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"I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department (2024). Written and produced by Swift and Jack Antonoff, it is a Western and country pop song with a sparse arrangement featuring twangy tremolo guitars backed by drum machine and keyboards. Its lyrics describe the narrator's intentions to "fix" her problematic romantic partner before realizing she cannot.

Some critics praised the song's production and sultry vibe, while others felt that its concept fell flat. "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Global 200 chart, and peaked within the top 40 in Australia, Canada, Greece, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, and the United States. Swift performed the song live twice during the Eras Tour in 2024, during the stops in Madrid and Warsaw.

Background and release

At the 66th Annual Grammy Awards on February 4, 2024, Taylor Swift won the award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights (2022). During her acceptance speech, she announced that her eleventh studio album The Tortured Poets Department would be released on April 19. She had developed the album over the previous two years, since she finished Midnights, and continued working on it through the US leg of the Eras Tour amidst publicized reports on her breakup with English actor Joe Alwyn and a brief romance with English musician Matty Healy. She described the album as a "lifeline" and something she "really needed" to make. Swift posted the album's tracklist on February 5, with "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" revealed as the eleventh track on the album. The song was released alongside the album on April 19, 2024 via Republic Records. Swift performed the song live twice during the Eras Tour; the first time on guitar as a mashup with "Sparks Fly" during the May 29 show in Madrid, then again on guitar as a mashup with "I Can See You" during the August 2 show in Warsaw.

Composition and lyrics

"I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" is a Western and country pop track that experiments with Southern Gothic and country elements. In it, Swift sings in her lower register. The track's arrangement is minimal and features sparse, tremolo twangy guitars, a backdrop of drum machine and keyboards, and reverbed percussion slaps to accentuate the lyrics. Swift's vocal harmonies are backed by synths.

The lyrics depict a narrator being confident in her abilities to "fix" her problematic man, until she realizes at the end that she cannot do so. The song contains sexual innuendos using outlaw imagery. It also uses imagery of God and heaven to describe the narrator falling for a bad boy ("They shake their heads sayin', 'God, help her'/ When I tell 'em he's my man").

Critical reception

The song received generally positive reviews from music critics. In The New York Times, Jon Pareles thought that the track contained some of the best musical moments on the album, and Lindsay Zoladz picked the ending line ("Woah, maybe I can't") as one of her favorite moments. Mary Kate Carr of The A.V. Club wrote that "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" is one of the album's more interesting tracks sonically with its "sultry" vibe. Consequence's Mary Siroky praised its "lonesome, moody instrumentals" that made it one of "a few wonderful moments of personality". In a ranking of the album's tracks, Jason Lipshutz of Billboard ranked the song 18th out of 31, saying that Swift "nicely operates in her lower register" and conveys the "half-convinced feeling" through lilted syllables. However, Paste provided a negative review, saying that while the track showed Swift venturing to musical directions that evoked the "country renegades" before her like Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn, it fell flat due to her "self-aggrandizing inflation of importance, glinting through via a seismically-bland bridge".

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of The Tortured Poets Department

• Taylor Swift – lead vocals, songwriter, producer
• Jack Antonoff – producer, songwriter, programming, percussion, Moog Voyager, piano, Juno, Mellotron, bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
• Laura Sisk – engineering, recording
• Oli Jacobs – engineering, recording
• Christopher Rowe – engineering, recording
• Jack Manning – engineering assistance
• Jon Sher – engineering assistance
• Rémy Dumelz – engineering assistance
• Serban Ghenea – mixing
• Bryce Bordone – mix engineering
• Randy Merrill – mastering
• Ryan Smith – vinyl mastering

Charts

Certification

References

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• Taylor Swift songs
• 2024 songs
• Songs written by Taylor Swift
• Songs written by Jack Antonoff
• Song recordings produced by Taylor Swift
• Song recordings produced by Jack Antonoff
• Country pop songs