Taylor Swift Referenced TTPD Song “But Daddy I Love Him” Verbatim in 2008
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Taylor Swift is notorious for hiding easter eggs and self-references in her songs and albums, sometimes way before they even come out, but reciting a song title verbatim a whole 16 years before it was even released perhaps takes the take.
Fans have found a 2008 clip of Taylor Swift referencing her song “But Daddy I Love Him” from her 11th studio The Tortured Poets Department, which was released in 2024, and they are losing their minds. The resurfaced clip is from an interview published by PopSugar in which Swift discusses the writing process behind her hit track “Love Story," which served as the lead single for her second album, Fearless.
"This song I wrote it after my one epic teenage tantrum that I ever threw in my whole life, and I remember screaming something like 'But daddy, I love him!'” Swift can be seen saying in the video, foreshadowing the title of the song she'll go on to release 16 years later.
In the full interview, Swift continues the story of what happened after the title scream, where she recalled “running out and storming into my room and slamming the door,” then "[sitting] down on the floor and wrote this song."
In her track from The Tortured Poets Department track, Swift sings: “Now I'm running with my dress unbuttoned / Screaming ‘But Daddy, I love him!’” so it's a shame she didn't give us any details about the outfit she was wearing when she had her epic teenage tantrum to put two and two together.
All jokes aside, though Swift is known to favor self-references and hidden meanings, this could all just be a coincidence — if those exist in her world — since, well, it is a pretty common phrase.
Though I, for one, have not uttered it in my life, before TTPD came out, fans were quick to draw a parallel between Swits's song and Disney’s The Little Mermaid, where Ariel screams “Daddy, I love him" to her dad Triton. Swift is known to love The Little Mermaid, once even referring to Ariel as her “childhood hero,” so, truly, both instances are likely inspired by the movie, but it doesn't make the connection any less intriguing.
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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