Paul McCartney is seemingly the inspiration behind this 2022 Taylor Swift song.
Swift is known to take inspiration from her own life for songs, but she’s also written a handful of tracks about other people.
For example, her 2012 song “Ronan” was inspired by a mother who lost her son to cancer, and Swift used her blog posts to create the lyrics.
Swift also revealed years ago that her song “Speak Now” was about a friend whose ex-boyfriend was getting married instead of getting back together with her.
While some of Swift’s best-known songs are about her own experiences, it’s not uncommon for her to write about other people’s circumstances.
This seems to be the case with one of her Midnights tracks.
Sweet Nothing Is Rumored To Be About Paul & Linda McCartney
Swift Liked A Tweet Suggesting They Inspired “Sweet Nothing”
When Swift released Midnights in 2022, it was assumed all the tracks were about her own life. However, the meaning behind “Sweet Nothing” became unclear when, after her breakup with Joe Alwyn, she liked a tweet suggesting Paul McCartney was the inspiration.
In the Midnights track, Swift sings “On the way home, I wrote a poem / You say what a mind, this happens all the time.” The tweet Swift liked included a McCartney story about when he would go out for a run and come back with a poem he’d written, and his late wife Linda McCartney would respond, “What a mind.“
Taylor Swift has an array of fun pop songs, but she also has her fair share of devastatingly sad ballads, and a few stand out from the rest.
The popstar and the former The Beatles member have been friends for years and even interviewed each other in 2020 for Rolling Stone‘s Artists on Artists collection.
Swift also collaborated with McCartney’s daughter Stella McCartney for a clothing line in 2019, and name-dropped her in her Lover track “London Boy.”
Another reason the song may not have been about Swift’s personal life is that a lot of the Midnights tracks had a darker message about relationships.
At the time, it was assumed Swift was not happy in her romantic situation and the album is mostly considered a pre-breakup album now.
“Sweet Nothing” certainly doesn’t fit with the bonus track “You’re Losing Me,” which Swift released in 2023 but wrote in 2021. However, the song does fit with McCartney’s story, and with the amount of appreciation she’s shown the family throughout the years, it wouldn’t be a surprise if she wrote a song inspired by McCartney’s love story.
But Sweet Nothing Might Actually Be About Her Own Relationship
Swift’s Former Boyfriend May Have Inspired The Song, Too
However, it’s also possible that Swift was inspired by her own relationship to write “Sweet Nothing.” Alwyn’s co-writing pseudonym, William Bowery, is credited as a writer on the Midnights track, and the actor did film Conversations With Friends in Wicklow in 2021.
Since Swift finds inspiration everywhere, it’s possible she was comparing McCartney’s situation with her own.
She may have felt that, in the same way McCartney’s wife was his escape, Alwyn was hers. While Taylor Swift may never confirm who “Sweet Nothing” is about, it’s likely McCartney’s story played a role in its creation, even if Swift’s own life inspired it too.
