“I tend to be sort of annoyingly secret-agenty about dropping clues and hints and Easter eggs. It’s very annoying, but it’s fun for fans and it’s fun for me because they like to pick up on things,” the 10-time Grammy winner explained on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday, December 14. “And they’ll notice lots of things in music videos and photos or whatever. Sometimes I take it too far and make a mistake!”

She went on to explain that while making Folklore she was “too afraid to even unveil the title of the album” to her management team.

“I didn’t tell anyone the album title until right before it came out. I came up with a fake code name that had the same amount of letters as Folklore. Chose a random name. Chose Woodvale,” Swift continued. “I wanted to see how it would look on the album covers, mocked them up, and then decided I don’t actually want to have a title on the album covers. And we forgot to take the fake code name off of one of them.”

The songwriter noted that Evermore also had a code name, November. “We remembered to take it off the mock-ups of the album covers before we released it this time. We learned our lesson,” she said, before responding to claims she was working on another album.

“I’m so tired. I’m so exhausted,” Swift said. “I’ve tired myself out. I have nothing left!”

The Pennsylvania native’s ninth album arrived two days before her 31st birthday, which was very important to her.

“Ever since I was 13, I’ve been excited about turning 31 because it’s my lucky number backwards, which is why I wanted to surprise you with this now,” she wrote via Instagram on Thursday, December 10. “You’ve all been so caring, supportive and thoughtful on my birthdays and so this time I thought I would give you something. I also know this holiday season will be a lonely one for most of us and if there are any of you out there who turn to music to cope with missing loved ones the way I do, this is for you.”

This story originally appeared on: US Magazine - Author:Emily Longeretta