Actually Romantic

"Actually Romantic" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl (2025). Swift wrote and produced the song with Max Martin and Shellback. An incorporation of alternative rock, guitar pop, pop-punk, and power pop, the track displays elements of 1990s slacker rock, with an arrangement characterized by a grunge electric guitar motif. In the lyrics, Swift's narrator expresses her amazement and enjoyment of another woman's attention on her, sarcastically claiming that no man had ever shown her that level of affection. Upon the song’s release, various critics and listeners speculated that it was written as a diss track targeting the British singer Charli XCX and her song "Sympathy Is a Knife" (2024), which was allegedly about Swift. It garnered comparisons to the composition of the Pixies's "Where Is My Mind?" (1988). Multiple music critics decried the song's lyrics and narrative as unmerited, though others complimented it as a standout from the album due to the relative singularity of its production in comparison to the other tracks. Actually Romantic peaked in the top 10 on the Billboard Global 200 and on the charts in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Portugal, Sweden, and the United States.