It took four albums for Sabrina Carpenter to truly hit her stride, to “find her niche,” arriving at just the right formula with 2022’s Emails I Can’t Send. By 2024, when her sixth album, Short n’ Sweet, was released, the industry was ready to embrace her as one of the next “it” girls of music (along with two other women who had been around for years already: Charli XCX and Chappell Roan). The release of “Espresso” as a single in the spring of that year helped to grease the wheels for her, and by the time “Please Please Please” (the first track that signaled her new musical partnership with Jack Antonoff) was put out as the second single, listeners embraced her to the point of “bequeathing her” with her first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 (yes, that’s right, “Espresso” never actually made it to number one).
By that point, too, Carpenter’s “A-list” cachet had also been further confirmed by her relationship with a certain Academy Award-nominated actor named Barry Keoghan, who also appeared in the “Please Please Please” video, with Carpenter commenting, “I, genuinely—like, a not-even-biased opinion—I was like, ‘Who’s the greatest actor that I can find for this music video?’ And he was next to me in a chair. And he was so excited about it!” That level of excitement cooled soon after, with Sabrina and Barry breaking up in December of ‘24. And there’s no denying that he still remains an inspiration for her lyrics. Maybe even the first track that kicks off Man’s Best Friend, “Manchild” (arguably the only true “runaway hit” of Summer 2025, and, needless to say, inspired by a lyric from Lana Del Rey’s “Norman Fucking Rockwell”).
As the song that sets the tone for the entire concept and theme of the album—that men are hopeless disappointments—it doesn’t get any stronger than this. A Dolly Parton-esque lamentation that finds Carpenter resignedly accepting, “Never heard of self-care/Half your brain just ain’t there/Manchild/Why you always come a-running, taking all my loving from me?” And if he’s not taking Carpenter’s loving from her, he’s offering up only a stunted form of love, as discussed on the album’s second single, “Tears.” And no, she’s not talking about the kind that stream from your eyes, instead referring to a wetness “down there” at the thought of her object of affection “being a responsible guy.” Or, as the chorus phrases it, “I get wet at the thought of you/Being a responsible guy/Treating me like you’re supposed to do/Tears run down my thighs.”
Serving that “Ariana Grande moan” sound at the beginning, this 70s-ified track, co-produced by Carpenter and John Ryan, is in keeping with Carpenter’s brand of chirpily and sweetly saying what the “pearl clutchers” would consider the raunchiest of things. But if it’s “raunchy” to be aroused by a man showing a little effort in both the emotional and domestic departments, so be it. As for the latter category, Carpenter is sure to instruct men, “A little initiative can go a very long, long way/Baby, just do the dishes, I’ll give you what you, what you want/A little communication, yes, that’s my ideal foreplay/Assemble a chair from Ikea, I’m like, ‘Uh.’”
Alas, the problem with a relationship becoming “too” domestic is that it can often lead to the man in the equation treating a woman like one of the pieces of furniture in the apartment or house: she’s just there—comfortable and dependable. This tragedy is addressed by Carpenter on “My Man on Willpower,” during which she returns to her Dolly Parton lilt (and according country-esque musical sound) to paint the picture, “My man on his willpower is something I don’t understand/He fell in love with self-restraint and now it’s getting out of hand.” This notion of a man’s “self-restraint” also comes up again later on “Nobody’s Son,” when Carpenter rues, “But no sir-eee/He discovered sеlf-control/This week.”
Per the tale of “My Man on Willpower,” he discovered it gradually, with Carpenter recalling, “He used to be literally obsessed with me/I’m suddenly the least sought after girl in the land/Oh, my man on his willpower is something I don’t under, something I don’t understand.” In other words, Carpenter didn’t foresee the usual “reversal” that occurs in most relationships, wherein whoever started out as the most ardent one ends up becoming inversely disinterested as time wears on. The person who started out more disinterested, in contrast, only becomes more “involved”—in large part because they can’t understand where all the other person’s passion went, and they want to get it back by any desperate means necessary.
Carpenter’s panic continues to set in as she sings, “He’s busy, he’s working, he doesn’t have time for me/My slutty pajamas not tempting him in the least/What in the fucked up/Romantic dark comedy/Is this nightmare lately?” They call it, full-stop, monogamy. Or what Richard Wright (James Remar) faux mistakenly called “monotony” in Sex and the City.
