The singer's new album dropped on Friday and fans went wild with speculation over her lyrics and hidden messages.
Taylor Swift's new album, Lover, dropped on Friday, and fans are already going wild over the singer's new tracks, lyrics and bonus content -- including some hints about Swift's closely guarded relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn.
The album's title track, "Lover," has already sparked plenty of speculation about the pair's romantic status, with a wedding-themed bridge -- which Swift previously told Vogue was "one of my favorite bridges" -- that had fans speculating that she and Alwyn had gotten engaged, and some even guessing that they've already tied the knot.
"Ladies and gentlemen will you please stand / I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover / My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue / All's well that ends well to end up with you / Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover."
The song's opening lines also seem to imply that Swift and Alwyn are living together and spent the holidays with each other. The theory is likely given a second reference to "our place" later in the track when she sings, "We could let our friends crash in the living room / This is our place / We make the call."
Swift further teases the couple's closeness with the line, "Can I go where you go? / Can we always be this close forever and ever?"
In the lyric video for "Lover," Swift appears to make her most direct nod at her British beau. As she sings "You're my, my, my, my lover" an image of the British flag surrounded by a heart appears on the screen.
"Paper Rings" continues to make fans believe she and Alwyn are married, due to the teasy lyrics. "I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings.../ Darling, you're the one I want, and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this." Paper is also the gift you give on a 1-year wedding anniversary.
Additionally, fans are speculating that there could have been a point where the couple broke up, per lyrics in two songs that imply that she blames herself for some type of split.
In "Death By a Thousand Cuts" she sings, "Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts / Flashbacks waking me up / I get drunk, but it's not enough / ’Cause the morning comes and you're not my baby / I look through the windows of this love / Even though we boarded them up / Chandelier still flickering here / 'Cause I can’t pretend it's OK when it's not / It's death by a thousand cuts."
There's also "Afterglow," in which Swift croons: "Tell me this love is worth the fight, oh... / I lived like an island, punished you in silence / Went off like sirens, just crying / Why'd I have to break what I love so much? / It’s on your face, don't walk away, I need to say / Hey, it's all me, in my head / I'm the one who burned us down."
Naturally, this could easily be about any of her previous beaus.
As for the most obvious song that would be a reference to her current boyfriend, it's "London Boy," which fans speculate features Alwyn's voice at the beginning of the track.
"Something happened I heard him laughing / Saw the dimples first and then I heard the accent / Saying home is where the heart is but that's not where mine lives," she says before singing in the chorus, "You know I love a London Boy/ I enjoy walking Camden walking in the afternoon / He likes my American smile like a child when our eyes gleam darling I fancy you / Take me back to high end and I love his best mates so I guess all the rumors are true / Now I have a London boy, boy I fancy you."
Swifties also think that "Cornelia Street" references the actor. Swift lived on the New York street when she was just starting to date Alwyn, and the lyrics could be connected to the couple's early days.
"You hold my hand on the street/ Walk me back to that apartment/ Years ago, we were just inside/ Barefoot in the kitchen/ Sacred new beginnings/ That became my religion, listen/ I hope I never lose you/ I’d never walk Cornelia Street again."
"It's Nice to Have a Friend" also features more wedding and engagement clues with lyrics like: "Church bells ring, carry me home/ Rice on the ground looks like snow/ Call my bluff, call you 'Babe'/ Have my back, yeah, every day/ Feels like home, stay in bed/ The whole weekend."
Then there's "I Think He Knows" which features plenty of swoon-worthy lines about someone's "boyish look" and how "he better lock it down."
"I think he knows/ When we get all alone/ I'll make myself at home/ And he'll want me to stay/ I think he knows/ He better lock it down/ Or I won't stick around 'Cause good ones never wait (Ha)/ He got that boyish look that I like in a man/ I am an architect, I'm drawing up the plans/ He's so obsessed with me and, boy, I understand."
As for the final track on Lover, "Daylight," Swift sings, "I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you/ I don't wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you." She also ends the tune saying she wants to be "defined by the things that I love/ Not the things I hate… I just think that/ You are what you love."
Meanwhile, when Swift covered Entertainment Weekly earlier this year, she posed in a jean jacket that was decked out with pins. Swift teased that the pins were all meaningful, but that statement has a whole new significance now.
One of the pins was of Mr. Rogers, something that, at the time, left fans confused. However, as fans noted, the run-time of the song "Lover" is 3:41. If you reverse those numbers, you get 143. During one episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, the beloved children's host used the number 143 to mean "I love you," as "I" has one letter, "love" has four, and "you" has three.
Perhaps the run-time of the song is a nod to both that pin and Swift's love for Alwyn.
See more about the new album in the video below!
RELATED CONTENT:
