Taylor Swift's newest single "Gorgeous" seems to be about her boyfriend Joe Alwyn. It's about a beautiful person, after all, so that would make sense.
But things don't add up.
As BuzzFeed points out, the timelines and details in the song's lyrics don't quite dovetail with what we know about Swift and Alwyn's relationship.
Is Hiddleston the "boyfriend" of the song?
The song, in summary, is about the narrator seeing a really hot person and thinking about how hot they are. However, the narrator has a boyfriend ("I got a boyfriend, he's older than us / He's in the club doing I don't know what"), so the narrator can't do anything with the hot person and wallows in loneliness and envy instead ("There's nothing I hate more than what I can't have / Guess I'll just stumble on home to my cats/Alone").
The narrator in this story, theorists would agree, is Swift. The hot person is Alwyn. And the boyfriend is likely Tom Hiddleston, who Swift was dating before Alwyn. Right?
Advertisement
Not quite.
Hmm, what if it's Calvin Harris?
Swift writes that her current boyfriend was "in the club doing I don't know what." Hiddleston isn't really known for being "in the club." He can dance, sure — he and Swift danced the night away at the Met Gala a couple of years ago — but he has a generally more studious reputation.
A "club" lyric would more likely refer to her previous boyfriend, Calvin Harris, who is a well-known DJ. Both Harris and Hiddleston fulfill the "older than us" criteria of the lyric. Harris is 33 and Hiddleston is 36; Swift is 27 and Alwyn is 26.
But hold on — if the "boyfriend" of the song is Harris, then that would mean Swift is saying she met Alwyn while she was still dating Harris.
Advertisement
That contradicts all public evidence. The earliest likely date that Swift and Alwyn started dating is October 2016, which was months after Swift and Hiddleston broke up, and much after she and Harris split up, too. Anyway, why even date Hiddleston if she thought Alwyn was the hottest guy in the land?
Let's look at this another way: How we do know that Alwyn is the hot person in the song's lyrics anyway? The only physical attributes Swift gives us is that they're hot and have "ocean blue eyes." Alwyn, Hiddleston, and Harris all have blue eyes, so that doesn't help.
Wait a second — Taylor Swift has blue eyes, too. Is the song really about her?
Is the whole thing about how she's still obsessed with Tom Hiddleston?
Okay, fine, so the song is probably not about Swift. But what if the song is about Swift meeting Hiddleston?
Advertisement
Hiddleston, in this theory, is the gorgeous guy. Harris is the person who she was dating when she met him. Yes, that seems to work.
But then there's that age thing again. Harris can't be "older than us" if "us" refers to Swift and Harris; Hiddleston is actually three years older than Harris.
Also, why would Swift release a song about Hiddleston being hot while she's dating Alwyn?
So it's a mystery.
We may never know who the song lyrics of "Gorgeous" refer to.
Advertisement
Swift has a longstanding policy of not explaining who she's talking about in her songs, so she probably won't say anything about it in interviews. BuzzFeed cites some random people on Tumblr saying Swift told them answers in private conversations — perhaps from her private listening parties with fans — but that's hardly persuasive evidence. If Swift wanted to get news out, she could just pick up her phone and tweet.
Maybe more songs from her upcoming album, "Reputation," will offer more answers when it's released on November 10.
There is also, of course, a more obvious explanation to Swift's lyrics: While they may contain feelings drawn from her own life, "Gorgeous" is ultimately a work of creative fiction and not a work of autobiography.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o8HSoqWeq6Oeu7S1w56pZ5ufony1rdilpqtlo6y2p8CMoKarn5WkwrR5y7KpopujYrK5vMuapZqsmaS7bq7Osp2roZWjsW62zp5kmqSnrrtufo9qbmZpYA%3D%3D