LONDON — Taylor Swift fans enjoy analyzing the singer-songwriter lyrics for references to her romantic life and insights into her mental state.
But fans of the pop superstar in the UK didn’t have to listen closely. last album, “The Department of Tortured Poets,” to get the sense that Swift had soured on the nation’s capital after long turning it into a regular hangout and then his second home. The fifth song on the album is titled “See you later, London.”
How Swift brings it successful Eras tour At Wembley Stadium in London, some Swifties wonder if they are witnessing the beginning of a long goodbye. He will perform three nights starting Friday and is due to return to Wembley for six nights in August to close the gig. European leg of the tour.
The area around Wembley was transformed for the shows, with fans posing in front of a giant mural of the singer and moving stairs dubbed “Swiftie Steps”. Swift announced that 88,446 people attended Friday’s show in what she called “the most exciting city in the world.”
London It is the only city on the tour where Swift stops twice. Some worry that the arrangement may represent a swan song of sorts, while others think it simply reflects a new era in Swift’s bond with Big Smoke. Whether “So Long, London” turns out to be a final chapter or a capper to her Valentine’s Day in the City song “London Boy,” Eras arrives as an emotional milestone.
“Their relationship now assumes that London will not be the place she will be. It’s not like there’s a football player living here,” said Maggie Fekete, 22, a Canadian graduate student who credits the London references in Swift’s music for guiding her when she moved to the city three years ago. “I think there will be a lot less London in her music, which is sad.”
Stella Elgood, 25, of London, said Friday that she assumed Swift would sing “So long, London” at some point during her eight nights in the city, but that Swift “will always be welcome.”
“Especially since she dated Harry Styles, she’s been here in the Zeitgeist,” Elgood said.
For those who haven’t been paying attention, Swift had a series of romances with famous British nationals (including Styles in 2012) that ended last year, when she began dating the Kansas City Chiefs tight end. Travis Kelce. Speculation surrounding “So Long, London” and a mournful accompanying song that mentions a London pub“The Black Dog” arises from the breakup in 2023 of Swift and English actor Joe Alwyn, who were together for more than six years.
Alwyn is supposed to have inspired “London Boy,” a song from his 2019 album “Lover.” A special edition CD of “Lover” included what appeared to be a journal entry from January 2017 in which Swift talked about being “basically based in London” but trying to blend in. British tabloids later reported that Swift spent much of the COVID-19 pandemic sheltering in place with Alwyn in north London.
The Sun newspaper reported in December that the multiple Grammy winner had purchased a large property in the area and was redeveloping it to become her base in Europe. However, after Swift published “The Tortured Poets Department” last month, a writer for the British edition of ELLE magazine observed that Londoners had a chance “for an American star who can take her place in our collective consciousness.” .
“We had Swift before we lost her on her record-breaking, box-office-breaking Eras Tour, and now, it looks like her vacant spot has been filled by Zendaya” writer Naomi May jokingly posited before listing the various places where the American actress had been seen with her longtime boyfriend, British actor Tom Holland.
Either way, the capital is putting on a big show to make sure Swift and her fans feel appreciated. Guides offer walking, bus and taxi tours that follow in their footsteps, including a kebab shop whose owner says her establishment will offer sandwiches to the singer and her team on Friday.
Before the end of August, Swifties can partake in a full diet of Swift-themed lunches and dance parties, or ride the London Eye Ferris wheel accompanied by a string quartet playing her music. Souvenir stalls at Camden Market, one of the locations mentioned in “London Boy,” were stocked with Swift-specific caps, t-shirts, bags and stickers in preparation.
“We are so proud that London hosts more shows than any other city on Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, a true testament to her love of London,” Laura Citron, chief executive of London’s tourism agency. & Partners, he said.
Fans began lining up outside Wembley on Thursday hoping to be among the first ticket holders to get places in the standing sections near the stage.
Zachary Hourihane, who co-hosts a Swift podcast called “Evolution of a Snake” and posts videos on YouTube and TikTok under the name Swiftologist, said it’s too early to know whether the singer will retain her honorary citizenship or secede from London. Fans know this very well, only time will tell with Taylor.
Hourihane notes that Swift began spending more time in London after a difficult year in which she spent winning album of the year at the 2016 Grammy Awards for “1989” to see his popularity fall amidst a public fight with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. From her study of her life in England, she believes that the happy memories she created there are mixed with “a sense of isolation.”
“There’s a lot of nostalgia that could have turned into regret,” Hourihane said. “She felt like she was stuck there for a while.”
Fast forward several boyfriends, 10 albums (including the Taylor’s version is rerecorded ) and the giant of the Eras Tour, and it is no surprise that his life is subject to reassessment. Hourihane suspects that Swift is “not quite ready to give up on London” for both practical and artistic reasons.
“Taylor is someone who retraces his steps a lot. Things never really end with her. “She likes to revisit things that are over,” she said. “Let’s be realistic about it. Her relationship, even if it is ‘see you later, goodbye’, she has good reasons to be in London and a lot of money to be made there.”
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
