It’s a big day for Swifties, as fans have noticed surprising lyric changes to two songs from Taylor Swift’s 2017 Reputation album, sparking a flurry of speculation — all while her new Disney+ docuseries, The End of an Era, premieres its first two episodes.
The tracks affected are “I Did Something Bad” and “Delicate”, with changes surfacing on Apple Music after the platform updated Swift’s catalogue to Dolby Atmos audio.
In the original version of I Did Something Bad, Swift sang:
“But if he drops my name, then I owe him nothin’ / And if he spends my change, then he had it comin’.”
Now, the updated lyrics read:
“If a man talks s***, then I owe him nothin’ / And if he calls me a b****, then he had it coming.”
Meanwhile, Delicate previously featured the line:
“Oh, damn, never seen that colour blue.”
It has now been changed to:
“Goddamn, never seen that colour blue.”
Reputation (Taylor’s Version) clues?
Fans were quick to jump on the changes, wondering if they signal the long-awaited release of Reputation (Taylor’s Version) — one of the final re-recordings in Swift’s campaign to regain control of her music catalogue, following the controversial Big Machine Records sale.
However, earlier this year, Swift indicated that Reputation might remain untouched — at least for now.
“The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it,” she told fans.
“All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposefully misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief… To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first six that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it.”
“There will be a time (if you’re into the idea) for unreleased vault tracks from that album to hatch.”
Despite her comments, Swift’s fandom is notorious for dissecting Easter eggs, and online theories are multiplying.
“My clown theory is that we’re getting Reputation vault tracks and originally written/unedited lyrics updated on album tracks,” one fan speculated on social media.
“Probably recorded with Max Martin and Shellback while working on TLOAS because Taylor Swift is a genius business woman artist queen????” they continued.
“Why is no one talking about this!!!” another posted. “Is this our RepTV VAULT?”
The End of an Era docuseries debuts
The lyric changes coincided with the debut of the first two episodes of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour – The End of an Era on Disney+.
The six-part docuseries offers a behind-the-scenes look at Swift’s record-shattering Eras Tour, featuring appearances from Gracie Abrams, Sabrina Carpenter, Ed Sheeran, and Florence Welch.
According to Disney+, the series provides “an intimate look at Taylor’s life as her tour made headlines and thrilled fans around the world”.
New episodes are set to drop in pairs each week: Episodes 3 and 4 on 19 December, and the final episodes (5 and 6) on Boxing Day, 26 December.
In addition to the series, a second concert film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour – The Final Show, premiered on 12 December, documenting the tour’s final performance.
Both The End of an Era and The Final Show are streaming now on Disney+.
