Taylor Swift on ‘Wood,’ Double Entendres, and Falling for Travis Kelce

During an appearance on SiriusXM Hits 1, Taylor Swift opened up about playing the more explicit songs on The Life of a Showgirl for her mother. Based on her response, she must have queued up the clean version of “Wood.”

“I think that she thinks that that song is about superstitions, popular superstitions, which it absolutely is,” Swift said. “That’s the joy of the double entendre. You could read that song for people and it just goes right over their head. You see in that song what you wanna see in that song.”

“Wood” isn’t particularly vague — “He ah-matized me and opened my еyes/Redwood tree, it ain’t hard to see/His love was thе key that opened my thighs” — but maybe it’s just easier for her mother to turn a blind eye. There are other moments on the album that opt for profanity over explicit imagery.

“If it, to me, improves the intensity of the moment or, in terms of syllables or consonance and vowels, if it pops off more, there are certain lyrics that just bounce more,” Swift said about choosing when to write profanity into her songs. “Or if it feels like it’s a part of the vernacular of how that character that I’m kind of cosplaying in that song would speak. There are a lot of different reasons you choose to throw in a swear word or like a certain phrase or a sort of alliteration or whatever. But that’s what I love so much about songwriting. Those decisions are fun and oftentimes hilarious to make.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Swift opened up about her muse, Travis Kelce. “He’s one of those people where as soon as you meet him, you kind of know he’s the best,” she said. “And you kind of know there’s no one else on the planet that’s ever been even remotely similar to him. He’s like one of one.”

Swift also looked back on her Fourth of July post from 2023, where she captioned a carousel of photos, “Happy belated Independence Day from your local neighborhood, independent girlies. See you tonight. Kansas City.” She met Kelce shortly after, and finds the coincidence “deranged.”

“How deranged is that post? I think back on that, I’m like there’s no way,” she said. “If we break it down, I’m in this picture with a bunch of girls, not just me and Selena [Gomez]. A few of the other girls found their person right after that. The fact that it was right before the Kansas City show … and then the next day I go and play in Kansas City not knowing that Travis was gonna come to the show. It’s unreal.”

Gomez tied the knot with Benny Blanco in a ceremony last week. Swift gushed about “how happy I am for my friends when they find happiness,” adding, “Selena was the most beautiful, not just the most beautiful bride — just the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Just so happy and she deserves it so much.”