Entertainment

All Of The Clues Taylor Swift's “...Ready For It” Music Video Is About Calvin Harris

by Keiko Zoll

Taylor Swift fans are here and beyond ready for it — her "...Ready For It" music video, that is. Swifties have been in a frenzy since the 27-year-old singer premiered her first music video, "Look What You Made Me Do," off her latest album Reputation at this year's VMAs. Now that the music video has finally dropped, fans can barely keep up with the video's sci-fi visuals — but beneath the Blade Runner meets Westworld veneer is a much simpler theme, one that's a hallmark of so many of her songs: An ex-boyfriend, specifically Calvin Harris. Here are all of the clues Taylor Swift's "...Ready For It" music video is about Calvin Harris.

Like every good Taylor Swift ex-boyfriend song, there is always a heap of drama and a good story to go with it. Let's dial it back from Swift's dystopian future in "...Ready For It" and time travel all the way back to June 2016, when it was first reported that Swift and Harris broke up after a 15-month relationship. Not long after Swift kicked Harris to the curb, she was seen getting cozy with another British lad — this time with Thor actor and Norse god of my heart, Tom Hiddleston. And then things just got ugly between Swift and Harris, particularly over their unmasked collaboration on Harris' and Rihanna's hit, "This Is What You Came For."

Which now brings us back to the present, er, dystopian future, of Swift's latest music video, "...Ready For It." When the trailer for Swift's newest music video showed up on her Instagram Monday, fans were abuzz with a key clue that yes, "...Ready For It" was ready for throwing some serious shade at Harris. There were some pretty major visuals of Swift and lightning, along with a blueish color motif, which immediately had fans thinking the lightning was a visual callback to the "This Is What You Came For" single cover art. Now that "...Ready For It" is finally here, turns out there's a lot more to point out that the song really is about Harris.

"Knew He Was A Killer"

"...Ready For It" opens with the lyrics, "Knew he was a killer first time that I saw him." Taylor Swift met Calvin Harris at the 2015 Brit Awards, thanks to mutual friend and fellow Brit Ellie Goulding. At the time, Harris was nominated for two awards, so the "killer" could refer to him slaying it that year for his hit song, "Summer." As a DJ, Harris is also known for his remixes: In 2013, Harris remixed "When We Were Young" by none other than — you guessed it — The Killers.

"I Can Be A Phantom, Holdin' Him For Ransom"

Shortly after their breakup, TMZ reported that Swift had "wrote the song, sat down at a piano and did a demo into her iPhone," for the tune that ultimately became Rihanna and Harris' hit, "This Is What You Came For." To make sure that Harris would reap the full publicity of the song, Swift was credited for the song under a pseudonym, Nils Sjoberg.

Her Scandinavian pseudonym also got a call out on Reputation when the name appeared on a tombstone as Swift climbed out of a grave in the video of her first single from the album, "Look What You Made Me Do." This part of "...Ready For It" totally alludes to the fact that she didn't have to take credit under another name and could have stolen his musical thunder if she really wanted to.

The Number "21"

This clue about Harris is super subtle and even the most eagle-eyed of Swifties may have missed it. As the dystopian robo-Taylor enters some kind of top-secret lair, she punches in the number "21" on a keypad, all the while singing, "Touch me and you'll never be alone / I-Island breeze and lights down low / No one has to know."

Stay with me here: When Swift went public with her relationship to Hiddleston, Harris was totally thrown off guard — as in "no one has to know." Hiddleston and Swift were first spotted smooching in Swift's home state of Rhode Island. The date the pair went public? June 21, 2016. The lair code being "21" is a total diss at Harris to rub her brief romance with Hiddleston in his face.

"Let The Games Begin"

"Let the games begin" seems like such a throwaway lyric, and yet, it's repeated 12 times throughout the song. This could totally be a callout to the serious breakup "games" that happened after Swift and Harris split, like when they deleted each other from their social media accounts. Or back to that whole "Nils Sjoberg" incident, when Harris said he couldn't see himself collaborating musically with Swift in April 2016, when he was interviewed by Ryan Seacrest. When TMZ dropped the bomb that it was Swift behind Harris' hit song, Harris went on a now-deleted Twitter tirade against Swift's contributions to the song. "Let the games begin" indeed.

No, But Seriously — That's A Lot Of Lightning

The climax of "...Ready For It" is when Westworld/Deus Ex Machina Swift channels her inner Storm a la X-Men and lighting powers her way out of her glass cage, annihilating her brooding/also robot version of herself. And just like fans speculated that the lightning visual from the "...Ready For It" trailer was a callout to "This Is What You Came For" visuals, the full music video reveals that Swift is the Goddess of Lightning, Destruction, and Shade — and boy howdy, do I never want to get on this girl's bad side. Someone needs to call an ambulance for Calvin Harris, because Taylor Swift's "...Ready For It" lightning extravaganza is full of third-degree burns.