Taylor Swift’s New Album: Midnights 

Taylor Swift is an icon that people have been listening to since 2006. She has won Eleven Grammys, made some of the most iconic songs, and just released a brand new album. Swift released the “Midnights” album on October 21st, 2022. The album consists of 13 pieces, each one representing the hours that she stayed up making the music. With this album, she focused more on herself and her inner insecurities. She stated that this album was a “journey through terrors and sweet dreams.” She goes through all her deepest inner terrors and how she can overcome them. Ironically, the album was dropped at midnight. Three hours later, Swift posted a story to her Instagram stating. “There were other songs we wrote on our journey to find that magic 13. I’m calling them 3 a.m. tracks.” This led to an extra drop of seven more pieces. In celebration of the new album, we will talk about and break down the three songs that really stuck out most. 

The first song on the track is called “Lavender Haze”  This song represents all of the things that others have to say. People often put their opinion where it is not needed and Swift was able to capture this in a beautiful way. In the song, she sings “I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say”  This straightforwardly states that she simply does not care what others have to say about her life. 

Another song in the album called “You’re on your own, Kid” sings about how she yearns for this one single person and they didn’t care. She ate, drank, and breathed for them; When they didn’t want her, she changed so they would. In the chorus of the song, she sings “ I searched the party of better bodies, Just to learn that you never cared” This is her realizing that the person she had been waiting for never cared, as well as the comparison and demand to live up to other people’s physical standards gives way to her struggle with body image. She again brings attention to her eating disorder in the second chorus. The second chorus is lyrically different than the first. She adds more detail and tries to go more in-depth about how much damage this person really caused. However, this song isn’t all sad;n the bridge she brings light to losing connection with those from your past but instead of yearning for it, She learns to accept it and grow with it. Lastly, in the outro, she sings “ You’re on your own, Kid/ You always have been” This is Swift singing about embracing loss and creating a new relationship without the fear. 

The last song in the album that I am going to talk about is “Anti-Hero” This song is another representation of her insecurities and what she says “is a guided tour throughout all of the things I tend to hate about myself” Within the lyrics “I’ll stare directly at the sun / But never in the mirror / It must be exhausting rooting for the anti-hero,” you can decipher that she is saying that she can endure anything even the pain of looking into the sun, but she cannot endure herself and her own “problems”.This song not only portrays Swift as vulnerable but as a woman in power who was able to conquer the fear of her own problems. She says “covert narcissism disguised as optimism,” hinting at how she doesn’t even trust her own opinion of herself sometimes. Before the album, nobody saw how much she was truly struggling but listening to these songs you can hear the pain and hatred in her voice.  

Not only was the album heart-wrenching, but it also brought light to so many issues and disorders that people don’t ever want to hear about. People tend to say Taylor Swift has repetitive songs and they are all about heartbreak, but “Midnights” focused on eating disorders, and self-hatred, and eventually gets into racism and homophobia. I only told you about three of her amazing songs on this album. Now it’s time you go listen to the rest. Listen closely and you’ll hear the real meaning behind her lyrics, Music is so much more than words on a screen. It’s a story. Listen to it. 

The new “Midnights” album is now for sale in most retail stores and can be found on any streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora, and/or Apple Music.