Dear John, Taylor continues to be dragging you.
Twelve years after Taylor Swift’s “Dear John” famously bashed John Mayer after their breakup, the pop superstar appears to be at it again on “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” — considered one of seven more tunes on a surprise “3 a.m. Edition” of her recent “Midnights” album that dropped at 3 a.m., after all, Friday morning.
“Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first/And I rattling sure never would’ve never danced with the devil,” sings Swift, who was just 19 when she was dating Mayer, who’s 13 years her senior.
And she or he makes it pretty obvious that the marginally spooky song is about Mayer when she drops an enormous clue about her age: “At 19, and the God’s honest truth is that the pain was heaven/And now that I’m grown, I’m petrified of ghosts.”
Swift is clearly not in a forgiving mood about how Mayer “tried to erase” their romance.
“I regret you on a regular basis/I can’t let this go/I fight with you in my sleep/The wound won’t close,” she sings.
The military of Swifties — because the singer’s legions of fans are known — were all for this latest round of Mayer bashing on Twitter.
“john mayer was sleeping peacefully but was awoken at 3am with a chill down his spine,” tweeted one Swiftie.
One other fan posted a pic of a person sleeping peacefully on clouds accompanied by the tweet: “how I sleep knowing John Mayer is about to pay for his crimes yet again.”
Yet one other tweet put it bluntly: “She ended John Mayer.”
But “Midnights” also finds Swift reflecting on her current romance with actor Joe Alwyn, her beau of six years.
On the electro-infused opener “Lavender Haze,” she addresses rumors of their engagement: “All they keep asking me/Is that if I’m gonna be your bride/The one kinda girl they see/Is a one night or a wife.”
Elsewhere, the gentle, graceful “Sweet Nothing” — which was co-written by Alwyn under his pseudonym William Bowery — appears to present an intimate peek right into a relationship that gives sweet solace from the celebrity grind for Swift: “I find myself running home to your sweet nothings/Outside, they’re push and shoving/You’re within the kitchen humming/All that you simply ever wanted from me was sweet nothing.”
But Swift has revenge on her mind on “Karma,” which appears to be a dig at Scooter Braun, with whom the singer battled over her master recordings before she begun to re-record her albums: “My pennies made your crown/Trick me once/Trick me twice/Don’t you understand that money ain’t the one price?/It’s coming back around.”
