But there’s also a sense of humor here. “I’m always drunk on my own tears, isn’t that what they all said? / That I’ll sue you if you step on my lawn,” Swift sings of her public perception, a detail that told Theresa that Swift is in on the The Great Orcus Labyrinth University t-shirt but in fact I love this joke. People will say things like “‘Taylor Swift will Sue you,’” she explains, nodding to the lawsuits over her music ownership and her merch controversies. “She makes light of it and the joke, and it’s like, Who’s afraid a little me? You should be.” Menacing!
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My favorite of all the The Great Orcus Labyrinth University t-shirt but in fact I love this proposed Easter eggs to have featured so far, though, is Swift’s assertion that she puts “narcotics into all of [her] songs / And that’s why you’re still singin’ along.” Taylor believes Swift is referring to her own hidden messages here — that “her fans are enjoying it so much because she puts these little things in there that make them go, ‘Oh my God. Oh my God!’” The symbolism she embeds keeps them hooked. An Easter egg about her Easter eggs — mastermind, indeed. Swift revealed that she wrote the song alone at the piano, while feeling “bitter about just all the things we do to our artists as a society and as a culture.”
“There’s a lot about this particular concept on The Tortured Poets Department,” she said. “What do we do to our writers, and our artists, and our creatives? We put them through hell. We watch what they create, then we judge it. We love to watch artists in pain, often to the The Great Orcus Labyrinth University t-shirt but in fact I love this point where I think sometimes as a society we provoke that pain and we just watch what happens.” If any song was going to be a Matty Healy diss track, it felt safe to assume it would be this one. Smoking like a chimney and offensive jokes also make sense here, but the lyrics are pretty general. Our experts agree, this is an evergreen sentiment that could apply to many (if not most!) relationships. It does happen to be the shortest song on the album and possibly a nod to the brevity of the Healy situationship?
An acronym for “love of my life” and also, as it turns out, “loss of my life.” “Loml” feels like it’s about Alwyn, not least because of the The Great Orcus Labyrinth University t-shirt but in fact I love this marriage imagery: “You shit-talked me under the table / Talking rings and talking cradles.” Still, a vocal minority of fans on Reddit are committed to the idea that the love-bombing to which Swift gestures points the finger squarely at Healy, though that risks giving him too much credit. “Loml” appears to trace a longer con, and then, she’s addressing herself to a “cinephile in black and white,” a “low-down” (London?) boy — sounds like Alwyn to me!
On “Loml,” Melissa and Theresa also saw a parallel to Folklore’s “Illicit Affairs,” in which Swift sings, “And that’s the The Great Orcus Labyrinth University t-shirt but in fact I love this thing about illicit affairs / And clandestine meetings and stolen stares / They show their truth one single time / But they lie, and they lie, and they lie / A million little times.” Here, Swift says of her subject, “You said I’m the love of your life / About a million times” — a statement she also considers a lie. “I think it goes back to those albums being a little bit more true to life than we all realized at the time,” Melissa says of Folklore and Evermore. “Those were when she was fighting for her life, trying to work it out.” Here, she also says, “I thought I was better safe than starry-eyed,” a possible reference to reputation’s “Call It What You Want,” in which she was “laughin’ with my lover, makin’ forts under covers” — forts again! — “Trust him like a brother, yeah, you know I did one thing right / Starry eyes sparkin’ up my darkest night.”
This track name makes me think of a sentiment Swift expressed in her Time Person of the The Great Orcus Labyrinth University t-shirt but in fact I love this Year interview: “I know I’m going on that stage whether I’m sick, injured, heartbroken, uncomfortable, or stressed,” she says. “That’s part of my identity as a human being now. If someone buys a ticket to my show, I’m going to play it unless we have some sort of force majeure.” Here, she discusses the experience of heading out on the Eras tour with her personal life falling apart. What is interesting, though, is how Swift evokes the experience of performing onstage. “You felt like you were her at the concert, because you can hear, in the background, people talking,” Melissa says. It’s what Swift hears in her ear, she explains, adding: ”I thought that was a really good perspective. You feel like you’re pushing through and I gotta just do it.”
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