After some frantic puzzle-solving thanks to Google, Taylor Swift has finally announced the titles of her 1989 (Taylor’s Version) vault tracks… kind of. In her album announcement, Swift mentioned five “From the Vault” songs that fans have never heard before, but when the song titles officially dropped, one title was noticeably missing. So what is the fifth 1989 (TV) vault track called?
ICYMI, Swift announced on Sept. 19 that she had teamed up with Google to help fans unlock the vault. Fans had to solve a collective 33 million puzzles (yes, million, not thousand) to get there, but of course, never doubt Swiftie power. These are the fans who started a mini-earthquake on the Eras Tour, after all. And after they started using the feature, it didn’t take long for Swifties to find out the vault track titles for 1989 (TV): “Is It Over Now?”, “Now That We Don’t Talk,” “Say Don’t Go,” and “Suburban Legends.”
If you’re counting, that’s four titles — one less than was mentioned in Swift’s Instagram post on Aug. 10 that said, “To be perfectly honest, this is my most FAVORITE re-record I’ve ever done because the 5 From The Vault tracks are so insane. I can’t believe they were ever left behind.” So, then… why was the fifth title still left behind?
I wasn’t the only one asking that question — many fans took to social media and started theorizing about the fifth title. There was one obvious clue: Taylor Nation, Swift’s official fanbase on X (formerly Twitter), reshared Swift’s original vault teaser video, asking fans to think about the fifth vault song’s title. The video showed T, “, S, U, !, “, and L coming out of the vault, leading many fans to believe that Swift has a song called “SLUT!” or “LUST!” up her sleeve. None of the four other song titles used all of those letters, meaning that this clue was still unanswered at the time.
And guess what? Swifties were right — later on Sept. 20, Swift shared the back covers of 1989 (TV) to her Instagram, which included all the vault track titles. That fifth song is indeed called “Slut!” That’s one mystery solved, but it does raise another question: Could 1989 (TV) be the first re-recording of Swift’s that doesn’t feature any collabs with other artists?
A major theory held that the fifth vault track was kept a secret because it included a feature that Swift might want to give its own moment in the spotlight. Swift has tapped at least one other artist to feature on all of her re-records so far: Fearless (TV) had “You All Over Me” feat. Marren Morris and “That’s When” feat. Keith Urban. Red (TV) included “Nothing New” feat. Phoebe Bridgers, “I Bet You Think About Me” feat. Chris Stapleton, and “Run” feat. Ed Sheeran. Finally, her most recent re-record, Speak Now (TV), featured Fall Out Boy on “Electric Touch” and Paramore’s Hayley Williams on “Castles Crumbling.” The logic follows that Swift would want at least one feature on 1989 (TV) — but who?
Some signs pointed to Nicki Minaj. One of the Google puzzle’s clues ended up spelling “Sagittarius,” which is both Swift’s and Minaj’s zodiac sign. This isn’t much on its own, but at the 2023 VMAs on Sept. 12, Swift shouted out Minaj as her “favorite Sagittarius” when accepting an award. Minaj also pointed out their star sign connection in a post on Aug. 24, responding to the news that Swift and Minaj are the only two female artists with 100 or more Billboard Hot 100 entries. She wrote, “Fighting the urge to say Sagittarius tingz right now so bad 🤭.”
A Minaj feature would have been pretty iconic, especially considering her and Swift’s relationship during the original 1989 era. If you’ve forgotten, the 2015 VMAs nominations caused some controversy after Minaj’s “Anaconda” wasn’t nominated for Video of the Year, while Swift’s “Bad Blood” video was. Minaj tweeted her disappointment about nominations instead going to videos that celebrate “women with very slim bodies,” which Swift appeared to take as a personal jab, because she directly replied to Minaj’s tweet. This caused a Twitter back-and-forth that ultimately culminated in Swift apologizing publicly to Minaj and them performing together at the 2015 VMAs to put the whole situation behind them. Based on those recent interactions, the two appear to be thick as thieves now, and a song together would only solidify that.
Minaj wasn’t the only name being tossed around, however: Names like Harry Styles (Swift’s ex around the time she was writing 1989), previous collaborators Ed Sheeran and Phoebe Bridgers (of boygenius), and her Eras Tour opener Sabrina Carpenter had all been put forth by fans as possibilities. Some of these were more wishful thinking than anything, but who’s to say? Maybe Swift really is keeping all of the vault tracks to herself this time… or maybe we’ll have another announcement to freak out over soon.
This article was originally published on 9/20/23. It was updated on 9/20/23.