Being that Gracie Abrams started to become a household name worthy of a late-night talk show appearance earlier this year, there’s no denying that opening for Taylor Swift on The Eras Tour has been a major boon to her career as she went on to release her sophomore album, The Secret Of Us. Shrewdly, she waited a few weeks until after Charli XCX’s Brat came out on June 7th before attempting to make people process any other music. Then again, as Charli has made clear on tracks like “Sympathy is a knife,” she’ll never be like Swift, nor will she seek to cultivate the same kind of fanbase. Which is, in contrast, exactly what Abrams has done.
And yes, it’s a deft maneuver to pivot many of those fans over to herself, harboring a similar singer-songwriter style with a “confessional” bent—typically always leaning toward talking about a man. Unlike, say, Olivia Rodrigo, however, Abrams doesn’t have the same kind of angsty aura. Rather, she paints herself as a resigned, yet accusatory victim in the same way that Swift typically does on tracks like “Bad Blood,” “All Too Well” and “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve.” Something that commences immediately on The Secret of Us’ first track, “Felt Good About You.” Designed as something of a follow-up to Good Riddance’s “the blue,” which was the penultimate track on the standard edition of that album, Abrams does a one-eighty from the chorus, “You came out of the blue like that/I never could’ve seen you coming/I think you’re everything I’ve wanted.” This time around, she’s no longer feeling so certain about the one who made her briefly have renewed faith in love, lamenting but accepting, “I felt good about you ‘til I didn’t/Fought hard through premonitions/Felt good about you, felt good about you/Felt good about you ‘til I didn’t/You felt nice for a bad decision.”
Co-written with Aaron Dessner (another Swiftian connection), who also worked with Abrams on her debut, there’s a tinge of Rodrigo on the track when Abrams sings, “Got me where you want me, in your palm, it’s almost funny/All my friends, they tried to stop me wanting you/But I was never meant to listen, not until I found a reason/It took all of me to walk away and choose.” But what Abrams also elucidates by the second track is that it takes just as much courage to walk away from a relationship as it does to jump into one. This latter risk serving as the eponymous title of The Secret of Us’ second song. For this particular number, co-written by Abrams’ other frequent song collaborator/best friend, Audrey Hobert, Abrams mirrors the cadence of an erratic panic attack as she frets over taking the plunge on a new romance without knowing if it will work out. Even though it’s impossible for anyone to really know that—and technically, nothing can ever “work out” because Death. In any case, she offers a chorus that conveys both her sense of worry and her sense of not giving a fuck. Hence the declaration, “God, I’m actually invested/Haven’t even met yet/Watch this be the wrong thing, classic/God, I’m jumpin’ in the deep end/It’s more fun to swim in/Heard the risk is drowning, but I’m gonna take it.” Or, as Taylor would say, “It’s a love story, baby, just say, ‘Yes.’”
The pace slows down on “Blowing Smoke”—at least for a little while before Abrams bursts into the accusatory barrage of questions, “Tell me, is she prettier than she was on the internet?/Are your conversations cool?/Like, are you even interested?/I know what you arе, brighter than the stars/Tell mе if she takes you far/Far enough away from all the baggage you’ve been carrying/Up another hill to all the girls who’ll help you bury it/They’re just blowing smoke/I’ll say what they won’t/I know everything they don’t.” Here, too, Abrams gives off major Rodrigo vibes, particularly on the Sour tracks “deja vu” and “happier.” On the former, Rodrigo flexes that “everything is all reused” in terms of the activities her ex engages in with this new broad, as well as all the same tired lines he’ll use on her. Thus, Rodrigo goads, “So when you gonna tell her/That we did that too?/She thinks it’s special/But it’s all reused/That was our place, I found it first/I made the jokes you tell to her/When she’s with you/Do you get déjà vu when she’s with you?/Do you get déjà vu?” In a similarly resentful fashion, Abrams says, “If she’s got a pulse, she meets your standards now/You feel nothing, and yet you still let her/But I bet you’re at her place right now/You couldn’t point her out in any crowd.” Apart from shading all of these women for being nothing more than basic bitches/NPCs, Abrams insists, essentially, that no one can love this man like she does. Which is where Rodrigo’s “happier” comes in with regard to not wanting to be with this person anymore, but also not wanting him to be too happy in a new relationship: “Oh, I hope you’re happy/But not like how you were with me/I’m selfish, I know/I can’t let you go/So find someone great, but don’t find no one better/I hope you’re happy, but don’t be happier.” Out of Abrams’ mind, that sentiment sounds like, “I cut the rope and you fell from the tower/I let it go for my peace of mind/Bit the bullet, it didn’t hurt/But I still hate the image of you kissing her/I chalk it up to ‘it’s all for the better.’” Of course, what would a song of this nature be without a dash of Lorde influence, too (seeing as how Swift was a big influence on her work as well)? In that sense, the “Green Light” lyric, “She thinks you like the beach/You’re such a damn liar” is all over this track, to boot.
