In the 16 years Taylor Swift has been releasing music, she’s never left a single part of herself off the chopping block, but Midnights – her 10th album – may be the most brutally introspective one yet.
After sending fans on a fact-finding mission on TikTok, from song titles released via a bingo cage to potential clues hidden in vintage phones, she finally revealed on the eve of Midnights one of the motivations behind writing the album: self-loathing. Stars – they’re just like us.
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The album trips with personal disdain wrapped up in classic Swiftian themes of love, heartbreak and reputation. But while touching on personal gripes isn’t new to the canon of Swift, she lays herself truly bare like an exposed nerve in Midnights. So while we wait for our own self-loathing to manifest into something even a pinch as productive as a whole 20-track album (because yes, she did release 7 surprise songs at 3am), we thought we’d examine the most beautifully self-eviscerating lyrics that appear in Midnights.
“Everybody agrees. It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me”
from “Anti-Hero”
Already an instant meme and probably the most-updated Twitter bio of 2022. “Anti-Hero” will be the first official single released from Midnights, along with a seemingly self-referential music video. Swift is cut open, bleeding to the world in this song, proclaiming herself a “monster” in a sea of “sexy babies” (it makes sense, trust us). But amidst the catchy hooks and quippy choruses are some truly brutal proclamations. She sings in resigned sighs lyrics like “did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism like some kind of congressman?” and “I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror”. Like a knife to the gut, “Anti-Hero” is an instant self-hate anthem for the ages.
“Never take advice from someone who’s falling apart”
from “Dear Reader”
The final song from the complete 20-track version of Midnights (3am Edition) “Dear Reader” is a personal plea to the people who dissect every microcosm of Swift’s work. Never let it be said she doesn’t know her fanbase! She offers words of wisdom in verses that are completely invalidated by their chorus. “You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking…No one sees when you lose when you're playing solitaire” paint a picture of a lonely Swift, chipped away over the years by her own misdeeds. Though consistently autobiographical, it’s impossible to know when exactly we’re meeting this Swift, whether it’s now, a year or a decade ago. “Dear Reader” feels like a plea for sympathy at the role she’s been thrust into as the omniscient narrator of so many of her fans’ lives.
“And I swear, I’m only cryptic and Machiavellian cause I care”
from “Mastermind”
“Mastermind” isn’t exactly crying on the floor, punching pillows self-loathing as much as Swift making a truce with the villainous parts of herself. It’s almost cheeky in its knowing connivery, revealing to a lover how their ‘love at first sight’ meeting was more intricately planned than they realise. “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid, so I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since to make them love me and make it seem effortless. Is this the first time I feel the need to confess?”. The song is comforting in its self-analysing, painting a picture of a romance solid enough not to be rocked by confessions of being sly. It’s always fun to hear Taylor Swift say she knows she’s a little bit crazy but owns it anyway.
“I hosted parties and starved my body like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss”
from “You’re On Your Own, Kid”
There’s an isolation that comes with fame and ambition that Swift has sung about in previous records, but she lays every card on the table in “You’re On Your Own, Kid”. The song grapples with trying to find healing personal relationships when one of your eyes is on another prize. “I search the party of better bodies, just to learn that my dreams aren’t rare” speaks of the futility of celebrity and the realisation that ambition in a small town loses weight when you get to the big city. Still, Swift knows this is part of her and has made reluctant peace with it as a bedfellow.
“I broke his heart ‘cause he was nice”
from Midnight Rain
A (quite unfair) criticism of Taylor Swift’s work often comes down to the idea of painting herself as a victim, a perfect girl that men can’t wait to damage. Sure, there are a handful of songs where Swift is entirely blameless in her pain, but not in Midnight Rain. The tables almost turn in this song as she acts the party using someone's affability as a weapon against them. It wrestles with big dreams and small towns (a classic Swiftian pastiche) but also the people you leave trodden into the ground on the way. It’s not a nice feeling, but she’s resigned to it, knowing ultimately her cold-heartedness made way for her success. “I guess sometimes we all get just what we wanted, just what we wanted. And he never thinks of me, except when I’m on TV”
“Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness, 'cause it's all over now, all out to sea”
from “Bigger Than The Whole Sky”
It doesn’t get much more self-loathing than this. The idea that you can’t touch anything for fear of it breaking is self-hatred 101, but of course, Taylor Swift manages to expand it out with sweeping metaphors about fate and missed connections. “Bigger Than The Whole Sky” is a song about a great love cut short, with all the ‘maybes’ and ‘could haves’ that live in their wake. Swift places blame firmly on herself, shrinking herself down to raise up the one she’s wronged.
“You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love. The slowest way is never loving them enough”
from “High Infidelity”
The song title is enough to know what this song is about. It’s a cheating anthem, a self-destructive jaunt through deliberately hurting your partner in the hopes they bite the bullet and fight back. “Do I really have to tell you how he brought me back to life?” and “Put on your records and regret me” beg for punishment, while theories are already swirling about just what happened, and with who, on “April 29th” because, as we know, nothing in a Taylor Swift lyric is accidental.
“God rest my soul, I miss who I used to be. The tomb won't close, stained glass windows in my mind”
from “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve”
Arguably one of the best-written songs off the album, “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” pairs regret and shame under the umbrella of religious allegory. It doesn’t get much more self-flagellating than that. Another song that's rife with rumours about who could have been the person in Swift’s life to damage her at 19, although all fan ire points to John Mayer. There’s a poisonous sting to the way she resents the loss of her past self as she sings lines like “I regret you all the time” and “give me back my girlhood, it was mine first”. Swift places blame on the person who maims her, of course, but reflects on her own mismanaged growth that’s come as a result. Watching Swift’s perspective of what and who has control over her own damage shift over the years culminates in Midnights, an album full of songs recognising we have a part to play in the way we marinade in our past.
