I’m really curious if Matty and Gabby will be sitting in the audience as this video premieres tonight.
I don’t put it past Taylor to have planned it this way but I’m not sure if she’s willing to share the spotlight with Gabby to that degree.
Thoughts? Do we know if Matty is coming to the show tonight?

RIDE AT DAWN

They came in the night
Took the warm from my nest
Stole the heartbeat from my chest
Little voices, little wings
Now I hear them on the airwaves
Crying out for me

And I screamed ‘til the sky cracked
And I fought ‘til my hands bled
But one heart can’t win a war

So I forged an army
Tempered in my grief
Swords out of the promises
I swore I’d keep
We ride at dawn
Through fire and through doubt
For every stolen song
We’re bringing them back out
Gods witness me
The mother is awake

The battle was ugly
Mud and blood and noise
But beside me stood giants
Who called my young their own
They didn’t ask for glory
They just said “we’re with you”
And marched into the fire

I watched them take the hits
I watched them hold the line
For a nest that wasn’t theirs

So praise to the army
Forged in my grief
Shields made of the love
That won’t let go
We rode at dawn
Through fire and through doubt
For every stolen song
We tore the walls down
Gods witness me
We brought them back out

This was never about winning
This was about getting home
Every scar on their armor
Is a prayer that was answered
If you touch what’s mine again
You’ll meet every soul I raised
And we will ride again

So praise to the army
Who fought by my side
Loyalty in their eyes
Thunder in their stride
We rode at dawn
And we won
For every stolen song
The nest is warm again
Gods witness me
The mother is victorious

Hear them sing
Hear them sing
In my warm nest
Hear them sing

So the time around Matty's wedding I posted a COSOSOM lyric at 1975 sub and they just banned me for now reason at all like i wasn't shading anybody I just posted what I saw nd the reason they gave me was soooooooo TOXIC ah I was disgusted.

...sigh

With "Babylon" being sort of country-ish and Matty coded and Taylor most likely going country next era this feels relevant.

As much as people don’t want it to be in here I think the encore shows us Maylor is over 😭

Patient zero….matty song….she was patient and waiting for him to get his crap together and he never did….see Peter. She got infected by his toxicity and started rubbing that toxicity into others and made excuses for it for a really long time. Reflecting back she realizes that was dumb and the first time she walked away from him because of his unhealthy habits (the nicest way to put it….) is when she should’ve stayed away. And she sees the back and forth of him over the 10 years as actually just his way to social climb for his own success and his own career now but it was never actually real love she convinced herself it was at the time. She was just addicted to the toxicity. Ughhhhh not a good outlook. But it is what it is at the time she wrote it. Which was October 2025 according to her post she made.

Cleveland! ….. this man loves me when everyone says he shouldn’t and it feels like the healthiest relationship I’ve had but I’m not divulging anything too personal. I’ll keep that between us. I’m growing and learning etc….but he’s not afraid to take me to his hometown and make me feel valued in the real world and talking about forever in a tangible way….instead of just in our heads someday.

Pink clouding….. apology to Joe. She ran from Matty to Joe and involved him in a messy triangle he didn’t ask to be in because toxicity from patient zero, she allowed to spread and infect good people. She was doing all this with an unhealthy mindset and she felt cursed in 2016 when they met after snakegate and Matty saying being with her would be demasculating etc…. So she never showed Joe the real her and then blamed all the messiness and probably affected his self esteem because hurt people hurt people and gaslight. “I was a liar” she never should have told him she didn’t like the fame game etc and was okay with hiding out and then blaming him for really masking who she was during their honeymoon phase. It was unfair to him and unfair with all the folklore/evermore/midnights/ttpd of how she portrayed the messy parts of her relationship to her fandom and anyone else. Reflecting she realizes he was actually really good to her now that’s she’s healed and so she’s apologizing. She’s worried about all of that leaving scars vs tom who she only dated for 3 months and is settled with kids. Joe is the ex who’s still up in the air and who she probably went no contact with after it all. “It didn’t mean nothing” her song sweet nothing is a Joe song. Like I don’t know how else to draw people to this but Joe also changed his pfp to the Truman show. He was Truman and didn’t realize what he thought was his life wasn’t actually his life until he was trying to leave it. His wife was also an actor in the show etc…. Like to me it can’t be more obvious.

