<p id=”par-1_27″><a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/tag/taylor-swift/”>Taylor Swift</a>‘s “I Knew You Were Trouble” inspired <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/halsey-regrets-a-song-she-wrote-about-harry-styles-and-taylor-swift.html/”>Halsey to write a spoof</a>. The spoof was about one of Swift’s high-profile relationships. It has not aged well.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-taylor-swift-s-i-knew-you-were-trouble-inspired-a-song-about-her-and-harry-styles”>Taylor Swift’s ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ inspired a song about her and Harry Styles</h2>
<p id=”par-2_74″>Once upon a time, Swift <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/harry-styles-finally-opens-up-about-songs-taylor-swift-wrote-about-him.html/”>and Harry Styles were a couple</a> that fans called “Haylor.” Halsey, being a fangirl and an artist at the same time, decided to write a track about their relationship. It was a spoof of “I Knew You Were Trouble” called “The Haylor Song.” If that seems like an odd move now, you have to remember that pop music spoofs were a lot more popular on YouTube several years ago. </p>
<p id=”par-3_94″>During a 2015 interview with <a href=”https://www.nme.com/features/halsey-2015s-most-exciting-new-pop-star-on-one-direction-fandom-taylor-swift-and-being-kind-of-an-as-756992″ target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>NME</a>, Halsey discussed “The Haylor Song,” which she said did not kick-start her career. “I made that video in 2012 and there was not another word about me in the press until 2014, but it keeps getting brought up,” she recalled. “It’s the same mentality as people wanting to talk about being bipolar or being bisexual; everyone loves talking about Taylor Swift. I made multiple parody videos at that age; I’m quick-witted, clever and kind of an a**hole, and it was how I handled that when I was 16.”</p>
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<iframe title=”Taylor Swift – I Knew You Were Trouble” width=”925″ height=”520″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/vNoKguSdy4Y?feature=oembed” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-is-this-taylor-swift-spoof-funny”>Is this Taylor Swift spoof funny?</h2>
<p id=”par-4_44″>With all that out of the way, the real question is whether or not “The Haylor Song” is funny. Is it a classic spoof like “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Eat It” or just another fly-by-night YouTube spoof that used to get churned out every day? </p>
<p id=”par-5_54″>Besides having no production value, the song feels unnecessarily mean. It portrays <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-wasnt-1st-singer-hit-called-shake-it-off.html/”>the “Shake It Off” singer</a> as a “control freak” who is only interested in being with Styles so she can write hit songs about him. This joke about Swift wasn’t that funny at the time, and it only got worse with age. </p>
<p id=”par-6_72″>Yankovic is the undisputed king of song parodies. His tracks don’t really other artists. Instead, he rewrites hits to have a completely different subject matter. Yankovic redid Michael Jackson’s “Eat It” so it’s about food, Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” so it’s about a doctor, and Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” so it’s about the Amish community. If he spent years directly attacking other artists on a personal level, his music would have felt rancid.</p>
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<iframe title=”Halsey on Defending Taylor Swift” width=”925″ height=”520″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/jtFSTA9Uc_A?feature=oembed” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<div class=”related-article related-article–simple”>
<span class=”related-article-flag”>Related</span>
<p class=”related-article__title”>
<a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/1-taylor-swifts-ex-boyfriends-compared-kkk-leader.html/”>
1 of Taylor Swift’s Ex-Boyfriends Compared Himself to a KKK Leader </a>
</p>
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<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-halsey-compared-her-i-knew-you-were-trouble-spoof-to-the-hate-she-gets”>Halsey compared her ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ spoof to the hate she gets</h2>
<p id=”par-7_87″>During a 2017 interview with <a href=”https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jun/22/halsey-you-can-be-homeless-and-a-one-direction-fan-at-the-same-time” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>The Guardian</a>, Halsey dismissed “The Haylor Song.” “I understand it was pack mentality, and knowing that in stirring up that discourse, we would all be on the same side about it, which is exactly what people do to me now,” she said. “When you hate someone’s girlfriend or brother or hate another band, that’s a gang mentality. People would rather talk together about something they hate than something they all love. And that’s so blatantly clear in our nation at the moment.”</p>
<p id=”par-8_61″>These days, it’s hard to find the original version of “The Haylor Song” on YouTube. It’s not clear who is trying to suppress it. Regardless, we shouldn’t judge Halsey on the basis of her questionable “I Knew You Were Trouble” parody. Ultimately, “The Haylor Song” is a footnote in her career, and I doubt she’ll be performing at Coachella anytime soon.</p>
<p id=”par-9_17″>Whether you love or hate “The Haylor Song,” it doesn’t seem Halsey is too proud of it.</p>