Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn were first linked in May 2017 and were together for nearly six years before their April 2023 split — read more
Never walking Cornelia Street again. Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn were together for nearly six years before their split — and the singer provided glimpses into their love story through her music.
The Grammy winner and England native were first linked in May 2017 after meeting at the Met Gala the year prior. While the twosome were immensely private about their romance — and ultimately called it quits in April 2023 — Swift often shared details about their relationship through song, even cowriting a few tracks with her beau for her albums Folklore, Evermore and Midnights.
“Joe and I really love sad songs. We’ve always bonded over music. … We write the saddest. We just really love sad songs. What can I say?” Swift told Zane Lowe on his Apple Music show in December 2022. “And I say it was a surprise that we started writing together, but in a way, it wasn’t because we have always bonded over music and had the same musical tastes. And he’s always the person who’s showing me songs by artists and then they become my favorite songs.”
When Swift won Album of the Year at the 2021 Grammy’s for Folklore, the Conversations With Friends actor was one of the people she thanked. “[Joe], he is the first person who I play every new song I write,” Swift gushed during her acceptance speech. “And I had the best time writing songs with you in quarantine.”
While Alwyn was credited under the pseudonym William Bowrey on songs including “Champagne Problems,” “Exile” and “Betty” — which are all tracks about breakups — some of Swift’s most epic love ballads came from her relationship with the Mary Queen of Scots actor.
In songs including “King of My Heart” off of 2017’s Reputation, Swift croons about finding The One who will put an “end to all the endings.” On 2019’s Lover — a record largely dedicated to her romance with Alwyn — she sings about marrying her beau with “paper rings.”
The Fearless artist is also known for her motifs, with many songs mentioning the color blue — the same shade as Alwyn’s eyes and his self-admitted favorite color — and golden, which Swift often uses when referencing love.
During a November 2020 interview with Paul McCartney for Rolling Stone, the Beatles legend asked Swift about the lyrics in “Peace” — a song off her 2020 album Folklore — in which she sings, “I want to give you a child.”
The Cats star explained the track is “rooted in [her] personal life” (the majority of inspiration for the record were taken from books and film), adding, “Caring out a human life within a public life, and how scary that can be when you do fall in love and you met someone, especially if you’ve met someone who has a very grounded, normal way of living.”
Keep scrolling for a list of every Swift track inspired by Alwyn:
Album: Reputation
Standout Lyric: “I hit you like bang / We tried to forget it, but we just couldn’t / And I bury hatchets but I keep maps of where I put ’em / Reputation precedes me, they told you I’m crazy / I swear I don’t love the drama, it loves me. And I can’t let you go, your handprint’s on my soul / It’s like your eyes are liquor, it’s like your body is gold.”
Album: Reputation
Standout Lyric: “This ain’t for the best / My reputation’s never been worse so/ You must like me for me.”
Album: Reputation
Standout Lyric: “I loved you in secret / First sight, yeah, we love without reason / Oh, twenty-five years old / Oh, how were you to know / My, my love had been frozen / Deep blue, but you painted me golden.