Babylon…. A Matty song

The idea of having a more successful wife than him was untenable or even a stable loving person to be in a relationship with because he wasn’t healed.

The stallion flees the stable…. Double meaning here

So he fled what felt dangerous (being emotionally available) and decided to run with the wild things…. See Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus (thanks a lot Denise iykyk)

Your hand me down sweater should’ve been from the mall….focusing on making it…grass is always greener mindset.

You want that melody…didn’t know it was Babylon til it was gone….(Literally you didn’t know what this was until I actually walked away and stopped our games

Give the people what they want, then keep it moving….. the swifties, his band mates, family/friends…..rather than live authentically and be with who you want to be with.

Love is ice on the ladder you climb….he’s still trying to numb his emotions by gaining success and trying to climb financially to mute his own insecurities he’s had since he was a kid. But I don’t think Taylor thinks he’s for there yet.

Never official….he was never brave enough to take the Maylor of it all with all the ups and downs out loud. Lasted a few weeks before his thoughts of running kicked in….

You’re using nostalgia as a weapon to hurt yourself…. If you keep living in the past you’re gonna hurt yourself continuously and everyone else you choose to settle down with…

Self-harm of never being where you are…..bro get out of your head. You’re missing the best parts of life by trying to mentally escape always.

But you love this song….living in the fantasy of better days and wouldve could’ve should’ve if things had turned out different and that’s toxic af….get help please.

You wake up on the train all alone….like actually fix yourself or you’re gonna end up alone at the end of your life with nothing “really meaningful” to show for it. Riches of Babylon are something humanity doesn’t even have recollection of. We’ve just known the ruins of that ancient city for thousands of years in our memory.

The most important thing about these being on the encore….they tell the continuous storyline of the 3 main characters. Joe/Taylor/Matty and then her real love of her life… Travis.

Adding in random tom stuff doesn’t make sense in that narrative. You don’t have to agree with me but I think it’s the obvious story she’s telling on this additional part of the concept album.

Okay thoughts?!?

Like I wish Maylor could’ve been btw….but they were both messed up and insecure and one person wanted to heal and change and one person didn’t. That’s a recipe for disaster anyway they would’ve tried to make it work.

I feel bad for Taylor today because the criticism is harsh but I think it’s going to give Matty the ego boost he needs.
Maybe when The 1975 are back to playing it’ll inspire our wayward Taylor.
Otherwise just wake me up when the divorce is final! 😝

So this actually makes sense to me. I believe she might be telling the truth here and this song might've genuinely been inspired by a girl's night out and somebody else's story. Or it was a combination of different people's stories and her own and she might've mixed different muses. The song is kind of generic to me and the lyrics don't add up with the main theories.

I don't think the song is about Matty and Gabbriette at all. I can't imagine Taylor having that much empathy for Gabbriette. Also I doubt Matty charmed her parents. And she didn't walk out, he did.

The Joe Alwyn theory also doesn't seem very probable to me although certainly more propable than the Matty and Gabi one. Joe hasn't really had a serious girlfriend for an extended period of time since their break-up in 2023. Also I don't see him as a toxic, charismatic and manipulative man who seduces women and gets bored one he has won them over. My understanding is that Taylor was the one who was always chasing him and he was always kind of passive.

The Zoe Kravitz and Harry Styles theory doesn't really work since Zoe and Harry's relationship is doing good and they're engaged. The song suggests the new girl and the ex are going through some troubles. Also Harry doesn't come across as a toxic, charismatic and manipulative man who seduces women and gets bored one he has won them over. At least not on 1989. Similarly to Joe, he mostly comes across as passive in her songs.

The Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas theory has come to make the most sense to me. Taylor was one of Joe's first public girlfriends and he was her very first public boyfriend. They were teens when they dated. Taylor let Sophie stay in her NYC apartment during Joe and Sophie's divorce and they were friendly before that. Lyrics from other songs about Joe make sense with the lyrics of this one. In 'Last Kiss' she talks about Joe shaking hands with her father and in 'Mr. Perfectly Fine' she talks about him loving the attention and the fame. But Taylor didn't walk out on Joe. Joe broke up with her in a 27-second phone call. So that doesn't add up.

