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All the Car References in Taylor Swift Songs So Far

Cars have been an inspiration for artists for decades and, although Taylor Swift is not considered a petrolhead with a huge car collection, her work has included cars ever since her debut album.
Taylor Swift and Car References 13 photos
Photo: Instagram / Taylor Swift / @bethgarrabrant
Taylor Swift in "Delicate"Chevy Truck in "Tim McGraw"Jeep Grand Cherokee in "Ours"Taylor Swift and Jaguar in "Blank Space"Taylor Swift and Jaguar in "Bad Blood"Taylor Swift and Ford Mustang in "You Belong With Me"Red (Taylor's Version) PromoMercedes-Benz in "All Too Well""Willow," evermore"Cardigan," folklore"Bejeweled," Midnights"Lover"
Taylor Swift will embark on her The Eras Tour on Friday, March 17, almost five years after her last, The Reputation Stadium Tour.

Starting with the U.S. leg in Glendale, AZ, the "Lavender Haze" singer-songwriter will include a setlist that covers her extended discography, using the opportunity to include Lover, folklore, and evermore, which didn't have a tour because of the pandemic.

To honor the upcoming tour, which holds the record for the highest-grossing tour of female artists of all time, we have decided to look at all the car references throughout her career, and there are quite a few.

1 – Taylor Swift

Chevy Truck in "Tim McGraw"
Photo: YouTube / Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift released her self-titled debut album in 2006, featuring singles like "Tim McGraw," "Picture to Burn," or "Teardrops on my Guitar."

Her first single, "Tim McGraw," includes her first-ever car reference, singing, "just a boy in a Chevy truck that had a tendency of gettin' stuck on backroads at night." Pickup trucks are a recurring theme throughout her entire career, and it makes sense to have one in her first single.

Moving on to "Picture to Burn," Swift's approach to a truck isn't idyllic anymore, but angry, singing in the chorus, "I hate that stupid old pickup truck you never let me drive,” switching from Chevys to Ford in the music video, featuring a Ford Mustang and a Ford F-Series.

There's also a vague car allusion in "Teardrops on My Guitar," with Swift saying that "he's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do."

Car mentioning returns in Track 10, "Mary's Song (Oh My My), with a new pickup truck reference: "Take me back to the creek beds we turned up, 2 a.m. riding in your truck."

"Our Song" debuts with Swift "riding shotgun with my hair undone in the front seat of his car," adding that "he's got a one-hand feel on the steering wheel." Neither the single nor its music video mentions whether it's a pickup truck, but we have all the reasons to believe it was.

2 – Fearless

Taylor Swift and Ford Mustang in "You Belong With Me"
Photo: YouTube / Taylor Swift
Two years later, Taylor Swift returned with Fearless, her second studio album, released on November 11, 2008. On its track list, it had hit songs like "Love Story," "Fifteen," and "You Belong With Me." She won the Album of the Year and Best Country Album at the 2010 Grammy Awards, and Fearless was the first studio album she re-recorded in order to take ownership of her life's work, releasing it under Fearless (Taylor's Version) on April 9, 2021.

"Fearless," the first track on the same-titled second studio album starts strong with car references, "You walk me to the car and you know I wanna ask you to dance right there in the middle of the parking lot," and "drive slow til we run out of road, in this one-horse town, I wanna stay right here, in this passenger's seat."

"Fifteen" also tells the story of starting high school, which includes new colleagues, new friends, and "the very first date, and he's got a car and you're feeling like flying."

"You Belong With Me," "Breathe," "The Best Day," and "The Way I Loved You" also include driving, but the second album doesn't seem to focus on pickup trucks anymore.

Besides cars, Fearless also includes other means of travel: horses, found in the "White Horse" single.

3 – Speak Now

Jeep Grand Cherokee in "Ours"
Photo: YouTube / Taylor Swift
Swift returned with Speak Now in 2010, marking the first album she wrote alone. Focused on a fairytale/story theme, it features fewer car references than her two previous albums.

Compared to her previous albums, there is less driving, and there are fewer vehicles involved. One of them is on "Back to December," one of Swift's most famous ballads. "I watched you laughing from the passenger side."

"Never Grow Up," where she approaches the subject of coming-of-age and moving out of your childhood home, also mentions a car in the second verse, "You're in the car on the way to the movies, and you're mortified your mom is dropping you off."

4 – Red

Mercedes\-Benz in "All Too Well"
Photo: Republic Records
Her fourth studio album, Red, and the second re-recorded, sits highly on a lot of Swifties' lists. Painting a picture using red, she discusses feelings like intense infatuation, frustration, anger, and disappointment.

Car notes are back, this time with brand names included. Track two, "Red" starts and ends with "Driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street," a sentiment echoed in a lyric that goes like this: "faster than the wind, passionate as sin, ending so suddenly."

The fan favorite "All Too Well" also has several car references, including "we're singing in the car, getting lost upstate" or "you almost ran the red cause you were looking over at me." The music video for the 10-minute version also includes a 1989 Mercedes-Benz S-Class, a nod to her birth year, and a lyric stating, "you were tossing me the car keys."

