By now we are all pretty familiar with how Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s relationship came to be, with Travis telling his podcast listeners back in July that he was disappointed he wasn’t able to meet Taylor when he attended her Eras Tour at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.
Travis explained at the time that he’d planned to give Taylor a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it as he made his romantic intentions clear.
Fast-forward to September, and Taylor sent the world into a meltdown when she was spotted in Travis’s VIP friends and family suite at Arrowhead Stadium to cheer on his football team, the Kansas City Chiefs, in a match.
Since then, Travis and Taylor have been incredibly public with their new romance. Over the weekend, they both made surprise appearances on Saturday Night Live and were photographed looking cozy as they walked through New York City together, and multiple insiders have shared intimate details from their date nights.
And, as seen whenever Taylor’s personal life gets attention, many people have taken to social media to share their excitement for the songs that she will inevitably write about this relationship. After all, the pop icon is renowned for memorializing every aspect of her life through music — most notably, her love life.
The love songs taylor is gonna write abour travis are gonna go so hard
But one attentive Swiftie called Marg took to her X (formerly known as Twitter) account @BetttysCardigan on Thursday to share her theory that Taylor has seemingly been subconsciously writing about Travis for literally years.
The fan went so far as to say that Taylor’s discography effectively “manifested” her latest relationship — and having looked at the evidence, I think it’s fair to say that Marg might actually be onto something.
While Travis certainly is “tall and handsome as hell” and definitely has “greeneyes,” here is a full breakdown of all of Taylor’s more nuanced lyrics that eerily predicted her and Travis’s romance.
The viral thread begins with Marg referencing Taylor’s song “Mary's Song (Oh My My My),” which was released on her debut self-titled album all the way back in 2006, when Taylor was just 17 years old.
The track was inspired by a couple who had been married “forever” and lived next door to Taylor’s family. It concludes with the lyrics, “I'll be 87 you'll be 89 / I’ll still look at you like the stars that shine.”
Of course, in the context of the song, the numbers mentioned are a reference to age, but Taylor’s decision to pair 87 with 89 was an interesting choice 17 years ago, given their current relevance.
It’s fair to say that the number 89 has been associated with Taylor since the release of her fifth album, 1989, in 2014, which is named after her birth year. Meanwhile, Travis’s Kansas City Chiefs jersey number is 87.
While we are at the basics of numbers, days of the week also have some relevance in this theory, with Taylor’s 2012 song “Begin Again” mentioning how, after suffering heartbreak from a failed relationship, she rediscovered love on a Wednesday.
Taylor’s six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn ended earlier this year and was followed by a short-lived and highly controversial romance with Matty Healy that ended in May, leaving it fair to assume that Taylor had become a little disillusioned with love before Travis came around.
And if you couldn’t guess, the podcast episode where Travis talked about Taylor and apparently kick-started their whole relationship was released on a Wednesday. Wednesday, July 26, to be exact.
Then there’s Taylor’s 2019 song “Cornelia Street,” which is believed to have been written about Joe but actually foreshadows a key part of her and Travis’s relationship with these lyrics: “The streetlights pointed in an arrowhead / Leading us home.”
Arrowhead Stadium is undeniably this relationship’s catalyst, as the home of Travis’s football team and where he went to watch Taylor in concert.
Suffice to say, if Travis hadn’t gone to Arrowhead to watch the Eras Tour, he wouldn’t have discussed his disappointment at not meeting Taylor on his podcast afterward, and they may never have ended up crossing paths.
Not to mention, Arrowhead is also where Travis and Taylor went public with their relationship for the first time when she showed up to support him at the game.
Speaking of, Taylor goes on to sing in “Cornelia Street": “Baby, I get mystified by how this city screams your name.” While this line is considered to be a metaphor in the context of her relationship with Joe, Taylor would literally have heard Kansas City Chiefs fans screaming Travis’s name during the match.
When it comes to names, there is another preemptive Easter egg in Taylor’s 2017 song “…Ready for It?,” from Reputation, which opens with the lyrics, “Knew he was killer first time that I saw him.” If you didn’t know, Travis’s Instagram name is @KillaTrav.”