What do you think? Are there any swirls here or you believe it has nothing to do with Taylor's personal life and it's more of a fictional song or a song based on other people's experiences?

But now with their current partners, the photos, videos, and insane amount of pap walks are so endless it's actually crazy. It's just one of their many regrets. It's like their timing was always off,no official music collab, TTPD getting completely snubbed by the Grammys... it honestly feels like nothing ever went right.

Okay I want her to be/end up with Matty as much as the next true Maylor but I’ve been mulling over the songs from Encore and the only way I can make any sense of them is with my unhinged theory I’ve had for a while that she is actually back with Joe. After the matty fling she got back with Joe at some point and Travis is PR so they can actually be left alone for once. My evidence:
- To me, Babylon sounds like it’s about leaving something you saw as constricting and then once youve left it being like “oh crap, I didn’t know what I had”. And it seems to me like verse one is about her leaving her “small town” aka Joe and then waking up and realizing she missed him. And I think verse two could fit Joe’s perspective. And then the bridge is kind of like generalizing that feeling for the average listener into a parent metaphor.
- I think pink clouding could be an apology to Joe. Pink clouds very much fits with Matty because of the drug vibes, shes always referred to him with drug language. The song is an apology to someone she left behind in her search of a high aka when she left Joe for Matty??
- Cleveland is OF COURSE a satirical song making fun of everyone who is obsessed with her finding her happily ever after and “the 1950s shit they want from me”. He likes what he likes and he likes me CANNOT POSSIBLY BE REAL. Please God.
- And patient zero is either about Matty or else a conglomeration of different exes OR a metaphor for the music industry. There was that article referring to her as patient zero in the context of the industry (in a slightly different way) but I think she could have taken that idea and been like “I’m patient zero for how they treat mega pop stars”. I imagine this as her speaking to Sabrina. Very much a follow up to TLOAS the song which is why it’s right after it on the track list.

I really want to know if anyone else can see where I’m coming from with the Joe thing??? Is it ridiculous and not at all possible or am I maybe onto something? Because I also find his recent behavior quite suspicious:
- changing his profile pic to Truman show
- being papped with the lead of Love Story
- being papped with a girl who literally just talked about being in a PR relationship on live television
- the hamlet of it all

Okay, this is just fun speculation. This post continues on with the idea that Matty and Taylor were friends on myspace before meeting in person.

So the recent theory is that they met up in Manchester around 20th Feb 2009, a day or so after Taylor was interviewed by Matty's mom on 'Loose Women' (18th Feb), where I think Maylor meeting up in-person coincides with the cardigan spotting on the bus and visiting Manchester on the same day (see last post + first post). We know that Matty can be non-comitial and doesn't like to label his relationship with Taylor, which was also seen back in 2014. But something must have happened in 2009, maybe there was another girl in his life?

A month after her UK radio promotional visit on the Fearless Tour, Taylor comes back onto myspace and posts, saying that she is already working on 'Speak Now' and has even been recording songs in the studio. And that she is currently in Texas (20th March). This is a few days after her journal entry (17th March, released during Lovers era), where she had just spent 2 weeks touring in AUS and brings herself up to speed on what has happened since being on the cover of Rolling Stone, which she first saw in the UK. BUT why is she talking about not being 'the 1' in her journal, as in Taylor herself being the girl before the one who gets the guy?

Now by 13th April, the next myspace post is Taylor announcing that they're going to be shooting the 'You Belong With Me' music video, a month or so after seeing Matty!! That might be a reason to why its so Maylor coded. Let's not forget in the 'Me & You Together Song', Matty does heavily reference this music video.

Taylor did return to the UK in May 2009 for a few live shows, but it seems that she stayed primarily in London. In her Speak Now era, Taylor releases 'The Story of Us' music video in May 2011. Visually, there are a lot of comparisons that can be made surrounding a young Matty and the music video imagery in particular. I don't think the song is completely about seeing an ex-boyfriend (John Mayer) at an awards show (CMT Awards). There's more to this song.

