· Alex Harris · Trending

Sabrina Carpenter Tears: Lyrics, Meaning & Video

<p>Sabrina Carpenter’s “Tears” lyrics makes grown-up decency sexy; a Colman Domingo costar turn powers a campy video hit up.</p>

A pop song about basic decency shouldn’t feel dangerous. Yet the first time Tears lands, the hook makes the room tilt, and the camera in your head starts to move. 

“I get wet at the thought of you,” she teases, not for diamonds or theatrics, but for acting like an adult.

It’s a joke and a challenge at once, and the video pushes that tension until it gleams. 

Carpenter set the tone for release day with a short caption that doubled as a wink to her co-star: starring the truly incomparable, magnetic, and fantastic Colman Domingo! It matches what you see on screen. 

Fresh off a 2024 run that sent Espresso to No. 1 in the UK and gave her a first U.S. Hot 100 No. 1 with Please Please Please, then the August bow of Short n’ Sweet, Tears clicks neatly into the 2025 Man’s Best Friend chapter.

The Sabrina Carpenter Tears video premiered on August 29, 2025, alongside Man’s Best Friend, featuring Domingo in drag as a glamorous master of ceremonies and allowing director Bardia Zeinali to steer a camp-horror round-trip from car crash to cornfield to glitter-soaked dance break. 

Sabrina Carpenter's Man's Best Friend album cover
Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend album cover

The final beat is darkly funny and a little vicious. Think Rocky Horror by way of a cheeky midnight movie, with Carpenter taking the joke to its last frame.

Drop the clip into any feed and the beat-by-beat outline still reads like a short film: a pale-blue suit and sun hat, a body by the wheel, a house that looks like trouble, a costume switch that makes the song’s punchline visual. 

Vulture clocks the Rocky Horror and Jennifer’s Body nods and the heel-point payoff at the end; Rolling Stone calls out the cornfield pole scene and the shameless sparkle. 

Both pieces confirm what the fandom already intuited from teasers: this world has rules, and the rules are hers.

Under the eyeliner, the song is built on ordinary verbs. Carpenter sells the fantasy with a grin you can hear. 

She wants “a responsible guy,” someone who will “treat [her] like [he’s] supposed to,” and yes, that means “do the dishes.” 

She even turns a flatpack into foreplay with the IKEA line. Each fragment lands like a raised eyebrow, never overstaying its welcome. 

Sabrina Carpenter, Amy Allen, and John Ryan wrote it; Carpenter and John Ryan produced it. 

Release date: 29 August 2025 via Island, as the second single from Man’s Best Friend. 

The YouTube upload hit #2 on Music Trending within hours and cleared two million views before lunch.

Fan chatter has its own rhythm, and it’s worth listening to. In the Reddit threads, you see two threads of reaction running side by side. 

One is delighted at the visual worldbuilding and Domingo’s cameo, the lighting, the cornfield gag, and the sheer confidence of the “competence kink” premise. 

The other is a small but audible shrug about how sharp the one-liners feel this time compared to last year’s album; a few posts wonder if a punchline this broad risks becoming predictable. 

That’s the right argument to have on day one, and it’s healthy for an artist who plays with humour to hear it.

There’s a different current, too, less about writing and more about casting.

A handful of snark-leaning threads question whether bringing an Oscar winner in drag turns the visual into a star vehicle at the expense of the song, while plenty of fans counter that the cameo underscores the camp and never steals focus. 

The clip itself makes the case; the camera keeps returning to Carpenter’s face, to the way she bites a line and times a glance.

Part of why Tears snaps into place is that Carpenter is clear about the impulse driving this era.

At a Spotify release event, she framed the process as “embracing impulses” and writing what felt urgent in the moment.

You hear that urgency in how quickly the chorus finishes half your sentence for you, and how the arrangement keeps you from getting lost in the joke. It’s a pop single, not a lecture. 

The Sabrina Carpenter Tears video also works because it takes the lyric literally without flattening it.

Responsibility becomes choreography. A chore floats past on the beat. The camera cuts feel like checklists being ticked.

When she murmurs, “Treating me like you’re supposed to,” the image says, Of course, look how easy this is. Ten words at a time is all she needs to draw a cartoon in your head. 

A sharper needle, then. If you’re searching for the quibble that makes the praise feel earned, it’s this: Tears is almost too efficient. 

Two minutes forty, a chorus you can quote in one breath, a video that lines up every visual with a lyric.

Some will wish for more left turns, a weirder middle eight, a messier bridge. 

Others will hear that compactness as confidence, especially given the album’s wider palette. Neither reading is wrong. 

The song is safe only in the sense that it chooses the cleanest route to the idea and refuses to apologise for being catchy.

The joke lands, the beat hits, the camera winks, and she’s onto the next scene. 

If you’re here to press play rather than parse, start with the video. Watch Colman Domingo glide through the mansion like a knowing host, then chase the track into the album where it belongs.

Let the chorus ambush you in the kitchen later when someone actually does the dishes and you remember why this premise still bites.

A last thought for the road: when the bar for attraction is “be decent,” is Tears teasing the culture or diagnosing it, and how long before the joke stops being a joke?

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Full Tears Lyrics from Sabrina Carpenter

Intro
Mm
Mm-hm (Ah-ha)
Uh (Shikitah)

Chorus
I get wet at the thought of you (Uh-huh)
Being a responsible guy(Shikitah)
Treating me like you’re supposed to do (Uh-huh)
Tears run down my thighs

Verse 1
A little initiative can go a very long, long way
Baby, just do the dishes, I’ll give you what you (What you), what you want
A little communication, yes, that’s my ideal foreplay
Assemble a chair from IKEA, I’m like, “Uh” (Ah)

Chorus
I get wet at the thought of you (Uh-huh)
Being a responsible guy(So responsible; shikitah)
Treating me like you’re supposed to do (Uh-huh)
Tears run down my thighs

Verse 2
A little respect for women can get you very, very far
Remembering how to use your phone gets me oh so (Oh so), oh so hot
Considering I have feelings, I’m like, “Why are my clothes still on?” (Mm)
Offering to do anything, I’m like (Uh), “Oh my god”

Chorus
I get wet at the thought of you (Uh-huh)
Being a responsible guy (So responsible; shikitah)
Treating me like you’re supposed to do (Uh-huh)
Tears run down my thighs

Post-Chorus
I get wet at the thought of you (I get)
Being a responsible guy (So, so, so, responsible guy)
Treating me like you’re supposed to do (Supposed to do)
Tears run down my thighs (Dance break)

Bridge
Oh
So responsible
No

Chorus
I get wet at the thought of you (Uh-huh)
Being a responsible guy (So responsible; shikitah)
Treating me like you’re supposed to do (Uh-huh)
Tears run down my thighs (Shikitah)

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