We have a play call from Taylor Swift: “Call the amateurs and cut them from the team!” The second-to-last song on “The Tortured Poets Department,” “The Alchemy,” is one of the only pure love songs on an album that skews melancholy.

We have a play call from Taylor Swift: “Call the amateurs and cut them from the team!”

The second-to-last song on “The Tortured Poets Department,” “The Alchemy,” is one of the only pure love songs on an album that skews melancholy. This is a story of a love that “happens once every few lifetimes,” Swift’s narrator sings. Alchemy refers to the quest in ancient and Medieval times to find a philosopher’s stone, which would make it possible to turn any substance, like lead, into gold.

In the context of relationships, like this song, alchemy could suggest the meeting of two people to form something wholly new, though something inexplicable (like, cough, love). Beyond medieval magic, what’s especially notable is that “The Alchemy” is replete with football imagery. Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce — to whom she has been linked since her first Chiefs game appearance in September 2023 — was not expected to be the focus of the album.

But “The Alchemy” seemingly equates love to football and “winning streaks.” (Kelce’s Chiefs are certainly on one of those, having won the Super Bowl two years in a row.) “There was no chance / Trying to be the greatest in the league,” Swift sings. The chorus’ conceit is about being champions and comebacks: “When I touchdown call the amateurs and cut ‘em from the team / Ditch the clowns, get the crown baby / I’m the one to beat.”

The bridge is a lyrical description of victory, ending with, “Where’s the trophy? / He just comes running over to me / Touchdown!” One can’t help but remember Swift and Kelce embracing after his Super Bowl and playoffs wins. She also mentions crowns in “The Alchemy,” as she’s done frequently in the past. In “Long Live,” she sings, “You traded your baseball cap for a crown.” Here, she’s trading a helmet.

Football has also appeared in the imagery of her music videos, often in the context of high school football players. In “Fifteen” (2008) she sings: “But in your life, you’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team.” The lyrics suggest dreaming bigger than nabbing the popular guy. Then, her on-screen crush in the “You Belong With Me” (2008) music video is a football player. Meanwhile, she’s on the other side of the social spectrum and “on the bleachers” in a marching band uniform.

In “Mean” (2010) she imagines watching football as a passé activity, fit for her nemesis: “I can see you years from now in a bar / talking over a football game / With that same big mouth opinion / but nobody is listening.” By the time “Stay Stay Stay” came out in 2012, Swift was dating the football player: “That’s when you came in wearing a football helmet / And said, “OK, let’s talk.” Read on for the lyrics for “The Alchemy.”