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Taylor Swift and The Summer I Turned Pretty are inextricably linked — the superstar's music has often soundtracked the Prime Video series, whether in pivotal scenes or teaser trailers. Now that The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 has finally premiered, we know Swift's hold over the show will only continue throughout the final installment.
TSITP uses music (and especially, music by superstars like Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, SZA, and Charli XCX) as a central storytelling device, even more so than the average show. The lyrics and vibes are deeply important to understanding a given character's emotional state, as much as any dialogue or facial expression. That's why the song choices can offer big hints about where this series is going: they're plot catalysts. Who will Belly (Lola Tung) end up with, Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno), Conrad (Christopher Briney), or herself? The clues are in the music.
The final season of TSITP premiered with its first two episodes on Wednesday, July 16, and already we've gotten our first few Taylor Swift needle drops. Below, find out more about which songs have been in The Summer I Turned Pretty so far and what they might mean for how the show could end.
Which Taylor Swift songs were in in The Summer I Turned Pretty season 1 and 2?
The complete list of Swift songs in The Summer I Turned Pretty seasons 1 and 2 is as follows:
| Song | Context |
|---|---|
| “This Love (Taylor's Version)” | Season 1 trailer |
| “Cruel Summer” | S1, Ep. 1: Belly packs up for a summer at Cousins Beach |
| “Lover” | S1, Ep. 1: The first time we see Belly and Conrad together |
| “False God” | S1, Ep. 4: On July 4th, when Belly and Conrad almost kiss on the dock, before Jeremiah interrupts |
| “Hey Stephen” | S1 and S2: Steven's ringtone |
| “The Way I Loved You (TV)” | S1, Ep. 7: Belly and Conrad lock eyes on the dance floor at the debutante ball |
| “This Love (TV)” | S1, Ep. 7 and S2 EP. 1: Belly and Conrad first get together, kissing on the beach |
| “August” | Season 2 teaser trailer |
| “Back to December (TV)” | Season 2 trailer |
| “Last Kiss (TV)” | S2, Ep. 1: Belly mourns the loss of the Fishers in bed |
| “Invisible String” | S2, Ep. 2: Belly and Conrad share a pivotal Christmas at Cousins |
| “Sweet Nothing” | S2, Ep. 4: Belly reminisces about Conrad when she was younger |
| “Delicate” | S2, Ep. 6: Belly and Jeremiah kiss for the first time |
| “Snow on the Beach” | S2, Ep. 7: An emotional scene between Belly and Conrad, as they address their breakup on the beach |
| “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” | S2, Ep. 8: Susannah and Belly share one of their last conversations together, where Susannah says they'll all come back to each other eventually |
| “exile (feat. Bon Iver)” | S2, Ep. 8: The wrenching end to the triangle as Belly and Conrad end for good at the motel — at least until season 3 |
Which Taylor Swift songs show up in TSITP season 3?
Here's the counter as of July 17:
| Song | Context |
|---|---|
| “Daylight” | Season 3 trailer |
| “Red (TV)” | Season 3 trailer |
| “You're Losing Me (TV)” | S3, Ep. 1: Belly finds out Jeremiah slept with someone when they broke up and lied about it for years |
What do the Taylor Swift songs in season 3 mean for who Belly chooses: Jeremiah, Conrad, or Herself?
In the lead-up to season 3, fans got a brutal Swift double-header in the first teaser: a mashup of “Daylight” and “Red.” The first song, Swift's Lover closer, soundtracked the happy scenes between Belly and Jeremiah. “Red,” meanwhile, comes in when Conrad enters the picture — “I once believed love was red” turns into “Loving him was red" as Belly reflects on her first love.
From that reading, it could be easy to paint Conrad as the passionate first love meant to stay in the past, and Jeremiah as the soft place to land guy you end up with, but the second trailer complicates that straightforward interpretation: it uses the same two songs over scenes featuring both couples. And in the first episode of season 3, we see that Conrad’s memory of Belly is literally golden-hued: “I once believed love would be burning red, but it’s golden,” goes “Daylight.”
Obviously, music is adaptable and evergreen, applicable to situations beyond the original intent a songwriter wrote them with, but Swift's discography carries so many layers of context and meta-narrative that it's hard not to incorporate some of that outside noise into how we understand her work, and by extension, how we might analyze The Summer I Turned Pretty.
We know now, for example, that the muse for much of reputation and Lover is not the person Swift will be with forever, and that Midnights is something of a breakup album. That brings us to…. “You’re Losing Me.”
I watched the first episode in New York City’s Bryant Park with hundreds of fans, and as soon as that song kicked in, in that scene, the clearly pro-Conrad crowd burst into cheers. It comes in right as Belly has found out that Jeremiah slept with Lacie Barone in Cabo during their freshman year — when the two were broken up in Jermiah’s POV, and not in Belly’s — and lied about it since. She slaps him and yells, “F*ck you,” and then the heartbeat percussion of “You're Losing Me” begins.
The Midnights-era bonus track, released after the album came out, is plaintive and heartbreaking; fans have tended to read it as the closest thing to an explanation for why Swift’s six-year relationship ended. It’s a song about two people becoming ghosts to each other, the slow fade of a long-term relationship that two people won’t fight for anymore.
“Do I throw out everything we built or keep it?” Swift wonders. “You might just have dealt the final blow.”
As you might imagine, that doesn’t bode well for Team Jeremiah. It’s the kind of song that will be hard to come back from — and it certainly won’t be washed away by a Benson Boone-soundtracked marriage proposal.
