Honey
The Life of a Showgirl (2025)
Background and Release
«It was just a different type of muscle I was exercising. At that point in the tour, I was in the European leg of it, which was a lot more shows than I had done on the American leg of it. So, it was more shows, less days off. The phsysical exhaustion and soreness was at an all time high at the same time as I was starting to get to do that show with muscle memory. It took a while for that to happen because it's a three and a half hour show, but I was starting to be able to feel like, 'Okay, my body is getting more tired, and my mind is more able to do this on autopilot. And I never want to do this show on autopilot, so I need to do something to flex these creative muscles, and go in there and really exercise that other part of my brain.' And what it ended up doing was reinvigorating every aspect of my life, including the tour, which made me just able to recommit myself to the show even more.»
There was an amusing bit of accidental-looking foreshadowing in the months before its release. On July 25, 2025, Taylor praised Travis Kelce’s Happy Gilmore 2 on Instagram, calling it a “13/10” and adding a honey emoji—a reference to a scene in which Kelce’s shirtless character is covered in honey in Bad Bunny’s character’s fantasy sequence. Just weeks later, on August 13, Taylor revealed “Honey” as the album’s eleventh track when she unveiled the complete The Life of a Showgirl tracklist on New Heights; the song was released with the album on October 3, 2025.
| Artist | Taylor Swift |
|---|---|
| Released | October 3, 2025 |
| Written | 2024 |
| Studios | MXM (Stockholm) |
| Genre |
Pop R&B |
| Length | 3:01 |
| Label | Republic Records |
| Songwriters |
Taylor Swift Max Martin Shellback |
| Producers |
Max Martin Shellback Taylor Swift |
Song Artwork
Lyrical Theme
«'Honey' is a song about how words that have been meant to hurt you in the past can be repurposed by someone who loves you in a way that feels totally different. You know, if the only time you were called Honey was when someone was like, 'That look is not working for you, Honey.' Like, that is very different than when somebody calls you Honey in a sweet way, in a sincere way, in a lovely way. And it's about the idea of healing these old wounds that were caused by certain words that now feel totally lovely and sweet. So, I also just love this song. It's such a bop! I just jump around to this song.»
The emotional turning point comes when those same words are spoken sincerely by a person she trusts. “But you touched my face / Redefined all of those blues / When you say ‘Honey’” transforms the pet name from something associated with embarrassment or hostility into a source of comfort. Taylor described this as “healing these old wounds”: the word itself has not changed, but the person saying it gives it an entirely new meaning because they genuinely mean it. The song also gradually expands this idea into a vocabulary of intimacy, moving from “sweetheart” and “honey” toward images of pink skies, kisses and coming home.
The seasonal imagery adds another layer to that transformation. “Summertime spritz” and “wintergreen kiss” create a miniature passage of time, moving from summer to winter without framing either season as an ending; instead, they become sensory snapshots of a relationship that continues through the changing seasons. The final “Honey, I’m home” is particularly effective because it echoes the earlier image of having “cried the whole way home”: the same word that once belonged to an experience of hurt now becomes part of an image of safety, belonging and permanence.
Production
Critical Reception
The song’s lyrical sincerity was another point of praise. Esquire highlighted the way a partner’s genuine use of “honey” breaks through Taylor’s resistance to condescending pet names, connecting the idea to the earlier “Don’t call me kid / Don’t call me baby” tension in “illicit affairs” (2020). The New Yorker described the song as “arch, delicate, lovely,” while Stereogum praised its particularly catchy quality. These readings largely saw the song as a relatively simple love song whose strength lies in the emotional reversal at its center: language that once hurt becomes affectionate when spoken by the right person.
Not everyone was convinced, however. The New York Times’ Jon Caramanica found the song overly “saccharine” and felt that its focus on people weaponizing pet names distracted from the romance itself, while the Associated Press listed “Honey” among the album’s skips. Exclaim! was even harsher, criticizing the mid-tempo track while acknowledging its changing textures and specifically highlighting the transition from its drum-machine beat into the post-chorus saxophone. The result was a song whose production was often more warmly received than its lyrics: critics could hear the stylistic curiosity in “Honey,” even when they disagreed about whether its sweetness ultimately worked.
Music & More
Honey
3:06
3:06
3:02
0:43
Commercial Performance
Its streaming numbers put that debut into perspective. “Honey” generated 42.2 million official US streams in its first tracking week, according to Billboard data—enough to give it the 12th-biggest streaming week for a song released in 2025 at that point. In other words, even the least-streamed Showgirl track during its opening week was outperforming every other 2025 release outside Taylor’s album in weekly US streaming, illustrating just how enormous the album’s launch was.
