Breakup songs are great, but a “revenge song” is a whole different story.
The anger and rage from singers and songwriters end up laced through the lyrics and share the vulnerable circumstances of their betrayal through poetry.
The pain settles in the hearts of fans, joining them in furiousness and injustice at the subject of the song.
Here are the best “revenge” songs and albums that help fans feel every bit of fury their favourite singers do.
West End Girl – Lily Allen on David Harbour
In the wake of Lily Allen and David Harbour’s breakup at the beginning of this year, the singer reportedly wrote and recorded West End Girl in just 10 days.
Since it dropped last week, fans have been poring through the lyrics of Lily Allen’s scathing new album drawing comparisons between the story she tells through her songs and the breakdown of her marriage to the Stranger Things star.
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The album, titled West End Girl, includes themes of infidelity, breaking the agreements of an open marriage and even calls out a woman named ‘Madeline’, who Allen describes as the other woman.
Go Your Own Way – Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham on Stevie Nicks
In 1976, just a year and a half into their time with Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks broke up.
The pair chose to not let their romance get in the way of their role in the band, and lucky they did, because their break-up led Buckingham to write one of the band’s most well-known songs.
Go Your Own Way was released in December 1976, as the first single from the iconic album Rumours, and was fresh from the pair’s break-up after a six-year relationship.
The song was also sung and recorded by Buckingham, with one particular lyric upsetting Stevie: “Packing up / Shacking up is all you wanna do.”
In 2009, Nicks told Q Magazine of her dislike of the lyric: “It was certainly a message within a song. And not a very nice one at that.”
Silver Springs – Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks on Lindsey Buckingham
Nicks was so furious about Go Your Own Way that she wrote her own take on her and Buckingham’s split, but rather than get it’s time in the spotlight it simply became a B-side to Buckingham’s song.
The rage in the song festered as it continued to get sidelined, eventually leading Nicks to leave the group when Mick Fleetwood would not allow her to release Silver Springs on her 1991 album Timespace – The Best of Stevie Nicks, because he planned to include it on a forthcoming Fleetwood Mac box set.
When the song was finally performed live on a sound stage for Fleetwood Mac’s 1997 reunion album The Dance, fans could hear every bit of Nick’s anger in each lyric.
The most powerful included, “I’ll follow you down ’til the sound of my voice will haunt you/Give me just a chance/ You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.”
Not only did Buckingham have to record it as her bandmate, he also had to endure Nick’s laser-focused stare boring a hole into his head as she gave her all in the performance, one that has been remembered for ages.
So What – Pink on Carey Hart
Pink’s So What is renowned as an anthem for the newly (or not-so-newly) heartbroken.
She wrote the song in 2008, after splitting from her husband Carey Hart, even shooting the music video with him while they were still broken up – a feat she got away with as Hart hadn’t heard the song prior to arriving to the shoot.
With a starting line like, “I guess I just lost my husband / I don’t know where he went / So I’m gonna drink my money, I’m not gonna pay his rent”, we’re sure he got the message pretty quickly.
Miraculously, the pair somehow managed to rekindle their romance 11 months later and have since been stronger than ever.
They regularly post romantic tributes to each other on Instagram, sharing daughter Willow, 14, and Jameson, eight.
You’re So Vain – Carly Simon on Warren Beatty
For years, fans have wondered who Mr ‘So Vain’ is in Carly Simon’s hit ’70s breakup song.
So could you believe Warren Beatty is the star that’s “so vain” he thinks the song is about him?
Simon released You’re So Vain back in 1972, and for the over 50 years since, she’s been consistently asked who the man at the centre of the song is.
Beatty has been the most probable contender, after Simon released a new version of the song a year later that featured a back-masked whisper.
Fans were sure the name they heard whispered on the new version was “Warren”.
Over time, Simon teased her fans, not confirming nor denying their speculation.
In a 1983 interview with The Washington Post she said, “It certainly sounds like it was about Warren Beatty.
“He certainly thought it was about him – he called me and said, ‘Thanks for the song.'”
Then in 2015, Simon admitted the second verse was about Beatty.
“You had me several years ago when I was still quite naïve / Well you said that we made such a pretty pair / And that you would never leave / But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me,” the verse reads.
The pair were reportedly linked in the early ’70s.
But Simon kept up the intrigue, telling People Magazine, “that doesn’t mean the other two verses are also Warren”.
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Later in life, Simon revealed her No. 1 hit is actually about three men, including Beatty. She hasn’t named the others.
