Disappoint Taylor Swift, when you have the good fortune of being one of his flirt, if not her boyfriend? At your own risk, as several of the American singer’s exes well know, especially those ‘mentioned’ in the very latest ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, just released and immediately an absolute record (200 million plays on Spotify in the first 24 hours). Taylor, now 34 years old and happily engaged to another idol, the American football player Travis Kelce apparently does not forgive (and does not forget) and this time she took a lot of stones off her feet, at least in interpreting the numerous clues scattered throughout the 31 songs on the album.
Let’s start by saying that on ‘revenge song‘, Swift had already hit hard: she knows something about it Jake Gyllenhaall (the two were engaged for about a year, when Taylor was 19 and he was 29) who in ‘All too well’ and in the album ‘Red’ is told without half measures as the protagonist of a toxic relationship, one in which he deceives you first (even introducing himself to his father), and then ti ‘ghosta’, or disappears without a word of explanation.
Let’s go back to the ‘Tortured Poets’: some dig at the pilot Fernando Alonso (“I’m an Aston Martin that you sent into the ditch. And then you ran away”) and related response, a lot has been spoken and written in recent days. It is not known what happened in the recent past between the two, but it certainly did not end amicably.
But if the reference to Alonso is, precisely, an accent, There’s a real ex in the crosshairs by Taylor: Matty Healy, THE1975 frontman with whom Swift had a brief fling last summer. Tormented flirtation (and immediately ended badly). THE1975 is a musical group born in Manchester in 2022, and Matty Healy plays the role of the ‘handsome and damned’: fake scruffy look and a past heroin addiction (which he talks about openly in many songs).
But these days it has become very well known as “The smallest man who ever lived” (the smallest man I ever lived with), the title of one of the 31 tracks on Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets’. Not exactly a title to boast of, even thinking about the singer’s millions of fans, who are certainly not inclined to appreciate those who disappoint her.
Is he really the man Taylor talks about? There are many clues which lead to Healy: a boy who tried to buy pills “from a friend of a friend of mine” and when they were alone he “sunken into oblivion”. And goes on: “It wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden,” wondering “if the goal was to rust my glittering summer” (Taylor’s Eras Tour hit the jackpot last summer, becoming the highest-grossing world tour of all time).
Among the verses of the various songs there is one that talks about ‘typewriter that you left in my apartment’: in the past Matty has said that he still uses the typewriter. And then there they are scattered references to the singer’s declared habits, and even to his songs: “lost in the Lost Boys chapter of your life” (Lost Boy is a song by THE1975).
In short Healy doesn’t come out well, but his entourage declared themselves ‘relieved’ after hearing the songs: they feared worse. In the end, not all evil has a silver lining: Since everything Taylor Swift touches turns to gold, the band has had an avalanche of new listeners and the single ‘Robbers’ has achieved platinum certification by the BRITs.
AND Travis Kelce? At the moment, it just feels like ‘the one’: the song that would be inspired by their story is ‘The Alchemy’, alchemywhich certainly isn’t lacking between the Super Bowl champion and the queen of the charts and live concerts.
