Huge news for Florida: Taylor Swift just released a new song dedicated to the state. While the tribute might come as a surprise for the singer, who was raised in Pennsylvania then moved to Tennessee to kick-start her music career in Nashville, fans have theories about the track’s backstory.
On “Florida!!!”, which appears on her new album The Tortured Poets Department, Swift and Florence Welch (of Florence + The Machine) trade verses about finding solace and an escape in the Sunshine State. There are lines like: “I need to forget, so take me to Florida” and “Florida, can I use you up?” (Florida’s tourism board could not have hit a bigger jackpot.)
Fans have pointed out that after Swift’s breakup with Joe Alwyn, which happened during her Eras Tour last year, the first tour stop following the split was in Tampa, Florida. Perhaps Swift was hoping for some respite from the heartbreak at those shows. She sure performed like it; according to local outlets, she left fans “speechless.” Billy Joel, who attended the shows with his wife and daughters, told The New York Times, “The only thing I can compare it to is the phenomenon of Beatlemania.”
The song “Florida!!!” has a similar kind of infectious energy to it. It carries an anthemic and at times euphoric feel, especially with pounding drums in the chorus. It sounds heavily inspired by Welch’s own music and seems like it would kill in a stadium setting.
Swift played three nights in Tampa before moving on to her next tour stop in Houston from April 21 to 23, 2023. (Her lyric, “So you pack your life away just to wait out the shit storm back in Texas,” might be a reference to her tour schedule.) She gave a thumbs up to fans asking if she was okay post-breakup, but in reality, she was suffering, which she details in the TPD track “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.” She sings at the end of that song, “’Cause I’m miserable / And no one even knows!”
In a foreword she shared as the album dropped, Swift wrote that TPD is “an anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time—one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.”
Listen to a piece of that poetry, “Florida!!!”, below and read the full lyrics here.
You can beat the heat if you beat the charges too
They said I was a cheat, I guess it must be true.
And my friends all smell like weed or little babies.
And this city reeks of driving myself crazy.Little did you know your home’s really only
A town you’re just a guest in
So you work your life away just to pay
For a time share down in Destin.Florida
Is one hell of a drug
Florida
Can I use you up?The hurricane was my name when it came
I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away
Barricaded in the bathroom with a bottle of wine
Well, me and my ghost, we had a hell of a time
Yes, I’m haunted but I’m feeling just fine
All my girls got their lace and their crimes and your cheating husband disappeared
Well, no one asks any questions hereSo I did my best, too lay to rest
All of the bodies that have ever been on my body
And in my mind, they sink into the swamp
Is that a bad thing to say in a song?Little did you know your home’s really only
The town you’ll get arrested
So you pack your life away just to wait out
The shit storm back in TexasFlorida
Is one hell of a drug
Florida
Can I use you?I need to forget, so take me to Florida
I’ve got some regrets, I’ll bury them in Florida
Tell me I’m despicable, say it’s unforgivable
These dolls are beautiful, fuck me up, Florida
I need to forget, so take me to Florida
I’ve got some regrets, I’ll bury them in Florida
Tell me I’m despicable, say it’s unforgivable
What a crash, what a rush, fuck me up, Florida
It’s one hell of a drug
It’s one hell of a drug
Love loves me like this, I don’t want to resist
So take me to FloridaLittle did you know your home’s really only
A town you’re just a guest in
So you work your life away just to pay
For a time share down in Destin
Little did you know your home’s really only
The town you’ll get arrested
So you pack your life away just to wait out
The shit storm back in TexasFlorida
Is one hell of a drug
Florida, can I use you up?
Florida
Is one hell of a drug
Florida, can you fuck me up?