Two biting tracks from the pop icon's new deluxe album, "The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology," have fans revisiting the fallout between the three.
When the album was released on April 19, Swifties quickly dissected the lyrics on the extended LP, which included a total of 31 songs.
Two songs, “thanK you aIMee” and “Cassandra,” appeared to reference the long-standing feud surrounding Kardashian, Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, and Swift, adding more chapters to the cataclysmic saga involving the three of them.
To recap, issues between the trio started in 2009 when Ye interrupted Swift on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards. The two briefly mended fences, but in 2016, he released a song called “Famous” that had a vulgar lyric about Swift. The pop star's team said that Ye "did not call for approval," E! News reported at the time.
Kardashian, who was Ye's wife at the time, became involved in the drama when she claimed the pop star knew about the song ahead of time by releasing a video recording of Ye allegedly talking to Swift on the phone about the song. Since then, Swift has penned multiple songs reflecting on the fallout between them and the backlash she received for being painted as a liar.
So when Swift announced her secret double album, fans immediately noticed the unique stylizing of the song "thanK you aIMee," which spells "KIM" in capitalized letters. But nothing could have prepared them for the scathing lyrics, written by Swift and frequent collaborator and producer Aaron Dessner, that suggest how the musician feels about the situation now.
Swift begins "thanK you aIMee" by telling her foe that she imagines there is a "bronze, spray-tanned statue of you/ and a plaque underneath it that threatens to push me down the stairs at our school."
Swift reveals in the chorus that she has no intentions of forgiving "aIMee." Instead, she sings, "Screamed, 'F--- you, Aimee' to the night sky as the blood was gushin’/ But I can’t forget the way you made me heal."
The Grammy-winner then references her mom, Andrea Swift, in one of the song's most startling lines. She says, "Everyone knows that my mother is a saintly woman/ But she used to say she wished that you were dead."
Many fans found the most compelling clues that indicate the song is about Kardashian in the third verse. "I don’t think you’ve changed much/ And so I changed your name and any real defining clues/ And one day, your kid comes home singin’/ A song that only us two is gonna know is about you," Swift says.
Billboard reported in January 2023 that Kardashian shared a video on her joint TikTok with oldest daughter North West of the duo singing along to Swift's "Shake It Off." The clip has since been deleted.
The references to Kardashian and Ye are slightly more subtle in "Cassandra."
Swift recalls in the opening verse the day she was walking in her house and "got the call," seemingly referring to Ye phoning her to discuss the "Famous" lyrics.
Swift likens the public reaction to her seemingly supporting the controversial lyrics to getting stones thrown at her and hearing cries to "burn the b----."
"When the truth comes out, it’s quiet," she said, which could refer to the full audio from the phone call later being released.
"So they filled my cell with snakes, I regret to say/ Do you believe me now?" she asks in the chorus. Kardashian previously used a snake emoji to refer to Swift on Instagram and the singer turned it into a symbol of her rebirth during her "Reputation" era.
In the bridge, Swift says, "They knew, they knew, they knew the whole time/ That I was onto somethin’/ The family, the pure greed, the Christian chorus line/ They all said nothin’/ Blood’s thick, but nothin’ like a payroll/ Bet they never spared a prayer for my soul/ You can mark my words that I said it first."
Fans think the "family" Swift alludes to could be the wider Kardashian family and how they feel about Ye following his divorce from Kardashian in November 2022.
