Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets Department’ Decoded — Which Songs Are About Joe Alwyn & Matty Healy?

Fans have been analyzing Taylor Swift’s lyrics since her new double album “The Tortured Poets Department” dropped at midnight.

Though many speculated that her ex, Joe Alwyn, would be the inspiration behind the album, Swift seemingly touched on her short rebound relationship with The 1975 front man Matty Healy, too!

On the lead single “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone, Swift sings about becoming strangers with an ex-lover. Could she be singing about Healy?

A fortnight is 14 days, and their relationship was very brief!

In it, she sings, “And no one here's to blame / But what about your quiet treason? / I took the miracle move-on-drug / The effects were temporary / And I love you, it's ruining my life."

In the second track "The Tortured Poets Department," many also think it’s about Healy because there’s a line about a “tattooed golden retriever.” Healy has tattoos, while Alwyn doesn’t. Taylor also references her lover smoking and then eating "seven bars of Chocolate" — one of The 1975's biggest hits is "Chocolate."

The song also references a Lucy, and Matty is friends with boygenius’ Lucy Dacus. She sang, “Sometimes I wonder if you're gonna screw this up with me / But you told Lucy you'd kill yourself if I ever leave.”

In “Fresh Out the Slammer,” Swift is seemingly writing about “running” to a new lover after a breakup. She writes, “Now we're at the starting line / I did my time / Fresh out the slammer / I know who my first call will be to."

The Starting Line is also one of Healy’s favorite bands. The 1975 covered the Starting Line’s 2002 song “The Best of Me” last year while on tour.

In “The Black Dog,” Swift references The Starting Line again, singing, “I just don’t understand how you don’t miss me / In the Black Dog when someone plays the Starting Line / And you jump up, but she’s too young / To know this song / That was intertwined in the magic fabric of our dreaming.”

Swift is also seemingly singing about Healy in “Guilty as Sin,” since she sings about “drowning in the Blue Nile.”

In the past, Healy revealed that the Scottish band the Blue Nile was his “favorite band of all time.” The band also has a song called “The Downtown Lights,” which is referenced in the song.

In “Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” Taylor seemingly mentions their summer fling, singing, “And I don't even want you back / I just want to know / If rusting my sparkling summer was the goal.”

The two were linked in May, but news of their breakup broke weeks later.

Did Healy ghost Swift? She seemingly says so in the song, singing, “Was any of it true? / Gazing at me starry-eyed / In your Jehovah’s Witness suit / Who the f*ck was that guy? / You tried to buy some pills / From a friend of friends of mine / They just ghosted you / Now you know what it feels like.”

Healy is known for wearing black suits with a white shirt and black tie on tours.

Swift also expresses major anger over a past lover, singing, “You said normal girls were 'boring' / But you were gone by the morning."

“You kicked out the stage lights but you're still performing / And in plain sight you hid / But you are what you did / And I'll forget you but I'll never forgive / The smallest man who ever lived,” Swift sings.

“I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” could seemingly be about both Joe and Matty. Swift sings about performing through heartbreak, seemingly during her Eras Tour.

Taylor and Joe were in a relationship for six years and split at the start of the tour, while Matty and Taylor were together for less than a month. Matty attended several of her shows.

In the beginning of the song, she sings, “He said he'd love me all his life / But that life was too short.” At the end, she sings, “He said he'd love me for all time / But that time was quite short."

While Taylor and Matty were linked in the summer of 2023, it might not have been their first time as a couple. In 2014, they were also the subject of dating rumors.

In “Ioml,” Swift singles about rekindling a romance with a “con man,” something that she regrets.

Along with saying that the ex-lover sold her on a “get-love-quick scheme,” she sings, “You sh*t-talked me under the table / Talking rings and talking cradles / I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all / The coward claimed he was a lion / I'm combing through the braids of lies / 'I'll never leave' ‘Never mind.'"

When Taylor and Matty were dating, some of their fans weren’t on board.

Taylor seemingly sings about the criticism in “But Daddy I Love Him,” with lyrics like, “I'd rather burn my whole life down / Than listen to one more second of all this bitchin' and moanin' / I'll tell you something 'bout my good name / It's mine along with all the disgrace / I don't cater to all these vipers dressed in empaths’ clothing.”

Alwyn isn’t safe from criticism either, and we seemingly get plenty of insight into how their relationship fell apart.

Many believe that “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” is about Alwyn, who was known for avoiding attention while dating Swift.

She sings, “Put me back on my shelf / But first, pull the string and I'll tell you that he runs because he loves me.”

In “Down Bad,” Swift opens up about the heartbreak she experienced after a breakup.

She asks, “Did you take all my old clothes / Just to leave me here naked and alone / In a field in my same old town that somehow seems so hollow now?”

The song goes on to decry feeling isolated with, "I'll build you a fort on some planet / Where they can all understand it / How dare you think its romantic / Leaving me safe and stranded."

In “So Long, London,” Swift recalls her attempts to save a relationship and the loneliness that she experienced.

She sings, “I stopped trying to make him laugh / Stopped trying to drill the safe.”

Taylor declares, “And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free," and then later, "Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years / I'll never get that time back.”

Taylor and Joe had been dating since her late 20s, and seemingly kept their relationship private by not going out publicly as much.

She also croons, "You swore that you loved, me but where were the clues? / I died on the altar waiting for the proof / You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days / And I’m just getting color back into my face / I’m just mad as hell cause I loved this place for / So Long, London."