In the months leading up Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, Swifties theorized about what the singer’s 11th original album would feel and sound like. If the moody visuals and tracklist had you thinking of a dark academia breakup album, you wouldn’t be alone. But you also wouldn’t be right. One new song, “Down Bad,” imagines an extraterrestrial relationship.
OK, not really. But Swift does employ alien imagery to depict the reality of a tough breakup. Here are the “Down Bad” lyrics, explained.
Swift’s “Cosmic Love”
To set the scene, the song starts with some beep-y, bopp-y sounds. “Did you really beam me up in a cloud of sparkling dust, just to do experiments on? Tell me I was the chosen one?” the narrator sings to an ex. “For a moment I knew cosmic love.”
But then the relationship, which showed the narrator how big the world could be, abruptly ends, and she falls back to earth, figuratively and maybe literally.
There are plenty of other alien references throughout “Down Bad,” from “encounters closer and closer” to the narrator resolving to build a fort on another planet, where their love might stand a chance. “They’ll say I’m nuts if I talk about the existence of you,” she sings. “For a moment I was heaven-struck.”
OK, So What Is “Down Bad” Actually About?
The song’s extended extraterrestrial story is a handy metaphor for an abrupt breakup — specifically, the end of a relationship that leaves you feeling whiplashed and alienated (ahem). The chorus is a jarring return to reality: in the narrator’s case, to being “down bad crying at the gym,” a possible reference to Swift’s rigorous Eras Tour training routine.
“Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud,” Swift told TIME magazine in a recent interview. “Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs.”
“Down Bad” sounds like it’s about a fleeting relationship — which might rule out Swift’s former long-term partner, Joe Alwyn, as a potential subject. It could theoretically be a nod to her reported “casual” relationship with The 1975’s Matty Healy last year, or it could reach back even further.
The line “How dare you think it’s romantic, leaving me safe and stranded,” sounds like a pretty specific callback to “New Romantics” from 1989, so it’s entirely possible that Swift is using the analogy of alien romance to process an old breakup.
“Down Bad” Lyrics
Read the song’s full lyrics below.
Did you really beam me up?
In a cloud of sparkling dust
Just to do experiments on
Tell me I was the chosen one
Showed me that this world is bigger than us
Then sent me back where I came from
For a moment I knew cosmic love
Now I’m down bad, crying at the gym
Everything comes out teenage petulance
F*ck it if I can’t have him.
I might just die it would make no difference.
Down bad waking up in blood
Staring at the sky, come back and pick me up
F*ck it if I can’t have us
I might just not get up, I might stay down bad
F*ck it if I can’t have him
Down bad
F*ck it if I can’t have him
Did you take all my old clothes
Just to leave me here naked and alone
In a field in my same old town
That somehow seems so hollow now
They’ll say I’m nuts if I talk about the existence of you
For a moment I was heaven struck
Now I’m down bad, crying at the gym
Everything comes out teenage petulance
F*ck it if I can’t have him.
I might just die it would make no difference
Down bad waking up in blood
Staring at the sky, come back and pick me up
F*ck it if I can’t have us
I might just not get up,
I might stay down bad
Like I lost my twin
F*ck it if I can’t have him, down bad
Down bad, waving at the ship
F*ck it if I can’t have him.
I loved your hostile takeovers
Encounters closer and closer
All your indecent exposures
How you dare you say that it’s…
I’ll build you a fort on some planet
Where they can all understand it
How dare you think it’s romantic
Leaving me safe and stranded
‘Cause f*ck it I was in love
So f*ck you if I can’t have us
‘Cause f*ck it I was in love
Now I’m down bad, crying at the gym
Everything comes out teenage petulance
F*ck it if I can’t have him.
I might just die it would make no difference.
Down bad, waking up in blood
Staring at the sky, come back and pick me up
F*ck it if I can’t have us
I might not just get up
I might stay down bad
Like I lost my twin
F*ck it if I can’t have him
Down bad
Waving at the ship
F*ck it if I can’t have him
Like I lost my twin
F*ck it if I can’t have him
Down bad
Waving at the ship
F*ck it if I can’t have him