The tone shifts to a more contrite one on “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” the companion piece to 2020’s “I Miss You, I’m Sorry.” Arguably her most Swiftian piece (apart from “Us,” obviously), Abrams cops to her own bad behavior in a relationship—though that’s not a Swiftian move at all. Which is why only sonically does the song have the Taylor tint. What’s more, Abrams is no stranger to admitting to being the bad guy, as she did on Good Riddance’s “Best,” during which she delivers the line, “You’re the worst of my crimes” (in Rodrigo World, the shoe is on the other foot with her singing, “The things you did/Well, I hope I was your favorite crime”). Though her near-worst crime was almost burning down Taylor’s house if the latter hadn’t been able to put out a candle fire herself with an extinguisher. For, as Zane Lowe pointed out during their Apple interview, “Doesn’t sound like you were much help. You were filming the whole thing. Oh my God, you are so fuckin’ Gen Z, you got your phone out and filmed it. She’s so millennial, she’s just like, ‘I gotta fix it’ and you’re Gen Z, like, ‘I’m gonna film it.’” But, the video evidence of the peril that went into writing “Us” was perhaps all worth it. Not to mention further proof that the generational divide commonly sewn by Gen Z spouting the phrase “millennial cringe” is being faintly healed by both Swift and Abrams and Lily Allen and Olivia Rodrigo.
Hell, as a millennial, Swift might have even been influenced by an 00s-era MTV parody movie called 2gether, about a Jive Records-esque boy band of the same name. And yes, in the movie, they had a single called “U + Me = Us,” a lyric that appears in “Us” when Abrams sings, “You plus me was/Us, us, us.” Perhaps another of Swift’s contributions. In addition to lighting the metaphorical flame (apart from the literal one in her apartment) of Abrams’ creativity for this. Indeed, it’s more than slightly ironic that among the lyrics is the line, “And if history’s clear, the flames always end up in ashes.” As for the “little girl wronged” vibe of the track, it echoes, in many ways, Swift’s tone on Midnights’ “High Infidelity,” particularly when she describes, “High infidelity/Put on your records and regret me/I bent the truth too far tonight/I was dancing around, dancing around it/High infidelity/Put on your headphones and burn my city/Your picket fence is sharp as knives/I was dancing around, dancing around it.”
But Abrams is dancing around nothing on “Us,” using the common thread she shares with Swift about missing a defunct relationship that was forced to come to an end in large part because it had to be shrouded in secrecy. So it is that Abrams ruefully asks of her ex, “I felt it, you held it, do you miss us, us?/Wonder if you regret the secret of us, us,” then throwing in a seeming nod to producer Aaron Dessner’s band, The National, when she adds, “Mistaken for strangers the way it was, was/The pain of, the reign of, the flame of us, us.”