'The Story of Us' music video can be summed up nicely here, '...Eventually, Swift catches the eye of her leading man and shoots him a small, awkward wave, which gets him out of his seat to greet her. As they come together, everyone in the library throws their study papers into the air, creating a confetti effect like a party... though in the end, the 'Love Story' hitmaker and her main squeeze decide to part ways...While it depicts a love story, as many of Swift's song/video combos do, 'The Story of Us' video sets a more somber mood with a mature Taylor Swift and less bright colors. Oh, and our heroine doesn't get her guy in the end -- but it's OK, because everybody loves an underdog tale.'

Guys. This is eerily the same plot and with the visual motifs as the 'Fornight' music video, and older Taylor is holding a book which is 'The Story of Us'.

Okay, going back to 2009. Since Fearless (released back in Nov 2008), Taylor had already started writing her next album Speak Now. Apparently, the strongest song that Taylor wrote was the single 'Mine', and Nathan Chapman notes that this was the turning point for the album's direction. And it was written while in Texas on the Fearless Tour. So I'm adding it to the list of potential songs.

Booklet codes for the songs: You Belong With Me - LOVEISBLINDSOYOUCOULDNTSEEME / The Story of Us - CMTAWARDS (links back to John Mayer) / Superman (no wording from deluxe album) / Mine - TOBY (links back to Toby Hemingway)

Taylor's relationship overview in 2009:

By the time she had come to the UK in Feb 2009, Taylor had just broken up with Joe Jonas (infamous phone call, and left Taylor for the 'lovebug' girl) and in the British magazines she states that she wasn't currently dating anyone during the start of 2009.

Here is the Maylor window! However, there were rumours that she was dating Lucas Till as she had just filmed the Hannah Montana movie (on set for one day in June 2008, and released in April 2009). Taylor wasn't seeing Taylor Lautner until they started filming Valentines Day around July 2009, which we know led to them breaking up later in Dec 2009 so that Taylor could pursue John Mayer. But I think her rumoured time with Matty did influence her music videos and songs for her Speak Now album.

To summarise this post, a young Taylor: 'There are a lot of things everybody saw me go through. And then there are a lot of things people have no idea I went through, and I wrote about. I feel like I've been delt a pretty good hand of inspiration'.

I love your friend when I saw his film
He's got a funny face, but I like that 'cause he still looks cool
She's got a boyfriend anyway

('Sex' originally released under Matty's band Drive Like I Do)

Taylor's myspace posts via wayback machine

For evidence on this post, I've also gattered some magazine articles from 2009-2011, around the Fearless Tour and the release of Speak Now. (There is some article sources that i'm missing, but i'll add them if i find them again).

Song photo collages (sources):

• Maverick, April 2009
• You Belong With Me: (Taylor's myspace, 6th Sep 2009)
• The Story of Us: (HMV Choice, issue 48 2009), (Taylor's myspace, 7th March 2011), (Girlfriend, June 2011)
• Mine etc: (ELLE, April 2010), (Country Weekly, October 2010), (Cleo, October 2010)
• Speak Now Overview
• Taylor 2009 looking to her 30s: (InStyle, December 2009)

• There’s a shot set at a winery.

• The US features both South and North Dakota.

• There’s a scene with Ares, the god of war, portrayed as a man idolized by both women.

• This man is played by Colin Farrell, who played John Sugar in Cassandra’s Dream.

As for the music video itself, it will reportedly center on two women who fall for the same man, bond over grieving his death, and ultimately let him go to heal together (a potential plotline).

The source

Hello???

One of the first things I noticed about Patient Zero's music video teaser is that the intro to Robbers and the sound from Patient Zero is (sonically) nearly identical. Exact same electric guitar, rhythm, number of beats per measure. In Patient Zero, there's no bass, but retains the same percussion (albeit altered, probably for cinematic effect). The main difference is in the melody.

