Is "…Ready for It?" About Ex Harry Styles or BF Joe Alwyn? Let the Fan Theories Begin
PHOTO: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images
After Taylor Swift’s second new single, “…Ready for It?”, dropped over the weekend with a one-minute preview on Saturday night, followed by the full-length track on Sunday, the Internet promptly went up in flames. Ready for it? Hardly, but that hasn’t stopped Swifties from coming up with theories about what the song’s lyrics might mean. Or, more correctly, who they might be about: after all, Swift is notorious for writing songs about specific men she’s dated before.
Our initial theory was that the song was about her current beau, Joe Alwyn. As our entertainment editor, Anna Moeslein, wrote Saturday night: “My money’s on her new boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, because it’s referencing ‘good things’ beginning (not ending)—and, if the rumors are true, this new ‘thing’ with Joe is very good indeed.”
Pause: If you haven’t read the lyrics, check them out here.
On one hand, the evidence seems to point to Joe, if you break apart the lyrics line by line. Taylor’s kept her relationship with Joe really under wraps, and as one fan pointed out, it could be her way to introduce us to him:
On that note, there’s also the lyric: “I know I’m gonna be with you/So I take my time.” EW pointed out that “While Swift’s previous high-profile relationships were quick to explode in the press, her time with Alwyn has gone at a relatively slower pace.”
There’s also a line references “island breezes,” followed later in the song by “And we’ll move to an island.” T.Swift spent a ton of time in the U.K.—an island! Where Alwyn is from!—and even went to far as to rent a flat in North London where the couple hung out, according to the Daily Mail.
But then—THEN—there’s #TeamHaylor, who are reading the song as being about Harry: the two couples took a breezy Caribbean vacay together, after all, which makes more sense with that “Island breezes” line. And there’s the lyric about ghosts, which some say references Harry’s “Two Ghosts” song: “But if he’s a ghost than I can be a phantom.” Furthermore: as the lyrics tell it, the mystery man is “younger than my exes but he act like such a man so.” Taylor’s 27; Harry’s 23.
https://twitter.com/ts_reputaytion/status/904331822691225600
https://twitter.com/alwayslateswift/status/904319319793958912
However, it’s worth pointing out that Joe’s 26—and since they’re still together, he doesn’t qualify as an ex.
Who knows? But either way, the answer’s pretty good.
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