Taylor Swift Calls Rom-Com Inspiration Behind ‘Lover’ Song the ‘Most Meta Thing That’s Ever Happened to Me’

Taylor Swift revealed her Lover track “Death by a Thousand Cuts” was inspired not by one of her own public breakups, but by a Netflix romantic comedy called Someone Great.   

And, it turns out, the film’s director and writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson said it never would have existed without Swift’s album 1989, which she wrote on Instagram “was there like a best friend with a bottle of tequila and a bear hug” while she was healing from a breakup.  

Swift said on Elvis Duran’s morning radio show Friday morning (Aug. 23): “I just wrote a song based on something she made, which she made while listening to something I made, which is the most meta thing that’s ever happened to me.”  

 

 

 

 

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A couple days ago I was searching ‘Someone Great’ on twitter and found something curious. There were rumors swirling around that Taylor had a song on ‘Lover’ called DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS (written with Jack Antonoff) inspired by my film. Well. Turns out, it’s true. I’ve been listening to Taylor’s music since her very first album. As she grew, I grew. Ebbing and flowing through life; a musical North Star in her catalog. In the fall of 2014 when I was a certifiable basked case wandering around LA in pajamas heartbroken over the boy I’d left behind in New York, 1989 was there like a best friend with a bottle of tequila and a bear hug. I found the most comfort in Clean, a song about rebirth after love lost. It inspired me and Someone Great. And now, in the most surreal, what the fuck is even happening, full circle situation I find myself with a new song that will help me through heartbreak. “Cause saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts, flashbacks waking me up. I get drunk, but it’s not enough, cause the morning comes and you’re not my baby…” ??–

A post shared by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (@jennkaytin) on Aug 22, 2019 at 10:54pm PDT

The Grammy winner’s seventh studio album, Lover, features 18 songs, including a collaboration with Brendon Urie and the Dixie Chicks.

The movie Someone Great tells the story of a couple who ends their relationship after nine years. “It’s a movie about how she has to end this relationship that she didn’t want to end because she’s still in love with the person but they just grew apart and he’s not a jerk,” Swift explained. “It’s just sad because it’s just realistic, time passed and now we’re different people and that is the most devastating thing.”

Hear Swift talk about Someone Great around the 12-minute mark in the interview below, and listen to “Death by a Thousand Cuts”: