Among Taylor Swift’s closest friends are the superstar actors Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Married since 2012, they first connected to the singer through comments that Blake, who is a longtime fan, made online around the time the “Bad Blood” music video came out. And the rest is history.
Not only does she like to cheer for her friends and interesting new artists, Taylor also likes to collaborate with the people she loves and admires when the right opportunity comes, especially when those people are musicians. She invites them to the stage on her shows, gives them cameos in her videos, and works with them to come up with concepts.
With Blake and her husband, who are among the very first people to hear any new song Taylor writes, it is a little different: her famous Easter eggs go a step further. So far, there have been two occasions in which the couple’s three daughters popped up in her songs, and with a new baby and a new album on the way, fans are already speculating if new Easter eggs are also on the way.
In the meantime, let’s recall some of the times when Taylor’s friendship with Blake popped up in her music.
“Gorgeous” intro (reputation, 2017)
The cute baby voice saying “gorgeous” at the beginning of this track belongs to none other than James Reynolds. Blake and Ryan’s first daughter, born December 2014, was two years old at the time the reputation album came out and her participation in the song was originally part of a voice memo. The couple even recorded the moment when they went to a concert in the stadium tour for reputation.
The Teenage Love Triangle (folklore, 2020)
The nickname “Teenage Love Triangle” refers to a trio of songs from folklore, the first album Taylor made and released in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, the three songs (“cardigan,” “august,” and “betty”) tell the story of a girl called Betty and a boy called James, who date in high school and face a brief summer crisis due to James’ infidelity — though the rumors of it had been all over school, thanks to a gossip-loving friend called Inez.
Each of the songs is told from a different point of view: “cardigan” is written from Betty’s perspective, reminiscing about this love many years in the future; “august” is written from the perspective of the girl James spent the summer with, realizing she fell too hard for someone who was never hers; and “betty” is written from James’ perspective, as an apology and confession.
The catch? James, Inez, and Betty are the names of Blake and Ryan’s daughters. Betty, the youngest, was born October 2019, and her name had not been revealed to the public before folklore, which means Taylor essentially got to reveal the name of her friends’ daughter.
She even thanked the three girls (and their parents, of course!) when accepting the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, a record-breaking third in that category.
Bonus: “I Bet You Think About Me” (Red (Taylor’s Version)), 2021
Okay, this song technically has nothing to do with their friendship. It is, in fact, another brilliant sarcastic dig at indie music-loving actor Jake Gyllenhaal, who Taylor dated when she was only 20 years old, inspiring a lot of the material on Red and the recent re-recording Red (Taylor’s Version). “I Bet You Think About Me” is one of the new-old tracks, which had been written at the time but left out of the original release of the album.
For this re-release, Taylor decided to give the song not only a place on the album, but a proper music video as well. And the director she chose for the job was none other than Blake herself, a directorial debut for the well-known actress — who is now to direct a movie adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel Seconds.
Published: Sep 16, 2022 11:31 am