Taylor Swift hooks up with rapper Future and pal Ed Sheeran on this easy listening hip-hop track. The pop princess croons about how the world sees her and how her boyfriend Joe Alwyn should look past her reputation as a boy crazy female who conducts her relationships in public.
Big reputation, big reputation
Ooh, you and me, we got big reputations
Ah, and you heard about me
Ooh, I got some big enemies (yeah)
Big reputation, big reputation
Ed Sheeran and Future, each contribute verses about their trials of being constantly in the spotlight. Taylor Swift previously worked with Ed Sheeran on her 2012 track "
Everything Has Changed," which Ed co-wrote and also sang the second verse. She has never worked with Future before.
This is Swift's third collaboration with a rapper, following the remix of her track "
Bad Blood," which featured Kendrick Lamar, and B.o.B.'s track "
Both of Us," for which the pop princess sang the hook.
The album title and the theme of her media perception comes into play as Swift says the word "reputation" 13 times. Swift frequently sneaks in references to the number 13 in her songs, for instance on
Red's thirteenth track "
The Lucky One" the word "lucky" is similarly repeated thirteen times. Swift's affection for the number is believed to originate with her birthday being December 13th.
Swift alludes to Ed Sheeran's first hit "
The A Team."
I wanna be your A-Team (oh oh oh)
I wanna be your endgame, endgameThough Sheeran was referencing a class A drug, Swift uses the phrase in a different context saying she wants to be Joe's first pick.
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Taylor Swift performed the song live for the first time with Ed Sheeran on December 1, 2017 during her six-song set at the KIIS Jingle Ball concert at LA's The Forum. However, Future was not present to recreate his rhymes.
The Joseph Kahn directed video sees Taylor and her dancers hanging with Future on a yacht in Miami and slamming shots with her good pal Ed Sheeran in Tokyo before heading to London – where she takes in some of the capital's most iconic sights. She's seen partying at a bar with Sheeran (again), before larking around on a red London bus and taking a trip to a kebab shop.
Kahn has worked on a string of Swift videos in the past, including two other big budget clips from her
Reputation album, "
Look What You Made Me Do" and "
...Ready For It?." He apparently picked three of Swift's favourite cities in the world and let the songstress run wild.
Some fun facts about the video:
1. During the Tokyo portion of the clip, Taylor can be seen sipping on a juice box. The Japanese words on the drink carton translate into English as "End Game."
2. When Taylor is partying in Tokyo, the Japanese writing on three of the four billboards that can be seen feature "End Game" lyrics written in Japanese. The fourth one translates to "Meredith Olivia," her cats' names.
3. When Taylor sings the line "Here's the truth from my red lips" in the visual, she's not wearing her usual bright red lipstick. Kahn explained: "When Taylor sings 'truth from my Red lips' her lips are nude because I think it means her lips that sang the Red album."
4. There was no music playing when the video's pub scene was being filmed, and Swift's dancers were actually bouncing along to silence. The songstress said in a behind the scenes video. "I commend them, because they're been pretending there is music playing. It's incredibly hard work."
Ed Sheeran wrote his verse at 8 o'clock in the morning in bed in a New York City hotel, following a dream that he'd had. "I woke up 'cause for some reason, I'd, like, dreamed it in my head what I was gonna do," he explained.
After the storm something was born on the fourth of July.
Sheeran explained the lyric references starting his romantic relationship with ex school friend Cherry Seaborn. The location was one of Taylor's famous Fourth of July parties at her mansion in Rhode Island.
Well, you see, it's kind of a play on words," he said. "There's a film with Tom Cruise called Born on the Fourth of July."
"So the story was, I was at Taylor's party and then a girl I went to school with who's pretty cool ended up being in Rhode Island!" Sheeran added. "She's like, 'I'm in Rhode Island,' and I was like, 'Taylor, can she turn up [at the party]?' and you were like, 'Yep,' ...and then here we are!"
