Taylor Swift has started dropping clues about her 1989 re-record album

14 April 2021, 18:08

Taylor Swift reveals collage board full of 1989 easter eggs on Stephen Colbert

By Katie Louise Smith

Taylor Swift dropped a LOT of 1989 clues in her interview with Stephen Colbert. Here's what they mean plus all the theories about the possible release date of the re-recorded album.

You know what they say: The devil works hard, but 3-time Album of the Year Grammy winner and famed Queen of Cryptic Clues, Taylor Swift, works so much harder.

Taylor released Fearless (Taylor's Version), the first of her re-recorded albums, last week (April 9th) and a mere 4 days later, it appears as though she's back at it again teasing her next one.

On April 13th, Taylor appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for a chat about Fearless (Taylor's Version). During the segment, she revealed a Stephen Colbert-themed mood board as part of the joke that 'Hey Stephen' was actually about him – and in doing so, unlocked the next wave of clues and easter eggs.

As we all know by now, nothing is random with Taylor Swift – there's always a deeper meaning behind almost everything. And now, thanks to this mood board, fans have been sent into overdrive as they try to decipher the clues that appear to be hidden within it.

The general consensus? 1989 (Taylor's Version) is coming and here are all the clues to prove it.

READ MORE: All the easter eggs from Taylor Swift's Fearless vault songs you might have missed

RIGHT THEN - let's get into these clues, shall we? Here's just a selection of the more obvious and major easter eggs that have been spotted on the mood board already:

• The picture of a young Stephen Colbert in the top left corner of the mood board pops up when you google 'Stephen Colbert 1989'.
• The blue bird appears to be a reference to the shirt she's wearing on the 1989 album cover.
• The NYC Citi Bike could be a reference to 'Welcome to New York'.
• Taylor once threw a 'pizza party' for fans at her apartment after announcing 1989 and playing 'Shake It Off' for the first time.
• One of the photos of Stephen is from a photoshoot with InStyle, possibly referencing 'Style'.
• Stephen dressed as Legolas could reference a possible Katy Perry collaboration, as Katy is married to Legolas actor Orlando Bloom. (Taylor also mentioned 'You Need To Calm Down', which famously features a cameo from Katy too.)

To add even more fuel to the fire, Taylor also explicitly references 1989 when trying to convince Stephen that ‘Hey Stephen’ about is not him.

She also mentions Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. While the novel series was not released in 1989, a film of the same name was – you guessed it! – released in 1989. Stephen King also released a number of short stories in 1989 too.

When will 1989 (Taylor's Version) be released?

Well, fans had already suspected that 1989 was the next re-recorded album to be released because Taylor had previously shared the first listen of 'Wildest Dreams (Taylor's Version)'. The re-recorded track will feature in the upcoming animated movie, Spirit Untamed, which will be released on June 4th.

But we could get the actual first single from 1989 (Taylor's Version) before that.

In the interview, Taylor throws around an absurd about of numbers that, thankfully, fans have already begun to decipher. May 14th seems to be focus of those theories.

Taylor jokes about Stephen's social security number, which she claims is 33035. If you add those numbers up, you get 14. 13 weeks after the release of 'Love Story (Taylor's Version)'? May 14th.

As for the album release date? There's a couple of theories about the date, but all clues seem to point to June. Fans have deduced that Taylor's comment about Stephen Colbert's age when 'Hey Stephen' was recorded ("44 years, 179 days old, give or take") was a clue. If you add those individual numbers up, you get 25. Could the album be released on Friday June 25th?

On Taylor's mood board, there's also 8 red hearts and 12 golden stars. It's possible that these could hint to the potential release dates of Red (red hearts) in August and Speak Now (gold, sparkly stars) in December. But the jury is still out on that one.

Until then... it's 1989 (Taylor's Version) time, baby!

READ MORE: Taylor Swift re-recordings: All the potential release dates of the Taylor’s Version albums in order