Simon was previously married to James Taylor, and has been linked to Mick Jagger, Kris Kristofferson, Jack Nicholson and Cat Stevens.
Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53 – Shakira on Gerard Piqué
While her fans were reeling from the rumours that Shakira’s ex Gerard Piqué allegedly cheated on the superstar with Clara Chia Marti, a girl half her age, the singer was instead hard at work writing a banger.
Soon after the breakup, Shakira dropped a blistering track with producer Bizarrap, laden with veiled barbs and wordplay directed at her ex and his new girlfriend.
One included, “I’m too big for you, that’s why you’re with someone just like you”, which fans have interpreted as a dig at Piqué’s budding relationship.
Another was, “This is for me to mortify you, chew and swallow so it doesn’t sting, I won’t return to you any more even if you cry or beg me.
“I understood that it’s not my fault that they criticise you, I only make music, sorry that I splashed you.”
The song went viral on social media, with much criticism directed at Piqué and Marti.
You Oughta Know – Alanis Morissette on Dave Coulier
It’s perhaps one of the most famous break-up songs in history, but did you know Alanis Morissette wrote You Oughta Know about goofy Full House star Dave Coulier?
They dated for two years when Morissette was freshly 18 and Coulier was 33, breaking up in 1994. One year later, Morissette shovelled her emotions into her now-iconic song.
One particular line was a giveaway as to the subject of the song: “I hate to bug you in the middle of dinner / It was a slap in the face how quickly I was replaced.”
In 2013, Coulier himself confirmed that the song was about him, after years of speculation.
Coulier recalled to HuffPost that when the song came out he “called her and said, ‘Look, what do you want me to say to the media when these folks call me? And she said, ‘You can say whatever you want.'”
“We had already broken up… She called and I said, ‘Hey, you know, I’m right in the middle of dinner. Can I just call you right back?’
“When I heard the line, it was like, ‘uh-oh.'”
Cry Me a River – Justin Timberlake on Britney Spears
Who could forget Justin Timberlake‘s Cry Me a River?
The 2002 song marked the end of Timberlake’s romance with pop star and Mickey Mouse Club House co-star Britney Spears.
They had, of course, met as youngsters on the show, and were expected to be together forever.
But they ended their relationship in 2002, with Timberlake hinting at being cheated on in his break-up anthem.
The exposing lyrics included: “You don’t have to say, what you did / I already know, I found out from him.”
When asked about the breakup by Diane Sawyer in 2003, Spears tearfully replied: “I’m not technically saying he’s wrong, but I’m not technically saying he’s right either.”
Speaking about the split with The Telegraph UK in September 2002, Timberlake said: “The break-up was absolutely heartbreaking for me. I can’t just have meaningless relationships with women. I have to find ‘Miss right’ in order to have a relationship.”
Timberlake has been married to Jessica Biel since 2012, while Spears was married to Jason Allen Alexander in 2004, Kevin Federline from 2004–2007, and Sam Asghari from 2022–2024.
We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together – Taylor Swift on Jake Gyllenhaal
It wouldn’t be a revenge song list without T-Swizz.
While we all know All Too Well is about Jake Gyllenhaal, did you know that another, more upbeat Swifty track is also about the Donnie Darko actor?
Swift’s 2012 hit We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together is also about Gyllenhaal, fans have concluded, thanks to some helpful hints in the song’s music video.
There are reportedly some heavy Donnie Darko references to stuffed rabbits (a stuffed rabbit demon is a main character in the film) and animals – some fans even point to the animal onesies her band wears as a big giveaway. There’s even a scarf reference!
Meanwhile Swift slyly revealed the genius of her song to USA Today, explaining, “[My ex] made me feel like I wasn’t as good or as relevant as these hipster bands he listened to. So I made a song that I knew would absolutely drive him crazy when he heard it on the radio.
“Not only would it hopefully be played a lot, so that he’d have to hear it, but it’s the opposite of the kind of music that he was trying to make me feel inferior to.”
Love Yourself – Justin Bieber on Selena Gomez
While Gomez certainly wrote her song Lose You to Love Me about Bieber, it’s rumoured Bieber’s 2015 break-up anthem Love Yourself is about Gomez.
Lines like “My mama don’t like you and she likes everyone,” sound a little harsh for Gomez, who has always been a crowd-favourite Disney Channel star.
Yet fans argue she was perhaps one of the only girlfriends Bieber had stuck with long enough at the time to make an impression on his mum.
Fans also point to Gomez’s “love yourself first” tattoo that she got inked on her back in 2014 as key evidence the song is truly about her.
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