There’s no golden ticket like finding your name in the lyrics of a Taylor Swift song. It’s one thing if you’re Charlie Puth and you’re already on Spotify’s Top 150 Monthly Artists list. But for another musical artist whose name is mentioned in Swift’s album “The Tortured Poets Department”, the impact promises to be much greater. Pop-punk band The Starting Line is mentioned twice in the song “The Black Dog,” and suddenly nostalgia for (or newfound curiosity for) the Philadelphia-based band skyrockets.
The group exploded onto the emo scene in 2002 with a song called “The Best of Me,” which is presumably the unnamed Starting Line song that Swift continues to reference in the lyrics. How does the group – which has only been active sporadically in recent years – react to unexpected support from the universe’s biggest pop star?
First of all, they’re glad it’s not used in a diss track. well it is East a path of dissent, but it is certainly not dissent. “I’m so happy that it seems to be used in a relatively positive light,” said singer Kenny Vasoli, in a phone call with Variety. “It’s definitely been quite an unexpected shower of love and a very grateful moment for the band, because it’s not something we could have seen coming, especially not from someone of his greatness. It’s a very cute name.
The Starting Line actually has the distinction of being the only other artist to be mentioned twice by his name in the album’s lyrics. Take that, Puth, Blue Nile, Patti Smith, Dylan Thomas, Clara Bow and Stevie Nicks! (Actually, it could be three times, since, beyond the two mentions in “The Black Dog”, the phrase “the starting line” also appears separately in the song “Fresh Out the Slammer”, but it does not ‘is not used as a reference to a group there, just a figure of speech… where is it?)
The name appears in the first chorus:
I just don’t understand how you don’t miss me
In The Black Dog
When someone is playing The Starting Line and you jump
But she’s too young to know this song
It was woven into the magical fabric of our dreams
Old habits die screaming
And wait, in the second round, they are back:
And I hope it’s shit
In The Black Dog
When someone is playing The Starting Line and you jump
But she’s too young to know this song…
“I feel like it’s trying to convey a sort of nostalgia for the era and the kind of music we were making at that time, and I’m very flattered that we’re representing that,” Vasoli says.
Swift would have been 13 the year “Best of Me” was released, a number that obviously holds a special place for her, perhaps even age-wise. And although the song was a national hit with emo fans, establishing the Starting Line as Warped Tour material, the group remains heroes of the Philadelphia area, not far from where Swift grew up, this which could solidify a nostalgic appeal for her.
Yet the lyrics also make it clear that the excitement over sharing “Best of Me” was something she and the person she just broke up with in the song had in common…and Swift doesn’t often lie in its equipment. The question that annoys fans is therefore: if this is not fiction, is it more about Matty Healy or Joe Alwyn?
“I’m definitely getting a crash course in the history between the characters involved in this case,” Vasoli says, without choosing any side himself. “So it’s been a pretty fascinating study in fandom, for sure.”
What gives obvious weight to the argument for Healy, the 1975 leader, is that he in fact, he sang “Best of Me” twice in concert while dating Taylor Swift, at least according to the deadlines posted on the World Wide Web. Or at least he sang a snippet of Starting Line’s signature song during a show on April 21, 2023 and again on May 3 last year. “Shout out to people in their 30s,” Healy joked after performing the snippet of the song. Now, it’s not easy to say conclusively that no other person who split with Swift in recent years was also a major emo head, but the internet is just saying so.
When Healy began showing his love for the Starting Line at a concert last spring, “we heard about it, but it definitely didn’t get as much attention as that.” It seems like now people are watching these YouTube videos of him covering this song a little more, and there’s a little more investigation to be done on them. At the time, it was just a nice thing that passed around between the guys, but didn’t go much further.
(However, they object to the theory that “The Black Dog” is about Healy: based on photographs released by Jack Antonoff from last year’s studio sessions, fans believe the song was recorded at mid-May 2023. Which would lend itself to the hypothesis that it is really Alwyn, and that she played the song for Healy, who was then inspired to cover “Best of Me” in concert .)
