Enjoyable Occasions in Cleveland! Taylor Swift’s New Song About Travis Kelce Is the Worst of Her Musical Profession

When Taylor Swift was 17 years previous, she penned some of the iconic love songs of all time. It begins with a scene-setting verse like no different: “We were both young when I first saw you/ I close my eyes and the flashback starts/ I’m standin’ there/ On a balcony in summer air.” The Shakespearean pop-country anthem has since rightfully earned its fame as a licensed banger at events and weddings, and can go down in historical past as one in every of Swift’s most romantic love letters in her wonderful songwriting profession.

Now 36 and married, Swift is getting into a brand new period that not all her followers are going to love. Even the best songwriters of all time personal their duds. For the world’s most well-known pop girlie, that got here swiftly within the type of “Cleveland!”, one in every of 4 tracks from her Life of a Showgirl encore launch on Friday.

As lots of you might be most likely conscious, Swift and Travis Kelce tied the knot this summer time at a private-as-can-be ceremony behind the closed doorways of Madison Square Garden, and so they’ve been residing fortunately ever after.

God forbid Swift tries her hand at writing a honeymoon anthem for the primary time in her life. This is, in spite of everything, uncharted territory for the Ophelia-esque tragic heroine, who as soon as waxed poetic about dying on the altar ready for the love/lack of her life (“So Long, London”) and a couple of love affair whose twin flame bruise might have painted her ex-boyfriend blue (“All Too Well 10-minute version”). Heartbreak was a recurring theme in each single one in every of her albums—till this one.

• MORE: Stop Being a Curmudgeon About Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s Wedding

Enter “Cleveland!”, Swift’s newest joyous ode to her goofy, football-playing husband that continues the pop star’s development of creating shallow—albeit relentlessly upbeat—music for the plenty. It additionally is perhaps the worst track she’s ever written in her decades-long profession.

The music in “Cleveland!” is okay. Average, satisfactory. The synth-pop beats get the job completed for what it’s about. In the track, Swift particulars her genuine relationship with Kelce, visiting his hometown of Cleveland Heights, Ohio and the way she lastly discovered her soulmate.

Here’s a snippet of the refrain:

He already took me to Cleveland
And confirmed me The Heights, so hate all you want
This is the love of my life, hey, hey, hey

Thematically and sonically, the track echoes the identical undertones because the corny, exclamatory messaging of “ME!” and the cloying sentimentality of “Paper Rings” from Swift’s Lover period. Look, I’m no cynic. There’s nothing fallacious with expressing your emotions after discovering the supposed love of your life. Lyrically, nonetheless, the track falls flat throughout each verse.

The opening verse instantly units the stage for superficiality and marks an apparent shift away from Swift’s typical show-don’t-tell lyricism:

She’s not as scorching as she was, however she was solely a 4
She was by no means a ladies’ lady, she was only a—
And with all of that cash, why’s she dressed like trash?
When she smiles, it is annoying, and have you ever seen her

It’s virtually as if Swift has consciously chosen to undertake her husband’s vocabulary and, nicely, simplify her songs, so to talk.

I gives you that it seems extra of Travis’ vocabulary has crept into hers than hers has crept into his though it’s impressively shut

— Nathan Hubbard (@NathanCHubbard) September 25, 2026

This isn’t the primary time Swift has intentionally toyed with surface-level descriptions of girls in her songs. In “Better Than Revenge” from her Speak Now period, a track during which she infamously changed one of the misogynist lyrics that primarily known as her opp a slut, Swift once more writes with a snarky pen and girly perspective (she was nonetheless in her teenagers!). But she no less than did so with extra expressive phrases and sharper wit (“Oh they didn’t teach you that in prep school so it’s up to me/ But no amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity”).

Imagery and figurative language are severely missing in “Cleveland!” So is any which means or substance deeper than the truth that Kelce is head over heels in love with Swift. “He likes what he likes, what he likes, and he likes me,” she sings twice.

And it will get worse. The actual lyrical injustice occurs within the bridge, when Swift turns up her sappy Lover-era songwriting a couple of notches and delivers a monologue on prime of her rose-colored soapbox that oozes cringe and mawkishness:

You solely want to seek out one particular person on this complete world
Who does not discover you fully unbearable
And I’ve an vital announcement to make
I discovered mine (That’s proper)

To be truthful, the cheeky, self-absorbed sensibilities of “Cleveland!” fall consistent with different songs from her Life of a Showgirl album, just like the unashamedly sexual “Wood” or the faux-edgy “Eldest Daughter.” Swift admitted throughout her 2025 podcast debut on New Heights that the album comes from “the most infectiously joyful” place that she was in her life with Kelce, and it reveals.

• MORE: What Taylor Swift Was Talking to Tom Cruise About at Chiefs Game, and Why It Matters

“Making this album was really something I’ve been wanting to do for my entire career, because I have always wanted to have fun in this type of way,” she told Rolling Stone. “To have fun, to exhibit mischief and be flirty, and fun, and make jokes, and get to have that side of my personality. That’s a huge part of my personality.”

It’s additionally not misplaced on me that Swift straight addressed her “haters” in every refrain of “Cleveland!” Hate her marriage all you want, hate the track all you want. She’s not altering who she is, which might look like a cheerful spouse with a cheerful life. She’s going to maintain exhibiting as much as help Kelce at Chiefs video games, and he or she’s going to maintain releasing music to construct the legacy she aspires. Love her or hate her, that is her double-dipping into each of her public personas as mega-famous artist and NFL spouse.

“I have a lot of respect for people’s subjective opinions on art,” Swift mentioned in her Rolling Stone interview. “I’m not the art police. It’s like everybody is allowed to feel exactly how they want. And what our goal is as entertainers is to be a mirror.”

Perhaps Swift might maintain up a mirror to herself as nicely and mirror on whether or not, after 12 principally acclaimed studio albums and after changing into the youngest lady ever to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, that that is actually the route she desires to take her music and lyrics. Marriage has inevitably modified her, for good. It simply shouldn’t have to alter her once-renowned skill to inform a great story.

---