Mom of Taylor Swift’s Late Classmate Reacts to ‘Ruin the Friendship’: ‘She’s Keeping His Name Alive’
Amid the glitz and glamor of Taylor Swift‘s The Life of a Showgirl, one song, “Ruin the Friendship,” throws listeners a truly devastating curveball as the pop star sings about losing a former classmate way too soon — and according to Susan Lang, the track is about her late son Jeffrey.
In a recent Tennesseean interview published after the release of Swift’s Billboard 200-topping new album, Susan shared how she felt after hearing track six on the record for the first time. The Tennessee resident’s son attended Hendersonville High School with the singer, but he died suddenly in 2010 while studying biology at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, according to the publication.
“They were really good friends,” Susan said of her son and Swift. “That’s rare these days. They hung out at her house a lot. They were always joking around with each other.”
On “Ruin the Friendship,” the 14-time Grammy winner reminisces on a crush she once had on a friend back when they were both teenagers. The track is sweet and wistful until it takes a somber turn in the third verse, which finds Swift singing, “When I left school, I lost track of you/ Abigail called me with the bad news/ Goodbye/ And we’ll never know why.”
“It was not an invitation/ But I flew home anyway/ With so much left to say,” Swift continues in the final chorus. “It was not convenient, no/ But I whispered at the grave/ ‘Should’ve kissed you anyway.’”
In the interview, Susan marveled at how bittersweet it is that “after all this time, [Taylor] hasn’t forgotten about him.”
“She’s keeping his name alive,” she added.
Arriving on Oct. 3, The Life of a Showgirl quickly became Swift’s most successful album yet in terms of opening-week numbers. The LP sold more than four million copies in its first seven days, setting a new record for the biggest debut for an album ever in the modern era, beating out previous record-holder 25 by Adele.
Swift has not commented on who inspired “Ruin the Friendship,” but fans were quick to trace the lyrics back to Jeff. One photo that’s been circulating online shows a teenage Swift wearing a camo shirt and flat-ironed hair, posing next to her late classmate, who sports a backward baseball cap.
Listen to “Ruin the Friendship” below.
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