“No Body, No Crime” by Taylor Swift (ft. HAIM)

The lyrics of “No Body, No Crime” were inspired by Taylor Swift’s affinity for a genre of literature known as true crime. Accordingly, the featured narrative reads like a story you would find in a murder-mystery novel. The tale can be a bit confusing in terms of matching up pronouns with the characters they represent.

But what seems to have gone down is this:

The singer has a homegirl named Este whose husband is cheating on her. Shortly after Este comes to this realization, she ends up missing. The implication may be that her husband murdered her and hid the body, as now he has moved his mistress into the house and basically marries her in Este’s stead. Then he too apparently ends up murdered. And in this instance it was actually the singer, alongside Este’s sister, who perpetrated the crime in the name of avenging Este. And the title points to the fact that throughout all stages of this ordeal, despite suspicions being abound, there is no actual evidence of anyone committing any wrongdoing.

Swift wrote “No Body, No Crime” herself. And the character of Este was named after one of the three Haim sisters, with the other two being Danielle and Alana. And despite this being their first collaboration with Tay Tay, Swift has been cool with Haim for some time.  In fact in recognition of this song, she even referred to herself as “the fourth Haim sister”.

Swift produced this track with Aaron Dessner, the musician who served such a role throughout the entirety of Evermore, the album it is featured on. And the song was officially released, via Republic Records, on the 11th of December 2020.