The newly engaged Taylor Swift , by her own admission, “has a long list of ex-lovers.” (Or “Starbucks lovers,” if you, too, fell victim to a common musical eggcorn.) That lyric from “Blank Space,” penned in Swift’s early 20s when she only had to stand within 10 feet of a vaguely famous man for tabloids to predict wedding bells, is both an eye-rolling rebuke to the press and public and a tongue-in-cheek call-out to her male muses.

That’s the thing about the men Taylor Swift has loved (or at least written a song about): They’re more than a salacious sideshow used to distract from the towering talent of a young female artist. They are the art.

Swift , always the mastermind shaping her own narrative, has made them so. From the high school boy who was the reason for “Teardrops On My Gui

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