Vasoli also has no theory about the actual black dog, if any, that Swift refers to in the lyrics, in which she sees that her recent ex forgot to turn off location sharing on her phone, so she knows exactly what bar it enters at. There’s a Black Dog bar in London, but there’s also a Black Dog Tavern on Martha’s Vineyard, and then there’s a heavy metal bar in Paris called the Black Dog, among other things.
But they wouldn’t play “Best of Me” over a metal bar’s sound system, so we can probably at least rule out the Paris possibility, right? “I don’t know. You know, we’re heavier than you think,” Vasoli retorts. “We surprise people with how heavy we are once we get up there.”
But he has no personal knowledge of Black Dog’s geolocation possibilities. “No, the only black dogs I’ve met are just good boys and girls at the dog park,” he says. “Your guess is as good as mine on this one.”
The Starting Line currently only has two shows planned: a show at Novo in Los Angeles on the first day of summer, June 21, followed much later by a set at the When We Were Young festival on October 19. . The Starting Line actually played quite a few shows in 2023; it was the most the group had made in about a quarter of a century.
Could they book a lot more now and present themselves as one of the few Swift-backed rock ‘n’ roll bands of their ilk in the world?
“You know, it’s been kind of a topic of conversation: How much do you lean into something like that? Vasoli admits, a little wary even of himself about how much he can be seen to be taking advantage of it. “Because something like that is not something you really envision in your music career. The repercussions have been very significant and we’re just trying to accept it gratefully at this point, sitting back and seeing what comes of it.
Although the singer says these two concert dates “are for now, there will be more to come and others that will be booked.” The vast majority of group members have day jobs that require them to stay at home quite a bit, more than some other groups. So we don’t regularly take the road for too long, but we try to adopt a pace that allows us to do more.
He also says that new music will be heard from the band, for the first time since a 2015 EP.
“There’s been an uptick in us playing together, and a really good interpersonal dynamic between the band members recently and it’s been very creative and inspiring playing together recently. So we’ve been engaged in a creative process writing new music since last year. We collect everything and find the best way to distribute it. But we are generating music and have been for a while. As we try to get back into a more usual rhythm with the band, after all this time, it’s nice that we have some light on us at the moment, especially since we’ve been engaging more than ever since like 2007, when we kind of gave up.
“The Black Dog” is easily one of the three or four most beloved songs among Swifties. Threads devoted to the song feature a mix of Joe-or-Matty debaters, new emo fans who are excited to have a place to talk about their longtime love of the starting line, and then this smaller subset of people who are Swifties. And leave with the group.
Examples of comments on Reddit threads about namechecking Starting Line: “I’m losing my millennial mind over this reference.” “This one was aimed at older emo Swifties.” “I screamed! They were my favorite band in high school. My husband and I still listen to them all the time. “All the older emo millennials scream: one of us, one of us.” “That moment when you realize that you are a musical influence for one of the biggest stars on the planet.” “Drop the cover (Starting Line) of the song immediately.”
And: “THIS IS THE MOST PENNSYLVANIAN THING THIS WOMAN HAS EVER DONE.” I’m so happy for you guys.
(For those who really pay attention to the two worlds intersecting, a mutual fan noted, “It’s funny to think that Starting Line and Jack’s first band, Steel Train, were both on Drive Thru Records.”)
The singer still seems amazed, to use a Swiftian word, by this stroke of recognition. “It’s a journey, man, that’s for sure. I can only be truly grateful and touched by all of this. And it’s nice to be able to talk with someone like you from our group in any capacity. So I’m very happy about that.
What if other dates were indeed in sight following this? “Please, everyone come see our group. If that’s enough to get the name out there, come see the goods. He is suddenly taken aback by what he has just said. “You don’t have to print this part. This seems so weird. Vasoli can be forgiven for a bit of enthusiasm: being included in the document that the whole world is scanning – a lyric sheet – is the sort of thing that can make someone jump.