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Taylor Swift gave a rare mention to her six-year romance with Joe Alwyn in an Instagram video, speaking about the first song on her forthcoming album Midnights. In the clip, Taylor, 32, gave a breakdown of the album opener “Lavender Haze,” and mentioned that she and Joe, 31, have mostly kept their relationship private on Friday, October 7. “My relationship for six years, we’ve had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it. So this song is sort of about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff,” she said.
Besides mentioning that the song was about her and Joe keeping their relationship private, Taylor also revealed where she first heard the phrase and explained the origins of the saying. “I happened upon the phrase ‘Lavender Haze,’ when I was watching Mad Men, and I looked it up, because I thought it sounded cool, and it turns out that it’s a common phrase used in the 50s, where they would just describe being in love. If you were in the lavender haze, then that meant that you were in that all-encompassing love glow,” she said. “I thought that was really beautiful.”
While Taylor said that her relationship with Joe was the inspiration, she said that she felt like the phrase was much more universal than just applying to her relationship. “I guess theoretically when you’re in the lavender haze, you’ll do anything to stay there and not let people bring you down off of that cloud. I think a lot of people have to deal with this now, not just like ‘public figures,’ because we live in the era of social media and if the world finds out that you’re in love with somebody, they’re going to weigh in on it,” she said.
On Friday, Taylor also revealed the full tracklisting of her new album, with all the titles on Midnights. She’d been slowly revealing track names song-by-song with her Midnights Mayhem With Me series on social media. She announced the record at the 2022 VMAs in August, and it will drop on October 21. Besides her video about “Lavender Haze,” Taylor also dropped a similar clip speaking about the third song on the album “Anti-Hero,” and she said that it would focus on her “insecurities.”
Joe has also been very open about why he and Taylor keep their relationship to themselves. “We live in a culture that is so increasingly intrusive. The more you give and frankly, even if you don’t give it, something will be taken,” he said in an April interview with Elle.