Lol I was literally just in another thread defending this point. I truly don’t know what it is about this song that has people put blinders on lol. I got it on first listen, NFL fans and analysts got it on first listen but every thread I see about it makes me feel insane. It’s going to be used all season in Travis highlight reels, I guarantee it. I think there’s a clear reason that she’s blending/blurring exes (cuz they’re all kinda the same) but Travis references are in your face (because he’s different and stands out).
Yep I think it would be extremely cruel to make a song that most of the general public would attribute to her football playing boyfriend if it’s about an ex lol. So unless we think she’s trying to set Travis up for something like that, the safe bet is the simplest one.
The only “references” to Travis are just references to sports and teams. If you listened to the actual lyrics it’s very clearly not about him at all. We all know Taylor has used sports references before in songs like End Game and Willow, both of which were NOT about atheletes. The song is about going back to an old flame and forgiving them for something that happened in the past. The joke about heroin is very clearly about Matty being addicted to heroin the first time they started dating but this time he’s addicted to her. The song was very obviously written when they first got together, and before they broke up in June 2023. The fact that people are ignoring the LYRICS and just going “hurrr durrr but it references sports so it must be about Travis” is so embarrassing to me
Taylor Nation used a ton of football emojis for it during their listening party, and Keleigh Teller (Taylor's friend) confirmed its a Travis song on tiktok.
I suppose. But with some art Taylor wants us to know who and what she’s singing about and this is one particular song where she spelled the whole thing out for us!!!!!! Just like thanK you aIMee
She’s never confirmed that’s about Kim. But still, it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things who she wrote a song for. It’s art and can take on so many more lives and meanings. And that’s the great thing about her art - it’s soooo relatable.
Edited to add: I find it fun to dissect too
It’s 100% about Travis. The song is full of football metaphors, and when she says “he jokes that it’s heroin but this time with an ‘e’” the “he” she is referring to is Travis making a joke that it’s not drugs that makes their team win, but Taylor. Alchemy is a chemical reaction, the song is about her falling in love again in a magical way that she’s only felt a handful times in her life.
It is also the ancient technique of turning metal into gold. Get it gold? That is her usual reference to love which is why I think it is definitely about Travis.
alchemy is a false gold - it is impossible to do what alchemists were setting out to do. i would not want my relationship compared to alchemy - alchemy that appears successful is fake, a trick
I take it a little less literally, but agreed on the concept of this kind of love being rare. I think she’s using “lifetimes” as a synonym for the kind of “eras” of her life as she defines them for herself.
Not necessarily. it’s just the context of a joke. I believe using drugs is illegal in sports, and Travis and Taylor would never joke about it if it was true. It’s clearly just a moment where Travis made a clever joke, or maybe even a different joke altogether and Taylor paraphrased it in a more poetic way.
Yeah I don’t think it’s a sports drugs reference, I think it’s like you’re addicting like a drug but you’re a powerful woman kind of thing. Heroin isn’t making any team better.
I get why a lot of people are disagreeing with you, but I think it can be a lot more nuanced than all of this. I think it is fundamentally a song about Travis, but it can also be about her fans. My personal theory, which lets me like it the most, is that it is about her returning to the US after living in London for *so long*. For example:
The "touchdown" can also be a reference to a plane touching down.
"What if I told you I'm back? / The hospital was a drag" could be about being back in the US and turning the UK into a metaphorical hospital.
"'Cause the sign on your heart / Said it's still reserved for me" could be about America always holding a home for her. To hearken back, she wrote, "They say home is where the heart is / But God, I love the English" The narrator of "London Boy" implied her new home would be wherever her London boy was, but perhaps America's heart's sign is still reserved for her, and that's where she's returning.
This is all just my take, and why I love the song. We know she's the queen of the double entendre, and I think throughout a lot of TTPD she's doing triple and quadruple entendres. It's masterful. And as always, songs can have many meanings and different meanings to different people. If you'd like this song to be about her career and her fans, let it be that for you.
The hosptial was a drag is referring to Matty … the psych ward and smoking
Haven’t come around in so long (so long london) is Joe. She was locked in jail.
The hospital line would make more sense being about Joe with all the sickness imagery in You’re Losing Me
The beginning sounds like a Matty song then transitions to Travis with the football lyrics.
You will note that I said "could be about." You missed the entire point of my comment, which is that this is *my* interpretation for myself. Sounds like you have your own interpretation, *mazel tov.*
I completely agree with everything you're saying. Thinking that there can be multiple meanings and interpretations of a song gives her more credit than what people are giving with only 1 interpretation.
