Taylor Swift‘s latest re-recorded album, “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” her album “Midnights,” and her epic Eras Tour have Swifties picking apart the songwriter’s lyrics for clues and signs that hint at who each track is about. On the heels of her breakup from longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn going public in April and her seemingly brief fling with Matty Healy in May, fans may be even more curious to know which of her songs are about each of Swift’s past boyfriends.
Between her music, tour, and everything else in between, Swift has been very, very busy, especially since moving to her new record label, Republic, in 2019. First, she released her studio album “Lover,” and then she dropped her sister albums, “Folklore” and “Evermore,” in 2020. And now that the singer officially owns everything she releases under Republic Records, she decided to rerecord her first six albums, which she never owned the masters to; her old label, Big Machine Records, and record executive, Scooter Braun, held on to them against her wishes and eventually sold them.
So far, Swift has rerecorded three of those albums, “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” and “Red (Taylor’s Version),” and they even include never-before-heard tracks from Swift’s vault. Swift also directed a short film to go along with the longer version of “All Too Well.”
Among other gems, “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” features the re-recording of “Back to December,” a ballad believed to be about her ex, Taylor Lautner. The 31-year-old actor isn’t sweating the release, though, telling “Today” in a May 16 interview, “I think it’s a great album.” However, he is worried about another one of Swift’s exes. “I feel safe,” Lautner continued, though he added that he’s “praying for John [Mayer].”
All this music might be hard to keep up with, so we’re here to update you on who Swift’s most pointed releases over the years could be about. Swift fans have always loved speculating about who she might be talking about in her songs, and the moment “Midnights” dropped, fans started speculating about who inspired the songs might be about based on the context clues in the album’s track list. And no, not all of them are about exes like Harry Styles or even Alwyn.
Ahead, find out who some of Swift’s songs could be about.
— Additional reporting by Shannon Vestal Robson and Noelle Devoe