Fans who missed seeing Taylor Swift during her reclusive Reputation era have a lot to celebrate in the time of her upcoming album, presently known as TS7. It seems like since dropping her glitter bomb single "Me!," she's given Swifties more juicy information to chew on—particularly, via interviews with "human journalists" filled with Easter eggs about her release.
A sound bite from a Q&A earlier this week may have eliminated one giant question mark from the outstanding questions fans still have about TS7—and that's what, exactly, she's dubbing her new era. In an interview with The Independent, Swift hinted that the title of her new album has been hiding in plain sight in the lyrics and music video imagery for "Me!"
The Independent asked Swift the question we all were wondering: "How many clues are there to the album title in the music video?" She responded: "I think you see it once and you hear it twice."
Those two numbers were all fans needed to track down the potential title—and they didn't have to reach that hard to find it after Swift's quote hit the Internet. It seems that Swift was referring to the word lover.
The word immediately caught the eyes of fans (and Glamour's Christopher Rosa). In the music video, it's seen after the second verse, written in cursive on a neon sign in the background.
Then there's the prechorus to the song, during which the word appears twice. After both verses Swift sings: "Baby doll when it comes to a lover / I promise that you'll never find another like me."
All signs point to "Lover" as the title of Swift's seventh album, but it's been part of her lexicon for several album cycles. She used to reference ill-fated paramours in 1989's "Blank Space:" "Got a long list of ex-lovers / They'll tell you I'm insane." It also appeared in songs about her boyfriend Joe Alwyn on Reputation, including "Call It What You Want" and "...Ready For It?"
The title meshes with Swift's apparent rose-colored outlook in TS7—and her habit for leaving clues for fans everywhere she can. In her cover story for Entertainment Weekly, in which she confirmed that her next album is complete, she said she enjoys letting her fans play detective. “I love that they like the cryptic hint-dropping," she said. "Because as long as they like it, I’ll keep doing it. It’s fun. It feels mischievous and playful.”
The clues are adding up: Reputation was all about warding off her haters, but in TS7, it seems like Swift's only focused on her "lover."
Halie LeSavage is a contributing writer at Glamour. Follow her @halielesavage.
