Patti Smith Sends Taylor Swift a Direct Message After Pop Star Name-Dropped Her in New Song

While comparing Healy to Thomas, and herself to Smith, Swift also mentions the Chelsea Hotel, a location in Manhattan that has famously housed famous writers and artists for decades. Plus, both Smith and Thomas lived there at one point.

“Patti Smith is who you invoke if you want to talk about a woman onstage who is absolutely magnetic and a poet with a capital ‘P,'” Harvard professor Stephanie Burt, who teaches a class on Swift, explained to USA Today. “Dylan Thomas is who you invoke if you want to talk about a romantic, self-destructive poet who had the talent to back it up, but had absolutely no self-care skills who made everything too much.”

“Swift is not only telling [the guy in the song], you’re not that talented,” Burt theorized. “She’s saying, let’s not be the kind of artists who make our self-destructive, tortured natures central to our art, which invites everyone to look at what a mess we are.”

Healy, frontman for 1975, is also suspected to be the subject of several other tracks on Swift’s new album, along with some emotional songs about her ex-boyfriend of six years, Joe Alwyn, and even a couple of sweet tracks about her current lover, Travis Kelce.