The Black Dog pub in south-west London, named in Taylor Swift’s new album, was forced to turn away customers after so many of the singer’s fans descended on the pub, reports say.
“The Black Dog” is the title of track 17 of Swift’s widely acclaimed album, “The Tortured Poet’s Department,” released Friday.
Some fans believed it was a metaphor for depression, but later lyrics refer to “some bar,” leading huge numbers of “Swifties” to the pub in London’s Vauxhall area.
Current fan theories suggest that the song must be about Swift’s ex-boyfriend, the British actor Joe Alwyn. Though others have speculated that the star refers to Matty Healy, the lead singer of The 1975, with whom she had a brief relationship.
Recalling seeing the man going into a pub via her smartphone app, she belts out: “I am someone who until recent events you shared your secrets with and your location.
“You forgot to turn it off.
“And so I watch as you walk into some bar called The Black Dog.”
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The staff at The Black Dog pub mentioned the rumors in a viral TikTok video, which has clocked more than 400,000 views as of Sunday.
In a second sped-up video, a staff member can be seen rushing to a computer. The caption reads: “POV you work at The Black Dog (yes, the actual pub Taylor name-dropped) and are trying desperately to figure out if it was Matty or Joe.”
Amy Cowley, 41, the pub’s marketing consultant, told the PA news agency that the pub’s sudden rise to fame has been “surreal” for the staff.
“We’ve been really excited about the whole thing. We’ve got people on the team who are definitely Swifties, and they alerted us to it before anything,” she said.
“To now get that sort of international level of recognition is surreal but it’s lots of fun. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, but we’re enjoying it.”
Cowley said the the response had been so overwhelming they had to stop people from coming into the pub.
“We were turning people away because we were at total mass capacity,” she said, per The Telegraph.
Cowley told MailOnline that the pub was “running a deal for anyone who comes in and quotes a lyric from Taylor’s song. The first 100 through the door will get a free ‘Swift Half’ of Black Dog lager.”
Twins Kylee and Jordan Ludwig and their friend Katelyn Anziano, all 20, who visited the pub after the album dropped.
Kylee told MailOnline: “As soon as we heard the lyrics and realized it was a real place, we knew we just had to come here. We can now say we were in The Black Dog on the day of its release.”
Katelyn added: “It’ll become part of Taylor Swift lore. Especially because it’s such a sad, emotional song.”
The pub is anticipating another influx of fans when Swift’s Eras Tour comes to London in June and August later this year.
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