TIT FOR TAT

Album

Single

Label

RCA Records

Genre

Dance-pop

Composer(s)

Tate McRae;Ryan Tedder;Julia Michaels;Grant Boutin

Entered Chart

Oct 11, 2025

Peak Date

Oct 11, 2025

Released

September 26, 2025

Recorded

Studio American Airlines Center (Dallas)

If pop music has taught us anything, it's that breakups rarely end quietly. They tend to echo for months, sometimes years, across playlists, TikTok edits, and stadium singalongs. Taylor Swift and Joe Jonas, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth: each relationship was barely over before it had been pressed into vinyl and shipped to the public. So it feels only fitting that when Tate McRae and The Kid Laroi called time on their romance in July 2025, the whole thing quickly turned into a call-and-response in song. The pair dated for over a year, evolving from best-friend territory into official coupledom in January 2024. Laroi announced their breakup 18 months later, claiming they're "on good terms." That lasted about five weeks until Laroi unveiled "A Cold Play" on September 5, 2025. In it, he claimed McRae never really gave the relationship her full attention and, in a line that doubles as both complaint and prophecy, suggested that everyone around him said it was doomed from the start. This was not the first time Laroi had put his heartbreak into song - see "Without You," where he practically trademarked the wounded teen lament - but "A Cold Play" raised the temperature. He even confessed that he "still loved her," a line that might have wrung sympathy if he hadn't followed it by moving on at a sprint. McRae responded in kind. On September 11, 2025, in the middle of her Miss Possessive Tour stop in Nashville, she scribbled "Tit For Tat." The title nods to the British expression for "retaliation" and the pop tradition of answering fire with fire. The track starts with a chorus that flicks away Laroi's torch-bearing: Thought I might love you again, see how I feel Now that you're acting like that, I never will Last night, she answered my call, it sealed the deal Right now, I'm not even about you If Laroi's song painted him as a victim, McRae's counters with weary resolve. Yes, she briefly considered reconciling, but his actions (moving on too quickly, for starters) sealed the door shut. The pre-chorus makes the rules of engagement perfectly clear: Let's go song for song, let's go back to back Let's go tit for tat, boy, you asked for that It's as if McRae is reminding him that pop music is a duel anyone can enter, but not everyone should. In doing so, she joined a lineage that runs from Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" to Drake's endless sparring with, well, just about everyone. Musically, "Tit For Tat" is a twinkly trap-pop creation co-written with Julia Michaels and built by producers Grant Boutin and Ryan Tedder (her collaborators since her 2023 album Think Later). Michaels, whose pen has delivered hits to Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, has become one of McRae's closest writing allies. In an interview with Zach Sang, she praised McRae's willingness to experiment, an approach that makes songs like "Tit For Tat" feel less like diary entries and more like precision-crafted clapbacks.

Thought I might love you again, I'll see how I feel
Now that you're acting like that, boy, I never will
Last night, she answered my call, it sealed the deal
Right now, I'm not even about you

Thought I might love you again, see how I feel
Now that you're acting like that, I never will
Last night, she answered my call, it sealed the deal
Right now, I'm not even about you

The day I met you, boy, I thought it was a blessing
In the heat of it, I always took your side
It's a shame you out here tryna make it messy
Wow, you're messy, damn
We were good, I thought we made it through the ending
I was hearing shit I never thought you'd say
Could have picked it up exactly where we left it
Took our future off your plate

Let's go song for song, let's go back to back
Let's go tit for tat, boy, you asked for that
That's the best you got, where's the good one at?
I was never as far away as you thought


Thought I might love you again, see how I feel
Now that you're acting like that, I never will
Last night, she answered my call, it sealed the deal
Right now, I'm not even about you
Thought I might love you again, see how I feel
Now that you're acting like that, I never will
Last night, she answered my call, it sealed the deal
Right now, I'm not even about you

I was nothing but respectful, and you know that
Why you changing up the narrative to write?
No, I can't do this, you're making me do this
If you wanna fight

Let's go song for song, let's go back to back
Fix your fucking self, kiss my ass for that
That's the best you got, where's the good one at?
Should've known you'd be the type to change

Thought I might love you again, see how I feel
Now that you're acting like that, I never will
Last night, she answered my call, it sealed the deal

Right now, I'm not even about you
Thought I might love you again, see how I feel
Now that you're acting like that, I never will
Last night, she answered my call, it sealed the deal
Right now, I'm not even about you

That looks like it really hurts
That bruise on your ego
I know that it makes it worse
It had to be me though

Thought I might love you again, see how I feel
Now that you're acting like that, I never will
Last night she answered my call, it sealed the deal
Right now, I'm-
Thought I might love you again, see how I feel
Now that you're acting like that, I never will
Last night she answered my call, it sealed the deal
Right now, I'm partying without you

Thought I might love you again
Now that you're acting like that (I'm partying without you)
Last night, she answered my call

I'm partying without you