It's me, hi! As you may or may not know, Taylor Swift released her tenth studio album Midnights on Friday, October 21st. As a pretty new fanboy of Taylor Swift, who has listened to all of her previous albums more times than I’d like to admit, this album really blew me away. I knew right away that as a dedicated writer and music lover, I would share my thoughts on the album as well as some great things that stood out to me!

It’s me, hi! As you may or may not know, Taylor Swift released her tenth studio album Midnights on Friday, October 21st. As a pretty new fanboy of Taylor Swift, who has listened to all of her previous albums more times than I’d like to admit, this album really blew me away. I knew right away that as a dedicated writer and music lover, I would share my thoughts on the album as well as some great things that stood out to me!
Before I explain the aspects of “Midnights” that I adore, I’d like to offer some background for readers that may not be huge fans of Taylor or haven’t kept up with her. Taylor Swift has released nine studio albums up until now, her earliest being country, then some pop variations, before she got her feet wet in the indie genre for a little bit. After releasing two folk albums “folklore” and “evermore”, “Midnights” is a return to pop. Due to this return, she has hyped up this album for quite some time. For the last three weeks leading up to the album’s release, Taylor Swift posted a TikTok series called “Midnights Mayhem with Me”, where every episode Taylor would let a bingo machine decide which song title would be released. The catch to this, however, was that there were only 13 episodes, as the fans only knew about the main 13 songs. Taylor being her devious, sneaky self surprised her fans. At 3 am on the day of the album’s release, Taylor surprised us with a deluxe version of Midnights that contained SEVEN bonus tracks in addition to the 13 already released, for a total of twenty tracks! Despite the length, the album is phenomenal, and worth infinite listens and your heart’s attention!
One of the biggest things about “Midnights” for me was the fact that in many videos and interviews leading up to “Midnights”, Taylor snuck some of the lyrics to the songs into whatever she was saying or doing. In episode one of “Midnights Mayhem with Me”, the first thing Taylor says is “it’s me, hi”. While these three words seem unimportant and minuscule, in reality, it is huge that she started this series by saying that. The biggest hit on “Midnights” is track three, titled “Anti-Hero” and the start of the chorus also says “it’s me, hi”.
It doesn’t stop at “Anti-Hero”, however. Five months before the album’s release, before she had even announced the new album, Taylor made a speech at NYU after fulfilling her lifelong dream of obtaining an honorary doctorate. In her speech are several hidden messages that seemed so normal for her to include in a speech, but had a deeper meaning. For example, she says, “we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out”. This is a direct quote from track 10, “Labyrinth”. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, however. She also tells NYU, “The scary news is you’re on your own now, but the cool news is you’re on your own now.” The interesting thing about this quote is track five of “Midnights” is titled “You’re on Your Own, Kid”. Fans of Taylor Swift have coined track five as the most emotionally devastating track of most of Taylor’s albums, and so for Taylor to casually slip in the title of “Midnights” track 5 and lyrics to another song months in advance, while none of us knew really shows her cleverness.
Furthermore, “Midnights” takes a dive into Taylor’s personal life as all 20 songs tell a story of the sleepless nights that Taylor has faced throughout her life. This is made a reality by the roller coaster you ride while listening to this album. The album starts with “Lavender Haze”, a song about finding true love and Taylor compares said true love to a “lavender haze”. She then says how she doesn’t want to leave said lavender haze. The love continues with a more lustful approach in the song “Maroon” which goes into detail about a guy she hung out with and she’s reflecting on everything that happened the night before and all the feelings she felt during that night. The roller coaster comes during track 3 which is titled “Anti-Hero” and rather than talking about love, “Anti-Hero” talks about quite the opposite, as it goes into detail about how Taylor’s life is “unmanageably sized” as she describes it. This is an extremely vulnerable song that focuses on the struggle of being the villain in your own story and the self-hatred that comes with it. This “roller coaster of emotions” makes this album really feel like you’re living in Taylor’s head, hearing all of the intrusive thoughts and feelings that she faces in the middle of the night.
There is also a lot of creativity embedded in a lot of her songs. For example, I would like to circle back to track 2, “Maroon”. Of course, maroon is a shade of red, and throughout the song, this wouldn’t be forgotten. The chorus states, “The burgundy on my t-shirt when you splashed your wine into me, and how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet, it was maroon.” This imagery coupled with the many different shades of red like burgundy, scarlet, blood, wine, maroon, etc, really sets the scene and helps paint a picture for the listener while telling quite the interesting story. The creative songwriting coupled with the beautiful music has made “Maroon” my favorite song on “Midnights” and one of my favorite songs of all time.
This album is riddled with lyrics that leave you wondering, “This is so creative, how did she come up with that?” Some of my favorite lyrics from “Midnights” are, “Your eyes are flying saucers from another planet, now I’m all for you like Janet, can this be a real thing, can it?” (Snow on the Beach ft. Lana Del Rey), “Putting someone first only works when you’re in their top five” (Bejeweled), “Karma is a cat, purring in my lap because it loves me” (Karma), “The dominoes cascaded in a line” (Mastermind), “They said the end is coming, everyone’s up to something, I find myself running home to your sweet nothings” (Sweet Nothing), “No one sees when you lose when you’re playing solitaire” (Dear Reader), “He wanted it comfortable, I wanted that pain. He wanted a bride, I was making my own name, chasing that pain. He stayed the same, all of me changed like midnight rain” (Midnight Rain), among many others. This album is filled with stories about Taylor’s life, and tells such a beautiful story that draws you in and keeps you there, analyzing every line, lyric, and word, always discovering another hidden message. Taylor Swift’s return to pop has helped her return to fame like never before, and “Midnights” is sure to dominate the charts as well as many people’s lives for a long time, and it is definitely an album everyone should listen to!
Recent Comments