Fans noticed this “Lover” sign pretty quickly — it is a giant neon sign, after all — and also realized that every time the lyric “lover” was written in the “ME!” lyric video, it was capitalized. Surely “Lover” would be the album title?! Taylor threw a spanner in the works by tweeting that no one had guessed it yet, but a few months later, it turned out that the Swifties had it right all along. Of course, in August, Taylor announced that Midnights was coming, but we didn’t get any track list info. But when she uploaded a TikTok showing snippets from the making of Midnights, fans quickly realized that the sweater she’s wearing in one clip is the same one from the photo with Lana and Jack. Everyone assumed there’d be a Taylana collab on Midnights — and they were right! At this point, Blake Lively — Taylor’s close friend — had recently welcomed her third child but hadn’t shared her name. Her first two kids are named James and Inez, so it wasn’t long before Swifties cottoned on that perhaps Betty was the name of her new daughter. Confirming the rumor, Taylor introduced the song on country radio a few weeks after it was released, saying, “I named all the characters in this story after my friends’ kids.” Though some people assumed it was just a voice-changing effect used on a recording of Taylor, some big-brained Swifties speculated that it could be the voice of Blake Lively’s then 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter, James. Turns out, they were right! Taylor revealed the secret at a fan event, and the info spread online from there. The three main contenders were Harry Styles (lol), Ed Sheeran (hmm), and her boyfriend Joe Alwyn. Even though he has no background in music, WB being Joe did make a lot of sense. His great-grandfather’s name was William, and the Bowery Hotel was one of the first places Taylor and Joe “hung out” before officially dating. Well, it turns out that it was Joe all along, as Taylor revealed in her Long Pond Studio Sessions later that year. Big-brained Swifties strike again! In the lyrics for each song, random letters were capitalized — put them together, and they formed a phrase. It became a cute little message to fans to help them understand each song a little deeper. For example, the hidden message for “Love Story” was “someday I’ll find this” and the one for “All Too Well” was “maple latte.” So, of course, fans started just ~hanging~ around the mural in case something happened. … Then, Taylor Swift rocked up to take pictures in front of it. A last-minute addition to the mural was the word “ME!” which fans (correctly) predicted would be the name of her first single for Lover. Well, a couple months later, it turned out they were right. Which leads us to… HOWEVER! There was a co-writer listed on the song credits called Nils Sjöberg. No one had ever heard of him, so Swifties just assumed that was Taylor’s pseudonym for the track. Of course, they were right, which she confirmed by putting the name on a gravestone in the video for “Look What You Made Me Do.” She later told Paul McCartney in a conversation for Rolling Stone: “I wrote under the name Nils Sjöberg because those are two of the most popular names of Swedish males.” Okie doke. In the video clip for “Lover,” Taylor played out a number of scenes in different rooms of the same house, all which had a different color scheme. Fans were pretty quick to realize that each room/color corresponded to each of her previous albums. You can read more about the reasoning behind each one here; it’s pretty impressive. After Taylor released Folklore and Evermore, fans looked back at this house and thought, “HMMM, THOSE TREES ARE REALLY GIVING FOLKLORE, HUH?” But as we know, Folklore was born out of quarantine, and certainly something she hadn’t planned back in 2019. Swifties predicted that perhaps a collab would soon be released with the two of them. And what do you know, 13 weeks later, they released their “Joker and the Queen” collab. Just like clockwork. So, of course, fans were convinced something was going to happen on May 5. Sure enough, the day rolled around, and she surprise-dropped “This Love (Taylor’s Version).” It really sounded like quite a stretch of the imagination, but lo and behold, not long after, Taylor and Paul graced the cover of Rolling Stone together. Because it was April 2020, and most of us also had not a lot going on at that moment, Swifties didn’t think much about it. Well, it turns out that was the exact same day that she sent a voice memo of “Cardigan” to her collaborator Aaron Dessner. SO THEN, in November 2020, when Taylor uploaded another picture with the same caption, Swifties got out their detective hats and magnifying glasses. Could this mean a new album was on its way? Sure enough, three weeks later, Evermore was brought into the world. Yes, this one could be totally fake, but honestly…I’m into it. But the most compelling piece of evidence is her video clip for “Bejeweled.” There are at least 10 references to Speak Now, but Swifties simply can’t look past this shot of her pressing the elevator buttons. Each button corresponds to each of her albums, in order, including the re-recorded Fearless and Red at numbers 10 and 11 and Midnights at 12. Number 13 is purple, the color of her third album, Speak Now.
