Taylor Swift’s latest studio album The Tortured Poets Department dropped today, leaving fans both elated and confused.
Many fans expected the album would be heavily inspired by her six-year relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn. However, Swift has taken everyone by surprise as it emerged that her songs instead seem to address her brief dalliance with The 1975’s frontman, Matty Healy.
News of Swift and Alwyn’s breakup was first reported in April 2023. A month later, the first rumours of Swift dating Healy emerged, after they were first linked back in 2014.
However, the relationship reportedly ended after just a few weeks. She is currently in a relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight-end Travis Kelce.
Swift and Healy’s relationship sparked consternation from Swifties (Swift fans) who objected to Healy’s long string of controversies, including a podcast in which he engaged with a number of derogatory remarks about rapper Ice Spice, as well as women and Japanese people.
Healy apologised to Ice Spice in April 2023, saying he didn’t want to be “perceived as, like, kind of mean-hearted”. Soon after this, Swift announced a collaboration with Ice Spice for a remix of her song “Karma”, which some critics and fans claimed was “damage control” for Healy’s comments.
Fans are now scrambling to dissect the meaning of songs from The Tortured Poets Department, with the title track, along with songs such as “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”, “But Daddy I Love Him”, “Fresh Out the Slammer” and “My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys” all interpreted to be about Healy. She also appears to reference him on “The Black Dog”, from the extended version of the album.
In a message to fans on social media, Swift wrote: “This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it”.
Here are the latest clues that Swift’s songs are about Healy
On “Guilty as Sin?” Swift sings about “fatal fantasies” for someone in her past who sends her the 1989 song “The Downtown Lights” by Scottish band The Blue Nile.
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Healy has mentioned before that The Blue Nile is his “favourite band of all time” and that The 1975’s song “Love It If We Made It” was inspired by “The Downtown Lights.”
Fans also wrote an open letter in April urging Swift to “reflect on the impact of your own and your associates’ behavior”.
On “But Daddy I Love Him,” Swift seems to address this criticism of her romance with Healy.
She sings: “I’d rather burn my whole life down/ Than listen to one more second of all this bitchin’ and moanin’/ I’ll tell you something ’bout my good name/ It’s mine along with all the disgrace/ I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empath’s clothing.”
Swift continues in the same vein, on “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)” singing: “The jokes that he told across the bar were revolting and far too loud/They shake their heads, saying, ‘God help her’ when I tell ‘em he’s my man/But your good Lord doesn’t need to lift a fingerI can fix him, no really I can.”
She appears to accuse Healy of ghosting her on “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”, singing: “Was any of it true?/ Gazing at me starry-eyed/ In your…
This article was originally published by a www.independent.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .