Over the past few years, decoding the secret messages that Taylor Swift sprinkles through each of her albums’ liner notes has become something of a sport for both diehard fans and gossip-mongers. Swift’s lyric sheets are designed so that certain letters stand out (Speak Now and Red featured individual capitalized letters amid the lower-case lyrics, while her new record, 1989, does the opposite). These spell out secret messages meant to clue fans into the meanings of her diary-entry recordings.
Back to December, a song purportedly about ex-flame Taylor Lautner included the simple message “TAY”. All Too Well, believed to be about her romance with Jake Gyllenhaal, showcased a more cryptic message: “MAPLE LATTES,” which, when Googled, revealed a slew of articles about a New York coffee date between the pair.
But the secret messages on Swift’s 1989 aren’t nearly as explicit, and they certainly don’t provide winking clues about her ex-boyfriends’ identities. They are, instead, sentimental reflections like “Her heart belonged to someone who couldn’t stay” (on Style) and “He drove past her street every night” (on I Wish You Would). Taken individually, the vaguely poetic musings don’t provide much detail about their respective songs, except for a moody shade in keeping with each track’s tone. Here’s the full list of them:
Welcome to New York We begin our story in New York
Blank Space There once was a girl known by every one and no one
Style Her heart belonged to someone who couldn’t stay
Out of the Woods They loved each other recklessly
All You Had To Do was Stay They paid the price
Shake It Off She danced to forget him
I Wish You Would He drove past her street each night
Bad Blood She made friends and enemies
Wildest Dreams He only saw her in his dreams
How To Get The Girl Then one day he came back
This Love Timing is a funny thing
I Know Places And everyone was watching
Clean She lost him but she found herself and somehow that was everything
Clearly, 1989’s liner note messages aren’t meant to be read in the same way as her previous albums: namely, as separate clues with separate meanings. Instead, they collectively tell a story that reflects Swift’s own life over the past two years. The tale chronicles Swift’s move to New York during a broken and ill-timed relationship that “everyone was watching”, and, in true Swift fashion, it concludes with a moment of self-discovery – the overall theme of the album.
The embedded story is an entertaining twist on the playful gimmick that has helped to make all of Swift’s albums feel like slumber party secrets whispered in your ear, and it helps to shift the narrative around the pop star from her former perception as a boy-crazy serial dater to her current status as a thoughtful and self-assured adult.
For a different take on Swift, meanwhile, cartoonist and broadcaster David Rees has mashed up eight of her songs with those of the Aphex Twin. Our pick is 4 combined with I Knew You Were Trouble, retitled T4ouble.
In a blogpost, Rees said:
This summer I decided to make an album of Aphex Twin / Taylor Swift mashups. I am a big fan of both these artists — I think they’ve each written some thrilling pop hooks and their production is amazing. I also just wanted to see if it could be done.
