Charlie Puth waited a couple of weeks to publicly respond to Taylor Swift name-checking him on her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” but he finally spoke up Friday to… well, allude to the shout-out, if not reference it directly, and to say it’s prompting the release of some new music from him.
Puth will be putting out a single called “Hero” on May 24, in advance of a new album. And although he didn’t explicitly state who it’s about, he made it clear that Swift celebrating him in song was the triggering factor in deciding to put it out, after having had hesitations about it.
“These last couple weeks have been really crazy for obvious reasons, but I wanted to share something with you,” Puth wrote in text over a video of him debuting a portion of the single. “This is a song I wrote about my friend called ‘Hero.’ Sometimes I get a little nervous being overly honest in my music which is why this was sitting on my hard drive for awhile. But I think someone out there was giving me a sign that I needed to release it. So… I declare ‘Hero’ will be out everywhere on May 24th as the first single of my new album. Thank you for your support… you know who you are.”
“The Tortured Poets Department” is a highly quotable album, yet the line about Puth managed to be the most quoted line of them all. In the set’s title track, Swift manages to name drop a few writers including Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and two, vastly different American singer-songwriters: Patti Smith and Puth.
“You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist,” Swift sings.
Puth has been a longtime fan of Swift’s. During a 2022 performance in New York City, Puth covered Swift’s breakthrough hit “Teardrops on My Guitar” and said she was the “queen” of the classic chord progressions “that everybody has used, but she makes it feel different every single time.” Later that same year, in an interview on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” Puth debunked rumors the pair had worked on any music together and said he had only spoken to the superstar once but was open to the idea of collaborating.
As suggested in the lyrics, Swift is not alone in her Charlie Puth appreciation, among famous singers. The attention to the song brought to light the fact that typewriter- and chocolate-loving Matty Healy of the 1975 had several years ago on Twitter praised Puth, who tweeted back with a “thank you” in return.
Puth’s last full-length LP, “Charlie,” was released in 2022 and peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard 200. It featured singles like “Light Switch,” “That’s Hilarious,” and “Left and Right,” a collaboration with Jungkook of BTS.
