Taylor Swift unveils Easter eggs from her songs and outfits: 'The best messages are cryptic ones'

Published: 15:16 EDT, 9 May 2019 | Updated: 16:21 EDT, 9 May 2019

e-mail

Taylor Swift is laying bare her past album and wardrobe Easter eggs.

The 29-year-old pop star starred in an Entertainment Weekly video, saying: 'So, I love to communicate via Easter eggs. I think the best messages are cryptic ones.'

She explained that 'Easter eggs can be left on clothing or jewelry,' as photos appeared of some of the ways she had done this in the past.

Secret's out: Taylor Swift is baring her Easter eggs - including her 2013 Billboard Music Awards outfit (pictured), which foreshadowed a recurring line in her 2014 single Shake It Off

One of them was her outfit at the 2013 Billboard Awards, which included a T-shirt with a unicorn whose thought bubble read: 'HATERS GONNA HATE.'

A year later, this phrase became a recurring line in her smash hit single Shake It Off, which appeared on her fifth studio album 1989.

Another photo was an Instagram post showing her lounging about in a recording studio while wearing scarlet shoes - a nod to her 2012 album Red.

Taylor shared that in the case of wardrobe Easter eggs 'people don't really usually find out this one immediately, but they know you're probably sending a message. They'll figure it out in time.'

'How much I love cats': The 29-year-old pop star starred in an Entertainment Weekly video, saying: 'So, I love to communicate via Easter eggs'; her new music video for ME! is pictured

Connections: Another photo she showed EW was an Instagram post showing her lounging about in a recording studio while wearing scarlet shoes - a nod to her 2012 album Red

While plugging her song Delicate from her latest album Reputation, Taylor appeared in a Spotify Vertical Video where her nails acted as an Easter egg.

She dished that 'I painted my nails the exact color tones that I wanted the next album to be. Some people picked up on it immediately.'

Taylor went on: 'Others picked up on it a few months down the line, but it made me feel nice to know that, you know, when you plan something that far in advance - it's kind of, you're actually kind of just flexing on planning. That's what an Easter egg really does. You're really just like: "I planned this two years in advance!"'

She also confessed a fondness for slipping Easter eggs into her music videos - a habit that 'went into overdrive' in the run-up to Reputation because 'I wasn't doing interviews' but 'still wanted to be able to communicate messages to the fans.'

'Hints in Print': She plugged Panic! At The Disco in an Elle interview this February before releasing her latest single ME!, which features the band's frontman Brendon Urie (right)

'Literally, the whole video is just an Easter egg': Said Taylor: 'I think the most Easter-eggy video of my entire career thus far is Look What You Made Me Do'

Said Taylor: 'I think the most Easter-eggy video of my entire career thus far is Look What You Made Me Do. Literally, the whole video is just an Easter egg.'

Although several of these were immediately picked up by the fans at the time - Taylor dressing as her sometime feud-mate Katy Perry while crashing a car, etc. - she maintained in her Entertainment Weekly video that 'There are some that people still haven't found. It will be decades before people find them all.'

Taylor recalled 'encoding messages' in her first album's liner notes, where she would 'capitalize random letters and see if the fans figure out that if you take all the random letters and you put them together it spells out, like, little codes, secret messages.'

For example, the capitalized letters in the liner note lyrics to Teardrops On My Guitar read: 'he will never know,' while Picture To Burn had the message: 'date nice boys'.

'Rebirth': Taylor added: 'I did a post on my Instagram and I posted seven palm trees, and I posted it on the day I finished my seventh album....'

She also blew the lid off her 'Hints in Print,' such as when she plugged Panic! At The Disco in an Elle interview this February before releasing her latest single ME!, which features the band's frontman Brendon Urie.

Taylor remembered: 'I also had a calendar in my merch line. On this calendar, I made sure to put a wax seal stamp of a 13 on April 13, 'cause I had an idea ages ago that I wanted to do a 13-day countdown starting on April 13.'

This countdown eventually culminated in ME! dropping this April 26, ahead of the still unannounced release date of her seventh studio album.

'Feeling misunderstood': 'Symbolism' is also one of Taylor's preferred forms of Easter egg, as with the snake crawling across the multicolored tiles at the beginning of the ME! video

'Symbolism' is also one of Taylor's preferred forms of Easter egg, as with the snake crawling across the multicolored tiles at the beginning of the ME! video.

The reptile was 'sort of the mascot for, you know, feeling misunderstood or, you know, being somebody that is not gonna strike unless they're stepped on.'

ME! also had a butterfly in the video, representing 'breaking free of that kind of, that darkness and, you know, fluttering into the light.'

Squint and spot it: Taylor's 2013 merchandising calendar included 'a wax seal stamp of a 13 on April 13,' noting the start date of a '13-day countdown' to the release of ME!

Taylor added: 'I did a post on my Instagram and I posted seven palm trees, and I posted it on the day I finished my seventh album, and a palm tree symbolizes rebirth, new beginnings, positive energy, so....'

The blonde bombshell, who is currently dating The Favourite hunk Joe Alwyn, admitted that the various images of cats scattered around her music videos are 'just 'cause I love cats. It's really that - it's that simple. Sometimes it means nothing other than just, like, reminding you how much I love cats.'

Another item 'really close to my heart' is 'the number 13,' to the point that 'I'll pick really important dates just because the numbers of that date add up to 13.'