This lore runs deep.
Ever since Taylor Swift released The Tortured Poets Department on April 19, fans have been busy decoding the songs, and they’ve come to a surprising conclusion. According to Swifties, a majority of the album seems to be about Swift’s brief fling with The 1975 frontman Matty Healy — not her six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn.
Fans have assigned some of the most gut-wrenching tracks on TTPD — including “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” — to none other than Healy. It’s even prompted some Swifties to go deeper into Swift’s discography, looking for signs that she’s been singing about Healy for some time. (“Death By A Thousand Cuts” will never sound the same, TBH.)
Turns out, Swift wasn’t the only one inspired by their situationship. Fans have also taken turns examining songs from The 1975, looking for clues that Swift was Healy’s muse. One fan on X, formerly called Twitter, made a playlist of both artists’ songs, alternating between the two. “Hearing these songs [by both artists] side by side it’s like a story,” they wrote alongside a screenshot of the tracklist.
But how much of The 1975’s discography should really be crediting Swift as its muse? Take a closer look at the most popular fan theories — and why they may be onto something.
Swift stylized the title for her TTPD track “imgonnagetyouback” similarly to The 1975’s “fallingforyou,” leading some fans to think the band’s song could be about Swift.
Plus, there are lyrical parallels between the two tracks. In “fallingforyou,” Healy sings, “All we need's my bike and your enormous house.” Swift made similar references in her writing.
In the song, she sings, “Whether I'm gonna be your wife or / Gonna smash up your bike, I / Haven't decided yet / But I'm gonna get you back.” Later, she questions, “Whether I'm gonna curse you out or / Take you back to my house.”
That’s not the only similarity. “I read between the lines and touched your leg again (again) / I'll take it one day at a time / Soon you will be mine, oh, but I want you now,” Healy sings in “fallingforyou.”
Meanwhile, in “Guilty As Sin?,” Swift sets a similar scene, “What if he's written 'mine' on my upper thigh / Only in my mind?”
One more thing: Back in 2014, Healy seemingly sang the song to Swift when she was in the audience at one of his shows. Maybe the song turned into an ode for Swift, but it was released in 2013, before the two met (at least, publicly).
Fans also pointed out similarities between The 1975’s track “Tonight (I Wish I Was Your Boy)” and Swift’s “loml.”
In “Tonight (I Wish I Was Your Boy),” which came out in 2020, Healy sings, “She told me, ‘Some things just take time / How can you be sure if you won't try?’”
Swift refers to a similar conversation in “loml” on TTPD: “I said, ‘I don't mind. It takes time’ / I thought I was better safe than starry-eyed.” (For Swifties, there are no such things as coincidences.)
Following Tortured Poets’ release, fans started speculating that “When We Are Together” was really about Healy’s relationship with Swift. In the song, Healy describes a tumultuous relationship.
Previously, fans thought the song was about his romance with FKA Twigs. However, Healy told Pitchfork in 2022, “I don’t wanna be obtuse, but that’s not specifically about [Twigs]. This record in particular spans a lot of relationships.” (Could one of those ‘ships be with Swift?)
At one point in the track, Healy sings, “The only time I feel I might get better is when we are together.” At another, the lyrics go, “I thought we were fightin' / But it seems I was gaslightin' you / I didn't know that it had its own word.”
The song seems to describe a similar relationship to what Swift sings about in TTPD. In “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” Swift describes a seemingly toxic situationship: “My boy only breaks his favorite toys, toys, oh / I'm queen of sandcastles he destroys.”
Bonus: The 1975 recorded “When We Are Together” at Electric Lady Studios, a favorite of Swift’s.
Swifties are convinced that “About You” by The 1975 is actually an ode to Swift. While performing this song during a concert in May 2023, Healy mouthed the words, “This is about you, you know who you are. I love you.”
A few days later, Swift delivered the exact same message during one of her Eras Tour shows. So, it seems probable that the original song was meant as a message for Swift.
Plus, Swift’s first music video for TTPD, “Fortnight,” has a lot of similarities to The 1975’s video for “About You.” (Again, there are no coincidences!) The visual parallels include: black and white color scheme, people working in a lab, and more.
The 1975’s “She’s American” might have originally been written about the cultural differences the band experienced while working in Los Angeles, California — but in hindsight, fans think it could also be a reference to Swift.
Per Genius, Healy told Spotify about the song:
As introspective, pensive, and British as we can be, we still found ourselves in our early 20’s in LA making an album. We felt it would not be authentic to not document the excitement of that idea. It’s an idealistic, American, west coast sound. If I picture myself as a kid in the 90’s and imagine the sound of California this is that sound.
In May 2023, along the same time Healy and Swift were dating, Healy performed the song during a concert in the Philippines. Fans speculated that the song choice was his way of commenting on the romance rumors.
In 2016, The 1975 released “A Change Of Heart” — a pretty brutal diss track, seemingly about an ex-girlfriend. At the time, the most popular rumor was that Swift was the muse behind the track.
The song describes losing feelings for your SO: “I wasn't told you'd be this cold / Now it's my time to depart, and / I just had a change of heart.”
A source told Page Six in Feb. 2016, “She may have inspired some of it.” However, the insider added the track was “about more than one girl.”
After TTPD came out, fans started wondering if “Me & You Together Song” was about Swift. In the track, Healy sings:
I've been in love with her for ages / And I can't seem to get it right/ I fell in love with her in stages / My whole life / I had a dream where we had kids / You would cook, I'd do the nappies.
The lyrics are reminiscent of Swift’s. In “loml,” she sings, “You told me I'm / The love of your life / You said I'm the love of your life / About a million times.” (BTW, in “Me & You Together Song,” Healy does repeat the line, “I've been in love with her for ages,” quite a lot.)
The reference to future children also shows up in Tortured Poets. “He said that if the sex was half as good as the conversation was / Soon they'd be pushin' strollers,” Swift sings in “The Manuscript.”
