When Taylor Swift released her seventh album, Lover, in 2019, there were four singles off the album: “Me,” “You Need to Calm Down,” “Lover,” and “The Man.” Another track Swift intended to release as a single was “Cruel Summer,” which she wrote with Anne Clark (St. Vincent) and co-producer Jack Antonoff.
To finally give the track its due play, Swift is releasing “Cruel Summer” as a single on June 20.
During her Eras Tour performance in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Saturday (June 17), Swift revealed her “new” single and explained to the crowd that the onset of the pandemic prevented her from releasing “Cruel Summer” in 2020.
“‘Cruel Summer,’ that song was my pride and joy on that album,” said Swift to the audience. “That was my favorite song. You have conversations before the album comes out and everyone around weighs in on what they think should be singles and I was finally about to have my favorite song become the single off of ‘Lover.’”
She continued, “And I’m not trying to blame the global pandemic that we had, but that is something that happened that stopped ‘Cruel Summer’ from ever being a single.”
“Cruel Summer,’ that song was my pride and joy on that album,” said Swift to the audience. “That was my favorite song. You have conversations before the album comes out and everyone around weighs in on what they think should be singles and I was finally about to have my favorite song become the single off of ‘Lover.’”
She continued, “And I’m not trying to blame the global pandemic that we had, but that is something that happened that stopped ‘Cruel Summer’ from ever being a single.”
Though Lover climbed the charts to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with its initial singles hitting the Top 10 and Top 40 of the Hot 100, “Cruel Summer,” the story about a secret romance — Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes / What doesn’t kill me makes me want you more — was somewhat of a sleeper hit until it began climbing up the streaming charts in 2023.
The fan favorite got a boost after being featured in the 2022 Amazon Prime series The Summer I Turned Pretty, along with Swift’s Eras Tour, which has contributed to streams of the song jumping 120 percent, placing the song on the Spotify U.S. Top 100 list, where it became the second most-streamed non-single in April.
Swift went on to thank her fans for making the Lover track so popular on streaming services, which helped her justify releasing it as a single four years after the release of the album.
“So what’s happening right now, thanks to you, and honestly, no one understands how this is happening, but you guys have streamed ‘Cruel Summer’ so much right now in 2023 that it’s at the top,” said Swift. “It’s rising on the streaming charts so crazy. My label just decided to make it the next single. It’s truly, truly perplexing to me because I just haven’t had something like this happen in my career.”