And pretty much the entirety of Taylor’s song “End Game,” which was released on the same album, could have been written about her current relationship thanks to its several clever references to football, including, “I wanna be your first string / I wanna be your A-team.”
Taylor also sings, “Oh, you and me, we got big reputations,” which is a pretty fair description of a 12-time Grammy Award winner and a two-time Super Bowl champion.
She goes on to describe how the pairing would be a "big conversation," which is definitely the case here, with Taylor and Travis's relationship absolutely dominatingpop culture and sports discourse for the last month.
Interestingly, football is a common theme in many of Taylor’s songs. In "Gold Rush," she sings about an "Eagles T-shirt hanging from the door,” which she confirmed earlier this year was a reference to the Philadelphia Eagles. This just so happens to be the same team that Travis's brother, Jason Kelce, plays for.
In Taylor's teen hit “Fifteen," she sings, “In your life you’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team,” with it not lost on fans that she has managed to do many greater things with her life since that song’s release — and is now also dating the boy on the football team.
Then “Stay, Stay, Stay,” which was released in 2012, includes a lyric that many think could have literally been written about Travis, considering both his profession and his brilliant sense of humor.
If Taylor and Travis ever almost break up, he has the opportunity to do the funniest thing…Like if Taylor tells Travis they should talk about it (‘cause she read you should never leave a fight unresolved) he could come in wearing a football helmet and say “Ok, let’s talk”???
In the song, Taylor recounts almost breaking up with a boyfriend following a huge argument that saw her throw her cellphone at him. She then sings, “This morning I said we should talk about it / ’Cause I read you should never leave a fight unresolved / That's when you came in wearing a football helmet and said, ‘OK, let's talk.’”
And on an incredibly satisfying note, Taylor’s 2010 song “Mean” is a response to her critics where she sings, “I can see you years from now in a bar / Talking over a football game / With that same big, loud opinion / But nobody’s listening.”
“All of the people hating on Taylor can’t even avoid her anymore because she’s shown all over the NFL now,” Marg pointed out on the X thread. And NFL fans are already no strangers to sharing their “big, loud” opinions about the coverage that Taylor gets during football games.
Then we have Taylor’s 2022 song “Karma,” which lists all of the signs of the star’s good karma. The list includes “the guy on the screen coming straight home” to her — and with Travis being caught on everything from ESPN to NBC to CBS, you probably couldn’t get a stronger real-life personification of a “guy on the screen.”
Another song from Taylor’s recent Midnights album, “Mastermind,” has also faced renewed interest off the back of her relationship with Travis. The track is thought to have been inspired by the way that Taylor pursued, and “masterminded,” her relationship with Joe as soon as she met him.
Fans have now argued that Travis flipped the switch on this and managed to “mastermind” Taylor in his active pursuit of a date with her. After all, there’s no denying that Travis’s efforts to attend Taylor’s tour, make the friendship bracelet, put his feelings out there on his podcast, and mention her during press interviews ended up paying off big time.
“The mastermind got masterminded,” Marg said in the X thread. “That’s it.”
And the now-infamous friendship bracelet itself arguably only came into existence thanks to a lyric from "You're on Your Own Kid," also from Midnights.
In this song, Taylor sings, "Everything you lose is a step you take / So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it."
The lyric inspired fans to craft their own friendship bracelets and bring them to exchange with other fans at the Eras Tour. It's thanks to this lyric — and this trend — that Travis thought of his ingenious idea to get Taylor's attention.
Needless to say, the theory that Taylor “manifested” Travis has caused a huge stir, with one person replying to the thread to point out that it is almost as though Taylor has actually been soft-launching Travis for years.
“no one can convince me that they're not soulmates i stg,” someone else replied. Another echoed, “ok i might be buying that taylor has been manifesting this relationship.”
“They are SOULMATES!!” one more tweeted. “Who knew Taylor described him through all these years.”
And it is difficult to look at all of this and not think of Taylor’s 2020 song "Invisible String."
“Isn't it just so pretty to think,” Taylor sings, “all along, there was some invisible string tying you to me?”