Taylor appears to make direct references to the end of her relationship with Harry in “Is It Over Now?”
In fact, in the song’s second verse, she sings, “Whеn you lost control / Red blood, white snow.” The lyrics connect with an accident Taylor first mentioned in “Out of the Woods.” (Remember when you hit the breaks too soon? 20 stitches in the hospital room.)
“Blue dress on a boat,” Taylor continues, a nod to a Jan. 2013 photo of her leaving a vacation with Harry after their rumored breakup. “Your new girl is my clone.”
Taylor also includes the cheeky lyric, “You search in every model’s bed for somethin’ greater, baby,” in “Is It Over Now?” An apparent reference to Harry’s relationships that followed after their breakup. (He’s been linked to models Kendall Jenner, Nadine Leopold and Camille Rowe over the years.)
The lyrics to this song also offer a connection to another beloved 1989 song, “Clean.” In “Clean,” Taylor details the aftermath of heartbreak and how she won’t risk going back to a relationship after calling it quits with that person. “10 months sober, I must admit,” she sings on that track. “Just because you’re clean, don’t mean you don’t miss it.”
In “Is It Over Now?,” Taylor mentions a similar time period. “Let’s fast forward to three hundred takeout coffees later,” which, if you had one coffee a day, would be nearly 10 months. So, as they say, the math is mathing.
1989 (Taylor’s Version) is out now.
