Who Is Taylor Swift’s "Wildest Dreams" About? Let's Piece Together The Clues

It's been nearly a year since Taylor Swift gifted fans with her '80s-influenced masterpiece and I'm the first to admit that I've spent the time trying to figure out who the 1989 songs are about. Ever since Swift shared the "Wildest Dreams" video teaser, I've been in overdrive analyzing the lyrics and, of course, trying to nail down the inspiration behind the song. While one name immediately pops into mind — yes, Harry Styles — let's look at Swift's carefully crafted clues to see if the hints hold up to the theory.


First up, let's examine the lyrics. In the first verse, Swift claims, "He's so tall, and handsome as hell / He's so bad but he does it so well." The tall, good-looking "bad boy" description fits in line with many other songs that are believed to be inspired by styles, such as "All You Had to Do Was Stay" and, of course, the cleverly named "Style." Lyric-wise, "Wildest Dreams" supports the theory.

But of course, we can never look at a Taylor Swift song by lyrics alone. There's so many levels — including her famous liner notes. The caption for "Wildest Dreams" reads "He Only Saw Her In His Dreams." Seeing as 1989 tells a somewhat chronological story, "Wildest Dreams" takes place after the breakup. (But conveniently before Swift's helpful guide on "How to Get the Girl.") If the first part of 1989 is about Styles, then it stands to reason that the "he" in the liner notes is Styles. It's not definitive proof, but it doesn't debunk our current theory.

Dreams and reality

Don't judge an album by its cover. The Phoenix Foundation's sixth studio effort is a defiant statement of intent from New Zealand's enduring sonic voyagers, writes Shane Gilchrist.

Luke Buda has just downed two strong coffees in quick succession.

And though he concedes (via the phone from Wellington) that such consumption might prompt him to ''digress a wee bit'' on the issue of exactly why he and his Phoenix Foundation band-mates named their latest record Give Up Your Dreams, he manages to stick to the topic rather ably.

There's never been so much angst in the band about naming something,'' Buda discloses.

People were scared, saying `what if others think it's the end of the band?'.

We had a few names floating about and, of course, we had the song Give Up Your Dreams and we were joking about it. Then there was just a moment when I thought, `f*** we've just got to call the album this'.

Buda likens the band's internal debate to a form of self-help.
The result has been a clarity of sorts or, as he puts it, a fresh perspective at least.

He is referring to musical dreams not so much shattered as, perhaps, shelved.
''The honest truth is [2010 album] Buffalo did really well for us in the United Kingdom and I'd be lying if I didn't say we thought we'd set ourselves up for the next level.

''By that, I don't mean Wembley; just playing some slightly bigger shows and festivals and, instead of paying money to get to the UK, perhaps coming back with some money.

''But Fandango came out and didn't do anything over there. It was the first time in our career that the latest thing we'd done was less successful than the previous.

''Up until that point, things had been building,'' Buda says in reference to a hectic few years followingBuffalo, which earned the Phoenix Foundation a Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (Tui) award for best group in 2010.

On Buffalo's release, the group signed to UK label Memphis Industries and toured Britain and Europe regularly, including appearing at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival, and performing in influential television show Later With Jools Holland the same year.

Fandango, the Wellington-based outfit's 2013 release, might have contained more than a few echoes of the mixture of prog-rock, psychedelia, melancholic folk and ethereal pop found on 2003 full-length debut Horsepower, 2005's Pegasus, 2007 effort Happy Ending and 2010's Buffalo, yet it was a double album stretching almost 80 minutes, including an 18-minute-long closing song (about six times longer than the pop standard).


And pushing the boundaries of song length is unlikely to prompt interest from radio programmers, particularly in the UK.