"The Lucky One" includes "big black cars and Riviera views," referencing the lavish lifestyles of A-listers, with expensive SUVs and vacations in luxurious places.

There's also a fleeting reference in "Begin Again," with "we walked down the block to my car," and in "Treacherous," "two headlights shine through the sleepless night," adding that "nothing safe is worth the drive." A car shows up in her collaboration song with Ed Sheeran, "Run," which starts with "give me the keys, I'll bring the car back around / I'd drive away before I let you go," and the last one is on "The Very First Night," "I drive down different roads" and "they weren't riding in the car when we both fell."

5 – 1989

Taylor Swift and Jaguar in "Blank Space"
Photo: YouTube / Taylor Swift
Swift switched from country to pop with her 2014 album 1989, but the car hints remained.

Not as many as the ones in Red, we have the "You come and pick me up, no headlights, a long drive" in "Style," and a subsequent exploration of her snowmobile accident in "Out of the Woods," which allegedly happened with her then-boyfriend Harry Styles, singing "remember when you hit the brakes too soon, twenty stitches in the hospital room," referred again in Track 5, "All You Had to Do Was Stay," adding "All I know is that you drove us off the road."

More vehicles and driving are brought up in "I Wish You Would," with lyrics like "It's 2 a.m. in your car, windows down, you pass my street / You drive straight ahead," "Wonderland" with "flashing lights and we took a wrong turn," "drive out of the city" in "Wildest Dreams," and "small talk, he drives," in "You Are in Love."

6 – reputation

Taylor Swift in "Delicate"
Photo: YouTube / Taylor Swift
In "End Game," rapper Future raps that "I'm in the Ghost like I'm whippin' a boat," switching to a private jet, a G5, in the following lyric.

Further car remarks are in "Getaway Car," and "King of My Heart," which brings back other carmaker mentions with "all the boys and their expensive cars, with their Range Rovers and their Jaguars," plus a cab in New Year's Day, "you squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi."

A 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special also appears in the music video for "Delicate," with Swift using the superyacht MIZU in her music video for "End Game."

We can't help but talk about "Ready for It." The song doesn't specifically mention cars. But she does sing "if he's a Ghost, then I can be a Phantom," and that, for us, it's a Rolls-Royce reference.

7 – Lover

"Lover"
Photo: YouTube / Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift released Lover in 2019 and it was the first album where she owned her music since moving to Republic Records and the first one after her departure from Big Machine Records.

With fewer car references, she hints at vehicles in "Cruel Summer, "Cut the headlights" and "I'm drunk in the back of the car," in "I Think He Knows," "we can follow the sparks, I'll drive," in "Cornelia Street," singing "I rent a place on Cornelia Street, I say casually in the car."

There are also some taxi references in "London Boy," and the Idris Elba intro with "we can go drivin' in on my scooter."

8 – folklore

"Cardigan," folklore
Photo: YouTube / Taylor Swift
Shortly after Lover, Taylor Swift surprised everyone with folklore in the summer of 2020.

Similar to her other albums, there are several driving mentions in "August," "remember when I pulled up and said 'get in the car,'" or "pulled the car off the road to the lookout" and "I had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting" in "This Is Me Trying," and "kissing in my car again" in "Betty."

There is also another taxi reference in "Invisible String," with "bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to L.A."

9 – evermore

"Willow," evermore
Photo: YouTube / Taylor Swift
Just a few months after folklore, its sister album, evermore, was released, with even more car hints than the former.

Swift goes back to Chevrolet in "Champagne Problems, "Your Midas touch on the Chevy door." Another truck returns in "Tis the D--n Season, with lyrics including fog on the windshield glass, "parked my car right between the Methodist and the school that used to be ours," and "messy as the mud on your truck tires."

Evermore is filled with truck mentions, also found in the crime story "No Body No Crime," "his truck has got some brand-new tires."

She also suggests an accident in "Coney Island," possibly an allusion to the same one from 1989's "Out of the Woods," "and when I got into the accident, the sight that flashed before me was your face."

In "Cowboy Like Me," there's a lyric stating "never wanted love, just a fancy car," and "complained the whole way there the car ride back" in "Marjorie."

10 – Midnights

"Bejeweled," Midnights
Photo: YouTube / Taylor Swift
Swift's latest studio album is Midnights, which broke several records, including the most-streamed album in a single day on Spotify, the most first-day streams on Amazon Music, and the biggest pop album of all time on Apple Music, among others.

It also has Swift name-dropping car manufacturers again in "Vigilante Sh-t," singing "she looks so pretty, drivin' in your Benz."

Cabs are also back in "You're on Your Own Kid," as Swift says, "I called a taxi to take me there" and a bus reference in "Hits Different."
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About the author: Monica Coman
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Imagine a Wenn diagram for cars and celebrities. At the intersection you'll find Monica, putting her passion for these fields and English-Spanish double major to work. She's been doing for the past seven years, most recently at autoevolution.
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