Internationally, “Honey” also landed comfortably in the upper reaches of the charts, reaching No. 13 on the Billboard Global 200 and the Top 20 in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden, Portugal and several other markets. It peaked at No. 12 in both Australia and Canada, while in the UK it reached No. 14 on the Official Streaming Chart and spent three weeks there. The song’s chart run was relatively brief compared with its spectacular opening, making “Honey” a good example of the Showgirl era’s unusual commercial story: a deep album cut could produce enormous first-week numbers without being pushed as a single.
Lyrics
[Refrain]
You can call me ‘honey’ if you want
Because I’m the one you want
[Chorus]
When anyone called me ‘sweetheart’
It was passive aggressive
At the bar
And the bitch was telling me to ‘back off’
Cause her man had looked at me wrong
If anyone called me ‘honey’
It was standing in the bathroom
White teeth
They were saying that skirt don’t fit me
And I cried the whole way home
[Post-Chorus 1]
But you touch my face
Redefine all of those blues
When you say….’Honey’
[Verse 1]
Summertime spritz, pink skies
You can call me ‘honey’ if you want
Because I’m the one you want
Wintergreen kiss, all mine
You give it different meaning, cause you mean it when you talk
Honey, I’m home, we can play house
We can bed down, pick me up, who’s the baddest in the land, what’s the plan?
What’s the plan?
You could be my forever-night stand
Honey
[Chorus]
When anyone called me ‘sweetheart’
It was passive aggressive
At the bar
And the bitch was telling me to ‘back off’
Cause her man had looked at me wrong
If anyone called me ‘honey’
It was standing in the bathroom
White teeth
They were saying that skirt don’t fit me
And I cried the whole way home
[Post-Chorus 2]
But you touch my face
Redefine all of those blues
When you say…
[Verse 2]
You can call me ‘honey’ if you want
Because I’m the one you want
I’m the one you want
You give it different meaning
Cause you mean it when you talk
Sweetie, it’s yours, kicking in doors, take it to the floor, gimme more
Buy the paint in the color of your eyes, of your eyes
And graffiti my whole damn life
Honey
[Bridge]
When anyone called me late night
He was screwing around with my mind
Asking, “What are you wearing?”
Too high to remember in the morning
And when anyone called me ‘lovely’
They were finding ways not to praise me
But you say it like you’re in awe of me
And you stay until the morning
Honey
[Chorus]
When anyone called me ‘sweetheart’
It was passive aggressive
At the bar
And the bitch was telling me to ‘back off’
Cause her man had looked at me wrong
If anyone called me ‘honey’
It was standing in the bathroom
White teeth
They were saying that skirt don’t fit me
And I cried the whole way home
[Outro]
But you can call me ‘honey’ if you want
[Refrain]
You can call me ‘honey’ if you want
Because I’m the one you want
[Chorus]
When anyone called me ‘sweetheart’
It was passive aggressive
At the bar
And the chick was telling me to ‘back off’
Cause her man had looked at me wrong
If anyone called me ‘honey’
It was standing in the bathroom
White teeth
They were saying that skirt don’t fit me
And I cried the whole way home
[Post-Chorus 1]
But you touch my face
Redefine all of those blues
When you say….’Honey’
[Verse 1]
Summertime spritz, pink skies
You can call me ‘honey’ if you want
Because I’m the one you want
Wintergreen kiss, all mine
You give it different meaning, cause you mean it when you talk
Honey, I’m home, we can play house
We can bed down, pick me up, who’s the baddest in the land, what’s the plan?
What’s the plan?
You could be my forever-night stand
Honey
[Chorus]
When anyone called me ‘sweetheart’
It was passive aggressive
At the bar
And the chick was telling me to ‘back off’
Cause her man had looked at me wrong
If anyone called me ‘honey’
It was standing in the bathroom
White teeth
They were saying that skirt don’t fit me
And I cried the whole way home
[Post-Chorus 2]
But you touch my face
Redefine all of those blues
When you say…
[Verse 2]
You can call me ‘honey’ if you want
Because I’m the one you want
I’m the one you want
You give it different meaning
Cause you mean it when you talk
Sweetie, it’s yours, kicking in doors, take it to the floor, gimme more
Buy the paint in the color of your eyes, of your eyes
And graffiti my whole damn life
Honey
[Bridge]
When anyone called me late night
He was screwing around with my mind
Asking, “What are you wearing?”
Too high to remember in the morning
And when anyone called me ‘lovely’
They were finding ways not to praise me
But you say it like you’re in awe of me
And you stay until the morning
Honey
[Chorus]
When anyone called me ‘sweetheart’
It was passive aggressive
At the bar
And the chick was telling me to ‘back off’
Cause her man had looked at me wrong
If anyone called me ‘honey’
It was standing in the bathroom
White teeth
They were saying that skirt don’t fit me
And I cried the whole way home
[Outro]
But you can call me ‘honey’ if you want