Small Details You Missed In Taylor Swift's Lover Video
Taylor Swift released the music video for "Lover," the title track from her seventh album, on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2019, the night before her album release. The video is a moving and romantic one, a much different vibe from the sass of "You Need To Calm Down" and the musical theater-esque "ME!" But like many other Swift projects, it does feature the Easter eggs with which she's been obsessed since the very beginning of the Lover promotion cycle.
Swift told Entertainment Weekly that she started planting Lover Easter eggs as early as May 2018. "Those Easter eggs were just trying to establish that tone, which I foreshadowed ages ago in a Spotify vertical video for 'Delicate' by painting my nails those [pastel] colors," she said. In terms of her beloved Swifties' obsession with decoding and deciphering her every move, she says simply, "I've trained them to be that way. I love that they like the cryptic hint-dropping. Because as long as they like it, I'll keep doing it. It's fun. It feels mischievous and playful."
Of course, if you're cynical, you may recognize it's also a great way to increase her video stream counts (which also boosts her Billboard figures, per the Los Angeles Times), because as long as they think there's something left to be found, they'll keep hitting "play" over and over and over again. To save you the trouble, here are all those small details you missed from Swift's "Lover" music video.
Taylor Swift's Lover video was inspired by a lyric from a previous album
Taylor Swift revealed in her YouTube Live leading up to the video release that the "Lover" music video concept came from a lyric she actually wrote for a song off of 1989. In the bonus track "You Are In Love," she sings, "And so it goes / You two are dancing in a snow globe round and round." Swift previously said that song was about a relationship between two of her best friends, Lena Dunham and Jack Antonoff. Antonoff produced the track, and Swift said on MTV News that she wrote the lyrics to it "really quick," believing that the song sounded like being in "true love, through thick and thin, 'sickness and health' love, not like infatuation." Antonoff said in the same interview that they discussed it being "a wedding song."
With that in mind, consider how "Lover" similarly features lyrics that wouldn't be out of place in a wedding when Swift sings, "Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand / With every guitar string scar on my hand / I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover."
Another fun fact? In 2011, Swift revealed in a since-deleted Instagram post (via MTV News) that she and her pals made their own snow globes around Christmas, which is when the "Lover" music video takes place. Cute!
You might recognize the guy who plays Taylor Swift's lover
Taylor Swift chose Christian Owens to be her love interest in her "Lover" video. Owens was a dancer for Swift's 1989 and Reputation tours (with a key role in her "King Of My Heart" performances). He also appears in Normani's "Motivation" music video, and performed with Beyonce at Coachella. Swift gushed of Owens in a Lover live stream, "He's amazing. Every single night I could see how expressive he is, and how just heroic, and what an amazing actor he is, as well as being an incredible dancer. ... He's your new best friend, your new favorite artist ... he's one of the most talented people I've ever met." Owens is also a musician, and Swift said record labels will be "fighting over him" to get him signed.
Owens himself was humbled by the experience working with Swift. "Words cannot express how grateful I am for this woman @taylorswift giving me a chance to express my talent in such a different way," he wrote on Instagram after the "Lover" video dropped. "Time and time again you show how caring and giving you are ... everyone Check out the new #lover music video that I got the honor to co-star in."
The board games in Taylor Swift's Lover all had double meanings
In one of the snow globe house's rooms in the "Lover" video, Taylor Swift and her love interest are seen sitting upside down on the ceiling playing board games, including one called "King Of Hearts" that looks a lot like Scrabble. While playing, the words "AFTER" and "GLOW" are seen on the board, and her love interest is playing the game from upside down. Now, stick with us here, because this gets tricky:
"King Of My Heart," a song off of Reputation, is reportedly about Swift's real-life boyfriend of three years, Joe Alwyn, while "Afterglow" is the 15th track off of Lover. (It can also be a nod to Christian Owens' role as her love interest in her tour performances of "King Of My Heart.") While filming the music video for Swift's song "End Game" from Reputation, she was playing Alwyn in Scrabble, and the singer has made no secret of her love for the vocabulary-based board game in the past.
Another board game visible in the "Lover" video is called "Breakable Heaven," while another game is called "Devils Roll The Dice, Angels Roll Their Eyes." Both games reference lyrics from her song "Cruel Summer," in which she sings, "No rules, unbreakable heaven" and "Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes / And if I bleed, you'll be the last to know."
