So this 1989 sleeper is absolutely about all the attention Taylor and Harry’s relationship got from the general public and, more particularly, the paparazzi. The liner note for this was “And everyone was watching,” because, well, we were! (An essential lyric: “They are the hunters, we are the foxes.” An essential closet minute: Taylor used a sweatshirt with a fox on it throughout their notorious Central Park date.)
“I had this idea of when you’re in love, along the lines of ‘Out of the Woods,’ it’s very precious, it’s fragile,” Taylor described to Billboard “As soon as the world gets ahold of it, whether it’s your friends or people around town hear about it…it’s kind of like the first thing people want to do when they hear that people are in love is just kind of try to ruin it, if they’re not the greatest human beings.”
Taylor confessed the media craze around the relationship triggered her to think, “No one is gonna sign up for this. There are just too many cameras pointed at me. There are too many ridiculous elaborations on my life. It’s just not ever gonna work.”
But, she continued, “I decided to write a love song, just kind of like, ‘What would I say if I met someone really awesome and they were like, hey, I’m worried about all this attention you get?'”
The outcome of that was “I Know Places,” which has to do with, “‘Hey, I know places we can hide. We could outrun them,'” Taylor stated. “I’m so happy that it sounds like the urgency that it sings about.”