Eventually, though, one has to just “Let It Happen”—the natural flame-out, that is. Not to be confused with Tame Impala’s 2015 fast-tempo song of the same name, this slow jam is another regretful lament with a similar lyrical motif to “Risk.” Except that, in contrast to the latter, Abrams doesn’t sound all that joyful about throwing caution to the wind in a new relationship. And yes, Anxiety is very much the driving force on this track as well—surely, Abrams must be a fan of Inside Out 2. And one can imagine Riley Anderson getting older and saying, like Abrams, “I’m a walking contradiction and it shows/Got a history of being in control/I’m aware that I could end up here alone.” Or even Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke) telling Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler), “‘Cause I can tell that I’m projecting half the time/I lack context so I’ve made up all these lies/It’s the only thing that helps me sleep at night.” Though it doesn’t sound like Abrams is doing much of that (not just because she mentioned writing “Us” with Swift between the hours of two and six a.m.)—not when she’s spiraling with thoughts like, “I bet all my money that I will/Lose to you and hand you my life/Here’s to hoping you’re worth all my time/I might barely know you, but still/Don’t love you yet, but probably will/Turn me into something tragic/Just for you, I let it happen.” Ah, such is the promise of fresh dick—it seems so worth it to make a fool out of yourself until you realize how disappointing not only the dick is, but also the relationship itself.
With that in mind, Abrams segues into “Tough Love” another more up-tempo track that addresses her tendency to grow bored—therefore, cold—in relationships. She sets the stage for her mindset by mentioning she’s fled to Boston. A town she also mentions in 2023’s “Augusta,” along with cutting her hair (the result of which is presented on her album cover). While not everyone would think of “Beantown” as a place for reflection and revelation, Abrams seems to generally prefer the East Coast as a result of being from California (an L.A. nepo baby, if the last name wasn’t a giveaway), adhering to the “you always want what you didn’t have growing up” rule (in contrast to Billie Eilish, who will hopefully remain an “L.A. forever” type). So it is that, while on her little trip, she realizes, “I guess it’s always funny until it’s not [channeling, “Felt good about you ‘til I didn’t]/When I left him there to feel it/Couldn’t guess what I’d be leavin’ for/No chance I waste my twenties on random men/Not one of them is cooler than all my friends/And I hate to leave him bleedin’/But I know now what I’m leavin’ for.” In many regards, it comes across as a thematic continuation of “Best”—except slightly less apologetic. This made apparent when she shruggingly remarks, “But that’s just tough love/And you’re lucky to receive it, right?/He’ll crumble to pieces.”
This “sorry/not sorry” motif continues on “I Knew It, I Know You,” albeit with a much more contrite tone. Even when Abrams insists, “And we don’t even know each other now/And I’d blow all my plans if you’d meet me out/We could talk, we could get it, we could both calm down.” But this push and pull between wanting to be back in the relationship is overridden entirely by the chorus, “And all I did was right by me, I heard that almost killed you/Well I knew it, I know you, I called it/And I think that you earnestly have waited on apologies/But I can’t pretend that I’m sorry/When I’m not sorry.”
Embodying the jilted role on the subsequent “Gave You I Gave You I,” Abrams sounds as though she could be describing herself when she says of her ex, “You got bored and I felt usеd, now I’m all sad about it.” She then goes on to deliver one of the more gut-punching bridges of the album with, “When did you slip through my fingers, did I ever have you?/Was I just a placeholder to fill the hole inside you?” If that’s the case, it’s not like it wouldn’t be a “Normal Thing” in the world of male behavior. Something Abrams also explores on the song of the same name. But, as usual, she isn’t one for denying her own culpability in a failed romance, admitting, “It’s a normal thing for me to become underwhelmed/But I get the point, I see it all, you’re something else/Cut and you go quiet/No one noticed, I did/But I notice everything so you’re not different.” The “cut” part is one of many allusions to acting (ergo, performing) and how this person is a movie star (perhaps another reference to Dylan O’Brien, though he isn’t exactly a “star”), which Abrams mentions in the first verse with, “It’s a normal thing to fall in love with movie stars/When the lights are low, and red at all their favorite bars/And the story you want is the story you get/Are you special or was this all scripted in his head?” A very Taylor sort of rumination. As it is to use a common phrase to connote something weighty, like Abrams does with the chorus, “Don’t worry, I know I’ll see you again/Uh-huh, you’ll make me cry when it comes to an end/You were great, what a show, but I don’t recommend/Getting close, that’s how it goes, but I’ll see you again.” The faux-casual “I’ll see you again” is then changed to the even breezier “I’ll see ya” within the context of lines that connote even more seriousness about how the relationship altered her entire being and shit, but now it’s just, like, “whatever.” Summed up as, “And you changed my life, but I guess I’ll see ya/‘Cause it’s over now, so I guess I’ll see ya.”
