Taylor Swift’s exes Joe Alwyn as well as her short-lived fling with The 1975 rocker Matty Healy were targeted in songs on her new album The Tortured Poets Department.
Fans rushed to stream the 16-track album when it was released to platforms on Thursday night so they’d finally learn the details of Swift’s latest failed romances, Daily Mail reports.
Many fans had predicted that The Tortured Poets Department album would be the ultimate Joe/Taylor ‘breakup album’ as it’s been speculated the name was a direct dig at the British actor, who she dated from 2016 to early 2023.
Taylor Swift found herself in a whirlwind romance with Healy, though neither ever directly confirmed that started in April 2023 after they were seen kissing in NYC.
But the fling ended as fast as it began after Healy’s ‘bad boy’ image and ‘racist’ remarks caused squeaky clean Swift to face backlash.
Swift is now happily in love with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce but it’s clear she still has a few bones to pick with the ‘worst men’ in her life.
Taylor Swift is clueing fans in on the end of her six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn as well as her short-lived fling with The 1975 rocker Matty Healy in songs on her new album The Tortured Poets Department; seen with Joe in 2019.
Swift found herself in a whirlwind romance with Healy though neither ever directly confirmed it, just two months later after they were seen kissing in NYC; seen in May 2023
Track 1 – ‘Fortnight’
SUBJECT: Matt Healy
‘Fortnight’ is the album’s lead single featuring rapper/singer Post Malone.
In it, Swift appears to to take aim at Healy who she refers to as her ‘miracle move-on-drug’ and how their toxic love was ‘ruining my life.’
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 track’s title Fortnight, a British English word defined as ‘a period of two weeks,’ could be perceived as a direct nod to the British rocker as well as the brevity of their relationship.
Fans penned: ‘Am I the only one who thinks #Fortnight is about Matt Healy?… I have a theory, how long did the relationship with Matt lasted? What if it was… for a fortnight?’
‘Fortnight’ is the album’s lead single featuring rapper/singer Post Malone. In it, Swift appears to to take aim at Healy — who she refers to as her ‘miracle move-on-drug’ — and how their toxic love was ‘ruining my life’; seen in 2015 before their fling.
Fans penned: ‘Am I the only one who thinks #Fortnight is about Matt Healy?… I have a theory, how long did the relationship with Matt lasted? What if it was… for a fortnight?’
Track 2 – ‘The Tortured Poets Department’
SUBJECT: Matt Healy
The name of the album has long been speculated to be a jab at Joe, who previously revealed that he is part of a WhatsApp group chat with close pals Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott called The Tortured Man Club.
But the titular track featured plenty of lyrics that allude to her time with Healy.
Swift implies that Healy would be devastated if she left him and even appears to reference his close friend Lucy Dacus of the band boygenius.
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’
The song also features the lyric: ‘Like, ‘Who uses typewriters anyway?’
Back in 2019, Healy was clowned online when he confessed to GQ that he ‘really likes’ using a typewriter.
A tickled Twitter fan wrote: ‘Remember when we thought The Tortured Poets Department was a Joe Alwyn breakup album and then Taylor Swift took out Matt Healy and Kim Kardashian too?’
Swift implies that Healy would be devastated if she left him and even appears to reference his close friend Lucy Dacus of the band boygenius.
A tickled Twitter fan wrote: ‘Remember when we thought The Tortured Poets Department was a Joe Alwyn breakup album and then Taylor Swift took out Matt Healy and Kim Kardashian too?’
Track 3 – ‘My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys’
SUBJECT: Joe Alwyn
The album’s third track includes a lyric that could be about Joe as fans have long accused him of shying away from Swift’s spotlight and forcing her to be ‘secretive.’
‘Put me back on my shelf/ But first, pull the string and I’ll tell you that he runs because he loves me,’ the Pennsylvania native sings.
Later in the song, she talks of ‘playing pretend’ with a past lover and being left as ‘broken parts.’
The lyrics go: ‘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’.
A fan took to Twitter to write: ‘My boy only breaks his favorite toy – this confirms, their relationship was toxic af and Joe is clearly a narcissist’.
The album’s third track includes a lyric that could be about Joe as fans have long accused him of shying away from Swift’s spotlight and forcing her to be ‘secretive’; Joe seen in 2022.
A fan took to Twitter to write: ‘My boy only breaks his favorite toy – this confirms, their relationship was toxic af and Joe is clearly a narcissist’
Track 4 – ‘Down Bad’
SUBJECT: Joe Alwyn
In the fourth track, Swift admits to breaking down ‘crying at the gym’ and how the end of hers and Joe’s six-year relationship left her feeling ‘hollow.’
She sings: ‘Did you take all my old clothes just to leave me here naked and alone/ In a field in my same old town that somehow seems so hollow now’
Swift later accuses the past lover of abandoning her. ‘How dare you think it’s romantic/ Leaving me safe and stranded.’
Furious fans noted: ‘Down Bad omgggg Joe count your LAST DAYS… down bad: this one’s kinda slow. I like Taylor cursing but nothing crazy..
‘I hate Joe Alwyn tho… NOW IM DOWN BAD AGAIN CRYING AT THE GYM AGAIN JOE ALWYN WHAT THE ACTUAL F**K DID YOU DO TO TAYLOR’.
Swift later accuses the past lover of abandoning her. ‘ How dare you think it’s romantic/ Leaving me safe and stranded’
Track 5 – ‘So Long, London’
SUBJECT: Joe Alwyn
This heartbreaking track details Swift’s raw heartache as she realizes that her long-term relationship with the British actor could not be saved.
‘I stopped trying to make him laugh/ Stopped trying to drill the safe,’ she sings.
She then talks of bidding farewell to ‘the house in the Heath.’
The couple famously hunkered down together in a rural location in the UK back in 2017 amid the fallout of her feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.
Having spent six years together, Swift, now 34, talks about being ‘pissed off’ that her ex-boyfriend ‘let me give you all that youth for free.’
She also sings of feeling isolated in the relationship and that she felt as though she would ‘implode.’
‘Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years — I’ll never get that time back’
The song is 9 minutes and 28 seconds in length and Joe and Taylor were first confirmed to be dating on September 28, 2016.
The song left fans enraged, with impassioned Twitter users writing: ‘yeah joe definitely cheated on taylor and nothing can change my mind. so long london said it all… Taylor didnt need a whole album to put Joe in prison…