Taylor Swift’s Songs About Matty Healy Include Her ‘Fantasies’ About Him While Dating Joe Alwyn

Leave it to Taylor Swift to write a whole album about a one-month situationship. But which Taylor Swift songs are about Matty Healy exactly? Read on for our breakdown of which tracks from Swift’s 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department, are about Healy and how the LP tells the full story of their whirlwind romance from beginning to end.

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Swift and Healy first met in November 2014 when she attended a concert by Healy’s band, The 1975, in Los Angeles, with her friends Selena Gomez and Ellie Goulding. Later that month, Healy told Shazam Top 20 that he would date Swift. “Let’s just see what happens,” he said. “I mean bloody hell, what am I going to do? Go out with Taylor Swift? She’s a sensation, I wouldn’t say no.”

After Healy’s comments, rumors swirled that he and Swift were dating. Healy responded to the rumors in an interview with 2DayFM in January 2015, in which he called them “bloody fake.” “It’s all bloody fake. It’s a farce!” he said. “We met each other, we exchanged numbers in the same way that a lot of people in this kind of world do, and we spoke occasionally. She’s the biggest pop star in the world and I’m in Australia. There’s no relationship or anything happening. It’s just funny how people really, really buy into that.”

Fast forward to May 2023 when news broke that Swift and Healy, who remained friends over the years, were officially dating after Swift’s breakup with her boyfriend of six years, Joe Alwyn, the month prior. The news came after Healy was seen at Swift’s Eras Tour concert in Nashville, Tennessee. “Taylor is happy. She’s very focused on her tour but is enjoying hanging out with Matty when she is off,” a source told People at the time. “They’re hanging out and having a good time. It’s not just platonic.”

The relationship was short-lived, however, as news broke only a month later in June 2023 that Swift and Healy had broken up. “They were never boyfriend-girlfriend or exclusive and were always just having fun,” a source told People at the time. “There is no drama, and who knows what could happen again. It was a good time and ran its course.”

Swift went on to date Kansas City chiefs player Travis Kelce and fans didn’t think anything of her fling with Healy—that is, until Swift’s 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department, was released in April 2024 and featured several songs about Healy and their relationship.

Taylor Swift’s songs about Matty Healy

What Taylor Swift songs are about Matty Healy? See which songs Swift has written about Healy from her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department.

“Fortnight (Feat. Post Malone)” – The Tortured Poets Department

“Fortnight,” the first song from The Tortured Poets Department, is believed to be about Taylor Swift moving on from from Joe Alwyn, who she was in a six-year relationship with, to her fling with Healy. Read on for the lyrics that support the claim that “Fortnight” is about Healy.

All my mornings are Mondays stuck in an endless February
I took the miracle move on drug, the effects were temporary
And I love you, it’s ruining my life (I love you, it’s ruining my life)
I touched you for only a fortnight (I touched you)
But I touched you

• “Fortnight” is a British English term defined as “a period of two weeks,” which many believe represents Swift’s short-lived romance with Healy.

• Though news broke of Swift and Alwyn’s breakup in April 2023, a source told The Sun at the time that Swift and Alwyn split in February 2023, three months before she was first seen with Healy in May 2023. “She and Matty are madly in love. It’s super-early days, but it feels right. They first dated, very briefly, almost ten years ago but timings just didn’t work out,” the source said. “Taylor and Joe actually split up back in February, so there was absolutely no crossover.”

• This lyric also describes the subject of “Fortnight” as a “miracle move on drug,” which fans believe references how Swift’s fling with Healy helped her to move on from Alwyn.

I’m calling you, but you won’t be called?
Another fortnight lost in America
Going to Florida by the car you won
But it won’t start up till you touch, touch, touch 

• Swift’s first Eras Tour concert after her breakup with Alwyn was in Tampa, Florida, on April 13, 2023. Healy was seen at Swift’s Eras Tour stop in Nashville, Tennessee, two weeks later.

“The Tortured Poets Department” – The Tortured Poets Department

“The Tortured Poets Department,” the second song from Taylor Swift’s album of the same name, is believed to be about controversial relationship with Matty Healy and how it’s only a love they could understand. Read on for the lyrics that support the claim that “The Tortured Poets Department” is about Healy.

You left your typewriter at my apartment
Straight from the tortured poets department
I think some things I’ll never say
Like, “Who uses typewriters anyway?”
But you’re in self sabotage mode
Throwing spikes down on the road
But I’ve seen this episode
And still loved the show
Who else decodes you?

