A London pub namechecked on Taylor Swiftâs âThe Tortured Poets Departmentâ has been swamped by Swifties.
Swift dropped the album yesterday (April 19), before later revealing that it is in fact a double album, sharing 15 additional tracks. She has also released the official video for the single âFortnightâ, which features Post Malone.
One unexpected side effect of the album’s release has seen hundreds of Swift fans flock to The Black Dog in Vauxhall, South London, after Swift sang about it on the song of the same name.
âAnd your location, you forgot to turn it off / And so I watch as you walk / Into some bar called The Black Dog / And pierce new holes in my heart,â she sings.
The song is thought to address her ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn, who lives in the same area as the pub.
The staff at The Black Dog are now frantically searching through their CCTV archives to try to find any evidence of either Swift or Alwyn visiting the premises in the past.
âThis is the Taylor Swift Effect – anything she touches goes viral,â said Amy Cowley, who works at the pub (via the Standard). âWeâre super excited. It was a great atmosphere last night with the fans.â
âWeâre not sure if she visited. She might have done â we wouldnât even know. Itâs a possibility but itâs great to keep her fans in suspense.â
To celebrate their newfound fame, the pub are running an offer of a free âSwift Halfâ of their house lager for anyone who comes in and quotes a lyric from a Taylor song.
âWe have members of the team who are big Swifties,â Cowley continued. âOn Friday, everyone got a swift half of our Black Dog lager and weâre running that for the next week with food purchases.
âPeople had to be turned away, we didnât have capacity. It was really rammed. Obviously, weâre in planning mode now because of her upcoming Wembley shows.â
Artists including Charlie Puth, The Blue Nile, Lucy Dacus, Patti Smith, Dylan Thomas and possibly Kim Kardashian all received shout-outs on the album, with fans speculating that many of the songs address her brief romantic relationship with The 1975âs Matty Healy.
In a three-star review of the album, NME wrote: ââThe Tortured Poets Departmentâ ends up chasing its own tail with frenzied attempts to respond to critics despite Swiftâs current stature.â
It continued: âSwift seems to be in tireless pursuit for superstardom, yet the negative public opinion it can come with irks her, and itâs a tired theme now plaguing her discography and leaving little room for the poignant lyrical observations she excels at. Itâs why the pitfalls that mire her 11th studio album are all the more disappointing â sheâs proven time and time again she can do better.
âTo a Melbourne audience of her âEras Tourâ, Swift said that âThe Tortured Poets Departmentâ came from a âneedâ to write. Itâs just that maybe we didnât need to hear it.â
The post Hundreds of Taylor Swift fans swarm London pub after album shout-out, as The Black Dog check CCTV for clues of ex appeared first on NME.