Speak Now (Taylor's Version) is definitely coming next...right?

Being a <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/taylor-swift-fall-style-guid-red-album" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Taylor Swift</a> fan is hard work, and she doesn't make it easy. Ever since the beginning of her music career, the singer has constantly left Easter eggs within her work to leave fans guessing. Whether it be hidden messages in lyric booklets or teasing albums months in advance, Swift has been the queen of teasing fans since day one.&nbsp;
"It's sort of a tradition that we started a very long time ago," Swift said to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp3XS0q06Wk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jimmy Fallon</a> about the origins of her Easter eggs. "I think the first time that I started dropping sort of cryptic clues in my music was when I was 14 or 15, putting together my first album."&nbsp;
About her debut album, the singer continued, "I wanted to do something that incentivized fans to read the lyrics because my lyrics are what I'm most proud of out of everything that I do... When I was a kid, I used to read through CD booklets and just read the teeny, tiny print and obsess over it."&nbsp;

Swift is most excited about fans' theories when it comes to decoding her clues. "I've trained them to be that way," she said to <a href="https://ew.com/music/2019/05/09/taylor-swift-cover-story/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Entertainment Weekly</a>&nbsp;in 2019 about Swifties' detective work. "I love that they like the cryptic hint-dropping. Because as long as they like it, I'll keep doing it. It's fun. It feels mischievous and playful."&nbsp;
With&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/music/taylor-swift-releases-red-taylors-version-album-10-minute-all-too-well" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Red (Taylor's Version)</a>&nbsp;breaking two Spotify streaming records upon arrival, the joy of deciphering her hidden clues has become mainstream as more and more people are speculating on what Swift might do next. In honour of Swift's 32nd birthday today, L'OFFICIEL&nbsp;rounds up how the singer's love of secret messages has evolved over the course of her career.&nbsp;

Fearless&nbsp;to&nbsp;1989: Liner Messages in Lyric Booklets

While Swift stopped this tradition during the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/music/taylor-swift-grows-up-on-reputation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reputation</a> era, she had a habit of hiding messages in her old work. Specifically, she would hide liner notes in the lyrics of each of her songs in her CD booklets. From Fearless&nbsp;to&nbsp;Red, all of her lyrics were lowercased, and the message could be deciphered through the capitalized letters. For&nbsp;1989, she did the opposite.&nbsp;
During these eras, Swift's dating life was often much more publicized than it is now. The singer even used her music to address her romances, from hidden messages to pointed lyrics. Some of her references were more obvious, as the liner message for "Should've Said No" just said the name "Sam" repeatedly, addressing a former boyfriend who allegedly cheated on her. Others were more subtle, like the liner note for "Last Kiss" being "Forever and Always," a reference to a song title from her former album that is said to be about <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/music/taylor-swift-fearless-mr-perfectly-fine-joe-jonas-song" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Jonas</a>.&nbsp;

Reputation&nbsp;and&nbsp;Lover: Music Video Messages

Swift discontinued her hidden messages during the&nbsp;Reputation&nbsp;era, stating in the album's prologue letter that she was tired of gossip sites and "the men they can attribute to each song, as if the inspiration for music is as simple and basic as a paternity test...There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation."&nbsp;
As the&nbsp;Reputation&nbsp;album kicked into full gear, the music video for her lead single, "Look What You Made Me Do," was full of Easter eggs. Since she wasn't doing interviews during this era, Swift said it was her way of communicating and staying connected to fans. "Literally the whole video is just an Easter egg," she said to Entertainment Weekly. "There are thousands of Easter eggs. There are some that people still haven't found. It will be decades before people find them all."&nbsp;
When the singer released "Me!" in 2019, the singer directly told fans that the music video would be full of Easter eggs, with some that will "take a minute to reveal their meaning." The two biggest Easter eggs were that the video revealed the title of the next single, "You Need To Calm Down," but also the title of the new album (Lover), as it was written briefly in the background of a scene.&nbsp;

