Who Is Taylor Swift's 'Hey Stephen' About?

Taylor Swift‘s Fearless has been out for well over a decade, but thanks to the re-recorded album’s release on Friday (April 9), some newer fans are curious about the story behind one of the songs on the album!

“Hey Stephen” is one of the songs on the album, and yes: it’s written about a real Stephen!

“I can’t help it if you look like an angel / Can’t help it if I wanna kiss you in the rain,” she sings on the swoon-y crush song.

Get the details…

The track was actually written for Stephen Barker Liles from the country music duo Love And Theft. At the time, they were an opening act on her Fearless Tour way back in 2008. Taylor had even left a hidden message in the album booklet that said “Love and Theft,” confirming the theory.

A year later, Stephen revealed that Taylor hinted that she wrote a song about him.

“She didn’t say like, ‘I wrote a nice song about you,’ so I’m just thinking, ‘What did I do?’ Because she doesn’t really write very many nice songs about guys. So I was very relieved when it turned out to be a nice song, and it’s actually one of the nicest things anybody’s ever done for me,” he told The Boot.

In fact, he wrote a song right back called “Try to Make It Anyway”!

“Me and Taylor really hit it off and became really close when we were on tour together. We had a real emotional relationship. We talked on the phone a lot. She was really cool. One day she called me up and was like, ‘Hey, I wrote a song about you.’ I was like, ‘Dude, that’s really funny because I just wrote a song about you last week!’” he told Taste of Country.

Check out the lyrical changes Taylor Swift made to her Fearless re-recording.