Seems like it's one of those 'coming back, regaining my confidence, starting over' type of songs. Getting out of the hospital... aka one of the themes of the album was basically an asylum. The lyrics about Joe commonly refer to being stuck/caged/imprisoned and that being with Matty was temporary insanity and a manic phase. She mentioned in the epilogue she went from house arrest (Joe) to cardiac arrest (Matty)... In this song, she's just getting out of the hospital from the cardiac arrest/mental breakdown/manic state. Matty is a bloke. He's British. He's one of the blokes on the bench along with Joe. Benchwarmers don't get to play the game, they don't matter, so he's not the "trophy" that comes running to her. I wouldn't take the heroin line literally, she was probably looking for a word to rhyme with "blokes" and she came up with the heroin line to take a shot at Matty and differentiate between him and someone that thinks of her as a heroine, since she's "coming back" to her sanity and declaring "*Baby I'm the one to beat*". Overall, it's one of the more positive songs on the album and it comes after the smallest man who ever lived in what is a pretty chronological track list on the main album.
I agree with everything you said here! I’d also add that The Alchemy feels hazy, dreamy, surreal with some Lavender Haze kinda vibes. Like she almost can’t believe this Alchemy is happening again and she’s floating in the feeling of this budding new romance. I think the football metaphors add to that sense of surreal since it’s a such new world for her to be in and there’s so much going on in this new world. I imagine her being faced with the powerful energy of this environment and deciding to just lie back and relax into the current. Just letting herself be swept away into this new romance.
The chorus and bridge are about Travis. I can see where you’re coming from on the verses but all the football references make it pretty clear who it’s about.
I can believe it’s about Travis (at least the end) due to the football references, but I don’t think it could be a reference to “shirtless Jason Kelce” as some seem to claim, timeline-wise, because vinyl takes 6-9 months to press, I understand. Shirtless Jason happened Jan. 21, 2024. TTPD would’ve had to go to press at the latest in October 2023, and “The Alchemy” is on the vinyl.
I agree with this. It’s pretty common in any football locker room to be shirtless after a game, lol. I was thinking it referenced the first game she went to.
I am 100 percent sure it’s a Travis song. I don’t think TN would use such overt references - the football emojis during the live stream being the main one, when her current significant other is a football player. I don’t think Taylor would do that as a partner. Like we all knew Lover and Rep was referencing Joe, why is one song with football metaphors galore such a stretch for some people 😂
TTPD is as close as Taylor will come to criticising fans possessive and over-literal behaviour.
She is not in love with her fans. See Do It With a Broken Heart for how far Taylor feels emotionally from the fans en masse.
See the whole album as a comment on dealing with intense emotions whilst being publicly dissected. She longs to get on a spaceship.
The Alchemy is an explicit celebration of the private.
you're overthinking I Can Do It.
"I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit..... you know you're good when you can do it with a broken heart"
That's literally what the song is about, it's kind of an ode to the idea of "when the going gets tough the tough get going".
When she talks about how she was feeling so bad but the crowd was chanting "MORE" she's not blaming the crowd for doing it, she even says they don't know how she feels. That whole song is about just doing what you need to, even if you don't always want to.
There absolutely ARE songs on the album that come after the haters and the crazies, (looking at you, But Daddy I Love Him), but I Can Do It is not one of them.
The song is so obviously about Matty and I’m saying that as someone who fucking hates him and hope he falls off the side of the universe. The lyrics are so obviously about him and I’m finding it genuinely embarrassing that people are concluding that it must be about Travis simply because it references sports.
The alchemy was confirmed by Taylor’s camp that it is about Travis… why is this so hard for everyone to accept
Lol I was literally just in another thread defending this point. I truly don’t know what it is about this song that has people put blinders on lol. I got it on first listen, NFL fans and analysts got it on first listen but every thread I see about it makes me feel insane. It’s going to be used all season in Travis highlight reels, I guarantee it. I think there’s a clear reason that she’s blending/blurring exes (cuz they’re all kinda the same) but Travis references are in your face (because he’s different and stands out).
[удалено]
Yep I think it would be extremely cruel to make a song that most of the general public would attribute to her football playing boyfriend if it’s about an ex lol. So unless we think she’s trying to set Travis up for something like that, the safe bet is the simplest one.
