Grantham pub landlord’s surprise as The Black Dog features on Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department album

Staff at a town pub were unaware that its name has been featured on the new album of a global superstar.

In her recently released double album titled ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, American singer Taylor Swift features a song called The Black Dog.

It is believed to be inspired by a pub in Vauxhall, London, but there are a handful of other pubs across the country with the name - and just one in Lincolnshire, in Watergate, Grantham.

Since the album release on Friday, staff at The Black Dog in Grantham have now been asked if they are a “Swiftie friendly pub,” said landlord Chris Knowles.

Despite no sightings of Taylor in Grantham so far, Chris added: “If she is ever in town she is more than welcome to the pub for a drink!”

The lyrics which say ‘you forgot to turn it [your location] off / and so I watch as you walk into some bar called The Black Dog’, is believed by fans of Taylor, known as ‘Swifties’, to be a reference to the pub her ex-boyfriend of six years, Joe Alwyn, used to go to.

If Taylor ever does pop in for a drink, she’ll need to have her wits about her - in 2020, a ghost-hunting group claimed to have captured the spirit of a monk.

The Tortured Poets Department was streamed more than 300 million times in a single day, breaking Spotify records. Taylor surprised her fans by announcing two hours after its release that it was a surprise double album., meaning a total of 31 new songs.

Do you think the song could be inspired by the Grantham pub? Let us know in the comments