Hi, just in case you were wondering, yes Taylor Swift sees your tweets. Despite maintaining a very low-key social media presence—other than when she’s inundating us with surprise album announcements and pure chaos—Taylor hopped online and liked a truly excellent meme dump from Betches:
And then she rapidly unliked it, but the internet—as ever—never forgets.
ANYWAY! In case Taylor liking this post wasn’t a dead giveaway / you haven’t listened to The Tortured Poets Department yet: surprise! Turns out it’s a Matty Healy album. I mean, yes there are some Joe Alwyn moments on there (“So Long, London” is about the devastating end of their relationship) and Travis Kelce has a couple cute songs (she casually says she wants to marry him in one of them!), but for the most part? This album is about Taylor’s whirlwind relationship with Matty Healy in Spring 2023, and what sounds like a pretty rough breakup.
Now seems like a good time to dust off the lyrics to “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” so here ya go!
[Verse 1]
Was any of it true?
Gazing at me starry-eyed
In your Jehovah’s Witness suit
Who the fuck was that guy?
You tried to buy some pills
From a friend of friends of mine
They just ghosted you
Now you know what it feels like
[Chorus]
And I don’t even want you back, I just want to know
If rusting my sparkling summer was the goal
And I don’t miss what we had, but could someone give
A message to the smallest man who ever lived?
[Verse 2]
You hung me on your wall
Stabbed me with your push pins
In public, showed me off
Then sank in stoned oblivion
‘Cause once your queen had come
You’d treat her likе an also-ran
You didn’t measure up
In any measurе of a man
[Chorus]
And I don’t even want you back, I just want to know
If rusting my sparkling summer was the goal
And I don’t miss what we had, but could someone give
A message to the smallest man who ever lived?
[Verse 3]
Were you sent by someone
Who wanted me dead?
Did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?
Were you writing a book?
Were you a sleeper cell spy?
In fifty years will all this be declassified?
And you’ll confess why you did it
And I’ll say, “Good riddance”
‘Cause it wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden
I would’ve died for your sins
Instead I just died inside
And you deserve prison, but you won’t get time
You’ll slide into inboxes and slip through the bars
You crashed my party and your rental car
You said normal girls were “boring”
But you were gone by the morning
You kicked out the stage lights, but you’re still performing
And in plain sight you hid
But you are what you did
And I’ll forget you, but I’ll never forgive
The smallest man who ever lived
Revisiting the Taylor and Joe Era…
Jack Antonoff Reveals Taylor Swift Wrote “You’re Losing Me” 1 Year Before Breaking Up With Joe Alwyn
Joe Alwyn Thinks It’s “Shady” That Taylor Swift Potentially Wrote a “Dis Album” About Him
