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Taylor Swift has been writing catchy songs about her personal life since childhood, with her songwriting prowess indisputably responsible for her staggering superstardom today.
While Taylor’s early tracks were inspired by her high school crushes and first boyfriends, as her career progressed, the subjects of her songs changed from unknown faces to her fellow celebrities.
Needless to say, this led to a massive increase in interest surrounding who had inspired each song, given that Taylor has dated huge names, such as Joe Jonas, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Mayer, and Harry Styles, over the years.
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While all of those relationships ended a pretty long time ago, they are facing renewed attention following Taylor’s decision to rerecord her first six albums so that she can own her masters.
This labor of love began with the rerelease of the star’s 2008 album Fearless in April 2021, with a previously unheard song about her ex Joe ultimately being used against him just last month amid his split from Sophie Turner.
Red (Taylor’s Version) followed a few months later, and this saw Jake get vilified on social media as the music that originally came out in 2012 reminded listeners of his and Taylor’s brief relationship and troubling age gap.
The scrutiny was fueled by the extended version of her heartbreak anthem “All Too Well” that Taylor shared on the rerelease, with new lyrics and an accompanying short film providing fresh insight into their years-old romance.
Then, earlier this year, it was John’s turn, with Taylor even appearing to urge fans not to troll her ex ahead of the rerelease of her 2010 album, Speak Now. Similarly to Jake, John has faced backlash for his and Taylor’s age gap when they dated.
And, amid the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) today, it is now Harry’s turn to have his relationship with Taylor revisited.
1989 is Taylor’s fifth studio album and marks the moment when she transitioned from country music to more mainstream pop. It was originally released in 2014 and was a huge success, winning three Grammys, including the coveted Album of the Year Award.
For context, Taylor started dating Harry after her split from Jake, with the two first being linked in the spring of 2012. This ended up just being a brief fling, and the romance came to an abrupt end after Harry reportedly kissed somebody else while he was in New Zealand.
However, he and Taylor reconciled later that same year and dated from late 2012 to early 2013, when he was 18 years old and she was 23.
While Taylor rarely confirms who her songs are about, she basically revealed that Harry was the inspiration for at least some of her 1989 songs in an interview with Rolling Stone back in 2014.
Referring to the obvious nod to Harry’s last name in the title of her song “Style,” Taylor said of the blatant name-check, “We should have just called it ‘I’m Not Even Sorry.’”
In “Style,” Taylor admits to being reluctant to give Harry a second chance because of his bad boy reputation at the time, but she ultimately ends up getting sucked in by his charm.
And “Out of the Woods” is also all but confirmed to be about the former One Direction star, with the lyrics appearing to shed some light on why Harry was pictured with a bandage over his chin after his and Taylor’s ski trip in December 2012.
In this song, Taylor reflects on a snowmobile accident. She sings, “Remember when you hit the brakes too soon? / Twenty stitches in a hospital room / When you started cryin', baby, I did too.”
She later said that she purposely included the real-life anecdote in the song to remind both the press and the public that they aren’t privy to everything that she does. She said at the time, “People think they know the whole narrative of my life. I think maybe that line is there to remind people that there are really big things they don’t know about.”
And there is now a brand-new 1989 song "from the vault" that fans are convinced is about Harry. This previously unheard track, which was recorded for the original album but didn't make the final cut, makes several obvious references to the short-lived relationship.
Here are all the clues that “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)” is the latest Haylor anthem.
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First things first, the overriding theme of this song suggests that it is about a relationship that had already ended once before because of the man’s infidelity — and that Taylor has been left wondering if all that was actually over even after they’d reconciled.
Interestingly, the lyrics also imply that Taylor may have dated somebody else in between her two trysts with Harry.
“Baby, was it over when she laid down on your couch? / Was it over when he unbuttoned my blouse?” she asks in the chorus. “Was it over then? And is it over now?”
It’s worth noting that this dynamic is also referenced in “Style,” where Taylor recalls a pretty matter-of-fact conversation that she’d had with Harry about seeing other people.
“I say, ‘I heard, oh, that you've been out and about with some other girl, some other girl,” she sings. “He says, ‘What you've heard is true but I can't stop thinking about you,’ and I / I said, ‘I've been there, too, a few times.’"
But it is the second verse of “Is It Over Now?” that has the most undeniable links to Harry, with Taylor once again making apparent reference to her and Harry’s snowmobile accident with the lyrics, “When you lost control / Red blood, white snow.”
She immediately goes on to mention her “blue dress on a boat” — and any longtime pop culture enthusiast will know exactly what that’s referring to.
In case you missed it, back in January 2013, Taylor became somewhat of a meme when she was pictured looking sad while sitting alone on a boat in a blue dress. The story behind the image at the time was that it had been taken as she left her and Harry’s vacation in the British Virgin Islands after they’d split up for the last time.
So with there being little doubt that the subject of this song is a certain Harry Styles, fans have taken to social media to share how shocked they are by the rest of the lyrics, which take some pretty brutal swipes at the British star as Taylor sheds some new light on their relationship.
Taylor once again hints at infidelity on Harry’s part as she sings, “You dream of my mouth before it called you a lying traitor,” and she also calls out his womanizing ways with the line, “You search in every maiden's bed for something greater.”
“And did you think I didn't see you? There were flashing lights,” she goes on. “At least I had the decency to keep my nights out of sight.”
Taylor goes on to seemingly throw shade at the predictability of Harry’s type, saying, “If she's got blue eyes, I will surmise that you'll probably date her,” and even claiming that his “new girl” is her “clone.”
Fans have since speculated that this particular line was inspired by Harry’s brief romance with Kimberly Stewart after his and Taylor’s 2013 split.
Taylor later updates the aforementioned lyric to reference the fact that Harry has been linked to several models over the years, saying, “You search in every model's bed for something greater.”
Detailing the impact that her heartbreak has had on her, Taylor also says that she fantasies about going to extreme lengths just to get Harry’s attention. She sings, “I think about jumping / Off of very tall somethings / Just to see you come running / And say the one thing I've been wanting.”
Another mentioned the fact that fans had previously thought that Harry had nothing to worry about with 1989 (Taylor’s Version), considering the tame nature of the original tracks about their romance.
Some also argued that Taylor had done Harry a kindness by opting not to release the song in 2014, when his womanizing reputation was at its peak.
While Taylor was clearly heartbroken when she first wrote “Is It Over Now?,” she and Harry have become good friends over the years, and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of bad blood between them.
In fact, earlier this year, Taylor made a point of standing up to show her support for Harry as he was rudely heckled after winning a Grammy over Beyoncé.
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