The few weeks of 2023 during which Taylor Swift was presumably dating Matty Healy can only be accurately categorized as diabolically insufferable across the board. When the singer’s never-confirmed fling with the 1975 frontman reportedly ended after just a few months, it quickly became a distant memory — the kind of thing everyone collectively agrees to never bring up again. But Swift, as we’ve learned, is virtually incapable of moving on from anything without exorcising the experience via song. And on her newly-released double album, The Tortured Poets Department, Healy is her situationship-turned-muse.
And to say Swifties were surprised — and disappointed — to learn that the album largely centered around Healy instead of her ex of six years Joe Alwyn, would be putting it lightly.
“Using ‘fresh out the slammer, I know who my first call will be to’ as a metaphor for finally being single and wanting to date matty healy is such an insane thing to admit in 2024,” one Swift fan account wrote on X (formerly Twitter). Just before she was rumored to be dating the musician, Swift ended a six-year relationship with Alwyn, who is also suspected to be the subject of a number of songs on the album, though framed in a much different light.
“The matty healy thing could have been a bizarre wrinkle in taylor swift lore and now it is the backbone of a major turning point in her career lmao,” another post read. The supposed relationship itself arrived at a major turning point: the height of the Eras tour. But it was a turning point for Healy, too, who had just recently come under fire for making derogatory comments about Black women, including the rapper Ice Spice, and mocking Chinese accents during a podcast appearance on The Adam Friedland Show.
Healy has weathered his fair share of criticism throughout his career, usually brushing it off as being a bit. Even his apology to Ice Spice — which she has said she “didn’t really care” about — was convoluted and lacked sincerity. Swift received criticism by association, though she course corrected by releasing a remix of the Midnights single “Karma” featuring the Bronx rapper and developing a friendship with the 24-year-old. The dust has since settled, but the lyric on “I Hate It Here,” where she states that if she could live in a different decade, “I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists,” feels almost comical in light of the album’s surrounding narrative.
“There is absolutely zero way to force people into liking the fact that taylor swift and matty healy were a serious thing like im so sorry the album is cute but that man is foul,” one Swiftie posted. Others pointed out that there isn’t anything Swift could have written about Healy that he hasn’t already said across the 1975’s five studio albums. “Actually very funny that Taylor has created an album with references so niche that you need someone who’s a fan of her and The 1975 to be able to decode it all,” one fan said. “IT’S A GROUP PROJECT.”
One particular deep cut on the album, “But Daddy I Love Him,” is being received as a scolding for a subset of Swifties making so much of a fuss about Swift dating Healy. “I’d be sooooo ashamed right now if I was a swiftie who participated in the matty healy hate train listening to but daddy i love him,” one fan expressed. Another posted: “The thing i find so interesting about BUT DADDY I LOVE HIM, is the reality being taylor cares about what her fans and the public think more than anything. But she’s screaming that she doesn’t and also fuck all of us. incredible 10/10 no notes.”
