This ‘Evermore’ Track Is Not-So-Subtly All About Taylor’s Drama With Kimye
Taylor Swift's surprise ninth studio album Evermore is here and, as usual, it's full of easter eggs. Some fans are convinced that one of these hidden details references the singer-songwriter's longstanding bad blood with Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West. No one knows for sure if Taylor Swift's "Long Story Short" is about Kim and Kanye, but it sure sounds like it.
As all Swifties and pop culture aficionados know, Swift and West's feud began when he interrupted her acceptance speech for Best Female Video at the 2009 VMAs and insisted that Beyoncé should've won instead for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)."
The musician seems to reference their well-known conflict at one point in "Long Story Short," singing, "I tried to pick my battles 'til my battles picked me."
Things heated up between the two stars again in 2016, when Swift claimed that West didn't ask her for permission to include the "Famous" lyric "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/Why? I made that b*tch famous." As if that weren't messy enough, Kardashian West took to Snapchat to release choppy videos of Swift seemingly agreeing to be mentioned in "Famous."
Swift notably speaks to her younger self about prioritizing drama on the Evermore song: "Past me, I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things, your nemeses will defeat themselves before you get the chance to swing." Sounds like a certain infamous social media battle!
She goes on to mention a past lover, crooning, "Long story short, it was a bad time. Pushed from the precipice, clung to the nearest lips, long story short, it was the wrong guy." Since she briefly dated actor Tom Hiddleston shortly after publicly fighting with West and Kardashian, it's likely she's referring to that short-lived romance, and the Kimye timeline makes even more sense.
She concludes "Long Story Short" by making one of the album's many references to her current boyfriend, Joe Alwyn. "Now I'm all about you, I'm all about you," she sings, later noting that her current partner "feels like home." That lines up with the 2016 framing too, since she and Alwyn supposedly met at that year's Met Gala.
Ultimately, it feels right that Swift is making peace with her past feuds as she gifts everyone else with more than enough music to get through 2020. Thanks, Tay!