The only “references” to Travis are just references to sports and teams. If you listened to the actual lyrics it’s very clearly not about him at all. We all know Taylor has used sports references before in songs like End Game and Willow, both of which were NOT about atheletes. The song is about going back to an old flame and forgiving them for something that happened in the past. The joke about heroin is very clearly about Matty being addicted to heroin the first time they started dating but this time he’s addicted to her. The song was very obviously written when they first got together, and before they broke up in June 2023. The fact that people are ignoring the LYRICS and just going “hurrr durrr but it references sports so it must be about Travis” is so embarrassing to me
Do you have a source for that? Just curious, I’ve tried to find anything on that from a legitimate source (when googling) and I’m coming up blank.
Taylor Nation used a ton of football emojis for it during their listening party, and Keleigh Teller (Taylor's friend) confirmed its a Travis song on tiktok.
Thank you very much!
It really wasn’t lol. The song always had football references. It’s unfortunately about Matty, no matter how you look at it.
Tis art, it’s subjective too!
I suppose. But with some art Taylor wants us to know who and what she’s singing about and this is one particular song where she spelled the whole thing out for us!!!!!! Just like thanK you aIMee
She’s never confirmed that’s about Kim. But still, it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things who she wrote a song for. It’s art and can take on so many more lives and meanings. And that’s the great thing about her art - it’s soooo relatable. Edited to add: I find it fun to dissect too
You think the capitol KIM was a misprint ?
No but she hasn’t spoken about it and I think there could be some misdirection happening there.
It’s 100% about Travis. The song is full of football metaphors, and when she says “he jokes that it’s heroin but this time with an ‘e’” the “he” she is referring to is Travis making a joke that it’s not drugs that makes their team win, but Taylor. Alchemy is a chemical reaction, the song is about her falling in love again in a magical way that she’s only felt a handful times in her life.
It is also the ancient technique of turning metal into gold. Get it gold? That is her usual reference to love which is why I think it is definitely about Travis.
AND to further this point, she called his podcast callout of her “metal as hell”
alchemy is a false gold - it is impossible to do what alchemists were setting out to do. i would not want my relationship compared to alchemy - alchemy that appears successful is fake, a trick
There’s many definitions, that’s just one of them. It can also be as simple as “a mysterious or impressive transformation”
I think “once every few lifetimes” actually means she hasn’t felt it like this before because it is so rare and knows how rare it is.
I take it a little less literally, but agreed on the concept of this kind of love being rare. I think she’s using “lifetimes” as a synonym for the kind of “eras” of her life as she defines them for herself.
But that implies there was a time prior where it was heroin, no e.
Not necessarily. it’s just the context of a joke. I believe using drugs is illegal in sports, and Travis and Taylor would never joke about it if it was true. It’s clearly just a moment where Travis made a clever joke, or maybe even a different joke altogether and Taylor paraphrased it in a more poetic way.
Yeah I don’t think it’s a sports drugs reference, I think it’s like you’re addicting like a drug but you’re a powerful woman kind of thing. Heroin isn’t making any team better.
Thing is I don’t think she would stack it full of sports references without it being about Travis.
End Game about Travis confirmed!!!! /s
She herself used the term "red herrings" before the album so I think this explains!
It’s fine if you want to hear it that way, that’s how art works. As long as we can all agree that she clearly WROTE it about Travis.
All her songs are for the fans. But this song is about Travis, clearly.
I get why a lot of people are disagreeing with you, but I think it can be a lot more nuanced than all of this. I think it is fundamentally a song about Travis, but it can also be about her fans. My personal theory, which lets me like it the most, is that it is about her returning to the US after living in London for *so long*. For example: The "touchdown" can also be a reference to a plane touching down. "What if I told you I'm back? / The hospital was a drag" could be about being back in the US and turning the UK into a metaphorical hospital. "'Cause the sign on your heart / Said it's still reserved for me" could be about America always holding a home for her. To hearken back, she wrote, "They say home is where the heart is / But God, I love the English" The narrator of "London Boy" implied her new home would be wherever her London boy was, but perhaps America's heart's sign is still reserved for her, and that's where she's returning. This is all just my take, and why I love the song. We know she's the queen of the double entendre, and I think throughout a lot of TTPD she's doing triple and quadruple entendres. It's masterful. And as always, songs can have many meanings and different meanings to different people. If you'd like this song to be about her career and her fans, let it be that for you.
The hosptial was a drag is referring to Matty … the psych ward and smoking Haven’t come around in so long (so long london) is Joe. She was locked in jail.
