Taylor Swift says it gets “weird” for her when fans try to do a “sort of a paternity test” about her songs.

The Grammy-winning superstar, 36, shed light on that experience when sitting down with The New York Times Magazine as one of its 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters — as voted by six New York Times critics and 250 music insiders.

While praising the “confessional” nature of songs that could otherwise be seen as “messy,” Swift reflected on her prior “message in a bottle” approach to songwriting, when she used the craft to tell someone something she couldn’t say directly to them.

“There’s corners of my fan base who are gonna take things to a really extreme place,” the “Anti-Hero” singer said of those “who are gonna try to like, do detective work, figure out the details, ‘Who is that about?'”

She said “it gets a little bit weird for me … when people act like it’s sort of like a paternity test, like, ‘This song’s about that person,’ because I’m like… that dude didn’t write the song. I did. But, that’s part of it.”

Swift said that’s when she believes, “You have to hold tight to your perception of your art and your relationship with it,” and then release it into the ether.

It’s unclear from the wording if Swift meant fans are trying to break down the production of a song or trying to discern who inspired it.

Either would be an interesting take from an artist known almost as much for her acclaimed lyricism and prolific output as she is for the Easter eggs she weaves through her catalog, press tours, pap walks, and more. Lucky number 13 — a nod to Swift’s Dec. 13 birthday — is an enduring example, with a more recent one being the Eras Tour’s use of bright orange. That color ended up being key to the palette of 2025’s “The Life of a Showgirl.”

In the early days of Swift’s career, for instance, she’d capitalize certain letters of the lyrics in an album booklet, which spelled out a phrase or sentence meant to let listeners know who inspired the song at hand.

She told The Washington Post in 2022 that she and Swifties “have since descended into color coding, numerology, word searches, elaborate hints, and Easter eggs.”

Swift clarified during her podcast debut this past summer — on fiancé Travis Kelce’s “New Heights” — that she reserves the Easter eggs for her professional projects. Interpreting those as clues to what’s going on behind closed doors, she said, would be fruitless.

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