SC slows it down a bit on the following track, “Sugar Talking,” (not to be confused with Mariah’s “Sugar Sweet”), a mid-tempo jam that accuses her lover of being neglectful. Worse still, trying to rely only on words a.k.a. “sugar talking” instead of actions to prove his love to her. So it is that Carpenter goads, “Saying that you miss me/Boy, do you win a prize?/You’re havin’ these epiphanies/Big word for a real small mind/And aren’t you tired of saying a whole lot of nothing?” Within these lyrics, Carpenter repeats another long-running motif of hers at this point: calling men stupid, dumb, etc. (hear also: “Dumb and Poetic,” “Slim Pickins” and “Manchild”). While more “traditionalist” (read: misogynist) men would tell Carpenter she might “catch more dick with honey,” she isn’t one for mincing words, playing nice or compromising who she is for the sake of “maybe” “landing a man.” Because any man worth landing, as far as she’s concerned, is one who knows and accepts her for who she really is: sardonic, sassy and salacious. Unfortunately, as she’s already mentioned, “it’s slim pickins” in terms of finding a man who doesn’t want a robotic twig as a girlfriend.
Even the man claiming he’s “all about” Carpenter in this song. But no, as she calls out, “You tell me that you want me/But, baby, if you need me/Put your loving where your mouth is [yes, a sexual innuendo, as is always to be expected from Carpenter]/Your sugar talking isn’t working tonight, oh/Say you’re a big changed man, I doubt it/Yeah, your paragraphs mean shit to me/Get your sorry ass to mine.” With these feelings in mind, it’s a natural fit for her to transition into “We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night.”
The song with the slowest tempo on the album thus far, it’s a resigned ballad tinged with dry humor. Though there’s still plenty of “wetness” for Carpenter to have as she talks about the kind of make-up sex that keeps leading her to repeat the vicious cycle of staying with a man she knows is no good for her. And yet, every time she tries to end it, it’s like he can sense her attempt to break up with him, so he starts acting right. This described by Carpenter as, “And when I reach to pull the plug I swear, it starts working out/And on the days I’m a little much/That’s when I tell them how sweet he treats me/And how no other boys compete/I know how it looks, I know how it sounds/Least will give ‘em something to talk about.” Considering Carpenter’s country proclivities of late, that last line surely as to be a Bonnie Raitt allusion. And when Raitt suggested that thing she ought to give people to talk about, it was “love.” Carpenter is much the same, even if the kind of love she talks about is botched, unrequited or generally fucked up.
Nowhere does this apply more than on one of the most standout tracks on Man’s Best Friend, “Nobody’s Son,” a jaunty, up-tempo track with a bittersweet undertone. For it’s a damning callout of a mother’s part in raising a son who doesn’t quite know how to treat another woman right. The blame for a man’s incompetencies (emotional or otherwise) on his mother also comes up in “Manchild,” when Carpenter sings, “Why so sexy if so dumb?/And how survive the Earth so long?/If I’m not there, it won’t get done/I choose to blame your mom.” As she continues to on “Nobody’s Son,” bemoaning on the song’s indelible bridge, “That boy is corrupt/Could you raise him to love me, maybe?/He sure fucked me up/And, yes, I’m talking ‘bout your baby/That boy is corrupt/Get PTSD on the daily/He sure fucked me up/And, yes, I’m talking ‘bout your baby.” The “precious” baby that can do no wrong in Mother’s eyes. Because, from her point of view, it’s always “that slutty bitch” who did wrong.
After having already expressed so much contempt for men just halfway through the album, it’s no wonder Carpenter would offer up a song called “Never Getting Laid.” Except, contrary to what the title might suggest to the person who hasn’t yet heard it, Carpenter is merely wishing her ex “a forever of never getting laid.” Indeed, it’s difficult not to imagine she’s speaking directly to Keoghan when she sends these “well wishes.”
Either way, Carpenter tells the tale of a love turned cold as she recounts, while speaking to her now ex, “No way to know just who you’re thinkin’ of/I just wish you didn’t have a mind/That could flip like a switch/That could wander and drift/To a neighboring bitch/When just the other night/You said you need me, what gives?/How did it come to this?/Boy, I know where you live.” Carpenter then engages in some of her most venomous (but, again, chirpy) sarcasm yet as she says, “Us girls are fun but stressful, am I right?/And you got a right hand anyway.” So, in essence, she’s imagining he might as well “jack off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen” since he “can’t deal” with the so-called pressure of being with her.
In spite of the ire she conveys on “Never Getting Laid,” Carpenter does what she warned about on Short n’ Sweet’s “Good Graces”: “I’ll switch it up like that, so fast.” And what she switches up to is having a newfound appreciation for men on “When Did You Get Hot?” With its sweltering, 90s-esque sound that’s most prominent during the intro, Carpenter talks of being in a desert, so to speak, as she oozes horniness in the verse, “So long, untouched/Bone dry, not a plant can grow/‘Bout time I get back on the horse to the rodeo.” A fair share of metaphors in a short span, indicating her sensory overload as she walks into a “prospect convention” (which sounds better than Lana Del Rey’s “Men in Music Business Conference”). It’s there that she encounters “Devin,” a guy she doesn’t remember being so fine, hence her stimulation overload in the chorus, “And I was like [said in a very Mariah on “Obsessed” way], ‘Huh’/When did you get hot all the sudden? I could look you up and down all day/When did you get hot?/I think I would remember if you had that face/I did a double take, triple take/Take me to naked Twister back at your place/Baby, baby, mmm, it’s thickening the plot/When did you get hot?”
