Taylor Swift references Matty Healy fling and Joe Alwyn break-up in Tortured Poets Department lyrics

Taylor Swift references Matty Healy fling and Joe Alwyn break-up in Tortured Poets Department lyrics

Taylor Swift makes multiple references to her brief romance with Matty Healy and the demise of her six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn on new album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’.

The 34-year-old singer released her long-awaited new album on Friday (19.04.24) and while many fans expected the end of her union with the British actor to have inspired much of her work, they were left surprised by the many nods to the 1975 frontman, who she dated for a few weeks in May last year, nine years after they were first romantically linked.

Opening track ‘Fortnight’ features Taylor reflecting about becoming strangers with a former lover after a short romance.

She sings: “And no one here’s to blame/ But what about your quiet treason?

“I took the miracle move-on-drug/ The effects were temporary/ And I love you, it’s ruining my life.”

The title track appears to reference Matty’s friend Lucy Dacus of boygenius, and her own pal and collaborator, Jack Antonoff.

She sings: “Sometimes I wonder if you’re gonna screw this up with me/ But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave.

“And I had said that to Jack about you so I felt seen/ Everyone we know understands why it’s meant to be.”

Taylor tells how she was “drowning in the blue nile”, a reference to Matty’s “favourite band of all time”, The Blue Nile, on ‘Guilty As Sin’ and references another act he admires, The Starting Line, on both ‘Fresh Out the Slammer’ and bonus track ‘The Black Dog’.

‘I Can Do It with a Broken Heart’ criticises the promises she received in a short relationship.

She sings: “He said he’d love me all his life/ But that life was too short.”

And a later line is:”He said he’d love me for all time/ But that time was quite short.”

Taylor seethes in ‘Smallest Man’ about someone who hid “in plain sight”.

She sang: “You said normal girls were ‘boring’/ But you were gone by the morning.

“You kicked out the stage lights but you’re still performing/ And in plain sight you hid/ But you are what you did/ And I’ll forget you but I’ll never forgive/ The smallest man who ever lived.”

Joe has faced criticism from fans for stepping back from the attention that comes with dating such a huge star, and Taylor seemingly referenced that on ‘My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys’.

She sings: “Put me back on my shelf/ But first, pull the string and I’ll tell you that he runs because he loves me.

“I felt more when we played pretend than with all the Kens/ ‘Cause he took me out of my box/ Stole my tortured heart/ Left all these broken parts/ Told me I’m better off/ But I’m not.”

And on ‘Down Bad’, she sings: “How dare you think it’s romantic/ Leaving me safe and stranded.”

‘So Long, London’ details the ‘Bad Blood’ hitmaker’s loneliness and attempts to save a failing relationship, with it also referencing “the house in the Heath” she left behind when she left the city..

She also sang: “And I’m p***** off you let me give you all that youth for free.

“Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years — I’ll never get that time back.”

‘Fresh Out the Slammer’ also details how isolated she felt.

She sings: “Another summer taking cover/ Rolling thunder, he don’t understand me/ Splintered back in winter/ Silent dinner, bitter he was with her in dreams.”