folklore&nbsp;and&nbsp;evermore

One of Swift's biggest Easter eggs came in the form of an Instagram post in April of 2020, when she shared a photo of herself with the caption, "Not a lot going on at the moment." Given that this was during the height of the pandemic, fans did not consider this an Easter egg at the time. Of course, once the singer revealed she was releasing her eighth studio album, Folklore, all became clear.&nbsp;
As Folklore's release had fans scrambling to figure out all her Easter eggs, one major one was "William Bowery," who was credited on two Folklore tracks and is later credited on three for Evermore. Swifties were quick to figure out that "William Bowery" was a pen name for Swift's boyfriend, <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/taylor-swift-joe-alwyn-relationship-timeline-dating" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Alwyn</a>, as his great-grandfather's name was William Alwyn, and the Bowery Hotel was where Swift and Alwyn first hung out in 2016. Swift confirms William Bowery's identity in her Disney+ film, teasing that "William Bowery is Joe, as we know."&nbsp;

Swift's song "Betty" serves as an Easter egg by itself, as it includes the names of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/blake-lively-postpartum-body-clothes-struggle" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blake Lively</a> and <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/best-celebrity-menswear-stylists-harry-styles-ryan-reynolds" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ryan Reynold</a>'s daughters as the characters for the love story she writes about. Since James and Inez were already known to the public as their names, Swifties theorized that Betty was the name of their third daughter, as the couple hadn't yet announced the name of their third child. Fans turned out to be right as Swift introduced the song on country radio in August 2020, saying "I named all the characters in this story after my friends' kids."&nbsp;
Of course, all the&nbsp;Folklore Easter eggs weren't enough for Miss Swift, as she surprisingly released her ninth studio album, Evermore, just four months later. And it definitely came with its share of Easter eggs.&nbsp;In November 2020, Swift recycled her old caption, "Not a lot going on at the moment," in a new Instagram post. She also posted photos from an&nbsp;Entertainment Weekly&nbsp;photoshoot, captioning it with "tis the damn season," which is now known to be a track on the album. On the day before Swift announced the album, the singer included nine tree emojis in a tweet in honour of her ninth album.&nbsp;

Fearless, Red, and.... Speak Now (Taylor's Version)?&nbsp;

If we thought 2020 was Taylor Swift's year, we were definitely mistaken. The superstar has taken 2021 by storm with the start of her <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/music/why-is-taylor-swift-re-recording-old-albums" target="_blank" rel="noopener">re-releases</a>. Starting with the announcement of Fearless (Taylor's Version), the singer released an anagram-filled video from "the vault," which referred to all of her unreleased songs from the album. "The vault door is about to be as unhinged as you'll think I am after you watch this video," she said on social media. "Level Expert. Happy decoding!"
If the devil works hard, Swifties work harder and faster, as fans managed to decode the titles to the six new vault tracks and the name of one of her collaborators, Keith Urban, who is featured on a song.&nbsp;

Quickly after the re-release of Fearless&nbsp;came her announcement for&nbsp;Red (Taylor's Version), which has taken the entire world by storm. And, like all of her albums, it came with a whirlwind of Easter eggs. With 2022 nearing the horizon, Swifties are continuously speculating on which album she will release next, and social media is convinced that Speak Now (Taylor's Version)&nbsp;is making an entrance soon due to the Easter eggs that came with&nbsp;Red.&nbsp;
As Swift released a music video for her vault track, "<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/music/taylor-swift-i-bet-you-think-about-me-music-video-blake-lively" target="_blank" rel="noopener">I Bet You Think About Me</a>," fans discovered that the marriage-centric storyline is similar to&nbsp;Speak Now's title track, which follows Swift crashing a wedding. Another giant riddle came on&nbsp;Red (Taylor's Version) release day, where she thanked fans for continuing to support her.

Even so, it seems that Swift has snuck a message in her post, as she stated, "Red is about to be mine again, but it has always been ours." This stuck out greatly to fans, as "Mine" and "Ours" are both song titles from the 2010 album.&nbsp;
The singer's love of Easter eggs makes every detail seem like a clue, and this is exactly where Swifties' minds went when they were going through her merch store. There was one item specifically that she cleverly priced at $20.10, which fans speculate is hinting at the year&nbsp;Speak Now&nbsp;came out. Not only that, but the font matches the purple colour scheme of the album's original cover art.&nbsp;
As both 2020 and 2021 have been years filled with cryptic messages and beautiful love songs by Miss Swift herself, we can only hope that 2022 continues to bring us more.&nbsp;

Taylor Swift's Biggest Music Easter Eggs Over the Years

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