Deep Dive: Champagne Problems

With Taylor Swifts Ninth studio release, Evermore, the speculation has already begun as to who the songs are about. In an interview with Zane Lowe, Swift clarified that the songs are less about her personal life and more storyteller. In doing so, it has allowed her to grow as a songwriter and write from a different perspectives.

“There was a point that I got to as a writer, who only wrote very diaristic songs, that I felt it was unsustainable for my future moving forward. It felt like too hot of a microscope…..on my bad days I would feel like I was lighting a cannon of click bait, when that’s not what I want for my life. And I think like, when I put out Folklore, I felt like if I can do this, this thing where I get to create characters in this mythological American town or where ever I imagine them, I can reflect my own emotions onto what I think they might be feeling, and I can create stories and characters and arches and all this stuff but I don’t have to have it feel like when I put out an album I’m just like, giving tabloids ammunition and stuff.”

Track 2 of Evermore is called “Champagne Problems.” There was speculation that the track may have referenced Katy Perry, since the singer also has a song of the same name. However, ‘Champagne Problems’ is a phrase which typically relates to rich people problems.

The song tells the perspective of a lover that’s just said no to their fiancé, at what seems to have been a public proposal. Two college sweethearts end things on a dance floor at an engagement party and the one that is rejected rides home on a train alone.

The song has lines such as “your Midas touch on a Chevy door” and “this dorm was once a madhouse” implying a possible wealth gap between two young lovers in college.

Midas refers to a king who was cursed to turn things into gold with his touch, and potentially — this one is a long shot but it seemed interesting to note — the Midas auto repair chain perhaps implying the suitor is a mechanic.

The song also references, “One for the money, two for the show,” which was a way children in the 1800s used to countdown races and was also referenced in Elvis Presley’s blue suede shoes.

What’s interesting about ‘Champagne Problems’ is that it’s not a topic often discussed. Love, marriage, engagements — -usually people only talk about the happy moments. It’s rare for anyone to write a story about someone saying ‘no’ to a proposal, because it’s supposed to be The Ultimate, The Ideal. Everyone is supposed to want to get married and have a big fancy wedding and spend the rest of their life with someone.

Swift, interestingly, proposes the idea that money could cause an issue in finding true love. And it might be enough that someone could say no to what’s supposed to be a happy moment in your life. It’s a different take from the woman who penned ‘it’s a love story, baby just say yes’ years ago as a teenager on her bedroom floor in Nashville. Mature, retrospective, and done with the masterful imagery that Swift is known for conjuring in her songwriting.