After leaving her shift at The Gage restaurant near Millenium Park on Monday, Jess Dennsion saw a post on a Taylor Swift fan page that she couldn’t ignore.
She ran to River North, where painters hoisted on a green scissor lift created a fairly inconspicuous QR code using the letters “ttpd” and the number “13” on the side of a building at 33 W. Grand Ave.
The QR code links to a 13-second YouTube short on Swift’s account, where the message “Error 321” and a faded “13” appear in a typewriter font. Swift’s 11th studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” is due out Friday, and it’s well known that she has an affinity for the number 13 — as well as teasing projects with carefully placed Easter eggs.
On Tuesday, three painters continued to place tiny “ttpd” and “13” in black on the large white canvas. Some were in upper case, others in lower case. Some were close together, while others were far apart. As of Tuesday afternoon, Taylor Swift’s name was placed above the “Department of Tortured Poets.”
It was a fun guessing game for the dozens of Swifties who came in and out to photograph and analyze the mural, including Dennison.
The crew was finished by the time Dennison arrived Monday, but she vowed to show up first thing Tuesday morning on her day off. The 29-year-old River North resident brought friendship bracelets to hand out to other fans and a few for the painters that said “QR King.” She also livestreamed to her over 60,000 followers on TikTok, where she posts primarily about Swift.
“We haven’t seen anything big involved from a fan perspective (in Chicago) since ‘Reputation’ when it came out and surprised the fans,” Dennison said. “We haven’t seen any real action from Taylor since Rep, so that’s really nice.”
Like other fans, Dennison has theorized about the meaning of the “Error 321” message. She definitely thinks Swift is counting down to something. Since it’s on YouTube, his best guess is a music video for one of the unreleased songs.
She also thinks it might be connected in some way to a 2021 Swift interview with Stephen Colbert. During the interview, Swift shows a slice of pizza on a vision board, apparently meant to represent pizza from Scoozi, a now-closed River North restaurant that employed Colbert. The fact that the restaurant and the mural are in the same neighborhood can’t be a coincidence, Dennison said.
Others on social media thought the mural’s Chicago location might reference a line from his song, “The Lakes,” which includes “Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die,” in a nod to the title of his new album, “The Department of Tortured Poets”.
Swift performed “The Lakes” as one of her surprise songs on the first night of three concerts in Chicago during the Eras tour last summer.
Globally Murals, an outdoor advertising company based in New York, oversaw the mural, although a representative said they could not comment on the project.
Swift’s 2006 debut album was the first CD Dennison said he owned, and deciphering the superstar artist’s Easter eggs and riddles became an addictive pastime. She attended the first concert of the Eras tour in Chicago last June, calling it “incredible” and “absolutely breathtaking.”
“I kind of grew up with her. She’s only a few years older than me, so her life and mine aligned perfectly,” Dennison said. “I turned to her music for pretty much all my inspiration or heartbreak, or if I am sad. If I want to cry or be happy, I turn to his music.
Before Swift announced the release of the album — which features 16 title tracks, including two collaborations with Florence + the Machine and Post Malone — at the Grammys in February, a similar “Error 321” message appeared on her website. She also hides clues about the album on Apple Music in the lyrics of her old songs and hosts a library installation with Spotify in Los Angeles.
Kim DeGracia, a 31-year-old Streeterville resident, hopes the 321 countdown will be for the highly anticipated album “Reputation (Taylor’s Version).” Perhaps the singer will release two albums at once, DeGracia speculated, and “1, 2, 3, Let’s Go Bitch” is a common chant when Swift performs “Delicate,” a song on “Reputation.”
DeGracia, who moved to Chicago in January, has been a big Swift fan since her debut album. When she saw the mural on TikTok, she knew she wanted to see it and show it to her sister.
“His words are really relevant,” DeGracia said. “She’s about the same age as me, so I feel like she went through different stages, her teens, her 20s, experiencing similar things.”