• While some fans believe that “the tortured poets department” lyric is a reference to Swift’s ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn’s WhatsApp group chat titled “The Tortured Man Club,” others believe there are clear references to Healy in “The Tortured Poets Department.” In an interview with GQ in 2019, Healy revealed that he still uses typewriters and loves them. “I really like typewriters as well. I don’t have one with me because that is impractical, but the thing with typewriters and writing with pen to paper, there’s an element of commitment that goes with the ceremony with it. It therefore forces you to concentrate a bit better,” he said. He went on to talk about the importance of his notebook. “It’s important to have a book. It’s mainly stories that I write about my dreams of being in love with other popstars,” he said.

• Unlike Alwyn, who’s an actor, Swift and Healy are both songwriters and essentially poets in their own right. While poetry is also a theme in Swift’s relationship with Alwyn — namely, in her Folklore song, “The Lakes,” in which she sings “take me to the lakes, where all the poets went to die” — this lyric more accurately represents Healy as it describes writer who self-sabotages their own work.

You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate
We declared Charli Puth should be a bigger artist
I scratch your head you fall asleep
Like a tattooed golden retriever
But you awaken with dread
Counting nails in your head
But I’ve left this one
Where you come undone
I chose this cyclone with you

• Both Alwyn and Healy have been photographed smoking, however, Healy is known for chocolate in his band The 1975’s 2013 “Chocolate,” which is used as a euphemism for cannabis. Though it’s not an indicator of Healy’s opinion of him, Puth did cover The 1975’s song “Somebody Else” for BBC Radio 1 in 2017. Healy also has several visible tattoos across his entire body, while Alwyn does not.

And who’s going to hold you like me?
And who’s going to love you like me?
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
Who’s going to hold you like me?
Nobody. No fucking body. Nobody.

• Patti Smith is an American singer and poet, while Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, who had a reputation as a “roistering, drunken and doomed poet,” according to The Welsh Academy Encyclopedia of Wales. While Thomas could be a reference to either Alwyn or Healy, given that they’re both from the United Kingdom like Thomas, the description of Thomas more accurately represents Healy’s reputation.

• Because of Healy’s reputation and his list of controversies, Swift received a lot of criticism when news broke of her relationship with Healy. The chorus of “The Tortured Poets Department” speaks to how only Swift and the subject of the song understand their love, which could be a representation of her and Healy’s relationship.

“Down Bad” – The Tortured Poets Department

“Down Bad,” the fourth song from The Tortured Poets Department, is believed to be about Taylor Swift’s wild and controversial love connection with Matty Healy. Read on for the lyrics that support the claim “Down Bad” is about Healy.

Did you really beam me up?
In a cloud of sparkling dust
Just to do experiments on
Tell me I was the chosen one
Showed me this world is bigger than us
Then sent me back where I came from
For a moment I knew cosmic love

• In this lyric, Swift describes a short-lived romance where she was beamed up to “cosmic love” only to return to earth, which many believe is a reference to her fling with Healy.

Did you take all my old clothes
Just to leave me here naked and alone
In a field in my same old town
That somehow seems so hollow now
They’ll say I’m nuts if I talk about the existence of you
For a moment I was heaven struck

• Due to Healy’s controversial repuation, Swift received a lot of backlash for their relationship. The lyric “They’ll say I’m nuts if I talk about the existence of you” is seen as a reference to that the criticism.

I loved your hostile takeovers
Encounters closer and closer
All your indecent exposures
How you dare you say that it’s…

• “Hostile takeovers” and “indecent exposures” are also seen as a reference to Healy’s bad behavior.

“But Daddy I Love Him” – The Tortured Poets Department

“But Daddy I Love Him,” the sixth song from The Tortured Poets Department, is believed to be about the public disapproval of Taylor Swift’s relationship with Matty Healy. Read on for the lyrics that support the claim that “But Daddy I Love Him” is about Healy.

Now I’m running with my dress unbuttoned,
Screaming, “But daddy I love him”
I’m having his baby,
No I’m not, but you should see your faces
I’m telling him to floor it through the fences,
No I’m not coming to my senses
I know he’s crazy, but he’s the one I want

• This lyric is believed to be about how Swift knew about Healy’s “crazy” reputation and the negative reaction the public had to them dating, but how he was the one that she wanted regardless.

Dutiful daughter, all my plans were laid,
Tendrils tucked into a woven braid
Growing up precocious sometimes means not growing up at all
He was chaos, he was revelry,
Bedroom eyes like a remedy
Soon enough the elders had convened down at the City Hall
“Stay away from her,”
The saboteurs protested too much
Lord knows the words we never heard,
Just screeching tires and true love

• In this lyric, Swift is believed to be describing how her relationships with Healy and her ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn were polar opposites from each other. While dating Alwyn, Swift was more private and less reckless — as seen in the lyrics “dutiful daughter, all my plans were laid / Tendrils tucked into a woven braid” — while her relationship with Healy was the exact opposite and full of “chaos” and “revelry.”

