On her third night in Mexico City during the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift performed her song “Cornelia Street” live for the first time.
“You’ve been beyond patient and supportive, and it’s taken us this long to come here and play for you,” The 33-year-old told the crowd. “So I wanted to play a song tonight that a lot of the fans have been requesting for the whole tour.”
Cornelia Street is the ninth track on Taylor’s seventh studio album, “Lover”. The song is a fan favorite for Swifties, thanks to its sweet melodic pop sound and intriguing lyrics. The exact meaning of the song isn’t clear, but one thing fans know is that Cornelia Street is a real street in New York City’s West Village, and Taylor rented a home there while her usual residence in Tribeca was being renovated. This is even referenced in the song’s first verse, where Taylor says “I rent a place on Cornelia Street.”
While not confirmed, Cornelia Street is canonized by many Swifties to be about Taylor’s ex-BFF, supermodel Karlie Kloss. During their highly-publicized friendship, Taylor and Karlie both resided in New York City, and Karlie even had a guest bedroom she frequented at Taylor’s home for sleepovers. Karlie has also been speculated to have spent a lot of time at Taylor’s temporary home on Cornelia Street.
Taylor and Karlie were said to have met around 2012 and became besties over the next year, and the pair were inseparable during Taylor’s 1989 album era, between 2014 and 2015. Although neither of them have ever publicly discussed the matter, the two are thought to have fallen out around the 2018 mark, and stopped appearing in public together. For many Swifties, Taylor and Karlie’s close, intense-seeming relationship was likely a romantic one.
This theory about their friendship was re-ignited in recent weeks when Karlie was spotted attending the final U.S. concert in the first leg of Taylor’s Eras Tour. Karlie has not been associated with Taylor for years, and her sudden re-appearance in Taylor’s sphere, in the nosebleed seats and away from the VIP area, came as a surprise for everyone.
Perhaps no one was more surprised than Taylor herself, as the two former friends were not spotted together before or after the concert. In a later concert in Mexico City, Taylor’s performance of Cornelia Street struck many fans as being one filled with rage by the singer. Previously, fans have tracked surprise songs on the tour as having a meaning that Taylor wanted to convey to fans about how she’s feeling.
The lyrics of Cornelia Street tell the tale of a relationship based in New York City that has ended in heartbreak. The chorus in particular seems to relay Taylor and Karlie’s relationship, with Taylor singing “That’s the kind of heartbreak time could never mend/I’d never walk Cornelia Street again/And baby, I get mystified by how this city screams your name.”
Clearly, the former residence of Taylor – and possibly Karlie – is one that Taylor associates with a tough time in her life, and that she can never revisit without being overwhelmed by the memories of what was once there.
Cornelia Street is also speculated to be associated with the actor Joe Alwyn, Taylor’s boyfriend from 2016 to 2023. However, Lover was released in 2019, three years into their relationship. Given the song’s motif of a past relationship, the song’s meaning doesn’t seem to coincide with Taylor and Joe’s relationship – at least, in the common interpretation among Taylor’s fans.
When Lover was first released, Taylor cited Cornelia Street as the track that was closest to her heart. Heartfelt, however, does not always mean romantic. There is every chance that the song could be about a platonic relationship. Whether or not Taylor and Karlie were something more than friends is a private matter, and it does not change the overall idea of a once-beautiful relationship falling apart, against a city backdrop. Taylor’s ability to convey ideas to her fans through lyrics and easter eggs for them to follow is one of her greatest strengths, so perhaps the popular belief about Cornelia Street is exactly the story Taylor wanted to tell her beloved Swifties.