things you may have missed, open the door to alternate meanings, and draw parallels between Taylor’s other lyrics and art.
Intro & 1st Chorus: Call it What You Want
“You can call me “Honey” if you want because I’m the one you want,” she states in the intro, setting up the central metaphor that will run throughout the song. “Honey” and other terms of endearment will come to mean different things as this track goes on.
But from the jump, these lyrics remind us of some very similar ones: “So call it what you want, yeah, call it what you want to.” That song from reputation also redefines what love means, and how we label the things we love.
Here, he can call her “honey” if he wants to, because there’s no doubt in her mind that he means it as a real term of endearment.
She then goes directly into the first chorus: “When anyone called me ‘Sweetheart’, it was passive-aggressive at the bar.”
“Sweetheart” can be a term of endearment like “honey,” but in her past experience, it was used as mean-girl ammunition. She recalls this term being thrown at her on a night out, where it was meant to cut her down.
“And the bitch was tellin’ me to back off,” she continues, “’Cause her man had looked at me wrong.” She juxtaposes “sweetheart” with “bitch,” and this is purposeful: they can mean the same thing depending on the context in which they’re used.
In this past use of “sweetheart,” a woman at the bar was angry because her “man had looked at me wrong.” She’s using “sweetheart” when she means “bitch,” setting up this theme of covert and double meanings that will run through the rest of the song.
“If anyone called me ‘Honey’,” she continues, “It was standin’ in the bathroom, white teeth.” She recalls another scenario where a term of endearment was used to demean. Here, it feels like we’re in a high school bathroom, where mean girls with fangs of white teeth speak in daggers.
“They were sayin’ that skirt don’t fit me,” she recalls, “And I cried the whole way home.” She recalls being demeaned for the way she looks, which is incredibly high school-coded.
This last line feels familiar: “the girl in the dress cried the whole way home.” This time, it’s “the girl in the skirt.” Both times, she’s made to feel small and insecure.
“But you touched my face,” she says in the pre-chorus, “Redefined all of those blues when you say ‘Honey’.”
The face touching imagery feels incredibly intimate, and what she really means is, ‘you’ve touched a part of me that no one has been able to reach.’
All those previous “blues” – the insecurities, the double-speak, the bullying – is all in the past. Because when this person calls her “honey,” or “sweetheart,” he’s being truly intimate.
Verse 1: Seasons of Love
“Summertime spritz, pink skies,” she says in the first verse. We’re 13 lines into this song, and we’ve only just reached the first verse.
In this verse, we’re greeted with familiar imagery: the “pink skies” of the Lover era. The “blues” have been redefined, and now the future looks like those happier “purple pink skies”. Similar sky imagery proliferates Opalite.
“Wintergreen kiss, all mine,” she says, contrasting summer and winter. This winter isn’t cold and dreary; it’s refreshing like wintergreen gum. And these cool, clear skies are “all mine”: there’s no doubt that he wants her. There’s no games. There’s just trust and love.
“Gave it a different meaning ’cause you mean it when you talk,” she says of “honey.” There’s no hidden meanings or speaking in code in this relationship. He says what he means, and he means “honey” as in ‘you’re sweet, and you’re mine.’
“Honey, I’m home, we could play house,” she continues, pulling in a 1950s nuclear family-coded phrase. But then this ideal family life gets a little steamy. To “play house” is usually a childhood game, but she has some more adult-appropriate games in mind.
“We can bed down, pick me up,” she says, pulling in two double entendres. To “bed down” means to get an improvised bed set up, like during camping. But “bed down” here refers to naughtier bedroom activities.
“Pick me up” is also full of several different meanings. There’s “come pick me up,” like come collect me and take me home. Then there’s being “picked up” in a womanizer sort of way, like a ‘pickup artist.’ Then there’s literally being picked up and carried.
