#grief is all over folklore / evermore / midnights

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

With all the discussion yesterday I am once again thinking about the way grief/loss is portrayed in her last few albums and thinking thoughts I maybe can’t fully articulate re: TTPD

[tswift]

I'm honestly so tired of reading takes on how "Midnights" is undeserving of awards and not a good album. It's actually a very impressive concept album that is moody, playful and nostalgic. If you look back at the 20 (now 22) tracks on it, it very much reflects Taylor's thesis statement. It ponders adolescence, insecurities and fears, lost loves, adventure and revenge.

These are things that keep most of us up at night, whether it's hyping yourself up (Bejeweled), tearing yourself down (Anti-Hero), reflecting on how far you've come and what you've learned in the process (You're on Your Own, Kid), grappling with grief and trauma (Bigger Than the Whole Sky, Would've Could've Should've), reveling in your enemy's demise (Karma, Vigilante Shit), thinking about lost love (Maroon, Hits Different, Midnight Rain) or simply trying to delude and reassure yourself of something (Lavender Haze, Labyrinth).

The fact of the matter is, Karma, a song that many have mocked over its "cringe and immature" lyrics, is an impressively written and constructed pop song. Being a good lyricist doesn't always mean "ohhhhh this is poetry, this is angsty." What's impressive is someone who can do both.

"Midnights" truly does it all. There's depth, there's poetry, there's tongue-and-cheek whimsy. But it's a pop album. A pop album can't possibly have the same amount of depth, right?

What makes "Midnights" so different from her past pop efforts is that you can really see the growth in it. You can hear what she learned from making folklore and evermore not only in the production, but also in the lyrics. The lyrics are sharper, rawer and more honest. That is not to say Taylor did not achieve this in her past pop albums, she's simply honed her craft. And that's what you should want an artist to do.

It does not have to be your favorite album. Maybe you just don't vibe with it. But that doesn't mean it isn't impressive. You don't have to belittle something simply because you don't like it as much.

I don't think "Midnights" will win AOTY. But I do think it deserves to be in the category, especially in a year that is not particularly competitive. I can't wait for Swifties to start appreciating it. I give it a year or two, then y'all will change your tune.

[ohdorothea]

So I’m continuing to re-rank and write up my thoughts about every Taylor album leading up to the release of TTPD (link to my thoughts on Midnights) so yeah without further babbling here are my thoughts on evermore <3

evermore ranking

1. right where you left me

2. dorothea

3. cowboy like me

4. ivy

5. coney island (feat. The National)

6. closure

7. champagne problems

8. happiness

9. 'tis the damn season

10. it's time to go

11. gold rush

12. evermore (feat. Bon Iver)

13. marjorie

14. willow

15. no body, no crime (feat. Haim)

16. tolerate it

19. long story short

This is NOT a long story short I have a lot of thoughts about evermore my favourite child so they are under the cut

I mean I don’t even know how to begin talking about evermore. It’s my favourite Taylor album and one of my favourite albums ever. It’s so sad and weird and gay (to ME).

Folklore is obviously it’s sister album but I do feel like they are quite distinct from each other as well. For me evermore is very clearly part two of this story/universe, it developed and deepens the themes presented at the end of folklore.

For me folklore is about the ‘hope of it all’, clinging onto nostalgia and could have beens. Whereas evermore is very much about endings, about retracing every step looking for a way you could have changed the ending.

But the ending has already happened, the moment is gone and so the only choice is to relive and retell the ending over and over until it makes any sense.

right where you left me is my favourite Taylor song currently in existence, I also feel like it and little evermore are both really successful at encapsulating the albums themes, about when to hold on and when to let go.

And I love that while it’s time to go… can on the surface feel definitive, I actually think the ending of the song leaves it open to interpretation whether she actually goes or not.

Even long story short, which is fun and boppy on first listen, has darker undertones to me, especially in the way she sings ‘I survived’ the last time.

Also it’s funny because cowboy like me was not really on my radar for a while until someone (I think maybe @midnightslesbian) posted about interpreting it as a sad song, that the relationship in it doesn’t work out and ever since it’s been one of my favourites!!

It feels very much like an album about deep grief and being unable to move on from someone/something that changed you forever.

I could honestly go on and on and I will but yeah evermore now evermore forever she’s my sad baby and I love her <3

[disneyswiftpolls]

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"Anti-Hero" from Midnights

It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me At tea time, everybody agrees I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby And I'm a monster on the hill Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city Pierced through the heart, but never killed

"Castles Crumbling" from Speak Now (Taylor's Version)

Once, I had an empire in a golden age I was held up so high, I used to be great They used to cheer when they saw my face Now, I fear I have fallen from grace And I feel like my castle's crumbling down And I watch all my bridges burn to the ground And you don't want to know me I will just let you down You don't wanna know me now

"evermore" from evermore

And I was catching my breath Barefoot in the wildest winter Catching my death And I couldn't be sure I had a feeling so peculiar That this pain would be for Evermore

"I Did Something Bad" from reputation

They say I did something bad But why's it feel so good? Most fun I ever had And I'd do it over and over and over again if I could It just felt so good, good

"ivy" from evermore

How's one to know? I'd meet you where the spirit meets the bones In a faith forgotten land In from the snow Your touch brought forth an incandescent glow Tarnished but so grand

"the lakes" from folklore

I want auroras and sad prose I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet 'Cause I haven't moved in years And I want you right here A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground With no one around to tweet it While I bathe in cliffside pools With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief

