Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn. Getty Images (2)
Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department already has Us questioning everyone about her past relationship with Joe Alwyn, and now fans have a theory that a new song is connected to an old favorite.
One of her TTPD songs is called “Fresh Out the Slammer,” which eagle-eyed Swifties have theorized could be a rebuttal or sequel to her Reputation love songs about Alwyn, 33.
“From ‘he can be my jailor’ to ‘fresh out the slammer’ is crazy,” one fan wrote via X on Friday, April 12, referring to the lyrics to “Ready for It?” that appeared on Swift’s 2017 LP, Reputation.
“Ready for It?” notably features the lyrics, “And he can be my jailer / Burton to this Taylor / Every love I’ve known in comparison is a failure. I forget their names now, I’m so very tame now.”
John Shearer/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management Taylor Swift is notorious for penning lyrics about the highs — and lows — of her own high-profile romances over the years. While taking in her discography, eagle-eyed Swifties have noticed that some of her lyrics seemingly touch on bad blood — a.k.a cheating — in her relationships […]
The lines, also comparing her romance to Elizabeth Taylor’s famed relationship with Richard Burton, hint that she’s fine being locked away if it’s with her then-partner. While Swift, 34, famously doesn’t name her lyrical inspiration, Reputation is heavily thought to be inspired by her relationship with Alwyn.
Swift and the Conversations With Friends alum dated between 2016 and early 2023, during which she dropped albums Reputation, Lover, Folklore, Evermore, Midnights and a few rereleases. During that period, they kept their relationship private and seldom were seen in public.
Taylor Swift Terry Wyatt/Getty Images
“Life is short. Have adventures. Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years — I’ll never get that time back,” Swift told TIME in her 2023 Person of the Year profile, which was published that December. “I’m more trusting now than I was six years ago.”
With the announcement of TTPD, Swifties across the globe have theorized many of the songs — including “Fresh Out the Slammer” — deal with the pop star’s heartbreak.
“If the first word is hereby could that mean that ‘fresh out of the slammer’ is like a storyline of being prosecuted to go to jail and it ends with her getting out???” another social media user wrote via X, referring to Swift breaking up with Alwyn in April 2023 before moving on with new boyfriend Travis Kelce several months later.
Taylor Swift didn’t just find inspiration from Joe Alwyn during their relationship, they also collaborated on some of her songs. Alwyn was credited as a songwriter on several of Swift’s tracks throughout their relationship. He wrote under the pen name William Bowery, which Swift confirmed herself in her November 2020 documentary, Folklore: The Long Pond […]
Other fans used the song title to describe photos of Swift out-and-about in New York City that April, days after Us Weekly confirmed the split, in comparison to frequently being hidden away at home with Alwyn and her pet cats.
Another fan speculated, “What if she’s not the one fresh out the slammer but him??? What if she felt he was a prisoner to her fame and when they broke up he felt relieved instead of hurt?”
After Swift and Alwyn called it quits, a source confirmed to Us that the shy actor “never liked all of the attention” that came with Swift’s massive levels of fame but didn’t “blame” her for commanding any room. (Swift wrote 2020’s “Peace” about her insecurities over the same concept.)
Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn. Jackson Lee/GC Images
“Fresh Out the Slammer” and “Ready for It?” are not Swift’s only musical masterpieces that feature themes of jail. In “Getaway Car,” she sings, “It was the great escape, the prison break, the light of freedom on my face.”
“Afterglow,” a song from 2019’s Lover, also mentions jail. “I blew things out of proportion, now you’re blue, put you in jail for something you didn’t do,” she sings. Plus, in her 2023 music video for “I Can See You,” Swift spends most of the scene trying to get out of a prison cell in a locked vault.
The “I Can See You” video concept is, however, about Swift reclaiming her music — she’s rereleased her past LPs after Big Machine Records sold her masters to third parties without her knowledge — instead of a breakup. It is possible that “Fresh Out the Slammer” follows the same theme.
It cannot be completely explained what “Fresh Out the Slammer” is about until The Tortured Poet Department comes out on Friday, April 19.