Behind the Meaning of Taylor Swift’s Wedding Waltz “Lover”

There are some songs that make the rounds at weddings. Etta James’ “At Last” and Elvis Presley’s “I Can’t Help Falling in Love” are love songs so timeless that newlyweds have been ringing in their nuptials with them for decades.

Taylor Swift released arguably the next big wedding song in the “first dance” circuit with the song “Lover,” in 2019. From the classic waltzing beat to the sentimental lyrics about lasting love, this song breaks romance down to its bare basics. It’s rose-colored, wistful love at its finest.

While “Lover” has seen many couples claiming it as their song, Swift wrote it with one special man in mind. Find out the meaning behind “Lover,” below.

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Behind the Meaning

At the time of the release of “Lover,” Swift was dating actor Joe Alwyn so naturally fans have come to attribute the song to him. The notoriously private couple were together for six years. Swift wrote many a song about the actor, but none were as shrouded in domestic bliss as this one.

Swift lays everything bare in the lyrics. She swaps any flowery, figurative language for straightforward lines.

We could leave the Christmas lights up ’til January
And this is our place, we make the rules
And there’s a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you dear
Have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years?

It’s the line Have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years? that really wraps the meaning of “Lover” in a bow. Swift is caught somewhere between hot and heavy infatuation and time-worm romance in this song. Though Swift and Alwyn had been together for three years at the time, the lyrics reveal that the butterflies and nervousness that come with the early days of a relationship were still very much floating around in 2019.

Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand?
With every guitar string scar on my hand
I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover…
Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover
And you’ll save all your dirtiest jokes for me
And at every table, I’ll save you a seat, lover

Swift is known for her stellar bridges and the one in “Lover” is some of her best work. She really drives the wedding motif all the way home in that section of the song, playing the officiant and asking the make-believe attendees to stand up in honor of her marriage.

It’s at the end of the bridge that Swift delivers a pair of simple yet thought-provoking lines: And you’ll save all your dirtiest jokes for me / And at every table, I’ll save you a seat, lover.

Swift brings all-encompassing love down to a digestible size with that lyric. Sometimes it’s the simple things that show our partners that we love them. Saving up all your best jokes for one another adds up to a lifetime of shared laughter. A saved seat means a lifetime of never feeling alone or out of place. It’s as perfect a summation of lasting love as we’ve ever heard.

(Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)