Taylor Swift’s “Father Figure” Exposes Years-Long Feud with Former Label Head Scott Borchetta
A new song from Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, is sparking renewed discussion about her contentious relationship with Scott Borchetta, the executive who launched her career and later sold her master recordings. The track, “Father Figure,” inspired by George Michael, finds Swift adopting the perspective of a man who once held a paternal role in her life, delivering provocative lyrics that appear to directly address Borchetta and the fallout from the 2019 sale of her music catalog.
The core of the dispute stems from Borchetta’s decision to sell Big Machine Records, and with it, Swift’s first six albums, to Scooter Braun, a manager with whom Swift had a pre-existing strained relationship. This sale ignited a six-year battle over the ownership of her early work and prompted Swift to embark on the ambitious project of re-recording her albums as “Taylor’s Version” to regain control.
In 2019, Swift publicly detailed her grievances in a Tumblr post, expressing feelings of exploitation and betrayal. “I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in,” she wrote, highlighting what she perceived as an unfair arrangement. However, her primary concern was the sale to Braun. “Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter,” she stated. “Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to.” She added that the situation demonstrated how “loyalty” had become merely a “contractual concept” in the music industry.
Swift echoes this sentiment in “Father Figure” with the line, “They don’t make loyalty like they used to,” a direct parallel to her earlier statement. This isn’t the first time Swift has addressed the ordeal through her music. Her 2020 albums, folklore and evermore, served as outlets for her emotions. “My Tears Ricochet,” from folklore, uses the metaphor of a funeral to represent the loss of her life’s work, with lyrics like, “And I still talk to you (When I’m screaming at the sky)/And when you can’t sleep at night (You hear my stolen lullabies).”
evermore continued this exploration, with “Right Where You Left Me” depicting a sense of being frozen in time and “It’s Time to Go” explicitly referencing the situation. As Swift sang, “He’s got my past frozen behind glass / But I’ve got me,” a statement made while she was actively re-recording her music to circumvent the ownership issues.
“Father Figure” marks a shift in Swift’s narrative. In May, the artist successfully bought back her masters, regaining ownership of her early recordings. The song reflects this change, as Swift transitions from portraying Borchetta’s perspective to reclaiming her own story. The repeated refrain, “I protect the family,” sung six times, is widely interpreted as a reference to those first six albums she recorded with Big Machine Records.
Swift now controls her musical destiny and is focused on independent decision-making. Borchetta, currently the CEO of Big Machine Label Group, has not publicly commented on Swift or her music since 2020. The release of “Father Figure” signals not just a musical statement, but a definitive closing of a chapter in a highly publicized and deeply personal battle for artistic control.
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