New Year's Eve is significant
In one of the rooms in the "Lover" music video house, Taylor Swift and her love interest host a New Year's Eve party. In the vignette, Swift, wearing a yellow dress akin to the one in her "Wildest Dreams" video from 1989, and plays a guitar while wistfully staring at her man talking to another woman. In the scene, Swift is jealous, leading to an argument.
The timing of the party is key here: On Reputation, Swift had a sweet song called "New Year's Day," reportedly written for Joe Alwyn, about a love so true that he actually — gasp — helps you clean up after a party when all your friends are gone. Of course, the day itself marks the beginning of a clean slate.
Does the house in Lover represent different Taylor Swift album eras?
Taylor Swift's hardcore Swifties have some theories: Each room inside the house featured in the "Lover" music video snow globe represents one of her albums. Lover is marked in the pink room, while some believe this room represents 1989. The attic is the dark Reputation era (which ends with her and her lover making up, similarly to how the album ends with the optimism of "New Year's Day") or Lover. The blue room where she and her lover swim in a literal fishbowl represents 1989 or Speak Now, depending on which theory you're into. The red room is said to, somewhat obviously, be a nod to Red. They believe that the indigo room in the bottom right Speak Now (where she wore a purple dress on the cover) or Reputation; the yellow upside down room represents Fearless-era Swift, while the green room, featuring a painting of her kitten Benjamin Button, where she plays guitar and drums is said to be her self-titled debut era (when she was "green" and new to the industry).
The pink room scene in Taylor Swift's Lover is a throwback bonanza
In addition to the "ME!" video butterflies, the pink room in Taylor Swift's "Lover" video has a few other throwback references: The pink phone on the nightstand appears to be the same kind from Swift's "Our Song" music video in 2007 that's also believed to have made a cameo in the "ME!" video, according to one astute Swiftie on Twitter.
Swift also wears a headband in the scene that reads "Amour" (French for "love," and a nod to her and Brendon Urie's struggling grasp of the language in the "ME!" video), along with pink pajamas emblazoned with butterflies, which were a key theme in her "ME!" music video.
There's a subtle nod to Red in Taylor Swift's Lover video
In addition to the red room being a nod to Red, there are other references to the singer-songwriter's fourth studio album outside of her obvious preference for the hue when it comes to lipstick. That album had a bonus track called "The Moment I Knew" — rumored to be inspired by Taylor Swift's brief romance with Jake Gyllenhaal — which was about a lover who no-showed for her birthday party, and made her cry.
There's a scene in the "Lover" music video where Swift's love interest is with her as she blows out the candles on a birthday cake (rumored to be the same rainbow one from her video for "You Need To Calm Down"). Swifties on Tumblr pointed out the significance of her lover being there for her big day, and referenced the sad "Red" ballad. Swift apparently "liked" the theory, giving it added credibility.
The fishbowl in Taylor Swift's Lover video has a deep meaning
The fishbowl room is a deep one: Swifties picked up that it's similar to some of Taylor Swift's art for her single "Breathe," in which she's featured underwater. It can also represent how her entire life seems visible to the world, and how her relationships are in full view of the public eye. It's also important to note that Swift's love interest climbs all into the fishbowl along with her despite there being no visible exit from it. Swift even confirmed this theory on Tumblr, writing to a fan, "THIS WAS THE POINT THANK YOU SINCERELY FOR GETTING IT."
Taylor Swift's Lover video is, above all, a great marketing tool
Throughout her tenure as a star, Taylor Swift has partnered with brands including Keds, Target, Ticketmaster, Cornetto, Papa John's, Diet Coke, Capital One, Apple, AT&T, UPS, CoverGirl, American Express and more. As such, it's not shocking that she would wear some of her own new merch, for which she partnered with designer Stella McCartney, in her "Lover" video. The stuff isn't all cheap. People reported that some limited edition pieces from the collection, including a bomber jacket and handbag, retail for $1,995 and $795, respectively.
Swift even name-checks McCartney in her song "London Boy." The pair spoke of their collaboration to Vogue, with Swift explaining that she and the legendary Beatles frontman's daughter would "go on walks, have cocktails and talk about life" together in the British capital. McCartney quipped, "I couldn't believe that my name is in a Taylor Swift song (what?!?) and after Taylor played me the entire album it gave me such incredible inspiration for the collaboration and it really revolved around the music. When Taylor asked me, or even thought to come and do this with me, what I love is how we really complement each other in what we generate creatively together."
The new, McCartney-designed merch is so integrated into the rollout of the Lover album that Swift dedicated nearly one-third of her Lover's Lounge pre-release livestream to hawking the collection.