Bucks County’s The Starting Line thanks Taylor Swift for shout-out in ‘The Tortured Poets Department’
Pop punk band The Starting Line was name-dropped in Taylor Swift's song "The Black Dog" off her new album, "The Tortured Poets Department."
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/pmn/4IRN6MSJYNEBNKIKNY25YMH72E.jpeg)
A Bucks County pop-punk band just got a shout-out in this Berks County native’s newest album.
Taylor Swift’s freshly released The Tortured Poets Department features a song that mentions The Starting Line — the emo band from Churchville that rose to popularity during the early aughts and is now based in Philly.
Now, the band is thanking her.
In the pop singer’s song, “The Black Dog,” one of four bonus tracks that dropped along with the rest of the album (and bonus album) on Friday, Swift sings on the first chorus: I just don’t understand how you don’t miss me / In The Black Dog, when someone plays The Starting Line / And you jump up, but she’s too young to know this song / That was intertwined in the magic fabric of our dreaming / Old habits die screaming.
In an album that appears to be riddled with references to Swift’s situationship with the 1975 singer, Matty Healy, earnest Swifties are connecting the dots. Healy is evidently a fan of The Starting Line, so much so that he covered the band’s song, “The Best of Me,” at a show last year — days before becoming increasingly more connected to Swift.
Lyrics in “The Best of Me” center on two young lovers who grew apart but eventually found their way back to each other, which fans have speculated mirrors Swift and Healy’s personal history — first connecting in the 2010s and getting together again last year fresh off her breakup with Joe Alwyn.
Following the song’s release, fans of The Starting Line began commenting on the group’s Instagram page, mentioning the name drop.
“Looks like Taylor’s an elder emo just like the rest of us,” one commenter said. “How does it feel to be in a Taylor Swift song?” said one more. “I feel like this page is about to blow up with Swifties,” said another.
Management for The Starting Line did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Instagram Friday evening, the band released a statement thanking Swift for the attention.
“We heard the song, thank you for name checking our band,” the group wrote. “We feel flattered and humbled by the reverberations of love that have come back to us as a result.”
The band added that it was an “honor” to have its name memorialized on “such a lovely song.”
The group also snuck in some good news for fans. Under its signature, the statement said #4OTW, a hint that the group’s fourth studio album — its first in 17 years — is “on the way.”
The Starting Line isn’t the only Philly connection name-dropped or referenced on The Tortured Poets Department, but it’s perhaps the most direct. There’s also a nod to “Lucy” — presumably Dacus, a former West Philly resident who had a very public spat with Healy last year. And, of course, some songs are rumored to reference Swift’s current boyfriend, Travis Kelce, best known to locals as Jason Kelce’s brother.