Taylor Swift’s relationship with Joe Alwyn feels older than Travis Kelce’s recently resurfaced (and surprisingly wholesome) tweets from 2010 and 2011. But it was only this April when news broke of their then-shocking split. Alwyn, also known as William Bowery (if you know you know), was merely a remnant of past as soon as Swift attended the Kansas City Chiefs’ 41-10 win over the Chicago Bears in support of Kelce on September 24. Swift firmly supplanted Alwyn when swapping out a presumed lyrical reference to the UK actor for a blatant shout-out to Kelce while performing “Karma” during her The Eras Tour in Buenos Aires, Argentina on November 11.
So, with “Tayvis“/”Traylor” sweeping the globe, why are we talking about Joe Alwyn again? A simple misunderstanding.
Jack Antonoff, Bleachers leader and Swift confidante, harmlessly revealed the tracklist for Bleachers’ self-titled album due out on March 8, 2024, and people zoned in on “Hey Joe.” Because Antonoff is Swift’s closest collaborator, people quickly questioned whether the song is about Alwyn.
“There’s a community of people that will be preeetty disappointed when they find out it’s a meditation on my father and his friends walking the Ho Chi Minh trail in their 60s,” Antonoff said of “Hey Joe” in an interview with The Guardian published this morning, November 24.
Antonoff was Swift’s primary producer and co-songwriter on Midnights, her October 2022 album that earned her six nominations at the 2024 Grammys, including Album Of The Year. Antonoff is nominated for Producer Of The Year — Non Classical.
Bleachers is out 3/8/2024 via Dirty Hit. Find more information here.