Here’s Why Taylor Swift Fans Are Certain New Music Is Coming Very, Very Soon
It's all to do with something suspicious happening over on Swift's Spotify profile.
In case you hadn’t heard, Taylor Swift is up to something. Again.
With the Reputation era behind her, the pop megastar is now turning her focus to the next chapter, by teasing something across her social media. It started with a countdown clock on her Instagram page that finished on April 26 — ie. next Friday — which was then followed by a string of ambiguous posts all captioned simply “4.26.”
It’s spread to her Spotify, too. A visual background has been added to every track in Swift’s discography, which proclaims “4.26 MIDNIGHT EASTERN” in bold white text as glittery gold hearts shimmer in the background.
Well… every track except one.
all of @taylorswift13’s songs on spotify have this new background… except the story of us
i’ve had enough y’all pic.twitter.com/zKGlyZFMfo
— ellie (@eleanorbate) April 17, 2019
The exception is ‘The Story of Us,’ which was the fourth single released from her 2010 album Speak Now. While the song did just fine for itself, it’s not initially clear as to why this was selected as the one song to not feature the new background out of all of her discography… that is, of course, until you look at how long the song goes for.
it goes for 4 minutes and 26 seconds pic.twitter.com/mf1MuZ40r3
— eloisegoodwin (@eloisegoodwin18) April 17, 2019
Yep, four minutes and 26 seconds. 4:26. 4/26.
In the song’s lyrics, Swift makes a reference to the “next chapter” in the proverbial ‘Story.’ Fans have also started to link this to a speech that Swift gave while accepting an award at the American Music Awards in October of last year.
“I always look at albums as chapters in my life,” she said at the time. “To the fans, I’m so happy that you like this one. I’m so happy that this means that you like this one. But I have to be really honest with you about something: I’m even more excited about the next chapter.”
Oh, and ‘The Story of Us’ also happens to be the seventh track on the album. Swift has released six studio albums.
Fans began piecing the puzzle together, and a cheeky like from the official Taylor Instagram account all but confirms these suspicions.
📲 IG | Taylor liked this post on Instagram of a screenshot of her song ‘The Story Of Us’ which is 4:26 minutes long, has the lyrics “next chapter” (which she said in her awards speech) and is also track 7 pic.twitter.com/W5DQLegDYZ
— Taylor Swift News / 4.26 (@TSwiftNZ) April 14, 2019
We’re through the looking glass here, people.
In the meantime, you can watch the video for ‘The Story of Us’ below.