Have you caught G Flip’s new queered up cover of “Cruel Summer?” Taylor Swift has—and she’s a fan.
The “Be Your Man” singer recently swung by triple j to start this year’s round of their Like A Version performances off with one of Swift’s most popular tracks from Lover. It flies more closely to G Flip’s usual style of music, with an entire added string section, the lyrics flipped around to be about a woman, and, of course, ultimately features the musician rocking out on their drums.
“Hopefully I didn't butcher it for the gaylors,” they said in an interview released alongside the cover, shouting out Swifties who find queer meanings in her songs. “Hopefully they're like, ‘Oh, actually that was pretty good,’ you know? I feel like it’s more of a masc lesbian version of Taylor Swift’s ‘Cruel Summer.’”
Sure enough, fans of both G Flip and Swift were immediately vibing with their take on the song, but things really picked up when Swift herself—notoriously rarely casually active on social media anymore—took to Instagram to add a coveted “like” to the post.
And that immediately sent everyone into a frenzy, drawing even more attention to the song—and prompted and overwhelmed response from G Flip themselves.
“I really thought that it was going to get a lot of hate. Because it's such a big song, and when you take on a big song, you don't want to destroy it or ruin it,” they admitted.
So thank you so much for liking it, and thank you, Taylor, for liking it. I’m trying not to cry. It's really cool and I love your art and thank you so much everyone for getting around this cover. I didn't realize it was going to get so much love, so, thank you.”
The timing appeared to be particularly meaningful to some queer fans following that bizarre CNN article about “associates” of Swift’s being furious over speculation about her sexuality—which some overzealous fans decided was proof Swift herself was furious over both the speculation and queer interpretations of her songs.