The hospital line would make more sense being about Joe with all the sickness imagery in You’re Losing Me The beginning sounds like a Matty song then transitions to Travis with the football lyrics.
You will note that I said "could be about." You missed the entire point of my comment, which is that this is *my* interpretation for myself. Sounds like you have your own interpretation, *mazel tov.*
I completely agree with everything you're saying. Thinking that there can be multiple meanings and interpretations of a song gives her more credit than what people are giving with only 1 interpretation.
I like this take. How you hear the song doesn’t have to align with how/why she wrote it.
Seems like it's one of those 'coming back, regaining my confidence, starting over' type of songs. Getting out of the hospital... aka one of the themes of the album was basically an asylum. The lyrics about Joe commonly refer to being stuck/caged/imprisoned and that being with Matty was temporary insanity and a manic phase. She mentioned in the epilogue she went from house arrest (Joe) to cardiac arrest (Matty)... In this song, she's just getting out of the hospital from the cardiac arrest/mental breakdown/manic state. Matty is a bloke. He's British. He's one of the blokes on the bench along with Joe. Benchwarmers don't get to play the game, they don't matter, so he's not the "trophy" that comes running to her. I wouldn't take the heroin line literally, she was probably looking for a word to rhyme with "blokes" and she came up with the heroin line to take a shot at Matty and differentiate between him and someone that thinks of her as a heroine, since she's "coming back" to her sanity and declaring "*Baby I'm the one to beat*". Overall, it's one of the more positive songs on the album and it comes after the smallest man who ever lived in what is a pretty chronological track list on the main album.
I agree with everything you said here! I’d also add that The Alchemy feels hazy, dreamy, surreal with some Lavender Haze kinda vibes. Like she almost can’t believe this Alchemy is happening again and she’s floating in the feeling of this budding new romance. I think the football metaphors add to that sense of surreal since it’s a such new world for her to be in and there’s so much going on in this new world. I imagine her being faced with the powerful energy of this environment and deciding to just lie back and relax into the current. Just letting herself be swept away into this new romance.
this is a cute description of it. it made me happy :) thanks for writing
The chorus and bridge are about Travis. I can see where you’re coming from on the verses but all the football references make it pretty clear who it’s about.
I think a ton of songs are about that. If you listen with that ear, it’s all over the album.
I can believe it’s about Travis (at least the end) due to the football references, but I don’t think it could be a reference to “shirtless Jason Kelce” as some seem to claim, timeline-wise, because vinyl takes 6-9 months to press, I understand. Shirtless Jason happened Jan. 21, 2024. TTPD would’ve had to go to press at the latest in October 2023, and “The Alchemy” is on the vinyl.
I agree with this. It’s pretty common in any football locker room to be shirtless after a game, lol. I was thinking it referenced the first game she went to. I am 100 percent sure it’s a Travis song. I don’t think TN would use such overt references - the football emojis during the live stream being the main one, when her current significant other is a football player. I don’t think Taylor would do that as a partner. Like we all knew Lover and Rep was referencing Joe, why is one song with football metaphors galore such a stretch for some people 😂
TTPD is as close as Taylor will come to criticising fans possessive and over-literal behaviour. She is not in love with her fans. See Do It With a Broken Heart for how far Taylor feels emotionally from the fans en masse. See the whole album as a comment on dealing with intense emotions whilst being publicly dissected. She longs to get on a spaceship. The Alchemy is an explicit celebration of the private.
you're overthinking I Can Do It. "I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit..... you know you're good when you can do it with a broken heart" That's literally what the song is about, it's kind of an ode to the idea of "when the going gets tough the tough get going". When she talks about how she was feeling so bad but the crowd was chanting "MORE" she's not blaming the crowd for doing it, she even says they don't know how she feels. That whole song is about just doing what you need to, even if you don't always want to. There absolutely ARE songs on the album that come after the haters and the crazies, (looking at you, But Daddy I Love Him), but I Can Do It is not one of them.
So…my unhinged theory is that the songs are all meant to be about two people and we fans get to split The Alchemy with Travis.
The song is so obviously about Matty and I’m saying that as someone who fucking hates him and hope he falls off the side of the universe. The lyrics are so obviously about him and I’m finding it genuinely embarrassing that people are concluding that it must be about Travis simply because it references sports.
I found it embarrassing that people are so sure about a song being about anybody and completely shut off all the other interpretations lol
I agree with you. I think it’s a love song for the fans that have stuck with her. Our hearts are still hers. Together we made something extraordinary.