‘Loml’ lyrics: What does the Taylor Swift song title mean? (2024)

When the track list for “The Tortured Poets Department“ dropped, consensus among fans was that “loml,” the 12th track on the album, stood for “love of my life.”

The lyrics tell a different story. Like many of the other songs on “The Tortured Poets Department,” this is a song of heartbreak. Rather than love of my life, the title means loss of my life.

She describes a relationship she thought would be forever but wasn’t, singing, “What we thought was for all time, was momentary.”

Revisit our live coverage of the release of “The Tortured Poets Department.”

The other person made promises, including one that ties into the song’s title: “You said I’m the love of your life.” The person also lied (or s--- talked her under a table) by “talking rings and talking cradles.”

Now, she is coming to terms with the other person’s broken promises. “I’m combing through the braids of lies/ ‘I’ll never leave,’ never mind,” she sings.

The song ends with her mourning what could have been. The final words are, “You’re the loss of my life.”

The idea of forever and wedding rings comes up in other songs on the album.

She describes an incident in the song “The Tortured Poets Department,” singing, “At dinner you take my ring off my finger/ and put it on the one people put wedding rings on/ and that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding.”In “Fresh Out the Slammer,” she describes a rekindled relationship with someone she used to know: “Here at the park where we used to sit on children’s swings, wearing imaginary rings.”

“The Tortured Poets Department” is the first album Swift released since her breakup with Joe Alwyn.

She and the English actor were together for six years before their rumored breakup came in April 2023, which was followed by a rumored relationship with Matty Healy that appeared to span from May to June 2023. Swift hasn’t commented on either — but both are seemingly subjects on the album.

Read the lyrics to 'loml'

Who’s gonna stop us from waltzing back into rekindled flames

If we know the steps anyway?

We embroidered the memories of the time I was away

Stitching, we were just kids, babe

I said I don’t mind, it takes time

I thought I was better safe than starry-eyed

I felt a glow like this never before and never since

If you know it in one glimpse, it’s legendary

You and I go from one kiss to getting married

Still alive, killing time at the cemetery, never quite buried

In your suit and tie, in the nick of time

You low down boy, you stand up guy

You holy ghost, you told me I’m the love of yourlife

You said I’m the love of your life

Who’s gonna tell me the truth

When you blew in with the winds of fate

And told me I reformed you

When your impressionist paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes,

Well, you took me to hell too

And all at once the ink bleeds

A conman sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme

But I felt a hole like this never before and ever since

About a million times

If you know it in one glimpse, it’s legendary

What we thought was for all time, was momentary

Still alive, killing time at the cemetery, never quite buried

You cinephile in black and white

All those plot twists and dynamite

Mr. steal-your-girl then make her cry

You said I’m the love of your life

You s----talked me under a table,

talking rings and talking cradles

I wish I could unrecall how we almost had it all

Dancing phantoms on the terrace,

are they second-hand embarrassed

That I can’t get out of bed cause something counterfeit’s dead?

It was legendary

It was momentary

It was unnecessary

Should have let it stay buried

Oh, what a valiant roar

What a bland goodbye

The coward claimed he was a lion

I’m combing through the braids of lies

“I’ll never leave,” never mind

Our field of dreams engulfed in fire

Your arsons matches your eyes

And I’ll still see it until I die

You’re the loss of my life