Taylor Swift’s new double album takes shots at two exes (Picture: Ashok Kumar/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
Well, mastermind Taylor Swift has done it again as she surprises fans with not one but two albums for new release, The Tortured Poets Department.
Her original tracklist included So Long London, Loml, Fresh Out The Slammer, and Guilty as Sin, which many Swifties believed was aimed at ex boyfriend of six years, Joe Alwyn.
But the Conversations with Friends actor isn’t the only break up fans believe inspired this new music as Matty Healy seems to be in the firing line too.
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) and But Daddy I Love Him seem to be very much about being swept up by a bad boy as everyone in your life screams ‘no’.
Taylor, 34, and the 1975 frontman had a whirlwind secret romance in the early days of her break up with Joe, 33, which caused a stir as he was being cancelled constantly.
Fans disapproved of the relationship, even threatening to abandon the The Alchemy singer as she continued to date him amid Matty’s spiralling behaviour.
The Tortured Poets Department documents her last two breakups (Picture: Republic Records via AP)
Of course, the pair did split and now she is with the beloved Travis Kelce, but it seems she had some things left to say about Denise Welch’s son.
There’s no denying the fountain pen lyrics have Joe in their sights but fans have gone wild over the fact Matty, 35, has also caught strays despite appearing to be a shortlived fling.
So Long, London lyrics – a reference to Joe Alwyn?
Even before fans got their hands (or ears) on TTPD, speculation was overwhelming that a song titled So Long, London was about her big break up with Joe.
Starring as the fifth song on the double album, a treasured spot reserved for her most heartbreaking track, this song does not disappoint for gut-wrenching lyrics.
‘You swore that you loved, me but where were the clues, I died on the altar waiting for the proof,’ sings Taylor as she plants more hints she was waiting for a ring.
Taylor and Joe Alwyn split in 2023 (Picture: Jackson Lee/GC Images)
The lyrics lament leaving London, which she ‘loved’ but has now had to leave behind which fans have connected to her Time interview where she said she had moved back from ‘a foreign country’.
‘And I’m p**sed off you let me give you all that youth for free,’ adds another lyric which seems to be a fairly blatant shot at her long relationship with Joe.
‘I didn’t opt in to be your odd man out/ I founded the club she’s heard great things about,’ could possibly in reference to Joe’s Tortured Man Club.
However, London is also home to Matty Healy so some have speculated that he is also referenced.
‘For so long, London/ Stitches undone/Two graves, one gun/ I’ll find someone’, could be Taylor giving up on both of them and London as a whole.
Loml lyrics – a reference to Matty Healy?
She briefly dated Matty Healy of The 1975(Picture: BlayzenPhotos / BACKGRID)
Many had believed loml, short for ‘loss of my life’, would be about losing Joe but it seems here we have a ‘con-man’ who tricked her in a ‘get love quick scheme’.
This feels much more parallel to the short whirlwind romance with the Sound hitmaker, rather than a long slow death she hints at with Joe.
There’s also mentions of ‘rekindling’, which was a rumour that had surfaced after Matty and Taylor’s breakup.
‘And your suit and tie, in the nick of time,’ she sings which seems to refer to Matty’s penchant for performing on stage in suits.
Their relationship began just months after her big breakup, which could be ‘the nick of time’ to save her from the depressive spiral the album documents.
However, many fans believe this is still about The Favourite actor as it features the infamous lyric ‘I wish I could unrecall/ How we almost had it all.’
Guilty as Sin lyrics – another Matty Healy shot?
Oh Matty, what did you do to our Miss Swift? She sings about ‘fatal fantasies’ as she lusts after someone she shouldn’t be lusting after.
Along with songs But Daddy I Love Him and Fortnight, Taylor appears to be desperate to have the man everyone is telling her not to.
Fans did not approve of their relationship (Picture: FilmMagic)
However, Guilty as Sin depicts a more illicit affair as she confesses ‘If it’s make believe/Why does it feel like a vow.’
Solidifying the song is about her fellow musician, Taylor claims she’s ‘drowning in the blue nile’ which could link to Scottish band The Blue Nile, which Matty once declared his ‘favourite band of all time’.
She knows this relationship would anger the outside world as she sings ‘They’re gonna crucify me anyway/What if the way you hold me is actually what’s holy?’
Taylor is telling her fans she knew the controversies before she went public with Matty but was so swept up that she jumped anyway, she’d already sinned before even sparking a conversation.
This song is exactly why Taylor connects with her fans, stunning lyrical prose about a doomed situationship — we’ve all been there.
Down Bad lyrics – is it Joe or Matty?
‘Did you take all my old clothes?/Just to leave me here naked and alone,’ sings Taylor in Down Bad.
He took her life, her world, even her clothes, just to up and leave her alone after their relationship collapsed.
Taylor draws from lots of inspirations so it’s hard to say definitively who inspired what (Picture: Republic Records via AP)
This song speaks to how wholly Taylor throws herself into relationships, she dives in and is down so bad she’s ‘crying at the gym’.
However, this relationship was filled with promises and she allowed herself to believe they were the one, only to discover they were not her ‘twin’.
She details falling into a depression — ‘I might just die, it would make no difference’ — over the demise of this intense romance.
While it may be ‘teenage petulance’, hinting at Matty, this relationship left her with nothing but her feelings and love for this man.
How Did It End? lyrics – oh it’s so Joever, Joe Alwyn
In her double album twist, there is How Did It End? — a post-mortem examination of a love that could not be ‘cured’ after being hit by ‘unforeseen circumstances’.
Fans had long speculated that the album was a post-mortem of her relationship with Joe and this is the confirmation.
This is possibly one of Taylor’s more devastating bridges she’s ever written.
‘Say it once again with feeling/ How the death rattle breathing/ Silenced as the soul was leaving/ The deflation of our dreaming/ Leaving me bereft and reeling/ My beloved ghost and me/ Sitting in a tree/ D-Y-I-N-G.’
The Our Song hitmaker was ‘reeling’ from a romance that ended unexpectedly, left with a ghost of a love, fading but unable to move on.
This appears to be the absolute end of her six year relationship which only their friends were told about.
She can see the evidence, she knows what happened but heartbreakingly ends the song with ‘But I still don’t know/ How did it end?’
The Manuscript – a farewell to everything
We take it back, this in fact is the most devastating song Taylor has ever written.
Concluding her epic 31 song double album, the Tim McGraw icon opens with the lyrics ‘Now and then she rereads the manuscript/ Of the entire torrid affair.’
She looks back at her entire life in romance and tells listeners, this is it, this is everything and now she is healed and it’s ours to read.
Taylor and John Mayer dated in 2010 for a few months (Picture: Timothy Norris/Getty Images)
In this she references her exes beyond just Matty and Joe, lovers who were much older such as John Mayer and Jake Gyllenhaal.
‘In the age of him, she wished she was thirty,’ sings Taylor of a romance where she made French press coffee every morning and was promised children and happiness.
When she dated John, who is said to be the inspiration for Dear John, Taylor was just 19 while he was 32.
The Manuscript is all that is left of her relationships (Picture: Mat Hayward/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
The song continues: ‘She thought about how he said since she was so wise beyond her years/ Everything had been above board/ She wasn’t sure.’
She moves forward, hinting at therapy and assessing the trauma that her early relationships had caused before saying ‘at least she knew what the agony had been for’.
Closing the song, and the entire album, Taylor sings: ‘The only thing that’s left is the manuscript/ One last souvenir from my trip to your shores/ Now and then I reread the manuscript/ But the story isn’t mine anymore.’
Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department is out now, everywhere.
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