A London pub namechecked on Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ has been swamped by Swifties.
Swift dropped the album yesterday (April 19), before later revealing that it is in fact a double album, sharing 15 additional tracks. She has also released the official video for the single ’Fortnight’, which features Post Malone.
One unexpected side effect of the album’s release has seen hundreds of Swift fans flock to The Black Dog in Vauxhall, South London, after Swift sang about it on the song of the same name.
“And your location, you forgot to turn it off / And so I watch as you walk / Into some bar called The Black Dog / And pierce new holes in my heart,” she sings.
The song is thought to address her ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn, who lives in the same area as the pub.
The staff at The Black Dog are now frantically searching through their CCTV archives to try to find any evidence of either Swift or Alwyn visiting the premises in the past.
“This is the Taylor Swift Effect – anything she touches goes viral,” said Amy Cowley, who works at the pub (via the Standard). “We’re super excited. It was a great atmosphere last night with the fans.”
“We’re not sure if she visited. She might have done – we wouldn’t even know. It’s a possibility but it’s great to keep her fans in suspense.”
To celebrate their newfound fame, the pub are running an offer of a free ‘Swift Half’ of their house lager for anyone who comes in and quotes a lyric from a Taylor song.
“We have members of the team who are big Swifties,” Cowley continued. “On Friday, everyone got a swift half of our Black Dog lager and we’re running that for the next week with food purchases.
“People had to be turned away, we didn’t have capacity. It was really rammed. Obviously, we’re in planning mode now because of her upcoming Wembley shows.”
Artists including Charlie Puth, The Blue Nile, Lucy Dacus, Patti Smith, Dylan Thomas and possibly Kim Kardashian all received shout-outs on the album, with fans speculating that many of the songs address her brief romantic relationship with The 1975’s Matty Healy.
In a three-star review of the album, NME wrote: “‘The Tortured Poets Department’ ends up chasing its own tail with frenzied attempts to respond to critics despite Swift’s current stature.”
It continued: “Swift seems to be in tireless pursuit for superstardom, yet the negative public opinion it can come with irks her, and it’s a tired theme now plaguing her discography and leaving little room for the poignant lyrical observations she excels at. It’s why the pitfalls that mire her 11th studio album are all the more disappointing – she’s proven time and time again she can do better.
“To a Melbourne audience of her ‘Eras Tour’, Swift said that ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ came from a “need” to write. It’s just that maybe we didn’t need to hear it.”