Hours before dropping her seventh studio album, Taylor Swift unveiled the music video for her newest song “Lover.”
On Thursday afternoon, the Grammy winner, 29, released the romantic video, which stars her longtime backup dancer Christian Owens.
“The leading man in this video is someone I have performed on stage with for years,” said Swift during a YouTube Live ahead of the video’s release. “[He was the] leading man in the ‘King of My Heart’ performance every night on the reputation tour. Every night I could see how expressive he is and just how heroic and what an amazing actor he is as well.”
While Swift — who revealed the music video concept was inspired by a lyric (“And so it goes / You two are dancing in a snow globe ’round and ’round”) from her song “You Are in Love” off of 1989 — doesn’t refer to her British beau Joe Alwyn, 28, by name on the touching ballad, it’s obvious the track was inspired by their romance.
“I’ve loved you three summers now, honey / But I want them all,” sings Swift, who is rumored to be celebrating her third anniversary with the actor this year.
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In the retro-feel music video, which Swift co-directed with Drew Kirsch, the singer and Owens star as a couple as they swim in a fishbowl, slow dance at home and party with their pals while going through ups and downs together.
At the end of the video, the lovebirds get their happily ever after as their child opens a Christmas present containing a snow globe holding their memories.
In her recent Vogue cover story, the superstar said the ballad features one of her “favorite bridges,” and that she “was really able to go to Bridge City” for the song.
“Ladies and gentleman / Will you please stand / With every guitar string scar on my hand / I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover,” she sings on the sweeping bridge.
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After previewing the track — which even includes a reference to Christmas (perhaps that’s why a Christmas tree was included in her “ME!” music video?) — with Vogue earlier this month, Swift had her fans buzzing over a possible engagement because of the lyrics “My heart’s been borrowed and yours has been blue.”
However, it doesn’t appear the couple — who have kept their relationship tightly under wraps — have taken the next step quite yet.
Ahead of releasing the music video, Swift spoke to fans about her latest work during her YouTube Live. “Reputation for me was city scape-night time-darkness … like full swamp witch,” she said. “But with this album … [it] felt aesthetically and from an energetic perspective very daytime, very sunlit fields. I really just pictured this and wrote music from a perspective of a much more open, just free, romantic, whimsical place.”
During an Instagram Live last month, Swift revealed the four Target special editions of Lover will include 120 pages of diary pages written throughout her life. The star read snippets from her diaries to fans on Thursday during the YouTube Live.
“I found some crazy stuff in there. I found the original lyrics of ‘All Too Well,’ which I didn’t even know that I had in my diaries,” she said. “It’s everything from being 13 and coming home from a bad day at school to Grammy night to processing my life as a teenager.”
Swift previously released “You Need to Calm Down,” “The Archer,” and “ME!” from Lover, which drops at midnight on Friday.
