When it comes to a Taylor Swift album drop, I’ve learned to prepare myself for the chaos that inevitably follows. Each song is like its own rabbit hole down Taylor’s love life, with little Easter eggs that probably connect to some random, obscure detail about her experiences… and it all somehow hints at an album she’ll be releasing years from now. Thankfully, our agonizing wait for The Tortured Poets Department is over, and we can finally start analyzing our asses off.
The sixth track on The Tortured Poets Department, “But Daddy, I Love Him,” is the longest on the album, coming in at a whopping five minutes and 40 seconds. It’s so long because Ms. Swift apparently has a lot to say about a certain controversial, cringe 1975 singer. That’s right: I fear “But Daddy, I Love Him” is a wild ride about Taylor’s relationship with MATTY FUCKING HEALY. Joe Alwyn, who?
To help you process this alarming information, here is everything we know about ““But Daddy, I Love Him” and its connection to Matty Healy.
Despite Harry Styles once wearing a shirt that says “But Daddy I Love Him,” fans are positive this story is about Matty and his relationship with Taylor AND how much her fans hated the relationship. Basically, she’s hardcore calling out the haters.
Taylor sings: 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. Oh dear. The whole tune is essentially Taylor saying she’s a good girl who wants a bad boy, a tale as old as time. And ya know what? I do not necessarily agree with the principle of the thing, but the song’s a damn hit. Taylor calling herself “precocious” and admitting she wants “chaos” is signature Blondie. It almost reminds me of “Love Story.”
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I think this track is gonna be stuck in Sarah and Hannah’s heads, whether they like it or not.
“But Daddy, I Love Him” is a famous line in the Disney movie The Little Mermaid, and it was low-key kind of a misleading reference. We all fairly assumed that the giving-your-voice-up-for-a-man vibe was related to the Joe relationship. Swifties have long theorized that Taylor had to give up a lot during those six years; she and Joe kept their romance super private and made few public appearances. Now that she’s with Travis, she seems thrilled to be in the pit at Coachella, so privacy doesn’t seem to be her priority.
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But still, the reference stands. The Little Mermaid is historically important to Taylor — she even dressed up as Ariel at a costume party back in 2019. And lo and behold, the movie was released in 1989… and we know how she feels about her birth year.
