Taylor Swift. Michael Campanella/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
No one does hidden meanings better than Taylor Swift, but when it comes to marriage references in her lyrics, she couldn’t be more clear.
From her 2006 self-titled debut to her 2024 album, The Tortured Poets Department, Swift’s music is peppered with nods to wedding bells, rings and more. The title track from her third album, Speak Now, even follows a wedding crasher on her quest to stop her crush from “marrying the wrong girl.”
Swift spoke candidly about her hopes for finding a lasting love in a 2012 Cosmopolitan cover story. “I need that unexplainable spark. … It’s only happened a few times in my life, but I feel like if I was gonna be with someone forever, it would be because I saw them and I thought, ‘Oh no,’” she said at the time.
She seemingly experienced that gut feeling with Joe Alwyn, whom she began dating in 2017. “She wants to get engaged to him,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly one year later.
Many fans speculated that much of Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department, would be inspired by her split from Joe Alwyn — and they weren’t completely wrong. Although less of the record seems to be dedicated to her nearly six-year relationship with the actor than some anticipated, Swift sets aside some of the most heartbreaking […]
The couple’s connection inspired countless hits, with Swift all but confirming her hopes of settling down with Alwyn on 2019’s Lover. By 2023, however, the twosome called it quits.
Swift moved on with Travis Kelce later that year, and despite widespread speculation, a source exclusively told Us in early 2024 that the pair aren’t ready to rush down the aisle.
“Travis and Taylor have no plans on getting engaged this summer,” the insider added. “Things between them are going amazing, but they haven’t even been together for a year yet and still have so much to learn about each other.”
According to the source, “a lot of their loved ones” would be happy to see the couple take the next step — “and some may even believe” an engagement might come in the near future — but Swift and Kelce are happy with their relationship’s current pace.
Scroll down for a breakdown of every Swift song that mentions marriage, engagement and more:
‘Mary’s Song’
A fan favorite from Swift’s debut album, the tune was inspired by how her neighbors fell in love. “A few years had gone and come around / We were sitting at our favorite spot in town / And you looked at me, got down on one knee,” she sings. “Take me back to the time when we walked down the aisle / Our whole town came and our mamas cried / You said, ‘I do,’ and I did, too.”
‘Fifteen’
“Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday, but I realized some bigger dreams of mine,” Swift confesses on this Fearless single.
‘Love Story’
Using Romeo & Juliet as a reference point, Swift’s tale of unrequited love has a happy ending: “He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring, and said / ‘Marry me, Juliet, you’ll never have to be alone, I love you and that’s all I really know / I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress / It’s a love story, baby, just say ‘Yes.’”
‘We Were Happy’
A vault track from 2021’s Fearless (Taylor’s Version) features the lyrics: “No one could touch the way we laughed in the dark / Talkin’ ’bout your daddy’s farm and you were gonna marry me.”
‘Speak Now’
The title track from Swift’s 2010 album, which was rereleased in 2023, is packed with detailed wedding imagery. The song begins with a girl “rudely barging in on a white veil occasion” to keep a groom from “marrying the wrong girl.”
“I hear the preacher say, ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace’ / There’s the silence, there’s my last chance,” she sings in the bridge. “I stand up with shaky hands, all eyes on me / Horrified looks from everyone in the room, but I’m only looking at you.”
‘Foolish One’
Swift sings about pining for someone who’s unavailable on this Speak Now vault track released in 2023: “‘Cause you got her on your arm and me in the wings / I’ll get your longing glances, but she’ll get your ring.”
‘Timeless’
“In the 1500s, off in a foreign land / And I was forced to marry another man / You still would’ve been mine / We would have been timeless,” read the lyrics to the chorus as Swift tells the “story of a romance torn apart by fate.”
‘Starlight’
“Ooh-ooh, we could get married, Have ten kids and teach ’em how to dream,” Swift sings in the bridge of this Red hit, which was inspired by a photo she found of the late Robert F. Kennedy and his wife, Ethel, as teens.
‘How You Get the Girl’
On this 1989 favorite, Swift makes a reference to vows often uttered during wedding ceremonies when she sings, “I want you for worse or for better.”
‘Lover’
The bridge of this 2019 hit includes a play on “something borrowed” and “something blue,” with Swift gushing, “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand? / With every guitar string scar on my hand / I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover.”
‘Paper Rings’
One of three Lover songs to reference marriage, Swift sings, “I like shiny things, but I’d marry you with paper rings.”