After she’s “picked up,” she asks, “Who’s the baddest in the land?” This alludes to Snow White’s evil Queen, who asks her magic mirror, “mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
Here, they’re both “the baddest in the land” as in naughty in the bedroom, but also as in badass, like powerful and potent, both together and separately.
“What’s the plan?” she asks, then quickly answers herself, “You could be my forever night stand, Honey.” She wonders what their future holds, but also implies that wherever he goes, she’ll follow.
No matter where they go or what they do, it will be the opposite of a one-night stand. He’ll be her “forever night stand,” or a permanent fixture in her bedroom, and in her life.
Verse 2: Pedal to the Metal
“You can call me “Honey” if you want because I’m the one you want,” she repeats in the beginning of the second verse, “I’m the one you want.” This repetition reinforces just how comfortable she is: there’s no doubt that he wants her. It’s secure.
“You give it different meaning, ’cause you mean it when you talk,” she repeats, but by now, we can tell that “it” isn’t just the word “honey.” “It” really means intimacy, trust, and comfort.
“Honey,” and “sweetheart”, and any other term of endearment, are just stand-ins for what she’s really getting at: love. He’s redefined what love really means to her, because all the games are over. There’s no back and forth.
“Sweetie, it’s yours, kicking in doors,” she continues, “Take it to the floor, give me more.” Here, the “it” means everything, and all of her. Or, as she says in Death by a Thousand Cuts: “my heart, my hips, my body, my love”.
In prior relationships, there may have been “kicking in doors” in dramatic fights, but here, it’s playful: they can’t wait to make it to the bedroom, or they’d kick in doors to be able to reach/rescue one another.
“Take it to the floor” is another double entendre. It usually means to drive fast, like pedal to the metal. But here, it has a steamier meaning. It’s a passionate scene, kicking in doors and needing one another so desperately that they can’t even make it to the bed.
“Give me more” is both something you’d utter in bed, and has a deeper meaning: ‘give me all of you, because you have all of me.’
“Buy the paint in the color of your eyes,” she says, imagining decorating their new “play house”, “And graffiti my whole damn life, Honey.” She wants to be enveloped in him, in every part of her life.
But this also reminds us of a much earlier song, Cold as You: “You put up walls and paint them all a shade of gray.” Here, there are no emotional walls erected between them, and though she doesn’t specify his eye color, it’s the opposite of depressive gray.
Final Pre-Chorus: Heroine, With an ‘E’
The final pre-chorus serves as the bridge, and it’s the most vulnerable bit of the song, as Taylor’s bridges tend to be.
“When anyone called me late night,” she says of her past lovers, “He was screwin’ around with my mind.” Whenever she’d get a late night booty call in the past, it was manipulative. These previous lovers didn’t mean it when they talked, or they didn’t say what they meant. They didn’t want her; they wanted her body, or the idea of her.
“Askin’, ‘What are you wearin’?’,” she says of this shallow, cliche attempt to get her into bed, “Too high to remember in the morning.” This past lover would call in a drug-fueled haze. But now that’s all over, and “it’s heroin but this time with an ‘e’.”
“And when anyone called me ‘Lovely’,” she continues, “They were findin’ ways not to praise me.” “Lovely”, like “sweetheart” and “honey,” can similarly be used in a dismissive, demeaning way. Here, they call her “lovely” when they’re trying to avoid any real intimacy and vulnerability.
“But you say it like you’re in awe of me,” she says of his use of “lovely,” “And you stay until the morning, Honey.” Not only does he use the word “lovely” as a real term of affection, but uses it to express his awe and admiration of her, both physically and emotionally.
“You stay until the morning” answers one of Taylor’s longest-running questions: “who could ever leave me, darling, but who could stay?”
The answer is right in front of her: “you could stay.”
The chorus repeats, then she ends this track with a simple, one-line outro: “But you can call me “Honey” if you want.”
“Call it what you want,” she says, but this relationship has redefined the very language of love.
More from The Life of a Showgirl