Scandal does funny things to pride but brings lovers closer
We came back when the heat died down, went to my parents and they came around
All the wine moms are still holding out but fuck ‘em, it’s over

• Healy and Swift’s father, Scott Swift, were seen together in a box seat at Swift’s Eras Tour concert in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in May 2023. Healy’s mother, Denise Welch, also shared an Instagram photo of her and swift that month on her Instagram after Swift’s surprise appearance at The 1975’s concert at The O2 Arena in London. “Oh what a night at a sold out 02. So proud I can’t even begin!!” Welch captioned the photo.

“Guilty as Sin?” – The Tortured Poets Department

“Guilty as Sin?”, the ninth song from The Tortured Poets Department, is believed to be about the guilt Taylor Swift felt for her attraction toward Matty Healy whom she was friends with while she was still dating Joe Alwyn. Read on for the lyrics that support the claim “Guilty as Sin?” is about Healy.

Drowning in the Blue Nile
He sent me “Downtown Lights,”
I hadn’t heard it in a while
My boredoms bone deep,
This cage was once just fine
Am I allowed to cry?

• Many believe this lyric is about how Swift saw her private relationship with Alwyn as a “cage” she wanted to break free of.

I keep these longings locked
In lowercase inside a vault
Someone told me
“There’s no such thing as bad thoughts,
only your actions talk”
These fatal fantasies
Giving way to labored breath
Taking all of me
We’ve already done it in my head
If it’s make believe,
Why does it feel like a vow
We’ll both uphold somehow?

• While there was “no crossover” between Alwyn and Healy, according to The Sun, fans believe that this lyric speaks to Swift’s “fatal fantasies” about Healy that she never took action on until after her breakup with Alwyn.

“I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)” – The Tortured Poets Department

“I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)”, the 11th song from The Tortured Poets Department, is believed to be about how Taylor Swift thought she could change Matty Healy and remedy his controversial behavior during their relationship. Read on for the clues that support the claim that “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)” is about Healy.

The smoke cloud billows out his mouth like a freight train through a small town
The jokes that he told across the bar were revolting and far too loud
They shake their heads, saying, “God help her” when I tell ‘em he’s my man

• Healy, who is a known smoker, has been criticized for his controversial and insensitive jokes. The controversy was the main reason many fans disapproved of Swift and Healy’s relationship.

The dopamine races through his brain on a six lane Texas highway
His hand, so calloused from his pistol, softly traces hearts on my face
And I could see it from a mile away, a perfect case for my certain skillset
He had a halo of the highest grade, he just hadn’t met me yet

• A week before news broke of Swift and Healy’s relationship, Swift performed at her Eras Tour concert in Houston, Texas, from April 21 to April 23, 2023. Austin was also Swift’s second stop on her Eras Tour after news broke of her and her ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn’s breakup.

“The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” – The Tortured Poets Department

“The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” the 14th song from The Tortured Poets Department, is believed to be about Taylor Swift’s breakup with Matty Healy and coming to her senses about his behavior. Read on for the lyrics that support the claim that “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” is about Healy.

Was any of it true
Gazing at me, starry-eyed
In your Jehovah’s witness suit
Who the fuck was that guy
You tried to buy some pills
From a friend of friends of mine
They just ghosted you
Now you know what it feels like

• Healy’s signature outfit is a black suit, which fans think Swift referenced with he lyric “Jehovah’s witness suit.” Healy also opened up to Apple Music 1 in 2022 about his struggles with drug addiction, specifically heroin. “The first time where there had been anything that one of us was doing, or was into, that the others weren’t,” he said at the time. “It was the first time I had to tell them something. It was the first time that the idea of a secret existing even came out. It’s almost as if, well, is there anything else that we’ve not known? Because that’s a big thing.”

And I don’t even want you back
I just want to know
If rusting my sparkling summer was the goal
And I don’t miss what we had
But could someone give a message
To the smallest man who ever lived?

• News broke of Swift and Healy’s breakup in June 2023, which was the start of summer. “She had fun with him, but it was always casual,” a source told People at the time. “They are no longer romantically involved.” The insider continued, “They were never boyfriend-girlfriend or exclusive and were always just having fun. There is no drama, and who knows what could happen again. It was a good time and ran its course.”

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