‘I Think He Knows’
In the second verse, Swift sings, “I think he knows he’d better lock it down / Or I won’t stick around ’cause good ones never wait.”
‘It’s Nice to Have a Friend’
Invoking symbols of a traditional wedding day, Swift sings, “Church bells ring, carry me home / Rice on the ground looks like snow.”
‘The Last Great American Dynasty’
While singing about Rebekah Harkness, who once lived in the Rhode Island mansion Swift later bought, she references the socialite’s 1947 wedding to Bill Harkness. “The wedding was charming, if a little gauche,” Swift sings.
‘Champagne Problems’
The Evermore ballad details a proposal gone wrong, with a woman leaving her would-be fiancé “crestfallen on the landing” after rejecting his mother’s ring.
“Sometimes you just don’t know the answer ’til someone’s on their knees and asks you / ‘She would’ve made such a lovely bride, what a shame she’s f—ked in the head,’ they said,” she sings in the bridge. “But you’ll find the real thing instead / She’ll patch up your tapestry that I shred.”
‘Right Where You Left Me’
“Friends break up, friends get married,” read the first lyrics of this Evermore deep cut.
‘Lavender Haze’
“All they keep asking me is if I’m gonna be your bride,” Swift sings on the opening track of 2022’s Midnights. “The only kind of girl they see is a one night or a wife.”
Taylor Swift‘s exes have been very vocal about whether or not they enjoy being the singer’s muses. Swift’s 10-month-long relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal is heavily rumored to be the inspiration behind the breakup song “All Too Well” from 2012’s Red. When asked about his ex in a March 2017 interview with The Guardian, Gyllenhaal gave […]
‘Midnight Rain’
“He was sunshine, I was midnight rain,” she sings in the chorus. “He wanted it comfortable, I wanted that pain / He wanted a bride, I was making my own name / Chasing that fame, he stayed the same / All of me changed like midnight.”
‘High Infidelity’
In the second verse, Swift sings, “Storm coming, good husband / Bad omen / Dragged my feet right down the aisle.”
‘The Great War’
On this Midnights (3am Edition) track, Swift reflects on recommitting to a relationship after working through conflict. “I vowed I would always be yours ’cause we survived the Great War,” she sings.
‘You’re Losing Me’
Swift’s scathing 2023 breakup song gives an inside look at her ups and downs with Alwyn pre-split. “And I wouldn’t marry me either / A pathological people pleaser / Who only wanted you to see her,” she sings in the bridge.
‘The Tortured Poets Department’
On the title track of her 2024 album, Swift details her situationship with The 1975’s Matty Healy. “At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger / And put it on the one people put wedding rings on / And that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding,” she sings.
‘So Long, London’
“You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? / I died on the altar waitin’ for the proof,” Swift writes in this Alwyn-inspired breakup song.
‘But Daddy I Love Him’
Swift defends her fling with Healy, which was highly scrutinized before they split in June 2023. “No, you can’t come to the wedding / I know he’s crazy, but he’s the one I want,” she sings.
‘Fresh Out the Slammer’
Like in “The Tortured Poets Department,” Swift hints at “wearing imaginary rings” after reconnecting with an old flame.
Graham Denholm/TAS24/Getty Images Swifties believe there is more to Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department besides some breakup songs about Matty Healy and Joe Alwyn. Swift, 34, dropped TTPD on Friday, April 19. However, two hours later, she surprised her fans with an additional release called The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. “I’d written so […]
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“If you know it in one glimpse, it’s legendary / You and I go from one kiss to getting married,” Swift croons in the chorus. Her mood changes throughout the song, however, with lyrics to the bridge reading, “You s–t-talked me under the table / Talkin’ rings and talkin’ cradles.”
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Another song seemingly inspired by Healy, Swift sings, “Whether I’m gonna be your wife or / Gonna smash up your bike, I haven’t decided yet.”
‘So High School’
Following her splits from Alwyn and Healy, Swift went on to find love with Kelce. Featured on the double album, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, Swift teases, “Are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me (Kill me) / It’s just a game, but really (Really) / I’m bettin’ on all three for us two (All three).”
‘How Did It End?’
Swift puts a heartbreaking spin on a nursery rhyme — “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage” — on this TTPD tune. “Leaving me bereft and reeling / My beloved ghost and me / Sitting in a tree / D-Y-I-N-G,” she sings.
