Taylor Swift's 'betty' is Queer Canon. I Don't Brand the Rules.

Hither again, Swift does what she did on "Wearing apparel," where she perfectly encapsulated an incredibly gay feel. Photo: John Salangsang/Shutterstock

I thought the starting time time I heard "Dress" off Reputation was the loudest Taylor Swift could make me gasp in lesbian. I was wrong. Swift's latest album, folklore, has a song so palpably queer I believe it could singlehandedly resurrect Lilith Fair. It could open for an Indigo Girls testify and then just never sacrifice the stage. Information technology could dethrone Male monarch Princess.

"Betty," rail 14, tells a story from the perspective of James, a teenager in honey with a classmate named Betty. Ok, and so?, you might be thinking. Swift writes fictional songs all the time or songs that aren't totally based on her ain life. I'm pretty sure she borrowed that Romeo and Juliet idea from somebody else. Hither's another one about a boy and a girl. Wrong. The commencement thing you lot demand to know is that Taylor Alison Swift is named after one James Taylor. So when she's singing every bit James, telling a story about James, she'due south telling a story about herself. (This would non be the starting time time she's used a male pseudonym in her music. Ahem, Nils.) And then this is a story about James (Taylor) and Betty. Which is, not for nothing, just a very queer name. This is simply a fact. Toward the finish of the song, James, heartbroken, gets picked upwardly past another woman who drives past. "Slept next to her, but I dreamt of you all summertime long," Swift sings. The "you" is Betty. James is still a woman, lest the expletive of compulsory heteronormativity try to convince you otherwise.

In the offset verse, Betty switches homeroom classes. James assumes this is because of her. The song itself has a piffling "Kiss Me" Sixpence None the Richer free energy, consummate with a harmonica. (Neither here nor there, but Swift has said this was the first song she learned to play on the guitar.) "Betty, in one case I was riding on my skateboard. When I passed your house, it's like I couldn't breathe," she sings. Okay, so what we're getting here is Betty dipped from their homeroom form because she didn't want to be associated with James. James who skateboards. Interesting. Allow united states go on.

We run into Inez, the class gossip. (Inez and James are too the names of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds's daughters. As though we could always forget those infamous fourth of July photos during the "I Heart TS" Tom Hiddleston era. Mostly though, this is some other compelling reason James is, in fact, a woman.) "Y'all heard the rumors from Inez. Y'all can't believe a word she says, most times, simply this time information technology was true." The rumors. This feels familiar. Of a sudden it'due south 2022 and Taylor Swift has but pivoted to popular and released 1989. "The rumors are terrible and savage, but, honey, most of them are true." The rumors about Swift's sexuality, and her purported not-just-a-friendship with Karlie Kloss, have run rampant for years. And maybe, just maybe, she'southward been trying to tell the states we should believe them. Here once again, Swift does what she did on "Wearing apparel," where she perfectly encapsulated an incredibly gay feel. On "Dress," it'south what it is like to exist falling in love with another woman. On "betty," it'southward the less pleasant feeling of being queer and closeted and denying rumors of your gayness even though yous know y'all're lying.

James somehow wrongs Betty, seemingly by not dancing with her at a school dance. James sees Betty dancing with another guy and leaves her at that place. That's the end for them. Delight shut your eyes. Picture a sweaty loftier-school gym and underneath the basketball hoop on the other stop of the court you see your crush dancing with someone who is non y'all. Someone who is not yous and who is also a human being. Of course you exit. Of course you're injure. Of class your feelings don't just vanish the minute yous walk past the instructor whose job it was to spot drunk kids at the front door.

Which brings us to a chorus full of longing. That achey, anxious feeling when you however love someone and you're not certain information technology'll exist reciprocated but you feel compelled to requite it a chance because if y'all don't y'all might explode … and too you lot played your t.A.T.u CD then many times it broke then what else do you take to do, really. "But if I only showed up at your party. Would you have me? Would yous want me? Would yous tell me to go fuck myself?," Swift sings, playing out i scenario in her mind. But in the other, Betty leads James to a secret garden. "In the garden would you trust me if I told you it was simply a summer thing?" The narrator hither is a teenager; she doesn't know annihilation. The world is confusing and their emotions are terrifying. "Simply I know I miss you," Swift sings.

In the end, James heads for Betty'southward door. We don't discover out how it goes. The song fades out on James reminiscing nigh kissing each other in a motorcar stopped at a streetlight. A streetlight! A streetlight! In that location's a line in "Cornelia Street" about streetlights. "Every bit if the streetlights pointed in an arrowhead leading us home," Swift sings in a heartbreaker of a number most a very particular New York Urban center Street. One where Swift herself used to live and was frequently spotted with Kloss. Or should I say Karlie ELIZABETH Kloss. Betty! Please picture that Pepe Silvia chart from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as yous connect all these LGBT-clues.

Longing. Unrequited love. Skateboards. Gender bending. Rumors. A harmonica! Everything about this vocal screams queer. (If yous don't believe me please go directly to Twitter or Tumblr and search "betty gay." Bring a snack and some water, y'all're going to be reading a while.) Just is this a coded message from Taylor Swift about Taylor Swift's sexuality? Honestly, that's for you to decide. In that location'southward likewise an entirely different estimation to exist had if y'all listen to "betty" as function of a trio with "illicit affairs" and "cardigan," where each song is from the perspective of a different person in a love triangle. Maybe she's gay. Peradventure she'due south a capitalist who writes unimpeachably skillful music who has caught on to the whims of her fandom and is playing right into our easily. Maybe she wrote this one for the gays. We'll take it.

Update, July 24, 3:31 p.m.: This story has been edited to indicate that Swift, not Kloss, once lived on Cornelia Street. We regret the error, just would as well like to note it is difficult to type while listening to "betty" on a loop until the early on hours of the morn and repeatedly screaming "this is so queer!"

Pitiful Only Taylor Swift's 'betty' Is Now Queer Canon