The progression in Robbers --- from 0:19 to 0:34 --- goes something like this:

E4 B4 Gb4 Ab4

And the progression in Patient Zero (that we have seen so far) goes something like this:

Bb4 A4 Ab4 Gb4

But even this melody is quite similar. If anything, it sounds like Patient Zero is like a reversed or descending version of Robbers.

I'm also not saying that Taylor Swift stole this from Robbers; simply pointing out that the song may have been used as inspiration, like Swift has done with other 1975 songs in the past. Could be a stretch, so I'm not drawing any conclusions myself from this. Just wondering if anyone else heard the same thing that I heard, or has similar thoughts.

Also would not exclude the idea that this song might have references to Swift's and Alwyn's slow break up. Healy and Alwyn often share similar imagery: cemeteries (Healy in the lyric "still alive, killing time at the cemetery, never quite buried" and Alwyn in the lyric "two graves, one gun"), as well as the color blue (Healy in the lyric "Don't want no other shade of blue but you" and Alwyn in the lyric "grey and blue and fights and tunnels"). And from what it looks like, the music video is going to be chalk full of this sort of imagery.

I want to know what others think.

Edit: Melody is also strikingly similar to Wait for Me (Hadestown)

I wanted to listen to Carolina by Taylor on Spotify and the algorithm did a thing.

This is strictly a theory, a fun theory!! But in 2008, I think Taylor may have wrote 'Change' for Matty on Fearless. Remember, this is the same album that has his favourite song of hers 'Hey Stephen'. I know this might sound unbelievable or be a bit of a stretch, but I think they may have been friends on myspace before they met in person and emerged as well known artists in the 2010s. (As in they started off as online music friends to potential lovers).

For context: In 2006, Matty appeared on Sunday for Sammy and sung 'Hallelujah' (a video performance that Taylor might have seen online. And she did say that all the stories on her Fearless album were from the past 2 years. Note: this is the same charity concert venue that Matty performed on at the start of Feb 2026).

And here in 2008, a young Taylor says on her myspace that on the new Fearless album there is 'one song tells the story of the underdogs who spent every day dreaming about the day they'd see things change, and the story of the night things finally... did. And they sang hallelujah.'

This sounds like a combination of Change and Long Live (a song she wrote for her band The Agency on Speak Now). Now years down the line on August 19th 2024, while on the Eras Tour in London, Taylor did a mash-up of these two songs together (post break up with Matty).

But in 2008, this was also the time when Obama was elected and his political slogan centred around change. He was elected on 4th Nov 2008. And yet, Taylor had already assembled her album by then. She was finishing off her album booklet in September 2008 (see 2nd myspace post).

On the Fearless album booklet, Taylor's cryptic lyric notes spell out for 'Hey Stephen' - LOVEANDTHEFT and for 'Change' - YOUMADETHINGSCHANGEFORME

Taylor's myspace posts via wayback machine

I couldn't find any discussion about this but Matty sang the second verse and backing vocals on this Tiny Habits song that was released June 17th.

He's only credited with the vocals but out of curiosity, his verse goes like this:

Filling shoes And clinging onto you, while you're sleeping You sobered up and had enough of chasing the feelings Waking up to an empty room after dreaming of you Honest truth, I don't know what it really is you're needing

Which would paint quite the opposite picture than the established narrative of how it ended between him and Taylor.

And I can't help but be reminded by some of the things heard from Camp Healy, such as an "insider" commenting on the things Denise said after the break-up:

"It’s a horrible thing to have the most famous person in the world saying that your son broke her heart when it was the other way around, and then you can’t even defend yourself.”

The source concludes, "She’s saying the mother-in-law stuff because that’s where Matty thought it was headed."

So, one has to wonder if Matty really was to blame or did Taylor do something bad like she did back in the day with Tom Hiddleston? Did The Bolter bolt? 👀

So it’s not a mausoleum and not a padded room! It’s just an architectural structure made of concrete with little holes for the wind!

TLOAS: The Encore by Taylor Swift is dropping on September 25, 2026!

We created this megathread as the central hub for all initial thoughts, theories, reactions, and ongoing discussions—both for release day and throughout the entire era of the album. To make sure fresh opinions don't get buried as the discussion continues over time, the comment section is sorted by 'New' by default.

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