Background
Most people in college, at some point, have probably experienced a situationship. But have you experienced a 10 year one? Well, Matty Healy and Taylor Swift did just that starting in 2014. In 2014 Taylor attended The 1975 concert. Matty Healy, the lead singer of the band, caught her eye and they began their friendship backstage. Later in the year, Taylor was seen wearing a shirt with The 1975 album cover on it, and later on Matty was seen wearing Taylor’s 1989 album t-shirt. While there seemed to be tension between the two during this time, nothing came to true fruition in the public eye. Through the years, Matty has continued to publicly speak about how he admires Taylor. On Jan.12, 2023 Taylor sang her songs from her new album Midnights at Matty’s 1975 concert- this is where the spark between them seemed to grow brighter. Later on in May, before performing his song “About You”, Matty says to the camera, “This is about you, you know who you are, I love you.” A few days later, Taylor says the same thing before performing her song “Cardigan”: “This is about you, you know who you are, I love you.”Â
Trysts and Tension
At this point, Matty and Taylor start publicly dating. But, what about the songs they wrote about each other back in 2020/2022? In 2020, Taylor released her eighth studio album Folklore. While it is not confirmed by Taylor herself, many fans think that the story of the three characters Taylor introduces for her new album are actually herself, Matty, and her lover at the time; Joe Alwyn. In Folklore it tells a story about a teenage love triangle, the characters being: Betty, James, and Augustine. Throughout the songs “cardigan”, “betty”, and “august” their story is told. “cardigan” , the second song on the album, is told from the perspective of Betty. In the song, Betty yearns for her ex-boyfriend James who cheated on her, but still misses him deeply as he haunts her memories. In the song “august”, Augustine the girl James cheats/ has a summer fling with delves into thoughts about the magical summer she spent with James and how it felt to be just a situationship and nothing more. In the last song of the teenage love triangle, “betty”, it is told from the perspective of James who is apologizing to Betty for his infidelity in the summer and begs to be taken back by her. Many people (including myself) speculate that this love triangle is not just fictional characters, but that James is Taylor, Matty is Augustine, and Joe is Betty.Â
Therefore, there is an assumption among fans that the love affair of Matty and Taylor started at this time. To drag this point even further, one of the songs in the album is also named “illicit affairs”, where one of the lyrics states: “So you leave no trace behind, like you don’t even exist. Take the words for what they are: A dwindling, mercurial high, A drug that only worked…The first few hundred times”. The whole song pretty much encapsulates a secret love affair going on- something that should not even exist. It also emphasizes the addictive nature of going back to one another when they shouldn’t. Another lyric that could possibly be about her and Matty in the album is in the song “the 1” which says: “And if my wishes came true, it would have been you. In my defense I have none, for never leaving well enough alone”.Â
Taylor is not the only one hiding secret messages and meaning in her lyrics. Matty is seen doing this as well in the song released in 2022 called “About You” which he does confirm on stage (as I mentioned before) that it is about Taylor. Almost in a reply to the songs in Folklore, lyrics in “About You” say “I know a place..It’s somewhere I go when I need to remember your face. We get married in our heads. Something to do while we try to recall how we met”. To me, this lyric shows that the yearning for one another is not just one-sided, and that he also thinks of where they met, and used to meet up, in hopes for a future with Taylor rather than an affair.Â
After the intense high of officially dating each other for a “fortnight”, Matty and Taylor crash into flames and break up. Matty seems to have ghosted Taylor based on the songs Taylor releases in her eleventh studio album The Tortured Poets Department. After the songs were released showcasing her yearning for Matty- and some ripping him to shreds, Matty, while on his tour, sprays a canvas that says “Sorry?” on it,feeding into how insane and intense this situationship was.Â
The End?
On April 19, 2024 The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) was released. This album is pure melancholy and heartbreak. It is Taylor processing her breakup with her long term boyfriend Joe Alwyn, and of course, Matty. What’s striking is that Taylor seemed to write significantly more songs about Matty (her two week relationship) than Joe (her six year relationship), which speaks volumes about how heartbreaking their situationship was. One of the songs on the album “Guilty as Sin?” seems to emphasize the era of Taylor yearning for Matty while being in her relationship of six years. With lyrics like: “They don’t know how you’ve haunted me so stunningly. I choose you and me… Religiously” and “I keep recalling things we never did, messy top lip kiss, How I long for our trysts, Without ever touching his skin…How can I be guilty as sin?”Â
Taylor even makes connections to The 1975’s song “About You” within the song on the album “Fresh Out The Slammer”, where she expresses her disconnect with Joe and how Matty is the one who makes her feel seen. In the song she says “wearing imaginary rings” which seems to be a hint at the lyric in “About You”: “we will get married, in our heads”. She further expresses in the song, “All those nights you kept me going swirled you into all of my poems” which could be referencing her swirling Matty into past albums such as Folklore and Midnights. Even in the music video “Fortnight”, (which is also how long she and Matty dated) there are parallels to the “About You” music video in filming.Â
As the drama of Matty and Taylor die down, the two finally go separate ways and move on from each other romantically. Taylor starts to date Travis Kelce and Matty starts to date Gabbritte Bechtel, both couples ending up getting married. Everything seems to be at peace between the two now. Or… is it a coincidence that Matty got married a fortnight after Taylor. Or that Matty posted his returned typewriter (which Taylor refers to CONSISTENTLY in TTPD) on the 13th (Taylor’s favorite number and birth date)? So will Matty and Taylor’s hits at each other ever be over? Or will they be stuck in the loop of being tortured poets forever?
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