Yes, Taylor Swift is in fact releasing a song called "Slut!" [UPDATED]
Taylor Swift rewarded fans for figuring out her Google puzzles by revealing 1989 (Taylor's Version) vault track titles
Update, 9/20/23 2:28 p.m. ET: Well, they did it. Swifties collectively solved 33 million puzzles from the Google Vault, unlocking the titles to the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) “From the Vault” tracks. For the uninitiated, Taylor Swift launched a special cipher game for her fans on Tuesday in collaboration with the search engine. There were a total of 89 word jumbles to solve, and Swifties were tasked with banding together to solve as many puzzles as possible in order to earn their reward.
And the reward, it should be said, was hard-earned. Early puzzlers were frustrated with the design. Progress towards the 33 million puzzle finish line initially crawled at a snail’s pace as users’ “solves” didn’t seem to be counted towards the total. (The A.V. Club encountered similar issues when trying the game out on Monday.) It turned out that, in Swiftie parlance and also regular parlance, there had been a glitch. “Swifties, the vault is jammed!” the official Google page posted on Twitter/X at 6:24 p.m EST on Tuesday. “But don’t worry, there are no blank spaces inside. We’re in our fix-it era and will be out of the woods soon.”
Once the fix was in, progress sped way up, and sure enough, the 33 million puzzle total was completed by Wednesday morning. “Oh look! You did it,” a voiceover from Swift announced. “You unlocked the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) vault, and now I am so excited to share the new vault track titles with you.” The newly announced songs are:
1. “Is It Over Now?”
2. “Now That We Don’t Talk”
3. “Say Don’t Go”
4. “Suburban Legends”
5. “Slut!”
Many of these songs sound thematically similar, both to each other and to the 1989 tracks we already know and love. (“Say Don’t Go” vs. “All You Had To Do Was Stay,” “Is It Over Now?” vs. “Are we out of the woods yet?”) Swifties were quick to note that only four of the five tracks were revealed via the Google puzzle. Separately on Tuesday, Swift had shared what seemed to be another word scramble on her social media, opening a vault with the letters TSUL, a pair of quotation marks, and an exclamation point.
Fans obviously speculated that the track was called either “LUST!” or “SLUT!”—this writer will admit to finding the latter unlikely, given Swift’s reluctance towards vulgarity, but later on Wednesday afternoon it was revealed that the “Slut!”s have it. The singer-songwriter shared this new information alongside alternate version’s of the album’s back covers. “It’s a new soundtrack,” she wrote on social media, quoting the 1989 track “Welcome To New York.” “Here are the back covers and vault track titles for 1989 (my version) I can’t wait for this one to be out, seriously. Thank you for playing along, sleuthing, puzzling and making these reveals so much chaotic fun (which is the best kind of fun, after all).”
Fans have theorized out that the quotation marks could indicate the kind of accusations being hurled at Swift back when she was perceived as a serial dater. In that way, it may be akin to “Blank Space” in poking fun at the media narratives that surrounded the Grammy winner in 2014, a precursor to Lover’s “The Man” which protested society’s sexist double standards. Regardless, Swift specifically mentioned that this has been her favorite re-record yet because the vault tracks “are so insane. I can’t believe they were ever left behind,” she said in the album announcement.
Fans were obviously all-in on this brand of “chaotic fun,” because if there’s one thing Swifties love as much as Taylor Swift, it’s doing puzzles. Fans put together compilations of explanations for some of the Google clues, which came from old social media posts and interviews. Other eagle-eyed fans noticed that the animated key that unlocked the vault matched Swift’s Eras Tour stage. For Swifties, there is never a stone left unturned; they thrive on any challenge handed down by their benevolent ruler. Now they can ride high on this latest victory until they actually get to listen to the vault tracks on October 27.
This story was updated as the final tracklist was revealed.