At the CMA awards earlier this month, Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley cracked a joke about your reported breakup with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s son Conor Kennedy. But the camera never panned to you.

They don’t pan to you if you’re not laughing.

Do boyfriends ever say, “Look, whatever happens, just don’t write about me”?

The only time that has ever crossed someone’s mind was when we were in the process of breaking up.

And what did you tell him?

Of course I was like, “Oh, don’t worry, I won’t.” And then I did. Look, it’s not like it was written somewhere in the fine print that I write songs about my life. If we break up, I’m going to write about it. But I’m probably also going to write about when I fell in love with you. So there’s an upside.

In your video for “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” you are wearing big, heavy glasses and there are a bunch of guys in animal costumes. What is that about?

You know when you watch an indie video and you’re like: “Why are they underwater in upside- down chairs with a random projection of a butterfly interspersed? Why is this happening?” We were trying to think of ways that we could tip our hat to the randomness of some indie music videos. Why are there woodland creatures? Nobody knows. Why am I wearing floral-print pajamas? Nobody knows. Why am I randomly wearing glasses? Nobody knows.