Fans think Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn's love story was going out of style over a year before they officially split.
Although news broke in April that the couple had broken up after six years together, Swifties are now speculating their invisible string may have been severed two years ago—when Swift penned her heart-wrenching breakup song "You're Losing Me."
The singer originally released the Midnights bonus track in May—one month after the breakup news—but on Nov. 29, music collaborator Jack Antonoff revealed the devastating song was actually written in 2021.
In honor of the song finally landing on Spotify, Antonoff shared on his Instagram Story that the "very special track from the midnights sessions" was, in fact, "written and recorded at home" on Dec. 5, 2021.
He also shared a throwback photo of Swift—sporting a messy bun and wearing an orange knitted crewneck—grabbing a snack in the kitchen and noted that they recorded the number "right after taylor ate these raisins."
Fans were shocked by the true timeline of the song, with one person commenting, "So she felt this way for years," and another saying, "2021 im gonna be sick." A third user noted, "Can't get over it was written in 2021."
The revelation means Swift, now 33, created the ballad about three weeks after dropping Red (Taylor's Version) and her acclaimed "All Too Well" short film.
"You're Losing Me" details a relationship that has run its course, with the speaker pondering whether to end it for good or try to revive it and go on.
"I can't find a pulse / My heart won't start anymore / For you / 'Cause you're losin' me," Swift sings. "How long could we be a sad song / 'Til we were too far gone to bring back to life? / I gave you all my best me's, my endless empathy."
The Grammy winner also describes feelings of "indecision" and resonates with the adage, "You don't know what you got until it's gone."
But most notably, Swift seemingly hints that she was turned down in marriage, singing, "And I wouldn't marry me either / A pathological people pleaser / Who only wanted you to see her."
It seems her champagne problems bubbled over this spring, when news broke that she and Alwyn were going their separate ways (although neither has addressed the split publicly). But Swift shook it off during a not-so-cruel summer, when she saw sparks fly with NFL star Travis Kelce and proved she can still make the whole place shimmer on the Eras Tour.
And as for Alwyn? Keep reading to learn about more of Swift's songs inspired by the London Boy:
The first song Taylor Swift collaborated on with her former boyfriend Joe Alwyn, the ballad appears on 2020's Folklore as a duet with Bon Iver. At the time of the album's release, Joe was credited under the pseudonym William Bowery, though Taylor confirmed William and Joe were one and the same during her Disney+ concert film, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions.
Taylor revealed Joe had written the entire piano part, along with singing, "I can see you standin' honey/With his arms around your body/Laughin' but the joke's not funny at all." She went on to say The Favourite actor was "always just playing and making things up and kind of creating things," but the couple may have never worked together if it wasn't for the COVID-19 shutdown.
"I was like, 'Hey, this could be really weird, and we could hate this,'" she explained, "'because we're in quarantine and there's nothing else going on, could we just try to see what it's like if we write this song together?'"
The result of their professional collaboration? Winning Album of the Year at the 2021 Grammys.
"We're so proud of 'Exile,'" Taylor gushed. "All I have to do is dream up some lyrics and come up with some gut-wrenching, heart-shattering story to write with him."
For the title track off her ninth studio album, Taylor explained to Apple Music's Zane Lowe that she and Joe worked together the same way they did on "Exile," with Joe crafting the melody, Taylor writing the lyrics and Bon Iver once again serving as the male singing voice.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the song's co-producer Aaron Dessner said it was "really important" for Joe to play the piano part on "Evermore" as he wasn't able to on "Exile" due to recording issues.
"But this time, we could," Aaron said. "I just think it's an important and special part of the story."
Just hours before Taylor kicked off The Eras tour in Glendale, Ariz., on March 17, the Grammy winner treated fans to four brand-new songs, including "All of the Girls You Loved Before." Originally intended for her 2019 album Lover, fans theorized that the track was about Joe.
Taylor begins her pre-chorus by singing, "Your past and mine are parallel lines / Stars all aligned and they intertwined." Those lyrics reminded fans of another song she wrote about Joe on Midnights titled "Mastermind" on which she sings, "Once upon a time, the planets and the fates / And all the stars aligned / You and I ended up in the same room / At the same time."
Later in the song, Taylor croons, "The way you call me 'baby' / Treat me like a lady." Swifties quickly flashed back to Taylor's reputation hit "King of My Heart," which is also about Joe. In the track, she sings, "We met a few weeks ago / Now you try on callin' me 'baby' like tryin' on clothes."
Part of the high school love triangle trilogy on Folklore, Taylor said "Betty" was the result of her hearing Joe "singing the entire, fully formed chorus from another room."
"I really liked that it seemed to be an apology," she continued. "And I've written so many songs from a female's perspective of wanting a male apology, that we decided to make it from a teenage boy's perspective, apologizing after he loses the love of his life because he's been foolish."
While Joe wasn't actively involved with the production on Midnights' opening track—Zoë Kravitz is credited as a co-songwriter though!—Taylor's desire to protect their relationship from the public was the inspiration for the song.
"If the world finds out that you're in love with somebody, they're going to weigh in on it," she explained on Instagram. "My relationship for six years, we've had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff—and we just ignore it. This song is sort of about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff."
The title comes from a phrase commonly used in the 1950s that Taylor first heard while watching Mad Men, sharing that it meant an "all-encompassing love glow."
Though the couple co-wrote the Evermore song about a failed engagement, Taylor shot down the speculation that it was about their relationship.
"I say it was a surprise that we started writing together, but in a way, it wasn't," she told Zane Lowe. "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 or whatever."
Taylor continued, "Joe and I really love sad songs. We've always bonded over music. So...we write the saddest [ones]. We just really love sad songs. What can I say?"
In addition to the title track and "Champagne Problems," Joe also co-wrote "Coney Island," a dark duet featuring The National frontman Matt Berninger, on Evermore.
Described by Taylor as the most vulnerable song on Folklore, the ballad was the result of the superstar feeling "more rooted in my personal life" because of Joe, she told Paul McCartney in an interview for Rolling Stone.
"I think that in knowing him and being in the relationship I am in now," she said, "I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids."
The only track Joe co-wrote on Midnights, this sweet love song opens with a pebble picked up from a beach in Wicklow, which is the county in Ireland where the actor filmed the Hulu series Conversations With Friends.
"You're Losing Me"
Taylor wrote the ballad "You're Losing Me" about a dying relationship on Dec. 5, 2021, according to collaborator Jack Antonoff. He revealed the "very special track from the midnights sessions" was "written and recorded at home" just weeks after she released Red (Taylor's Version) and the "All Too Well" short film.
Taylor waited over a year to release it, debuting it as a Midnights bonus song in May 2023 (one month after news broke of her split with Joe, leading fans to speculate it's about their breakup).
"I can't find a pulse / My heart won't start anymore / For you / 'Cause you're losin' me," she sings. "How long could we be a sad song / 'Til we were too far gone to bring back to life? / I gave you all my best me's, my endless empathy."
The lyrics also hint at a rejected marriage proposal: "And I wouldn't marry me either / A pathological people pleaser / Who only wanted you to see her."
Um, Joe is British. Enough said.