Get Him Back!

explores Rodrigo's desire to exact revenge on her ex-partner while simultaneously wanting to reconcile with him; the titular phrase conveys this through its double meaning.

[3] She conceived the follow-up album, Guts (2023), at the age of 19, while experiencing "lots of confusion, mistakes, awkwardness & good old fashioned teen angst".

[18] Nigro produced the song and provided vocal production, and he handled engineering with its co-producers, Alexander 23 and Ian Kirkpatrick.

Mitch McCarthy mixed the song at Amusement Studios in Los Angeles, where it was also recorded, and Randy Merrill mastered it.

[32][33][34] The song has a "quiet-loud dynamic" according to Pitchfork's Arielle Gordon, as Rodrigo raps the verses in a swaddled tone but chants the choruses in an energetic way.

[41] Critics also compared it to songs like Beck's "Loser" (1993),[42][43] Butthole Surfers' "Pepper" (1996),[41][44][45] Sum 41's "Fat Lip" (2001),[41] Weezer's "Beverly Hills" (2005),[44] and the music of Avril Lavigne.

explore Rodrigo's desire to exact revenge towards her ex-partner while simultaneously wanting to reconcile with him;[47][48] the titular phrase conveys this through its double meaning.

[37][48] She recalls both the positive and negative experiences they had together: calling him "so much fun" and reminiscing about parties and trips to France, while also noting his habit of making sexual advances toward her friends.

[26][36] In the chorus, Rodrigo repeats the titular lyric: "I wanna get him back", articulating her desire to make him envious and being unhappy because she misses him in the alternate lines.

[26][53] In the bridge, Rodrigo sings about her conflicting thoughts, wanting to damage his car, hurt him emotionally, and then heal the pain she caused all at the same time.

[44][54] In its final line, Rodrigo states she wants to meet his mother to say that "her son sucks",[55][56] which Caramanica thought might be a double entendre.

recalled early 2000s emo music of bands like Saves the Day, Taking Back Sunday, and Nigro's own As Tall As Lions.

[26][58] Variety's Chris Willman thought the song was among the most charismatic ones on the album, and Billboard's Jason Lipshutz considered it the best track and an "older-sister version" of "Drivers License" (2021).

[65] Critics like DeVille and the Los Angeles Times' Mikael Wood believed Rodrigo's rap flow was well synchronized with the beat of "Get Him Back!".

[55] According to Gordon, Rodrigo's vocal cadence embodied a "school bully" during the verses and a cheerleader during the choruses, while Wood said "Get Him Back!"

benefited from her background as an actress, displaying "pitch-perfect line readings that shift between comic registers on a dime — from naturalistic to screwball, faux-earnest to deadpan".

[48] Pitchfork's Cat Zhang believed the chorus deserved to be screamed in every location, and Paste's Rachel Saywitz thought it "drives the point home".

[68][49] Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield ranked it as Rodrigo's third-best song in September 2023; he compared the line about her wanting to meet the ex-partner's mother to the lyricism of Joni Mitchell and picked his favorite lyric: "I wanna key his car, I wanna make him lunch.

received a gold certification in the United Kingdom from the British Phonographic Industry, and the Official Charts Company declared it her 14th-biggest song in the country in February 2024.

[91] Xiao Liu, the photography director, achieved the former video's quick shots using crash zoom on the device's 5x Telephoto camera.

[11][94] DIY's Daisy Carter believed the inclusion of the clones encapsulated the "dual mentality" expressed by the song's titular phrase,[95] and Consequence's Abby Jones thought they were "each representing one of the contradicting voices in Rodrigo's head telling her to key [her ex's] car".

[47] Savannah Salazar of Vulture believed the video upstaged the device to become the most enthralling thing unveiled on its release day.

After the forest set was destroyed by fireworks,[100][101] she was rushed off the stage by a staffer as a glitched version of her single "Good 4 U" (2021) played.

[102][103] The camera focused on Selena Gomez and the crowd, who appeared concerned, not realizing it was a recreation of the "Vampire" music video.

in front of a curtain, accompanied by brunette dancers in identical pink outfits who referenced the clones in the music video.

[99][100][103] The performance was positively received by critics like Parade's Devon Forward, who thought Rodrigo gave it her all,[106] and Rolling Stone's Angie Martoccio and Tomás Mier, who believed it heralded "Get Him Back!

[117] It is part of a set of rock-oriented songs, alongside "Brutal", "Obsessed" (2024), "All-American Bitch" (2023), and "Good 4 U", which together recalls 1990s rock artists like Alanis Morissette and Gwen Stefani according to Chicago Sun-Times' Selena Fragassi.

[118] During the performance, she sings the first verse through a megaphone, clad in glittering shorts and a midriff-baring top which bears phrases such as "and just like that",[119][120] "Carrie Bradshaw AF",[121] or "Never Se(a)ttle".

[123][124] The Tennessean's Audrey Gibbs believed she belted, stomped, and leapt with intense energy during the encore, which she included in her standout moments of the show.