Taylor Swift just isn’t at all times recognized for being refined together with her references—simply ask Jake (or John, or Joe, or…you get the concept). So when The Tortured Poets Division: The Anthology dropped on 19 April with a whopping 15 further bonus tracks, together with “thanK you aIMee,” Swifties instantly clocked these capitalised letters as a probable reference to Kim Kardashian, with whom Swift has had a beef since 2016.
Within the track Swift sings a few highschool bully, one whose “bronze, spray-tanned” statue stands in her hometown. Whereas there are not any different specific references to her explicit feud with Kardashian, the takeaway—that her expertise with the bully solely made her stronger—along with the title, appear to substantiate the theories that “thanK you aIMee” is about Ok-I-M, not anybody named “Aimee.”
The track’s title can also allude to Britney Spears’s 2008 track “If You Search Amy,” one other pop anthem that’s…not a few girl named Amy however about one thing else that is being spelled out.
In her 2023 Time individual of the yr cowl story, Swift delved into better element about her fall from grace after Kardashian leaked an edited minimize of Swift’s cellphone name with Kardashian’s then-husband Kanye West, who had requested Swift permission to name-drop her in his track “Well-known.” Within the edit, Swift appeared to present West her consent; she later mentioned that she had not heard the lyric in full, through which Kanye refers to her as a “bitch” that he “made well-known.”
“That took me down psychologically to a spot I’ve by no means been earlier than,” she mentioned of the fallout from the leaked recording. “I moved to a international nation. I didn’t depart a rental home for a yr.
“I used to be afraid to get on cellphone calls,” she added. “I pushed away most individuals in my life as a result of I didn’t belief anybody anymore. I went down actually, actually onerous.”
After the Time article was revealed, TMZ reported that Kardashian had by no means provided an apology to Swift for the leak, or the vitriol she confronted within the aftermath. “Our sources say Kim’s by no means apologized to Taylor for the decision,” TMZ claimed. “And even after the Time article, it is nonetheless crickets.”
In “thanK you aIMee,” Swift sings, “It wasn’t a good struggle or a clear kill,” and fairly cuttingly, “Everybody is aware of that my mom is a saintly girl / However she used to say she wished that you just have been useless.”
In the end, nonetheless, the track is about rising from the ashes. “However after I depend the scars, there is a second of reality,” Swift sings. “That there would not be this, if there hadn’t been you.”
You’ll be able to learn the total thanK you aIMee’ lyrics right here:
1st verse
After I image my hometown
There is a bronze spray-tanned statue of you
And a plaque beneath it
That threatens to push me down the steps at our faculty
Pre-chorus
And it was at all times the identical searing ache
However I dreamed that, in the future, I may say
