LONDON — Taylor Swift fans enjoy parsing the singer-songwriter’s lyrics for references to her romantic life and insights into her state of mind.
But the pop superstar’s fans in the U.K. didn’t have to listen closely to her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” to get the sense that Swift had soured on the country’s capital city after long making it a regular hangout and then her second home. The record’s fifth track is titled “So Long, London.”
As Swift brings her blockbuster Eras Tour to London’s Wembley Stadium this weekend, some Swifties therefore are wondering if they are witnessing the beginning of an extended goodbye.
London isn’t ready to see her go. The area around Wembley was transformed for the shows, with fans posing in front of a giant mural of the singer and traveling stairs christened “Swiftie Steps” and other tributes.
Swift announced that 88,446 people were in attendance at Friday’s show in what she called “the most exhilarating city in the world.” Among the famous attendees: Prince William celebrating his 42nd birthday at the show and posing for a photo with Swift along with two of his children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
Swift gave fans a wink and a nod toward her London life during one of her two solo acoustic surprise songs: a piano medley that opened with the London-set “The Black Dog” and segued into “Come Back, Be Here” and then “Maroon.”
In addition to this weekend’s shows, Swift will return to Wembley for five more in August to close the tour’s European leg.
London is the only city on the tour where Swift is stopping twice. Some worry the arrangement may represent a swan song of sorts, while others think it just reflects a new era in Swift’s bond with the Big Smoke. Whether “So Long, London” turns out to be a final chapter or a bookend to her valentine to the city, the song “London Boy,” Eras is arriving as an emotional milestone.
“Her relationship now kind of assumes London won’t be somewhere she will be. It’s not like there is an American football player living here,” said Maggie Fekete, 22, a Canadian graduate student who credits the London references in Swift’s music with orienting her when she moved to the city three years ago. “I think there will be a lot less London in her music, which is sad.”
Stella Elgood, 25, of London, said Friday she assumed Swift would sing “So Long, London” at some point during her eight nights in the city but that Swift “will always be welcome.”
“Especially since she dated Harry Styles, she’s been here in the Zeitgeist,” Elgood said.
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