Walker Hayes is proudly declaring his Swiftie status on his New Money EP.
The eight-song record ends with a track titled, “Taylor Swift,” which chronicles his experience trying to secure tickets to the 33-year-old singer’s Eras Tour.
“Two Taylor Swift concert ticket stubs / Cost me more than my mortgage goes / And that was before T-shirts, cokes and popcorn /But, hey, I mean how many times does your little girl turn 9?” Hayes, 43, croons in the first verse. “Dave Ramsey wouldn’t like it/ But it was priceless watchin’ her watch her hero, singin’ every single word to every song.”
He continues: “In the nosebleeds, smilin’ like we have VIP passes on / So enchanted, ’til her bedtime struck like midnight and she yawned / And, climbed up in my arms, she was gone.”
The country singer took his daughter Loxley “Lolly” — whom he shares with wife Laney Beville Hayes — to watch Swift’s show earlier this summer, which spans her decades in the spotlight.
While Walker marveled at Lolly’s joy to attend the Eras Tour on the track, he also offered the sweetest insight into their father-daughter bond.
“Who am I that I get to hold a real life princess / While she sleeps through her way too expensive birthday gift?” he sings in the chorus. “I just hope that she grows up and always knows that me, her mom and Jesus / Love her even more than she loves Taylor Swift.”
Walker later adds: “When she turns 22 and I turn 56 / I hope she thinks of me when she hears Taylor Swift.”
In June, Walker first teased his “Taylor Swift” tune when he played an acoustic version with Lolly for his Instagram followers. “Lolly’s new favorite song. True story time,” he captioned video footage of the pair performing the then-unreleased single in their kitchen.
To promote the release of “Taylor Swift” on Friday, September 29, Walker uploaded a clip of Swift cheering for rumored boyfriend Travis Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs to his Instagram Story. He added a “Listen to ‘Taylor Swift’” button to the post, which linked to the song’s Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music pages.
Walker and Laney were high school sweethearts — who met during a school production of Little Shop of Horrors — before they tied the knot in 2004. Since then, the “Fancy Like” singer and Laney have gone on to welcome six children: Lela, Chapel, Baylor, Beckett, Loxley and Everly. (The duo’s seventh child, daughter Oakleigh, was stillborn in June 2018.)
“It’s important that your father loves you and that you know it,” Walker told Fatherly in 2020 after his approach to parenting. “I know it’s important from being a son. I know my dad loves me. It has helped me to grow into a man. I always want them to know I’m in their corner.”
He continued at the time: “We don’t wake up as their parents and know every single thing we’re doing. I tell my 13-year-old all the time that we’re learning as we go along. It’s important to teach them to forgive themselves and each other.”
Walker Hayes’ New Money EP is out now.
