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In the lead-up to Taylor Swift<\/strong>\u2019s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department<\/em><\/a>, released on Friday, the moody imagery and morose snippets of lyrics sprinkled across the internet (\u201cI love you, it\u2019s ruining my life,\u201d for one) made it pretty clear that Joe Alwyn,<\/strong> Swift\u2019s longest public relationship<\/a>, would not escape the departmental summit unscathed. It was a surprise to many, then, just how much ink Swift spilled seemingly in reference to her brief relationship with The 1975 front man, Matty Healy,<\/strong> on the double album.<\/p>\n On the album\u2019s title track, Swift sings about a lover who leaves a typewriter at her apartment: \u201cI think some things I never say, \/ Like, \u2018Who uses typewriters anyway?\u2019\u201d Anyone can get a typewriter, but that\u2019s just the first hint that the song is about Healy. In a 2018 interview with GQ<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> Healy spoke about his penchant for typewriters, saying, \u201cThe thing with typewriters and writing, putting pen to paper, there\u2019s kind of an element of commitment that goes with the ceremony of it.\u201d He said he preferred the analog implements for his writing, which he described as \u201cdreams of being in love with other pop stars.\u201d<\/p>\n In the chorus of the same song, Swift sings, \u201cYou\u2019re not Dylan Thomas, \/ I\u2019m not Patti Smith,<\/strong> \/ This ain\u2019t the Chelsea Hotel<\/a>, \/ We\u2019re modern idiots.\u201d Dylan Thomas, notably, was a Welsh poet\u2014Healy is British. Smith, like Swift, is American. Then there\u2019s her recalling: \u201cYou smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate,\u201d and then there\u2019s the \u201ctattooed golden retriever\u201d falling asleep. Healy is, of course, significantly tatted up, and his band\u2019s song \u201cChocolate\u201d<\/a> is about smoking. Get the point?<\/p>\n While \u201cThe Tortured Poets Department\u201d scans as eye-rolling directed at a pretentious ex, other references on the album that seem to point to Healy are less gentle, which is why it\u2019s a bit surprising to see an unnamed source allegedly telling Us Weekly<\/em><\/a> that Healy and his family are relieved at his portrayal on the album.<\/p>\n \u201cMatty still thinks very highly of Taylor, but we were all nervous about what she might have said on the album,\u201d the source said, adding that people close to Healy \u201ccouldn\u2019t be happier\u201d with the record.<\/p>\n \u201cMatty\u2019s family knew about the relationship,\u201d the source reportedly shared. \u201cAnd they were worried that Taylor was going to rip him apart. Matty has struggled with life in the public eye, and he\u2019s been doing really well, but the last thing that he needs is for every Swiftie in the world to think he\u2019s a villain.\u201d<\/p>\n But then there\u2019s \u201cI Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),\u201d which seems to point to Healy with references to jokes that are \u201crevolting and far too loud,\u201d and the public\u2019s opinion about Swift\u2019s love life. \u201cThey shook their heads, saying, \u2018God help her\u2019 \/ When I told \u2019em he\u2019s my man.\u201d She returns to that theme on \u201cBut Daddy I Love Him,\u201d singing, \u201cI know he\u2019s crazy, but he\u2019s the one I want. \/ I\u2019ll tell you something right now, you ain\u2019t gotta pray for me. \/ Me and my wild boy and all of this wild joy. \/ He was chaos, he was revelry.\u201d<\/p>\n On \u201cThe Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,\u201d Swift laments a guy in a \u201cJehovah\u2019s Witness suit\u201d who tried to buy pills \u201cfrom a friend of friends of mine\u201d and \u201csank in stoned oblivion\u201d once they were alone together. Healy often wears a suit while he performs, and he has been open about his history with drug use<\/a>. Swift then wonders \u201cif rusting my sparkling summer was the goal.\u201d She asks, \u201cWere you sent by someone who wanted me dead?\u201d and whether he was \u201ca sleeper cell spy.\u201d She continues: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t sexy once it wasn\u2019t forbidden,\u201d perhaps explaining the abrupt end to the relationship.<\/p>\n There are plenty of musical nods to The 1975 and Healy as well, like the \u201cGuilty as Sin?\u201d line referencing \u201cThe Downtown Lights\u201d by The Blue Nile, a song that Healy said inspired The 1975\u2019s \u201cLove It If We Made It,\u201d and his self-proclaimed<\/a> \u201cfavorite band of all time.\u201d The frenetic opening riff of Swift\u2019s \u201cimgonnagetyouback\u201d is a near-twin of The 1975\u2019s \u201cLooking for Somebody (To Love<\/a>),\u201d and that parenthetical naming convention, a go-to for the band, is mirrored on the aforementioned \u201cI Can Fix Him (No Really I Can).\u201d<\/p>\n Is the song \u201cPeter,\u201d in which Swift pokes at the fading bruise of a past love who is \u201clost to the Lost Boys chapter of your life\u201d almost certainly a reference to Healy, who has previously referred to himself as<\/a> \u201ca sort of emo Peter Pan self-lacerating Pied Piper kind of character\u201d and performs a song called \u201cLost Boys<\/a>\u201d with his band? It\u2019s certainly not any kind of stretch to believe.<\/p>\n Whether Swifties are seeing Healy in a different light in the post-Poets<\/em> world is for them to say, but a rising tide lifts all boats: The same day as Swift\u2019s album was released, The 1975\u2019s single \u201cRobbers\u201d obtained platinum certification by the BRITs<\/a>. Whether the heightened Swift-related interest had anything to do with sales, the singer\u2019s tryst with Healy undeniably put his band on many new listeners\u2019 radars. Being the alleged “smallest man who ever lived\u201d seems to come with a commensurately large payoff.<\/p>\n Representatives for Swift and Healy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n