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Just as Olivia Rodrigo’s “Obsessed,” a bonus track from the Guts (Spilled) edition of her sophomore album, is focused on the “three’s a crowd” theme, so, too, is Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste.” But more than merely referring to the “three’s a crowd” trope in general, each song has its emphasis on when the male in a hetero relationship is still in contact with his ex…whether metaphorically or literally (which is why Mýa’s “Case of the Ex” is owed a great debt in both singles’ cases). Or, perhaps worse still, when he constantly (whether openly admitting it or not) compares his ex to his current girlfriend. In ways both insidious and overt that eventually make him go back to the ex in question because he feels that only she can fulfill what he “really” needs, and maybe he made a mistake in leaving her in the first place (see: Ben Affleck with Jennifer Lopez). Carpenter’s “Taste” speaks to the latter, while Rodrigo’s “Obsessed” details how a current girlfriend in the “three’s a crowd” permutation is the one more fixated on an ex than the boyfriend who was actually with her (ergo, the lyrics, “If I told you how much I think about her/You’d think I was in love”).
Considering Rodrigo and Carpenter’s love triangle history (with a mid white guy, mind you—which just goes to show that it really is “Slim Pickins” out there, even for meticulously groomed celebrities), one might speculate that there’s a certain element of “Taste” that’s retroactively directed at her. Especially if she listened to “Obsessed” (which of course she did). However, most feel that Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello are the inspiration rather than Joshua Bassett and Rodrigo. And yet, there’s no denying that the latter two were the “OGs” in terms of providing Carpenter with plenty of raw material for this subject matter. Just as Carpenter likely helped furnish a blueprint for Rodrigo’s “Obsessed,” a “rock” (by pop standards)-oriented track during which she moodily sings, “I’m so obsessed with your ex/I know she’s been asleep on my side of your bed, and I can feel it.” Almost as though directly replying to that line, Carpenter casually boasts during “Taste,” “Now I’m gone, but you’re still layin’/Next to me, one degree of separation.” So it is that, at times, “Obsessed” and “Taste” come across like call and response companion pieces. (Though less feud-y and direct then, say, the call and response songs between Drake and Kendrick Lamar.)
Rodrigo is already famously known for being a victim of self-flagellating comparison—of the sort that Carpenter’s playful confidence in most of her songs goes directly against. With “Taste,” she appears to be trolling just that sort of “Rodrigo girl” with inherently low self-esteem by goading her via the lines, “Every time you close your eyes/And feel his lips, you’re feelin’ mine/And every time you breathe his air/Just know I was already there.” She digs the knife even deeper by highlighting the “sloppy seconds” aspect of this dude getting passed back to the erstwhile ex, chirping, “You can have him if you like/I’ve been there, done that once or twice/And singin’ ‘bout it don’t mean I care/Yeah, I know I’ve been known to share.” The latter lyric is where Carpenter directly refers to the love triangle that was made notorious by Rodrigo through “drivers license,” during which she calls out “that blonde girl” her own ex is “probably with,” also getting the dig in that she’s “so much older than me” (the two are four years apart, but one supposes that seems like a lot when one is seventeen, the age Rodrigo was when she wrote the song).
While Rodrigo’s standard songwriting method is to home in on every painful detail about a breakup (a trait picked up from Taylor Swift by many “next generation” girls), Carpenter, in contrast, has a much more sardonically glib approach (one that especially shines through on the undercuttingly emotional “Sharpest Tool” from Short n’ Sweet). That’s the tone that embodies “Taste” as she shrugs off the loss of a so-called man who was way too into his ex…to the point where he would end up getting back together with her (another theme present on Short n’ Sweet’s “Coincidence”).
Even though, beneath all the jocular, braggadocious armor, Carpenter was likely just as obsessed with that boyfriend’s ex as Rodrigo when she admits, “I’m starin’ at her like I wanna get hurt/And I remember every detail you have evеr told me, so be careful, baby.” Where the song starts to veer away from the type of guy Carpenter is alluding to in “Taste” is when Rodrigo mentions, “You both have moved on, you don’t even talk/But I can’t help it, I got issues, I can’t help it, baby.” And yet, such a confession does only serve to underscore the point Carpenter makes in the chorus of “Taste”: “Well, 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, and I bet you do/Just know you’ll taste me too.” In other words, there’s always three people in a relationship: the “au courant” couple and the guy in said couple’s ex-girlfriend (since, in pop culture, women’s exes don’t seem to invoke as much jealousy, obsession and fear).
Being that the narrative of “Obsessed” essentially mimics the plot of Sex and the City’s season episode, “Three’s A Crowd,” it’s fair to say that it also applies to “Taste.” And when Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) gives the rueful voiceover, “What Mr. Big didn’t realize was the past was sleeping right next to me” in response to him saying, “Let’s not talk about the past, please,” it’s only further proof that the ex has won even if she’s no longer with him. Because, yes, Carrie can still “taste” her when she’s kissing Big (Chris Noth). Which just goes to show that there is plenty of underrated vindication in being someone’s ex in terms of “leaving a mark”—even if you were foolish enough to think you could never live without them.
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Genna Rivieccio
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