Taylor Swift Released Her New Album, "Lover", And It Turns Out She's Been Dropping Easter Eggs For Months

In May, Taylor appeared on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and did her first sit-down interview in three whole years. The jacket she wore on the cover was adorned with a collection of pins and badges that we were assured were Easter Eggs for the upcoming album, as well as just things Taylor loves.

One of the badges was a picture of Drake, and fans speculated that it might be hinting at a collaboration on the album — but when Taylor dropped the tracklist last week, there was no such collab in sight.

It turns out the first track on the album includes the lyrics: "I couldn't get away from you / In my feelings more than Drake, so yeah."

Oh, ~and~ she name-dropped "In My Feelings" in her essay about pop music for Elle magazine, which was released in February.

"Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes" is a lyric from "Cruel Summer".

The "YNTCD" video also shows Hayley Kiyoko as an ~archer~ shooting an arrow at a bullseye emblazoned with the number 5. At first, fans thought it was hinting at a Hayley/Taylor collaboration for track 5, but it turns out it was a more literal hint at the song's title.

In the final scene of the "Me!" video, we see Taylor and Brendon dancing around the street in rainbow-coloured rain, which is reminiscent of the lyrics to the chorus of track 6: "He got my heartbeat / Skipping down 16th Avenue."

The lyric refers to a street in the Music Row area of Nashville, so it kind of has a double meaning — Taylor's saying her ~lover~ makes her want to make music.

The recurring dice motif also appears in track 7, with the lyric: "The whole school is rolling fake dice / You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes."

The lyric video for "Me!" included a ~very~ subtle Easter Egg for "Paper Rings" — there were rings made from paper scattered on the table Taylor was writing the lyrics on.

She confirmed it was an Easter Egg on Tumblr when the tracklist was announced.

The lyric video featuring the paper rings also references a line in the opening verse of "Cornelia Street", which goes: "We were a fresh page on the desk / Filling in the blanks as we go."

In this song, Taylor compares the end of a relationship to a death — which is very reminiscent of the "I tried" gravestone pin she was wearing on her jacket on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

Fans began speculating about the possibility of a Dixie Chicks collab when they spotted a portrait of the band on the wall of Taylor's apartment in the music video for "Me!".

However, we didn't realise that when Taylor mentioned them in her essay about pop music for Elle magazine, that was also a hint of what was to come. She said listening to the Dixie Chicks reminded her of being twelve years old — and the collaboration appears at track 12 on the album.

The beginning of the "Me!" music video shows Taylor having an argument in French with Brendon Urie, and the subtitles contained a ~lot~ of clues for the album. One of the subtitles, "I can't talk to you when you're like this", appears as a lyric in the pre-chorus of "False God".

The music video also shows Brendon standing at the window, staring out at Taylor dancing on the street below, which she confirmed on Tumblr was an Easter Egg for the same song.

The name of this track appears on Scrabble tiles in the music video for "Lover", and if you know anything about Taylor, you'll know she loves leaving Easter Eggs via the medium of Scrabble.

It looks like she also hinted at the themes of "Afterglow" in her "30 before 30" article for Elle magazine, where she wrote: "Apologising when you have hurt someone who really matters to you takes nothing away from you."

Similarly to her collaboration with the Dixie Chicks, Taylor hinted that she was working with Brendon in her Elle magazine essay, where she said listening to his band Panic! at the Disco reminded her of being sixteen. (The song is track 16 on the album.)

In the music video for "Me!", we see Taylor sitting on the roof of a building under a light pink sky, which is a direct reference to a lyric from the second verse of "It's Nice To Have A Friend". Fans think this is also a reference to the song "King Of My Heart" from Reputation, which goes: "Up on the roof with a schoolgirl crush / Drinking beer out of plastic cups."

The song also discusses themes of marriage, and during the scene on the roof in the music video, we see Brendon offering Taylor a ring.

In March, Taylor wrote an article for Elle detailing 30 things she's learned before she turns 30 in December. At the end of lesson 30, she wrote: "I need to be able to forgive myself for making the wrong choice, trusting the wrong person, or figuratively falling on my face in front of everyone. Step into the daylight and let it go."

She also used the phrase to caption a photo from the magazine shoot on Instagram. And, as it turns out, "step into the daylight and let it go" is the last lyric on Lover.