It's 2 AM in your car
Windows down, you pass my street, the memories start
You say, "It's in the past," you drive straight ahead
You're thinkin' that I hate you now
'Cause you still don't know what I never said
[Chorus]
I wish you would come back
Wish I never hung up the phone like I did, I
Wish you knew that
I'd never forget you as long as I live and I
Wish you were right here, right now, it's all good
I wish you would
[Verse 2]
It's 2 AM in my room
Headlights pass the window pane, I think of you
We're a crooked love in a straight line down
Makes you want to run and hide
But it makes you turn right back around
[Chorus]
I wish you would come back
Wish I never hung up the phone like I did, I
Wish you knew that
I'd never forget you as long as I live and I
Wish you were right here, right now, it's all good
I wish you would
I wish we could go back
And remember what we were fighting for and I
Wish you knew that
I miss you too much to be mad anymore and I
Wish you were right here, right now, it's all good
I wish you would
I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I
I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I
I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I (Hey)
[Bridge]
You always knew how to push my buttons (I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I)
You give me everything and nothin' (I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I)
This mad, mad love makes you come runnin' (I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I)
To stand back where you stood (I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I)
I wish you would, I wish you would
(I wish you would, I wish you would)
I wish you would, I wish you would (I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I)
(I wish you would, I wish you would)
(I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I)
[Verse 3]
2 AM, here we are
See your face, hear my voice in the dark
We're a crooked love in a straight line down
Makes you wanna run and hide
But it made us turn right back around
[Chorus]
I wish you would come back
Wish I never hung up the phone like I did, I
Wish you knew that
I'd never forget you as long as I live and I
Wish you were right here, right now, it's all good
I wish you would
I wish you would come back
Wish I never hung up the phone like I did, I
Wish you knew that
I'd never forget you as long as I live and I
Wish you were right here, right now, it's all good
I wish you would
I wish we could go back
And remember what we were fighting for and I
Wish you knew that
I miss you too much to be mad anymore and I
Wish you were right here, right now, it's all good
I wish you would
You always knew how to push my buttons (I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I)
You give me everything and nothin' (I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I)
This mad, mad love makes you come runnin' (I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I)
To stand back where you stood (I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I)
I wish you would, I wish you would
(I wish you would, I wish you would)
(I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I)
I wish you would, I wish you would
(I wish you would, I wish you would, I wish you would)
(I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I)
I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I
I, I-I-I, I, I, I wish, I wish, I
I wish you would
About
This is a song about an ex-lover who she doesn’t exactly think she will never ever get back together with. Although their relationship is over, she has no bitter feelings towards him. A part of her wishes he would try to get back with her, as she would not decline. It also flirts with the idea of a friends with benefits relationship.
A fan who attended the 1989 Secret Sessions held by Queen T herself posted the following story on Tumblr:
Taylor said that she wrote “I Wish You Would” a couple of months after her and Harry [Styles of One Direction] broke up, and they decided to become friends again and she said this was the first time she had become friends with an ex to the point where they were comfortable enough to talk about why the relationship didn’t work out. She said he told her about how, after they broke up, he bought a house literally one road adjacent to hers. Every day he would drive home, and accidentally turn into her street, and he told her how he just wanted to stop at her house and see her, but he never did. She said this song is about while he was in the car making the decision to get out the car and see her, she was sitting in her bedroom, wishing he would make the move and go back to her and just pitch up at her house. She compared it to a classic John Hughes movie where both parties want the same thing but neither has the guts to say anything. Honestly, she spoke so fondly of that relationship. She really does miss it.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
“I Wish You Would” is a song that I wrote with Jack Antonoff and it’s the first song that we work on together. I think, for this song, we wanted to create sort of a John Huges movie visual, with pining and, you know, one person is over here and misses the other person, but it’s too prideful and won’t say it, meanwhile, this other person is here and missing the same person, they’re missing each other, but they are not saying it. I had this happen in my life, and so I wanted to kind of narrate it in a very cinematic way, where it’s like, you’re seeing two scenes play out, and then in the bridge, you’re seeing the final scene, where it resolves itself. So, it says, “It’s a crooked love in a straight line down / Makes you wanna run and hide but it makes you turn right back around,” so it’s kind of that dramatic love that’s never really quite where it needs to be and that tension that that creates.
— Via Yahoo! Live
She talked about the song in the voice memo for it.
This is another way I’ve written songs recently. This is a song I did with Jack Antonoff, and Jack is one of my friends and so were hanging out and he pulled out his phone and goes ‘I made this amazing track the other day. It’s so cool, I love these guitar sounds.’ And he played it for me and immediately I could hear this finished song in my head, and I just said ‘Please, please let me have that. Let me play with is, send it to me.’ And so he sent it to me and I was on tour and this was me playing the track on my laptop recording me singing the vocal into my phone and it ended up being a song called “I Wish You Would”, because Jack wrote back and said ‘I love that’. So this is another way of writing, it’s writing to track:
“He drove past her street every night”.
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