Sabrina Carpenter’s 7th album, “Man’s Best Friend,” came out on August 29th, 2025. Before the entire album was released, Sabrina had put out the song “Manchild” as a single, which gained a lot of attention. Sabrina, allegedly, wrote this song about her now ex-boyfriend Barry Keoghan, who starred in Marvel’s Eternals, and named the song after him. Like most of her songs, “Manchild” was written about the actions/tendencies of her ex. However, Sabrina shared on Instagram that the song was written about universal “manchilds” who aren’t taking their relationships seriously, messing around, aren’t emotionally mature, and youthful confusion in relationships.
Like most songs, “Manchild” caught the attention of everyone across the internet. A lot of people made videos to the song regarding Jeramiah Fisher from the popular series, The Summer I Turned Pretty. Many people compare Jere to this song due to the way he acts and treats Belly throughout season 3 and doesn’t fully take responsibility for their wedding preparation. Jeremiah also lacks the maturity needed for a relationship.
Some of the top songs (in my opinion) are “Goodbye,” “My Man On Willpower,” “Go Go Juice,” “We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night,” and “When Did You Get Hot?” These songs seem to be extremely popular because of the fun tune that goes with the lyrics. The entire album matches Sabrina’s usual discography since all of her songs have a joyful, energetic tune with extremely thought-out lyrics.
An example of this is in the song “Go Go Juice.” Sabrina uses the lyrics “could be John or Larry, gosh, who’s to say? Or the one that rhymes with ‘villain’ if I’m feelin’ that way” to create some sort of easter egg for people who are listening and paying a lot of attention. The names/words John, Larry, gosh, and villain all hint at past situationships or exes. John and Larry hint at her situationship with Shawn Mendes and her ex-boyfriend Barry Keoghan, while “villain” is used as a way to hide Dylan (O’brian)’s name. The best use of this easter egg is the way she enunciates the word “gosh” while singing. It brings a lot of attention to something that seems irrelevant, but “gosh” hints at Joshua Bassett. Back in late 2020-2021, there was a huge rumor of a love triangle between Joshua Bassett, Sabrina Carpenter, and Olivia Rodrigo. It was said that Josh and Sabrina were dating, but no one really knew for sure. After the entire debate died down, Sabrina released a song called “all because i liked a boy” which was loosely centered around Josh.
Nearly the entire album is full of upbeat pop songs, but the lyrics totally contradict the peppiness of the tune. A lot of the lyrics are about how hard her relationships with certain men were, how often they fought, and the fact that one (or some) of her boyfriends didn’t really want anything to do with her and slowly distanced himself/made himself busy with work. Her song “My Man On Willpower” references this situation with the lyrics “he’s busy, he’s working he doesn’t have time for me” and “my man won’t touch me with a twenty-foot pole.”
Additionally, on the vinyl version of “Man’s Best Friend” Sabrina added a song called “Such A Funny Way” which shares a similar theme as “My Man On Willpower.” Even though we don’t really have a clear depiction of who the song is about, it mentions the topic of her ex-boyfriend and how he doesn’t really care for her as much as he should. The lyric “[you] keep me far from my family and friends, baby, that’s just one of your quirks” alludes to how even though this is clearly a red flag, he is isolating her from people that are important in her life. She doesn’t see it the same way someone outside the relationship would and thinks he’s always like that. What she doesn’t understand is that he is somewhat manipulating her by secluding her from her family. Similarly, in the lyric “and what a strange coincidence, your grandma died and died again,” Sabrina makes a statement that, while she was dating this boyfriend, he constantly tries to get her to excuse his behavior by saying his grandma passed away over and over again. In his case, it seemed to work on her. “Such A Funny Way” represents how her ex-boyfriend is messing around and going out with other girls while still trying to keep her attached to him or from doing the same thing he is.
Overall, Sabrina Carpenter does an excellent job of writing songs about things going on in her life. She makes them compelling and fun to listen to while also bringing up events that are important to her and in her life. She is definitely a lot more than just a pretty blonde pop star.