In the days before Taylor Swift released The Tortured Poets Department, there were some album leaks and people could not believe their ears, especially when they figured out that there were references to Matt Healy all over the album. While Healy does not come across as a good guy in TTPD, he really hasn’t gotten the Full Taylor’s Ex Treatment. My opinion is that the Swifties aren’t pouring scorn on him now because they’re genuinely happy that Taylor and Healy are over and that she’s gotten all of it out of her system (hopefully). Over the past month, we’ve heard a little bit about how Healy feels to have so much of Taylor’s musical energy devoted to their rather short relationship. He was reportedly relieved because it could have been a lot worse, but he’s still “uncomfortable” with all of the attention, especially given that he’s also in a new relationship. Well, now that TTPD has been out for a month, does he feel differently? Apparently, he’s weirded out that Taylor’s lyrics are all about marriage and weddings and they really weren’t all that serious.
It’s been over one month since Taylor Swift released her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, which many fans think was partially inspired by Matty Healy. The 1975 frontman, 35, has mixed feelings about the record, a friend of his reveals in the new issue of Us Weekly.
“He loves the attention it’s brought to him, [but] he also thinks it’s hilarious because at no time [were they] ever serious,” the friend claims.
Healy’s pal adds that the musician was “completely blindsided” by TTPD’s “lyrical content,” especially Swift’s allusions to her and a love interest discussing marriage and children.
“For her to be saying things about baby carriages … and living together — he says it had never even come up,” the friend says. “He’s taking it in stride.”
Swift, 34, sings about unfulfilled promises of domestic bliss on several TTPD songs. “You s–t-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles,” she sings on “Loml.”
On “The Manuscript,” which is seemingly about a relationship with an older man, Swift sings, “He said that if the sex was half as good as the conversation was, soon they’d be pushing strollers / But soon it was over.” In the title track, Swift recalls someone taking a ring off her middle finger and placing it back on “the one people put wedding rings on.”
While Swift is not one to confirm or deny who her songs are about, her fans have found lyrical clues suggesting that several TTPD songs are about her whirlwind 2023 romance with Healy on the heels of her split from Joe Alwyn. (Swift and Healy were first linked in 2014 but didn’t confirm the romance rumors at the time.)
“Was any of it true? Gazing at me starry-eyed in your Jehovah’s Witness suit,” Swift sings on “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” seemingly taking aim at the suit and tie Healy often performs in.
Swift also recalls public backlash to a relationship on TTPD, seemingly clapping back at those who criticized her for dating Healy after he made problematic comments about Ice Spice. (Ice Spice, 24, later told Billboard that Healy had apologized “a bunch of times” for his remarks.)
“God save the most judgmental creeps who say they want what’s best for me / Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see / Thinking they can change the beat of my heart when he touches me and counteract the chemistry,” she sings on “But Daddy I Love Him.”
I think two things concurrently. One, Taylor does this with all of her relationships, she turns them into this potential for a white-picket-fence fantasy even when the relationships are just a few months long and not all that serious. At least, that’s what she does lyrically as she’s analyzing her relationships, she makes mountains out of molehills (and Healy is absolutely a molehill of a man). Two, I also think she did a lot of conflating between her three relationships in 2023 – Joe Alwyn, Matt Healy and Travis Kelce. She clearly thought Joe would marry her, and she was clearly all-in with what was (frankly) an ill-conceived rebound/affair with Healy, and lyrically, she’s drawing from both of those relationships. Also, I totally believe that Healy was making some gestures to make Taylor think that they were soulmates or whatever and that’s just his “game.” That’s just his thing. She got conned by a charming douchebag. It happens.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.