Taylor Swift has fans wondering who the love of her life is after releasing the song “Loml,” which is an acronym for the term of endearment.
It may seem like a no-brainer that the Tortured Poets Department track would be dedicated to Joe Alwyn, whom Swift, 34, dated from 2016 to 2023. As the singer’s longest romantic relationship to date, it would make sense for Alwyn, 33, to inspire lyrics like:“I felt a glow like this never before and never since.”
However, other moments in the song suggest that it was written about a romance that burned out quicker than Swift and Alwyn’s six-year relationship.
“It was legendary, it was momentary, it was unnecessary, should’ve let it stay buried,” Swift sings.
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“Loml” references the “never quite buried” nature of the love story it chronicles several times, suggesting that the song is about someone who Swift intersected with at various points in her life. The 1975 frontman Matty Healy comes to mind, whom Swift was initially linked to in 2014 before the pair began a whirlwind romance in May 2023, one month after her split from Alwyn made headlines.
“Who’s gonna stop us from waltzing back into rekindled flames if we know the steps anyway?” Swift asks in “Loml.”
There are other lyrics in the song that could potentially point to Healy, 35.
“In your suit and tie, in the knick of time, you lowdown boy,” Swift croons over the track’s hypnotic piano.
Healy often dons a suit and tie while performing and has sparked more controversy throughout his career than any of Swift’s other exes. Swift faced backlash during their relationship due to resurfaced clips of Healy laughing at Ice Spice’s appearance during a February 2023 episode of “The Adam Friedland Show.”
Swift also sings about “a con man” who sold “a fool a get-love-quick scheme,” which could point to her starting a brief fling with Healy right after ending things with Alwyn.
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While there’s an argument to be made that “Loml” is about Healy, there are also moments in the song that could be references to Alwyn.
“When your impressionist paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes, well you took me to hell too,” Swift sings. The Grammy winner previously mentioned Alwyn’s artistic endeavors in the Folklore song “Peace.”
“Your integrity makes me seem small, you paint dreamscapes on the wall / I talk s—t with my friends,” the lyrics read.
“Loml” also features a nod to s—t talking, which could be Swift’s way of saying that she wasn’t the only one in her long-term relationship with that habit.
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“You s—t talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles,” she sings, a nod to unfulfilled promises of weddings and babies. Swift previously sang about a love interest’s refusal to marry her on the Midnights vault track “You’re Losing Me,” which many fans have theorized is about Alwyn.
“I wouldn’t marry me either, pathological people pleaser,” Swift sings during the heartbreaking bridge.
Whoever the love of Swift’s life is, they’re also the “loss” of her life, she sings during the song’s final moments.
“I wish I could unrecall how we almost had it all,” she sings. “Dancing phantoms on the terrace, are they secondhand embarrassed that I can’t get out of bed cause something counterfeit’s dead?”
