Taylor Swift’s latest hit, "Wood," has sparked quite a buzz, not just for its catchy tune but for its rather direct lyrics. Yet, the pop superstar insists the track didn’t start out quite so… bold.
"I brought this into the studio and said, ‘I want to make a timeless song, like something from another era,’" Swift, 35, explained during her visit to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, October 6. "I had this idea about not having to knock on wood, and I’d knock on wood, and it would be all these superstitions. It truly began in a very innocent place."
The Grammy winner added, "I don’t know what happened, honestly. I walked in, we started flowing, and I don’t know, I don’t know how we ended up here. But I love the song."
While the final version of "Wood" includes the line about not needing to knock on wood and mentions other common superstitions—like stepping on a crack, finding bad coins, or seeing black cats—it also packs a punch with several suggestive lines about her personal life.
"Forgive me, it sounds arrogant / He ah-mazed me and opened my eyes," Swift sings in the post-chorus. "Redwood, it’s not hard to see / His love was the key that unlocked my thighs."
The song also features these lines: "Girls, I don’t need to catch the bouquet / To know a hard rock is on its way."
"Wood" is part of Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl, which dropped on Friday, October 3. The "Anti-Hero" singer wrote this collection of songs last year during the European leg of her Eras Tour. This was also when her romance with Travis Kelce blossomed. She and the Kansas City Chiefs player, 36, announced their engagement back in August.
"It’s a love story," Swift described "Wood" in an Amazon Music video shared on Friday. "It’s about using, as a plot device, popular superstitions, good luck charms, bad luck charms, and all those different ways we decide something is good or bad luck—like knocking on wood and seeing a black cat. That’s how I’ve decided to explore this very, very sentimental love song."
Days later, Swift hinted that her mom, Andrea, might not have quite caught on to the song’s spicier lines.
"She thinks the song is about superstitions, which it absolutely is," Swift quipped during a Monday interview on SiriusXM’s Morning Mash Up. "That’s the beauty of the double meaning. You can read the song to people, and it goes completely over their heads."
She then added, "You see in that song what you want to see in that song."
Kelce, for his part, hasn’t publicly shared his reaction to "Wood." Hours before Swift’s Tonight Show interview, he appeared on Monday Night Countdown for a chat with his brother, Jason Kelce, who asked him about retiring from football.
"Man, I’ll be lucky to keep having fun with these guys year in and year out," Travis said. "I live day by day, year by year. I love coming to work with them."