On Friday Taylor Swift released "Gorgeous", the third track from her upcoming album Reputation.
The song is about being in a relationship but falling madly in love with somebody else. Here are some sample lyrics.
Of course it's an absolute banger, but within hours of it being released, Swifties apparently confirmed that Taylor had told them the song was about her "perfect angel boyfriend of one year", Joe Alwyn.
But it was pretty surprising for a few reasons. Firstly, it meant that Taylor had broken her policy of never exposing the subject of her songs.
So not only did Taylor break her personal policy, but the timelines of her meeting and dating Joe in the context of the song are confusing.
So, the song contains the lyric: "I've got a boyfriend, he's older than us / He's in the club doing I don't know what."
Taylor dated Calvin between March 2015 and June 2016. And the lyric from "Gorgeous" would suggest that she met Joe while she was still with Calvin.
However, we've been told that Taylor and Joe first met at a Kings of Leon concert in October 2016 – four months after her split from Calvin. So the timeline here just doesn't add up.
Well, aside from the fact that Tom isn't exactly known for ~living that club life~, this timeline doesn't add up either.
Taylor and Tom Hiddleston dancing together during the #MetGala!
Tom and Taylor met at the Met Gala in May 2016 and split in September – a whole month before she met Joe.
At this point I was tearing my hair out, because if she didn't even meet Joe until after she'd split from both Calvin and Tom, how is the song about him?
Well, I did some digging and discovered that Joe also attended the Met Gala in 2016 – the event where Taylor met Tom for the first time. Here he is on the red carpet.
But the dates get confusing here as well.
The Met Gala was held on 2 May 2016. Taylor broke up with Calvin three weeks later, on 1 June. Then, 17 days after splitting from Calvin, Taylor began dating Tom.
So, in order for the "boyfriend in the club" lyric to work, Taylor would have had to have met Joe and written a song about falling in love with him within the space of three weeks before breaking up with Calvin and starting a new relationship with another man she met on the same night.
And let's not forget how serious Tom and Taylor appeared to be. Within 10 days they'd met each other's families, he proclaimed his love for her on a T-shirt and there was even talk of marriage.
Then there's the fact that there are a couple of lines in the song that allude to this being quite a long-time crush.
And let's not forget, all of this is based on a hypothetical theory that they met at the Met Gala, negating the official line, which is that Joe and Taylor 👏 MET 👏 IN 👏 OCTOBER 👏.
Plus the fact that Taylor told her fans at a Secret Session in October that she's been with Joe for one year suggests that they did indeed meet and begin dating...in October.
Guys Taylor and Joe’s anniversary is in October. They’ve been together for like a year how fucking cute
In fact, some people are even wondering whether "Gorgeous" was released on their anniversary.
Wait what if Taylor dropped #Gorgeous on the one year anniversary she officially got with Joe 👀
WHAT'S THE TRUTH? DID THEY MEET IN OCTOBER OR NOT?
All of which has confused the hell out of people.
you guys have no idea how many times i popped an aneurysm while reading this. NO IDEA.
@iknowpIxces He was so gorgeous that Taylor broke up with Calvin and dated Tom and they had a world tour together a… https://t.co/WfaytEP0Vk
But what I don’t get about Gorgeous: the boyfriend is it supposed to be Calvin? The club line kinda makes me think that but Tay was with Tom
trying to figure out if gorgeous about calvin and tom or tom and joe
Let's just hope we get more of an explanation from the rest of the album. Roll on 10 November.
