Did Taylor Swift add a John Mayer takedown to her surprise 3 a.m. edition of “Midnights”? The internet sure seems to think so.
Social media is in a frenzy over whether the pop star’s latest album and its set of seven bonus tracks rails on her relationship with Mayer, which took place when she was 19 and he was 32.
The song in question, titled “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” is being pinned as a follow-up of sorts to Swift’s previous musical commentary on that relationship, “Dear John,” which ran as a track on 2010’s “Speak Now.”
“If I was some paint, did it splatter on a promising grown man?/And if I was a child did it matter if you got to wash your hands?” Swift sings on the pop song’s opening verse, indicating the age gap of the romance in question.
The chorus gets a little more exacting about her age:
“And I damn sure would’ve never danced with the devil/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/Memories feel like weapons/And now that I know, I wish you left me wondering.”
The song, released as a 3 a.m. bonus to the album’s 13 previously announced songs and ran as – you guessed it – track No. 19, immediately stirred interest online, with many fans taking to Twitter to tease Mayer and celebrate Swift for speaking out about the relationship all these years later.
“Something tells me john mayer just jumped out of his sleep with a gasp. i know he felt a shift,” wrote one Twitter user.
“Taylor really put Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, a song directly about her relationship with John Mayer when she was just 19, as TRACK 19 ON THE ALBUM,” wrote another. “SHOTS WERE FIRED.”
Read more of the best social media commentary below.