But Daddy I Love Him: Taylor Swift takes aim at critics with new track

On Friday morning, Taylor Swift released her new album The Tortured Poets Department (followed two hours later by the surprise release of a second, bonus disc of 15 songs). First announced at the Grammys in February, and coming just 18 months after her last original studio album Midnights (there have also been two re-recordings of her old albums, Speak Now and 1989 in-between) the record was widely expected to be inspired by the demise of her six-year relationship with the actor Joe Alwyn.

Healy may be the subject of several tracks, including I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) and the eviscerating break-up ballad The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived ("In public, showed me off. Then sank in stoned oblivion"). Yet the album's most intriguing track is But Daddy I Love Him, a nearly six-minute stadium-sized anthem that takes aim at all those who had an opinion on the relationship – and, reader: there were many.

The track is the grown-up sister to her early hit Love Story – which told of a father disapproving of a teenage relationship. This time though, it's not just Daddy and her management ("Soon enough the elders had convened down at the City Hall") who have got an opinion on her latest beau – it's also her fans. "He was chaos, he was revelry," sings Swift of her paramour, before noting that "the saboteurs protested too much."

Swift and Healy were initially rumoured to be dating back in 2014, when she was seen attending his concert and later wearing a 1975 T-shirt – but Healy dismissed the idea at the time, admitting they swapped numbers but saying it would be "emasculating" to date the world's most famous pop star.

Then in May 2023, shortly after news broke of her split with Alwyn, Swift and Healy were photographed holding hands and kissing in public. The liaison lasted barely a month – in public at least – but, as with much of what Swift does, it drew plenty of attention. Only this time, it wasn't just the press who had something to say, but her fans, who objected to Healy's string of controversies, which included making derogatory remarks about the rapper Ice-Spice (he later apologised).

A faction of her fanbase got vocal on social media, posting open letters and videos, using the #SpeakUpNow hashtag to cite their disappointment in her choice. It was a rare moment of tension in the famously sacred relationship with her fans: she makes appearances at their weddings, invites them to her house for listening parties, interacts with them on social media and indulges them with a trail of Easter eggs in her songs.

Much of Swift's success is built upon the intimacy she creates with her audience, from her relatable fashion choices to the personal moments she shares on her records. She might be a billionaire and the most famous woman on the planet, but she has done an admirable job of appearing to stay within touching distance for her fans. Yet this has created a catch-22 situation for the star, with many fans having a vested interest in her life and, especially, her relationships.

Swift has clapped back at her detractors before – but not directly at her fans. Yet on But Daddy, I Love Him, she appears to be sending a warning signal, singing: "I'd rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of all this bitchin' and moaning/ I'll tell you something about my good name, it's mine alone to disgrace."

At one point, she even appears to reference the bizarre petitioning against her relationship, saying: "God save the most judgemental creeps/ Who say they want what's best for me/ Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see."

And for those who claim to just be looking out for her, she also has a message: "Me and my wild boy, and all of this wild joy, if all you want is grey for me, then it's just white noise, then it's just my choice." In other words, she can look after herself. At one point, the song even veers into gentle mockery with: "I'm having his baby, no I'm not but you should see your faces."