Charlie Puth Credits Taylor Swift Lyric for New Album Direction

Charlie Puth credits a line from Taylor Swift's 2024 track "The Tortured Poets Department" with sparking his next album, Whatever's Clever, set to drop March 27. The musician revealed to Willie Geist during a preview clip of the March 8 Sunday Sitdown that Swift's words, "We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist," prompted him to overhaul how he writes.

"That's the lyric that inspired this album," Puth said. "Bigger artist means that you have to open up."

He interpreted the shoutout as a challenge to rework his entire approach. He didn't see it as praise for his fame but as a nudge to mature as a writer.

"You don't hear that as, like, 'He's so talented, he should be even more popular than he is.' You thought she wants you to be a different kind of artist," Geist said.

Puth nodded. The lesson stuck with him. "Yeah, and it would be advice that I would pass down to other artists, too," he said. "It's a good push to hear that in a song."

Puth pointed to Swift's methods as a blueprint for reaching listeners. Her willingness to share private moments draws millions of people into her world, creating bonds that span continents and generations.

"That's why millions of people can relate to her," he told TODAY. "And I always felt like I kind of put a cap on how many people could relate to me. And that's a scary thing to open that can of worms."

Back in 2024, Puth discussed the mention during an appearance on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna. He described it as "inspiring" and admitted it shook up his process.

"It made me think about different ways to write songs and her way of writing, being almost overly-detailed, in the music. I'm like, 'I wonder if I can do a little bit of that, too,'" he said at the time.

Swift dropped the line about Puth in her title track from "The Tortured Poets Department," released in 2024. That album mentioned several well-known names and figures from pop history.