Switching gears to defend someone else instead of herself, Abrams then brings us “Good Luck Charlie.” Bearing a similar intonation to Swift’s “So Long, London” during the chorus, “Good Luck Charlie” is that rare song where a girl gets to talk shit about her best friend’s ex—and honestly, more best friends who are famous singers should take advantage of this untapped genre. In this case, Abrams is shading Audrey Hobert’s former boyfriend, wielding the usually genuine phrase, “Good luck” in a manner akin to the sarcastic tone of Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” So it is that she warns, “Good luck, Charlie I hope you’re ready/‘Cause this isn’t what you wanted/You know that it’s her or nothin’/Good luck, Charlie I hope you’re happy.” Of course, not really though.
A greater sense of levity appears on “Free Now,” even though it’s another slow jam. One that finds Abrams dissecting a shadowy presence in her former relationship, more than slightly hinting at high infidelity. This via the lines, “And I can imagine, when you go home/Does she follow like an echo?/Like your shadow, you can try, but you can’t run/From the truth of what you both made/That she blew up on a Tuesday/How does pain taste when it melts into your tongue?” And yet, right when you’re ready to sink into another depressive coma with Abrams, she picks up the pace of the song halfway through, just in time to deliver the impactful and wordier-than-usual bridge, which includes such lyrics as, “It’s a pain that I caught you at a bad time/It’s a shame that I memorized your outline” and “We’re collateral here, man, we got hit/Hope you find somewhere safe for your baggage/Every page that I wrote, you were on it/Feel you deep in my bones, you’re the current.” Even so, by the end of the song, Abrams has to resolve, for her own peace of mind, “Never been less empty/All I feel is free now.”
Opting to conclude the album on a high note (and sound more like Lorde than Taylor for her grand finale), “Close To You” finds Abrams once again discussing barely knowing someone but being a little obsessed with them (“I burn for you/And you don’t even know my name”). Even so, she never considered the song as thematically or sonically in line with the rest of the album, which she deems to be a “bonus track.” An offering to the fans who, for so long, clamored for the single to be finished, first hearing a snippet of it back in 2017. At last, it’s been given a place on one of her albums, with Abrams commenting, “I heard you loud and clear.” Though it remains to be seen if the object of her desire will say the same as she belts out, “Break my heart and start a fire, you got me overnight/Just let me be/Close to you, close to you, close to you.” For those with more sardonic sensibilities, it would perfectly suit the soundtrack for a movie about a stalker.
Of all the songs on the record, Abrams has also noted that “Close To You” is the one she’s most looking forward to performing in a stadium. “If you feel it, let me give it back,” Zane Lowe told her in regard to the potential for live audience interaction with the record, jokingly saying it’s her most “EDM.” And if Lowe’s aphorism sounds close to the Twisters mantra, “If you feel it, chase it,” that’s because it is. And, incidentally, Abrams made another tornado mention about the album when she said to Lowe, “This album is kind of, like, the inner tornado, I guess, when you’re trying to present a way and then it just doesn’t actually really ultimately work.” Instead, the “ugly truth” about yourself will always out (a.k.a., “It’s me, hi/I’m the problem, it’s me”).
But if listeners think that Abrams is “borrowing” too much from the Swift playbook of songwriting, one need only refer to Lowe’s assessment: “Ideas are free and the day we stop pretending they weren’t free, we’ve fucked up.” Abrams laughs as she concurs, “True.”
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