This {photograph} taken in Paris on April 19, 2024, reveals a smartphone displaying the US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift’s new album “The Tortured Poets Division” on Spotify. A quiet London pub grew to become a pilgrimage website for Taylor Swift followers who recognized it from a track on the US megastar’s newest album. ANTONIN UTZ / AFP
LONDON — “The Black Canine” was a quiet London pub till it grew to become a pilgrimage website for Taylor Swift followers who recognized it from a track on the US megastar’s newest album.
Dewmi Fernando, a 23-year-old vacationer from Singapore joined the devoted flocking in rising numbers to the bar in Vauxhall, south London.
She braved the rain to pose in entrance of the pub’s brick entrance topped with “The Black Canine” signage, and subsequent to a blackboard the place the pub’s supervisor has written the lyrics to “The Black Canine” in chalk.
Within the track from the “The Tortured Poets Division”/”The Anthology,” the 14-time Grammy winner sings about with the ability to nonetheless observe an ex-boyfriend’s location on her telephone.
“Your location, you forgot to show it off / And so I watch as you stroll / Into some bar known as ‘The Black Canine’ / And pierce new holes in my coronary heart,” sings the 34-year-old star.
“Swifties,” the nickname for members of the American singer’s military of followers, instantly got down to establish the infamous “Black Canine.”
They shortly concluded it was the Vauxhall pub after discovering that Swift’s ex-partner, actor Joe Alwyn, lived close by.
The star, who has cultivated a tight-knit group of followers on social media, has not confirmed the rumors however they shortly unfold and the pub has turn into one among London’s latest points of interest.
“It’s been fairly a whirlwind,” Lily Bottomley, occasions supervisor for the SC Soho group that owns the pub, informed AFP.
Whereas in London, Fernando instantly added the pub go to to her itinerary.
“I’ve really been listening to Taylor Swift since I used to be very younger,” she informed AFP.
“She’s a part of my rising up years, by my childhood, by my teenage years, after which now in my maturity, it’s like I grew up together with her.”
Pub increase
Fellow Swiftie Charlotte Garratt, 23, who lives in Bedfordshire, southeast England, got here to London for a day journey together with her pal to trace down the pub.
“As quickly because it got here out, we ran downstairs prefer it’s Christmas morning to take heed to the album,” she informed AFP.
“We’re all the time discovering like we’re detectives or one thing, in search of what it means or if there’s a double that means or metaphors,” she added.
Whereas the pub was not but full on the afternoon of AFP’s go to, all of the tables had been reserved for the night, and a gradual move of followers stopped to take images of the blackboard.
The sudden consideration is a big stroke of luck for the homeowners, coming at a time when the emblematic English pub goes by a tough interval.
Over the previous two years, pubs have seen their prices explode amid rampant inflation and are struggling to draw prospects who’re themselves affected by the cost-of-living disaster.
“The Black Canine” pub has, unsurprisingly, determined to money in on its luck by including “Taylor’s Model” burgers and cocktails to its menu.
For final week’s album launch, the bar supplied beers to all followers who may sing a Swift track, earlier than having to relent within the face of an inflow of Swifties.
“The final 4 days has been actually, actually busy… we’re going to have to increase our opening occasions and shutting occasions to accommodate all of these folks,” mentioned Bottomley.
Bookings have “significantly elevated…, greater than common for a wet week in April,” she added.
“We’ve undoubtedly seen an impression on gross sales, the “Taylor Swift impact,” Bottomley informed AFP, however added there had been no identified sightings of her within the pub.
The bar is already booked up for all the star’s London live performance dates this summer time.
Your subscription couldn’t be saved. Please strive once more.
Your subscription has been profitable.
Nonetheless, some accused the pub of going too far after its supervisor informed Sky Information that he had checked out safety digital camera footage to see if Alwyn or Swift had visited in current months.
