Any good Taylor Swift song brings with it a series of questions from fans. Like who is it about or what happened to make Swift write it. With her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, Swift has left us with a lot to question, especially in the song “Florida.”
There are a lot of theories about “Florida,” a song that she released with help from Florence + The Machine singer Florence Welch. One is that it is referencing the stop on the Eras Tour when Swift and her ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn broke up. (Worth noting: Swift is from Pennsylvania and none of the men she’s writing about this time around are from Florida. Actually, I don’t think a single ex of Swift’s is from the state.)
The theory is that Swift was in Tampa when the news broke that she and Alwyn had broken up. Her next stop on the tour was Texas, and “Florida” includes the line, “So you pack your life away just to wait out the shitstorm back in Texas.”
Another theory is that it is about her friend, Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner, and her divorce from Taylor Swift’s ex, Joe Jonas. Turner filed for divorce from Jonas in the state of Florida. She and Swift got close throughout the years and it is even reported that Turner and her children lived in Swift’s home in New York.
Swift herself gave a more straightforward answer
While on iHeart Radio, Swift introduced the song and discussed the meaning behind it, which is not as exciting as all the fan theories.
“‘Florida!!!’ is a song that I wrote with Florence and the Machine, and I think I was coming up with this idea of like, ‘What happens when your life doesn’t fit or your choices you’ve made catch up to you and you’re surrounded by these harsh consequences and judgment, and circumstances did not lead you to where you want to be and you just want to escape from everything you’ve ever known. Is there a place you could go?'”
She went on to say that whenever she watches Dateline, she realized that people would always chose Florida to run to. “I’m always watching like Dateline—people, you know, have these crimes that they commit. Where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida, you know? They like try to reinvent themselves, have a new identity, blend in. And I think when you go through a heartbreak, there’s a part of you that thinks, I want a new name, I want a new life, I don’t want anyone to know where I’ve been or know me at all. And so that was the jumping-off point behind, Where would you go to reinvent yourself and blend in? Florida.”
I mean, it is a song that has the lyrics “Florida is one hell of a drug. Florida, go on, fuck me up” and that about sums up the experience of being in that state, regardless of whether you are Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn breaking up or Sophie Turner filing for divorce from Joe Jonas, or just a made-up character running from a life of crime.
(featured image: Taylor Swift)
