Sabrina Carpenter isn’t always so sweet on her new album Short n’ Sweet. One particularly cutting new song takes several shots at an ex, whom Carpenter says “f*ck[ed] with [her] head like it’s some kind of fetish.” “Just ‘cause you talk like one doesn’t make you a man,” the pop star seethes in “Dumb & Poetic.” Although she doesn’t name her subject, there are more than enough clues for listeners to figure out who she’s probably cursing out.
Carpenter explained the inspiration behind “Dumb & Poetic” on Apple Music’s The Zane Lowe Show. “I thought about some of these relationships, how some of them were the shortest I’ve ever had and they affected me the most, and I thought about the way that I respond to situations: Sometimes it is very nice, and sometimes it’s not very nice,” she said. “Hence songs like ‘Dumb & Poetic,’ a gentle acoustic ballad that’s also a blistering takedown of a guy who masks his sleazy tendencies with therapy buzzwords and a highbrow record collection.”
One of the shortest relationships Carpenter is rumored to have had was with Shawn Mendes. The two were linked only for about a month in early 2023, though neither has ever officially confirmed if it was anything romantic.
However, the “Dumb & Poetic” lyrics seem to allude to Mendes a few times. Sabrina decries how her ex read “every self-help book” and practiced meditation, two things Mendes has spoken publicly about. In a 2020 interview, Mendes credited “three therapists and 55 self-help books plus meditation and exercise” with helping him deal with the demands of fame.
Elsewhere in the song, Carpenter says her ex would “jack off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen.” Mendes is a well-known fan of Cohen, having covered the songwriter’s anthem “Hallelujah” several times throughout his career.
In possibly the most telling line of all, Carpenter informs her ex that “the mushrooms aren't changing your life.” Just a matter of days before Carpenter’s album dropped, Mendes admitted he had recently experimented with psychedelic mushrooms during a show in London.
While all these lyrics seem to point to Mendes, there’s another ex who also fits the “Dumb & Poetic” bill. Carpenter’s former flame Joshua Bassett is also very into self-help books and meditation.
Oh, and he’s also recently covered Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” And has spoken about experimenting with magic mushrooms in the past.
So, did Carpenter write “Dumb & Poetic” about Mendes or Bassett? Or maybe it was a combination of very similar experiences she had with both exes. Whoever she’s singing about probably won’t be adding it to their playlists.
