The humble London pub mentioned in Taylor Swift’s devastating new album is frantically searching for clues in it’s CCTV as she savages her exes.
Fans have been stunned by the Fortnight singer’s slew of diss tracks, touching on her relationships with Joe Alwyn, Matty Healy and even Kim Kardashian.
Her new 31-song album The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology has been a vault filled with hints and hidden messages about her love life.
One song in particular details how Taylor spiraled when she saw an ex heading to The Black Dog pub and watched through her phone as she imagined him moving on.
Taylor, 34, sings: ‘And 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.’
Vauxhall’s The Black Dog is a real pub and told Metro.co.uk how they have been desperately attempting to work out which ex the song is about.
‘We’re trying! We’re trying to check but we do not know the answer,’ the pub’s spokesperson Amy confirmed with a laugh.
She added: ‘And you know, we couldn’t possibly speculate.’
They had shared a video on social media stating they were trying to figure out if it was ‘Joe or Matty’ by going back over CCTV.
However, with no clear idea of when this could have been there truly is no way of knowing without going through over a year of footage.
More baffling to the pub was the faint possibility Taylor herself had once been in, possibly with that ex assuming it was their local when she lived in London.
‘We don’t know,’ added Amy. ‘We’re trying desperately to look back and see but again I guess it adds to the mystery doesn’t it? Which is the way she likes to keep [things with] her fans.’
Since TTPD dropped on Friday morning, the pub has been inundated with Swifties hoping to feel more connected to the Loml singer.
She continued: ‘It’s created a really fantastic buzz in the pub. We’ve had a lot of Swifties in already and everybody’s just up for fun. It’s been great.
‘We really have seen people coming in wanting to see where she’s singing about, and we’ve had people buying our pint glasses and souvenirs. We can absolutely feel the uptick.’
The Black Dog is even running a Taylor themed promotion where the first 100 people through the door to quote her lyrics each day get a ‘Swift’ half pint of their Black Dog Lager.
Taylor did not give them a heads up about the possibility of a shout out, but the team luckily has some keen-eared Swifties who realised the potential the second TTPD was released.
For anyone who, like Taylor, has spotted their ex on a possible date and needs some comfort, Amy says to just come down to The Black Dog.
The singer in the song Clara Bow is quite critical as she sings: 'I hope it's terrible in The Black Dog.'
But the bar itself has only felt love and is 'really happy' to be part of Taylor's music legacy.
In a personal message to the music icon, they added: 'We're very excited to be a part of it and we would just say, next time [Taylor's] in town, come on down. We'd love to see you.'
