The Starting Line have responded after Taylor Swift made reference to them in ‘The Tortured Poets Department’.
The group got a name-check by the pop icon during the emotional ballad ‘The Black Dog’ – which is found on one of her four deluxe editions of the album, and as the 17th track on ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’.
Arriving last week (April 19), the song sees Swift recalling how one of her former lovers forgot to disable location tracking on his phone, and sees her paint an image of what she thinks he is doing following their relationship falling apart.
“I just don’t understand/ How you don’t miss me in The Black Dog/ When someone plays The Starting Line/ And you jump up, but she’s too young/ To know this song that was intertwined/ In the magic fabric of our dreaming,” she sings in the chorus, making reference to the former flame being in a London pub.
“I hope it’s shitty in The Black Dog/ When someone plays The Starting Line/ And you jump up, but she’s too young/ To know this song that was intertwined/ In the tragic fabric of our dreaming/ ‘Cause tail between your legs, you’re leavin’,” she later goes on to sing, turning her feelings of upset into those of anger.
Now, following the song’s release on Friday, the ‘00s American pop-punk band have shared an update on social media, thanking Swift for giving them a shout-out and introducing her fans to their discography.
“Dear Taylor, we heard the song, thank you for name checking our band. We feel flattered and humbled by the reverberations of love that have come back to us as a result,” they wrote. “It’s an honour to have TSL memorialised on such a lovely song. You didn’t have to do that, but you did, and we appreciate it wholeheartedly. Respect!”
As highlighted by Billboard, while Swift doesn’t mention which particular song of The Starting Line she meant in the lyrics, the line could likely allude to ‘The Best Of Me’ – the lead single from the band’s debut album ‘Say It Like You Mean It’.
This comes as much of the album has been speculated to be about The 1975 frontman, Matty Healy, following him and Swift having a brief relationship last year. What’s more, while on tour in last year, Healy happened to play a snippet of ‘The Best Of Me’ live twice – once in New Zealand and again in the Philippines.
Over the weekend, the pub in question, located in Vauxhall in South London, was swamped by Swifties, following its mention in the album. It was also reported that the staff at the pub were frantically searching through their CCTV archives to try to find any evidence of either Swift, Healy or her other ex, actor Joe Alwyn, visiting the premises in the past.
They also celebrated the newfound fame by running an offer of a free ‘Swift Half’ of their house lager for anyone who comes in and quotes a lyric from a Taylor song.
The hints to Healy are rampant throughout ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, including In the title track, where Swift makes reference to Patti Smith and the poet Dylan Thomas in the lyric: “I laughed in your face and said, ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel / We’re modern idiots.’”
It is thought that the title track refers to her short-lived relationship with Healy, and her comment about Smith and Dylan refers to the 1975 frontman and herself in the sense that the pair should not take themselves so seriously and they are just “modern idiots”, according toToday.
Smith later went on to comment on the mention, writing: “I was moved to be mentioned in the company of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Thank you Taylor.”
Elsewhere on the album, Swift also name-checked the cult Scottish indie band The Blue Nile on ‘Guilty As Sin?’, which appears to be another nod to Healy, as well as mentioned a person called ‘Lucy’ on the title track – potentially referencing the two’s mutual friend and Boygenius member Lucy Dacus.
In a three-star review of the album, NME wrote: “‘The Tortured Poets Department’ ends up chasing its own tail with frenzied attempts to respond to critics despite Swift’s current stature.”
It continued: “Swift seems to be in tireless pursuit for superstardom, yet the negative public opinion it can come with irks her, and it’s a tired theme now plaguing her discography and leaving little room for the poignant lyrical observations she excels at. It’s why the pitfalls that mire her 11th studio album are all the more disappointing – she’s proven time and time again she can do better.
“To a Melbourne audience of her ‘Eras Tour’, Swift said that ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ came from a “need” to write. It’s just that maybe we didn’t need to hear it.”
