Throughout the rest of the song, Swift builds on why she regrets the relationship now, and how it still haunts her to this day. And, indeed, in the overall cultural memory of the Mayer-Swift affair, it does land as a bigger blip on Swift’s timeline than Mayer’s. The final four lines are particularly scathing as she comments on society’s tendency to disproportionately place the onus of a wide age-gap relationship on the woman. “If you would've blinked, then I would've/ Looked away at the first glance/ If you tasted poison, you could've/ Spit me out at the first chance/ And if I was some paint, did it splatter/ On a promising grown man?/ And if I was a child, did it matter/ If you got to wash your hands?,” she sings.

The new song, which takes on a gruffer rock sound, makes “Dear John” sound like a lullaby, as she kicks off by getting right to the core of their power. Now, coincidentally (or not) at the same age as Mayer when they started dating, Swift, 32, is revisiting their relationship again through more mature eyes.Īnd, lyrically, Swift isn’t holding back. On that song, she expresses concern for the age gap, writing explicitly, “Don't you think nineteen is too young?” a lyric that’s now infamous in her catalog. Later when Swift released 2010’s Speak Now, she released the breakup track “Dear John” which more or less served as confirmation that they, indeed, were involved. Though the two never publicly confirmed their relationship while they were together, they were invariably linked after Mayer appeared on stage with Swift a few times during her tour. Swift was only 19 when she was rumored to be dating Mayer, who was 32, in 2009. Produced by Aaron Dessner, “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve” finds Swift expressing regret about the relationship, calling him a “ghost” from her past, while also opening up about the finer details during their time together, and skewering their age-gap.

21, that song has emerged as “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve,” one of the seven bonus tracks added to the album’s expanded edition, and which appears to address one of Swift’s earliest relationships: her rumored 2010 romp with John Mayer. Just hours after the singer unleashed her tenth studio album and its accompanying deluxe edition, Midnights (3am Edition) at 3 a.m. Another Taylor Swift album cycle is well underway, which means by now there’s already one song that’s taking over headlines.

Singing just for the thrill lyrics