What an interesting week to be Matty Healy!
Taylor Swift‘s monumental new album The Tortured Poets Department shocked fans by being more about Matty than Joe Alwyn. The emotional baggage Tay had about the frontman of The 1975 has been so fascinating it’s had people digging into the past. Not only Taylor’s longer than many realized relationship with Matty, but his affect on other pop stars as well!
In case you weren’t aware, the 35-year-old Brit was linked to another singer back in 2015: Halsey. The singer (who uses she/they pronouns) was, like Tay, also inspired to write a song about the About You crooner. The song Colors, found way back on their debut album Badlands, is rumored to be about the couple’s short-lived romance. In the song, Halsey describes the muse of the track struggling with addiction — and it sounds an awfully lot like Matty:
“Everything is grey / His hair, his smoke, his dreams / And now he’s so devoid of color / He don’t know what it means”
Matty has been very open about his struggles with drugs, which Tay Tay also touched on in her music video for her latest release Fortnight.
Related: ‘More’ To The Story?? Matty’s Aunt Suggests Taylor Left Out Details In TTPD!
Colors was a banger that absolutely SKYROCKETED Halsey to fame at the time. If you were on any social medias at the time, you probably remember this lyric making the rounds:
“You were red and you liked me ’cause I was blue / But you touched me and suddenly I was a lilac sky / And you decided purple just wasn’t for you”
They also referenced Matty’s mother Denise Welch, a host on the UK talk show Loose Women, while expressing concern for his drug issues:
“Your little brother never tells you but he loves you so / You said your mother only smiled on her TV show / You’re only happy when your sorry head is filled with dope / I hope you make it to the day you’re 28 years old”
Yeah, it seems like Matty inspires some pretty heartbreaking lyrics all-around… Which is kind of an accomplishment, we guess! He can join the club with Dave Coulier and Warren Beatty. They can all go bowling and talk about how being jerks to talented women led to indelible pop classics.
Inneresting note about Colors this week though? We noted fans have been diving into Matty’s past, right? Well, along with Taylor’s record-breaking album, Halsey’s track also got a boost. A chart fan account called HalseyData claimed Colors got well over 120,000 streams the day after TTPD‘s release! That’s its biggest streaming day all year, spiking 12% out of nowhere. No way that’s a coincidence!
Ch-ch-check out the post (below):
.@halsey’s “Colors” had its biggest streaming day this year on Spotify yesterday, with 122,027 streams. (up 12%)
pic.twitter.com/xKN0YF5sPR— Halsey Charts (@halseydata) April 21, 2024
Wild! Reactions, Perezcious readers?
[Image via GQ/YouTube/MEGA/WENN]