Travis and Jason Kelce react to Taylor Swift’s ‘Cleveland!’ on New Heights podcast
Travis and brother Jason spoke about Taylor’s new track on their podcast (Getty Images)
Travis and Jason Kelce have shared their first reactions to Taylor Swift’s new “Cleveland!” on the New Heights podcast, with Travis declaring: “Cleveland is rocking right now!”
Swift has released The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, an expanded edition featuring four new tracks: “Cleveland!”, “Patient Zero,” “Pink Clouding” and “Babylon.”
“Cleveland!” is described as being about Swift’s romance with Travis Kelce, who hails from Cleveland Heights. In the song, Swift sings: “Something we all can agree on / But my baby likes what he likes, oh-woah, oh-oh / He already took me to Cleveland / And showed me The Heights, so hate all you like / This is the love of my life, hey, hey, hey.”
On Wednesday, 30 September, the brothers discussed the track on New Heights, with Travis adding: “Shout out to Tay Tay, for making that song just giving the city a little more life.”
What did Travis and Jason Kelce say about ‘Cleveland!’?
Jason Kelce was just as enthusiastic, saying: “Dude, that song is incredible,” and adding that he and his wife, Kylie Kelce, had been listening to it a lot at home.
“There’s just something about it that makes you feel real good. It’s a great song,” Jason added.
Travis Kelce is a Kansas City Chiefs tight end and one of the NFL’s biggest current stars. Alongside Jason, a recently retired Philadelphia Eagles centre, he co-hosts New Heights, a sports-and-pop-culture podcast.
What’s in the ‘Cleveland!’ lyric video?
The “Cleveland!” release has also fuelled fan interest in the visuals around the track. People said the lyric video includes personal footage of Swift and Kelce travelling by car to Cleveland for a visit to his hometown.
The new music arrives nearly a year after Swift released her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. When that album arrived on 3 October 2025, it already included romance-forward writing and a nod to Kelce and New Heights, setting the tone for the kind of lyric-led pop culture moment “Cleveland!” has now become.
The expanded album release has attracted a significant amount of criticism including from Pitchfork, who’s review ended “Taylor Swift will always have one of the greatest songwriting catalogs of all time. Not even Taylor Swift could take that away from her—but she sure is trying.” Ouch.
