Taylor Swift’s “Life of a Showgirl” is officially out, and with it, one of her most Nashville tracks yet.
On the album’s sixth track of 12, Swift’s “Ruin The Friendship” recounts driving on Nashville thoroughfares during her high school days.
Swift attended Hendersonville High School, part of the Sumner County School District, for two years. She moved to Nashville in 2004 at age 14 to pursue a career in country music, settling into a home in Hendersonville outside of the city.
But Swift’s “Ruin The Friendship” isn’t all nostalgia for her teen years in Nashville. In fact, it has much darker undertones.
Here’s what to know.
What to know about ‘Ruin The Friendship’
In the mid-paced song with a wistful pop sound, Swift opens the song by singing, “Glistening grass from September rain / Gray overpass, full of neon names.
“You drive 85 / Gallatin Road and the lakeside beach / Watching the game from your brother’s jeep / Your smile miles wide.”
In her lyrics, Swift nods to the road Gallatin Pike, a turnpike for commercial traffic that stretches from East Nashville up through Hendersonville. Over the years, the street has come to be a hotspot for bars, restaurants and stores. It’s always been known for its grit, undergoing major reconstruction projects in the mid-2000s when Swift was in the area.
And the lakeside beach? Old Hickory Lake, part of the Cumberland River, weaves through Hendersonville.
As the track goes on, Swift sings that she should’ve kissed her friend, the one who smiled widely, even though there “was not an invitation.”
She recounts her time at prom and her growing crush on the friend; they didn’t go to the dance together, but watched each other from a distance.
And even though “staying friends is safe,” she sings, it “doesn’t mean you should.”
After school, Swift sings that she lost track of her friend.
“Abigail called me with the bad news,” Swift sings, likely referring to her longtime friend Abigail Anderson Berard, who she also met in high school.
“Goodbye / And we’ll never know why,” she says, implying that her friend died suddenly.
“But I whispered at the grave,” Swift sings. “Should’ve kissed you anyway.”
“My advice is always ruin the friendship.”
Who is Taylor Swift’s song ‘Ruin The Friendship’ about?
In Taylor Swift’s song “Ruin The Friendship,” Swift sings about a close friend who she had a romantic connection with in high school, one she never acted upon.
Year after school ended and they lost touch, Swift got a call from another friend that he had died. Swift flew home for the funeral and visited his grave, where she said she regrets never kissing him.
While Swift does not explicitly name who she is singing about in her song lyrics, she does refer to the Nashville landmark Gallatin Pike and her high school prom — meaning the friend is likely from that chapter of her life.
At the 2010 BMI Awards in Nashville, where Swift was being honored as the country songwriter of the year, she delivered a speech about the death of her friend from Hendersonville High School.
“It’s been a really emotional week for me,” she said. “I sang at the funeral of one of my best friends, and he was 21. And I used to play my songs for him first.”
Fans suspect Swift’s close relationship with that friend may have informed her song “Forever Winter,” a 2021 track off of Swift’s album “Red (Taylor’s Version).”
In the song, Swift checks up on a close friend going through hard times as he struggles with his mental health and substance abuse issues.
“I call just checkin’ up on him / He’s up, 3 a.m. pacin’ / He says, ‘It’s not just a phase I’m in,'” she sings. “He’s up, 5 a.m. wasted / Long gone, not even listening.”
Audrey Gibbs is a music journalist at The Tennessean. You can reach her at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Inside Taylor Swift’s ‘Ruin the Friendship,’ Nashville-inspired track
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