UK fans wonder if Taylor Swift will say 'So long, London' after Eras Tour

LONDON (AP) — Taylor Swift fans enjoy parsing the singer-songwriter’s lyrics for references to her romantic life and insights into her state of her mind.

But the pop superstar’s fans in the U.K. didn’t have to listen closely to her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” to get the sense that Swift had soured on the country’s capital city after long making it a regular hangout and then her second home. The record’s fifth track is titled “So Long, London.”

As Swift brings her blockbuster Eras Tour to London’s Wembley Stadium, some Swifties therefore are wondering if they are witnessing the beginning of an extended goodbye. She is performing three nights starting Friday, and is scheduled to return to Wembley for six nights in August to close the tour’s European leg.

London is the only city on the tour where Swift is stopping twice. Some worry the arrangement may represent a swan song of sorts, while others think it just reflects a new era in Swift’s bond with the Big Smoke. Whether “So Long, London” turns out to be a final chapter or a bookend to her valentine to the city, the song “London Boy,” Eras is arriving as an emotional milestone.

“Her relationship now kind of assumes London won’t be somewhere she will be. It’s not like there is an American football player living here,” said Maggie Fekete, 22, a Canadian graduate student who credits the London references in Swift’s music with orienting her when she moved to the city three years ago. “I think there will be a lot less London in her music, which is sad.”

For those who haven’t been paying attention, Swift had a series of romances with famous British citizens, starting with Harry Styles in 2012 and ending last year, when she started dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. The speculation surrounding “So Long, London” and a mournful companion song that mentions a London pub, “The Black Dog,” stems from the 2023 breakup of Swift and English actor Joe Alwyn, who were together for over six years.

Alwyn is assumed to have inspired “London Boy,” a song from her 2019 album “Lover.” A special-edition “Lover” CD included what appeared to be a January 2017 diary entry in which Swift talked about being