Upon our first listen to Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, we couldn’t help but notice that there was an incredibly specific name drop on the album. And, no, it’s not Dylan Thomas, Patti Smith, or Charlie Puth—it’s Lucy Dacus.
In a recent interview with People to promote her new album, Forever Is a Feeling, Lucy was straight-up asked if she was the person Taylor name-dropped on “Tortured Poets,” to which she responded, “I think it's fair game to say ‘yes.’”
“She actually texted me and asked for my approval,” the “Best Guess” performer admitted, nearly a year after the album’s release last spring.
In the title track’s bridge, Taylor muses, “Sometimes, I wonder if you're gonna screw this up with me / But you told Lucy you'd kill yourself if I ever leave / And I had said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen / Everyone we know understands why it's meant to be.”
While the Grammy-nominated album was widely speculated to be inspired by Tay’s alleged situationship with The 1975’s Matty Healy, fans theorized that she referenced her longtime pal, Jack Antonoff on the track. Naturally, they also assumed the Lucy in question was Lucy Dacus.
There’s a chance Lucy met Matty through her boygenius bandmate Phoebe Bridgers, who has previously collaborated with him. Jack is a mutual friend of all the musicians and produced The 1975’s last album, Being Funny in a Foreign Language. (And, as one fan put it, Jack’s signature glasses are always at the scene of the crime.)
Lucy also revealed her initial reaction to Taylor’s song, saying, “Well, I pushed play on the album just like, ‘Oh, this is so crazy.’ This is the first Taylor record to come out since meeting her, and listening to a friend’s record feels so much different than a stranger’s record.”
She continued, “So I was like, ‘This is really weird. This voice that I’ve heard basically what feels like my whole waking life saying my name.’ It was definitely an experience.”
Of course, the singer-songwriter gushed and gave her pal some cred. “I sat down and I was like, ‘Huh. Wow,’” Lucy added. “But I think that that record of hers is super open-hearted, and I don’t know how many people at her level, if anyone is at her level, are writing from the heart that openly.”
Consider this memo well received, as the mystery’s been solved! And, if you want to hear the name drop for the millionth time, we’ve got you covered:
