Taylor Swift fans are convinced her new song “When Emma Falls in Love” is an ode to her longtime friend Emma Stone.
The curiously titled song is one of six never-before-heard tracks on the 33-year-old singer’s latest re-release, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).
Since the album was unveiled on Friday (7 July), Swift’s fandom – known as “Swifties” – have wasted no time excitedly sharing theories about why they believe the 18th track is about the La La Land Oscar winner.
The song’s first verse includes the lines: “When Emma falls in love, she calls up her mom, jokes about the ways that this one could go wrong” / “She waits and takes her time, ‘cause little miss sunshine always thinks it’s gonna rain.”
Specifically honing in on the lyrics “little miss sunshine”, fans are positive that this is a direct nod to a scene in Stone’s star-making 2010 teen comedy Easy A, in which her character sings along to Natasha Bedingfield’s 2007 single “Pocketful of Sunshine”.
“Until Taylor says otherwise I believe Taylor wrote this for Emma Stone,” one person tweeted, alongside a gif of the famous scene.
And if that isn’t convincing enough, others have unearthed an old interview clip of Stone’s ex-boyfriend, her Amazing Spider-Man co-star Andrew Garfield, in which he describes her as “a shot of espresso, like being bathed in sunlight”.
Another fan tweeted that a line in the track’s chorus – “She’s the kind of book that you can’t put down” – echoed something else Garfield has said in an interview: “I’ll write a book one day about how I feel about every aspect of Emily Stone.” (Emily is Stone’s actual first name.)
In a more far-fetched theory, Entertainment Weekly took into account the timeframe of the original release of Speak Now, citing that 2010 was right around the peak of Stone and Swift’s friendship, which is believed to have been between 2008 and 2010.
Swift and the Cruella star are suspected to have first met in 2008 at the Young Hollywood Awards. The pair have since been photographed together in attendance at numerous public events, including the Easy A premiere in 2010.
They were also spotted hanging out in New York numerous times, even though Stone is predominantly based in Los Angeles. This, the outlet believes, influenced the song’s bridge: “She’s so New York when she’s in LA”.
Stone has yet to comment on the speculation, but has previously spoken about her friendship with Swift, telling MTV in a 2010 interview that “[Taylor’s] so great! We’re very different, but she has such a sick sense of humour”.
“We met there three years ago, and then I listened to some of her music, and I wrote her an e-mail saying I liked her music, I swear,” the actor said at the time. “And then we started talking and hanging out.”
Read The Independent’s four-star review of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) here.
