Dear John, Taylor is still dragging you.
Twelve years after Taylor Swift’s “Dear John” famously bashed John Mayer after their breakup, the pop superstar appears to be at it again on “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” — one of seven more tunes on a surprise “3 a.m. Edition” of her new “Midnights” album that dropped at 3 a.m., of course, Friday morning.
“Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first/And I damn sure never would’ve never danced with the devil,” sings Swift, who was just 19 when she was dating Mayer, who is 13 years her senior.
And she makes it pretty obvious that the slightly spooky song is about Mayer when she drops a big clue about her age: “At 19, and the God’s honest truth is that the pain was heaven/And now that I’m grown, I’m scared of ghosts.”
Swift is clearly not in a forgiving mood about how Mayer “tried to erase” their romance.
“I regret you all the time/I can’t let this go/I fight with you in my sleep/The wound won’t close,” she sings.
The army of Swifties — as the singer’s legions of fans are known — were all for this latest round of Mayer bashing on Twitter.
“john mayer was sleeping peacefully but was awoken at 3am with a chill down his spine,” tweeted one Swiftie.
Another fan posted a pic of a man sleeping peacefully on clouds accompanied by the tweet: “how I sleep knowing John Mayer is about to pay for his crimes yet again.”
Yet another tweet put it bluntly: “She ended John Mayer.”
But “Midnights” also finds Swift reflecting on her current romance with actor Joe Alwyn, her beau of six years.
On the electro-infused opener “Lavender Haze,” she addresses rumors of their engagement: “All they keep asking me/Is if I’m gonna be your bride/The only kinda girl they see/Is a one night or a wife.”
Elsewhere, the gentle, graceful “Sweet Nothing” — which was co-written by Alwyn under his pseudonym William Bowery — appears to give an intimate peek into a relationship that provides sweet solace from the fame grind for Swift: “I find myself running home to your sweet nothings/Outside, they’re push and shoving/You’re in the kitchen humming/All that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothing.”
But Swift has revenge on her mind on “Karma,” which seems to be a dig at Scooter Braun, with whom the singer battled over her master recordings before she begun to re-record her albums: “My pennies made your crown/Trick me once/Trick me twice/Don’t you know that cash ain’t the only price?/It’s coming back around.”