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Which New Taylor Swift Songs Are About Matty Healy, Joe Alwyn or Travis Kelce? Breaking Down ‘Tortured Poets Department’ Lyric Clues


Taylor Swift's ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ is filled with songs about her loves and exes. We break down who each song is potentially about.

Also, “They’ll say I’m nuts if I talk about the existence of you” could reflect the idea that the world didn’t know that the affair was such an emotionally intense one, as the commonly held wisdom at the time of the Healy relationship was that this might be more of a casual rebound hookup than the deeply-in-love situation this album would seem to indicate. The song would seem to be written about fantasizing about rekindling a promised romance that never got consummated, which would fit the long-thwarted crush scenario: “I keep recalling things we never did.” Meanwhile, there is a fleeting callback to the guy who was considered a jailer, a la “Fresh Out the Slammer”: “My boredom’s bone-deep / This cage was once fine.” 10) Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? First comparing herself to a circus freak, then to a feared town witch, she offers: “I want to snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me / You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me.” The most obvious previous point of reference here: “Folklore’s” “Mad Woman,” to which this feels like a close cousin.

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Travis Kelce

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Joe Alwyn

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