“Devin” doesn’t seem to last very long, however, as indicated by the drunk dialing anthem that is “Go Go Juice.” And yes, it is refreshing to hear from a Gen Zer that actually drinks “good old-fashioned” alcohol to the point of getting so drunk she starts making a telephonic fool of herself. But then, Carpenter reveals herself to be an even “older soul” by the fact that she would deign to use a phone for its original purpose in the first place: making a call. Because no, this ain’t a track about drunk texting—it’s all about “dialing” (a.k.a. choosing an arbitrary contact in her phone) and talking. And, like some of the best “I’m a drunk fool” songs, this one’s decidedly country too, with Carpenter belting out in her “down-home” twang (and an accompanying fiddle breakdown), “I’m just drinkin’ to call someone/Ain’t nobody safe when I’m a little bit drunk/Could be John or Larry, gosh, who’s to say?/Or the one that rhymes with ‘villain’ if I’m feelin’ that way/Oh, I’m just drinking to call someone/A girl who knows her liquor is a girl who’s been dumped/Sippin’ on my go go juice, I can’t be blamed/Some good old-fashioned fun sure numbs the pain.” It sure does, and thankfully Carpenter is here to school her generation on the merits of liquor.
She’s also here to teach men that, just because she can be endlessly hurt and irritated by them, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how to keep them wrapped around her finger and outplay them on mind games any day of the week. Hence, “Don’t Worry I’ll Make You Worry,” the last track she wrote for the album (though not the last track on the record). During which she forebodingly “assures,” “So don’t worry/I’ll make you worry like no other girl can/So don’t worry/Damn sure I’ll never let you know where you stand.” And, even despite the sex with him being “annoyingly good,” Carpenter still won’t give in to fully acknowledging what the “status” of the relationship is to the one whose head she’s fucking with. So well, in fact, that apparently even the man’s mother can’t talk sense into him as Carpenter taunts, “And your mother even agrees/That emotional lottery is all you’ll ever get with me.” Since bringing a man’s mother into things is her bread and butter of late.
As is upping the ante on her sexual metaphors, achieving a new apex on “House Tour” (though she ironically declares, “And I promise none of this is a metaphor”). With its ultra 80s sound, it’s no surprise that Jack Antonoff is a co-producer on the song. And, clearly, he must have been inspired by early era Janet Jackson, with the hopped-up tempo punctuating Carpenter’s flurry of analogies. Mainly, referring to her body as a house a.k.a. “being built like one” (for there’s a reason The Commodores once said, “She’s a brick house”). Thus, such lyrics as, “House tour/Yeah, I spent a little fortune on the waxed floors [read: waxing her vag]/We can be a little reckless ‘cause it’s insured [a.k.a. she’s on birth control]/I’m pleasured to be your hot tour guide/Baby, what’s mine is now yours.”
That “mi casa es su casa” vibe quickly changes yet again on the album’s appropriately titled finale, “Goodbye” (unless one has the bonus track edition, which concludes with “Such A Funny Way”). And yes, Spanish is one of the languages Carpenter uses for her kiss-off to a boy that dared to break up with her and then tried to come crawling back after realizing the error of his ways. But no, the rule, as far as Carpenter and every other girl with self-respect is concerned is this: “Goodbye means that you’re losing me for life/Can’t call it love, then call it quits/Can’t shoot me down, then shoot the shit/Did you forget that it was you who said goodbye?/So you don’t get to be the one who cries/Can’t have your cake and eat it too/By walking out, that means you choose goodbye.”
Regardless of her appalled anger, Carpenter still retains her condescending politesse when she ends the track with, “Goodbye/Get home safe.” Because there’s no more tour of her “house” for him to be had. In fact, she likely realized she would get more trust and dependability out of a dog. Deemed to be “man’s” best friend, though, in truth, there is no finer companion a woman could ask for (in contrast, a woman really can be a man’s best friend when she’s treated well). Because it is she who is looking for the kind of unwavering loyalty and devotion that, these days, only a canine can give. As for the original album cover (before all the alternate versions started trickling in), featuring Carpenter in her own “dog-like” pose, it’s intent isn’t necessarily to “scandalize” “feminists,” so much as demarcate the lengths that a girl is willing to go just to get a dram of love and affection from an otherwise blasé straight man. With women still foolishly adhering to the Morrissey aphorism, “The more you ignore me, the closer I get.”
Carpenter can find the comedy in her pain, obviously, remarking of her most “man-hating” record yet, “It’s a real party for heartbreak, a celebration of disappointment! It’s laughing at yourself and your poor choices as everything is falling apart, it’s wondering how loyalty and love always gets you back to third-wheeling, spoken sarcastically like a true 25-year old!” Or even a true twenty-five-year-old still trapped in an older woman’s body.