Taylor Swift. Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Billboard
Taylor Swift has always been candid when it comes to writing songs — and she isn’t about name-checking herself in a lyric or two.
Swift jokingly name-checked herself for the first time in 2009. In a collaboration with T-Pain for the CMT Awards, the duo teamed up for a country-inspired rap titled “Thug Story” which was a spoof on her hit song “Love Story.” In addition to the short song, the pair did a music video where Swift was dressed up like a rapper with an oversized t-shirt and baseball hat.
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“T Swift and T Pain rappin’ on the same track,” Swift rapped at the time. “It’s a thug story tell me can you get with that.”
Three years later, Swift would go on to name-drop herself in one of her official tunes. On the track “22,” the Grammy winner subtly shaded herself with her full name.
“Who’s Taylor Swift, anyway? Ew,” a background vocal mocking a bored teenager quipped on the track.
When Swift entered her Reputation era, the singer didn’t shy away from checking herself on more than one song.
“On the beautiful, lovely side of that, I’ve been so lucky to make music for a living and look out into crowds of loving, vibrant people. On the other side of the coin, my mistakes have been used against me, my heartbreaks have been used as entertainment, and my songwriting has been trivialized as ‘oversharing,’” Swift said in November 2017 of what inspired her to write the album. “Let me say it again, louder for those in the back. We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them that they have chosen to show us. There will be no further explanation. There will be just reputation.”
Keep scrolling to see all the times Swift full-on named herself in her music:
Taylor Swift. Fernando Leon/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
‘Thug Story’
Swift channeled her inner rap persona in her collaboration with T-Pain and even gave herself a hip-hop-inspired name.
“You can call me T Sweezy now I’m a rap star / Hey it’s a thug story now tell them who you are,” the duo rapped. “Singer turned gangsta / You don’t wanna fight me / Straight to the top / In my extra small white tee / T Swift and T Pain all up on the same track /It’s a thug story tell now can you get with that.”
‘22’
Swift jokingly dissed herself on the Red track by asking who she even was. During her Eras Tour, Swift rocked a T-shirt with the lyrics “Who’s Taylor Swift, anyway? Ew” when she performed the song.
‘Look What You Made Me Do’
In the Reputation song, Swift iconically declared that the old version of herself was dead.
“I’m sorry / But the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now,” she said. “Why? Oh, ’cause she’s dead.”
‘Ready for It?’
In the song, Swift refers to Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s relationship. However, in the line, Swift only referred to the actress as Taylor making a double reference to include herself.
“But if I’m a thief, then he can join the heist, and / We’ll move to an island / And he can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor,” she sings. “Every love I’ve known in comparison is a failure / I forget their names now, / I’m so very tame now / Never be the same now, now.”
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