Taylor Swift songs that could be interpreted as queer and why – Insider
- Taylor Swift fans have long found queer subtext and themes in her music.
- Songs like “Welcome to New York” and “You Need to Calm Down” contain overt nods to LGBTQ causes.
- Here’s a complete breakdown of 31 songs in Swift’s catalog from a queer perspective.
Taylor Swift is best known and beloved as a storyteller, often weaving personal details, cultural references, and double entendres into her songs.
“I love to communicate via Easter eggs. I think the best messages are cryptic ones,” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2019. She cited clothing, jewelry, and music-video sets as favored hiding spots, adding that she has been “encoding messages into the lyrics” since her debut album in 2006.
Because Swift is proudly meticulous and intentional with her art, fans delight in dissecting her lyrics and visuals, treating each album like a trail of breadcrumbs to be found and interpreted.
A certain branch of Swifties, known as “Gaylors,” have long found queer subtext and themes in her music — particularly sapphic listeners who find solace and camaraderie in Swift’s accounts of quiet yearning, forbidden love, and female intimacy.
In fact, some believe that dismissing the queer narratives in Swift’s music does “a disservice to her genius and lyrical prowess.”
Songs like “Welcome to New York” and “You Need to Calm Down” boast overt nods to LGBTQ causes, while others contain subtle phrases and slang that are widely known within the gay community — and therefore highly unlikely to have flown beneath Swift’s diligent radar.
Insider’s music team analyzed 31 songs in Swift’s catalog from a queer perspective, listed below in chronological order.