'Lover' Album Is Taylor Swift's Long-Awaited Ode to the 'Golden' Love She's Been Seeking Since 'Red'

As expected, the release of Taylor Swift's seventh studio album, "Lover," immediately blew up across social media, dominating the trending topics on Twitter with the album's name as well as most of its 18 tracks.

One fan was quick to note that some of the lyrics on the album's final song "Daylight" appear to be the culmination of a wish and a promise seven years in the making. In speaking about about her then-new album "Red" in 2012, Swift referenced different types of love, saying that she was looking forward to the "real love" that "shines golden like starlight and doesn't fade or combust."

"Maybe I'll write a whole album about that kind of love if I ever find it," Swift said at the time. But for the time being, she said she was writing about love that was "Red."

Well, on the album's final track "Daylight" Swift sings, "I once believed love would be (burning Red) / But it's golden / Like daylight." For many fans this was proof that she's finally achieved the "golden" love she's been seeking for, and as promised she wrote a whole album about it. Certainly there are seeming reference to her boyfriend of three years, Joe Alwyn, throughout the album.

The track listings even tell a story, with the album opening on "I Forgot That You Existed," a clear statement about moving on from whatever relationship(s) preceded this one. Specifically, it appears to be a goodbye to Calvin Harris, with whom she split in 2016.

"Sent me a clear message / Taught me some hard lessons," she sings in seeming reference to the ugly public fallout of their relationship over his track "This Is What You Came For." Swift's team revealed that she co-wrote it, but went with a pseudonym. Let's just say it got a little petty and a lot ugly, but it looks like Swift is firmly putting it and all of that "reputation" type of anger behind her.

Next, on "Cruel Summer," Swift teases the secretive relationship she and Alwyn enjoyed in the early days; a challenge due to her incredibly high public profile. "I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you," she sings. "And I snuck in through the garden gate / Every night that summer just to seal my fate."

She clearly references Alwyn throughout "Lover," including noting, "I've loved you three summers now, honey, but I want 'em all." Later, on "The Archer," She explores her own inadequacies in earlier relationships: "Easy they come, easy they go / I jump from the train, I ride off alone / I never grew up, it's getting so old / Help me hold on to you."

Swift is trying to say that she finally is able to see her own role in the demise of many of her earlier relationships, and while some of those self-sabotaging tendencies may still lurk within her, she is hopeful that Alwyn can help stop her from being her own worst enemy and destroying something she knows is good.

It would appear that marriage is on Swift's mind as well, indicating how serious she is about Alwyn. On "Paper Rings," Swift sings, "I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings / Uh huh, that's right / Darling, you're the one I want, and / I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this."

She recalls their courtship on "Cornelia Street" when she sings, "We were in the backseat / Drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar / 'I rent a place on Cornelia Street' / I say casually in the car."

But perhaps the most specific is "London Boy," which seems to be an ode to Alwyn and the English heritage he's brought into her life and she's fully embraced, though it apparently caught her by surprise: "But something happened, I heard him laughing / I saw the dimples first and then I heard the accent /They say home is where the heart is / But that's not where mine lives."

Alwyn is from North London. "And now I love high tea, stories from Uni, and the West End," she sings. "You can find me in the pub, we are watching rugby with his school friends."

So much of the album is a statement about euphoria mixed with the anxiety that even this could all come crumbling around her. Swift's insecurities still eat at her, but she is hopeful that this will be the love that lasts.

As she sings on that final track:

I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you

(I can never look away)

I don't wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you

(Things will never be the same)

I've been sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night

(Now I'm wide awake)

And now I see daylight (Daylight), I only see daylight (Daylight)

Track by track and line by line, Swifties continue dissecting each lyric and sharing their love for "Lover." Check out some of the most enthusiastic responses below:

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