"this is me trying" from folklore

I've been having a hard time adjusting I had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting I didn't know if you'd care if I came back I have a lot of regrets about that Pulled the car off the road to the lookout Could've followed my fears all the way down And maybe I don't quite know what to say But I'm here in your doorway I just wanted you to know That this is me trying I just wanted you to know That this is me trying

[jyndor]

gotta say that midnights seemed slightly off to me from the get go. like I remember thinking the themes felt like a step backwards in terms of emotional growth after folklore and evermore, and bejeweled immediately had my mind going ???? because it was giving me sorry off of lemonade vibes, like not necessarily the same context or sound but something about it kept reminding me of sorry. that like, fuck being taken for granted, I'm gonna go be cute in the club like of thing.

and midnights does have this melancholy thing throughout which resonated with me deeply but it was also hard to swallow question and bejeweled and even tbh maroon and lavender haze (specifically the 1950s shit line from a woman who has never been shy in her music about wanting that traditional fairytale ending, but i just assumed she had grown into understanding that love doesn't have a fairytale ending, its ever evolving and takes on different forms over time).

but knowing what we likely know now, midnights can reflect the deeply complicated and often contradictory way that relationships work and don't work. you don't just go from love to resentment overnight, and sometimes it's both.

and I'm definitely not speculating, have no interest in learning what happened (it's not our business) but I wanted to share my moment of clarity on the album because I finally had it last night. I always liked it, but I couldn't get over how disjointed it felt. now it makes more sense to me.

maybe I have some young followers and I just want to say I've seen some really heartbreaking and concerning behavior from swifties since the news. I'm not gonna shame someone for getting too caught up in a parasocial relationship with a songwriter who has always put a lot of her personal life and emotions into her works, even if they are fictionalized and reworked into something she can sell. it's understandable that people would feel so connected to her, that's her business model. it isn't healthy which is why she's pulled back so much, but its still part of how her brand works. that carefully curated authenticity.

many of her fans are young, literal children. I don't want them to think that this idealized kind of golden love is possible to begin with - it is IDEALIZED. even with how realistic she has made their relationship sound in contrast to the fairytale loves she wrote about when she was younger, we don't know what they were actually like. you don't know. it's like thinking of their relationship as something from fiction, because in many ways what she wrote IS fiction - it's inspired by reality but fictionalized all the same.

there's a study that looked into when relationships tend to end on average. it's five years. it makes sense, after five years people really do know each other for the most part and likely have grown into more mature people. five years is a long time. five years ago I was just getting my esthetics license and now I'm a business owner. I know more about who I am and what my goals are. my goals have changed. sometimes people's goals become incompatible. it's normal and it doesn't make the love any less real.

this was probably her first serious and mature relationship. by all accounts she was at her lowest point when they met, and she's clearly grown a lot in the time since. that is not even taking into account his own journey and growth. again, this is normal and sometimes people can work through those changes, and sometimes people can't. it's not black and white though, it doesn't have to mean that what they had wasn't real love.

we weren't there, we don't know her or him and we shouldn't. taylor lets us see what she wants us to see. she's a mastermind, right? you don't know her and this is a great example of that. so hopefully younger fans especially can take some time to reflect on how to set better boundaries in the future to avoid feeling so hopeless and full of grief over someone else's relationship.

[organicfirewood]

The Tortured Poet's Department (Katie's Version)

basically i'm liveblogging this as i listen. talking into the void; this is more for me to reflect back onto than a genuine critique of the album.

Most excited for: "Florida!!!" "Down Bad" & "WALOL?"

I'm hoping that this album will sonically resemble folklore and evermore... more acoustic, stripped-back, and raw. I'm still wondering about the "✌️" imagery and how that'll play into the album... maybe feeling two-faced or double-crossed?

Fortnight (feat. Post Malone) - ok... rehab. uh oh. swifties have been calling her a drunk for a while... but nobody ever took it seriously. this must be about a rebound... i don't want to say MH. ugh i loooove how this sounds. like a more sober midnights. no pun intended... sorry. post malone was honestly such a genius move for this song- his voice sounds very youthful paired with hers... hopeful.

2. The Tortured Poets Department - YESSS 80's into!!! god i love this instrumental so far. (I use a typewriter!!!) holy fuck nooooo this has the charlie puth lyric. more wedding references.

3. My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys - ok. that charlie puth lyric left a bad taste in my mouth im trying to recover. i like that her vocal tone is a little darker here- would lower register apply for this? "he only runs because he loves me" real af i get you, queen. love that we've graduated to only having sandcastles instead of fortresses. these lyrics are also very ex-best-friend-coded... im projecting.

4. Down Bad - funkyyy okay. aww dun-dun-dun-dun! i wonder what mr kelce thought of all of this... oh, to be a fly on every single wall. yeah i like this one a lot. somehow also very 1989(tv ftv) coded. this sounds like denial into anger if we're still talking about the stages of grief. "like i lost my twin" is like "twin fire signs." i think she keeps seeing herself in her partners and feels abandoned when things don't work out.

5. So Long, London - ok intro eatssss down! this sounds like a driving-on-the-highway-song. i like how "talky" this is. it's very theatrical. this gives the sense that they (taylor and whoever this may be about) may have bonded over their sadness and the other party got upset when she started to heal. also, another reference to altars, but that may strictly be a religious metaphor.

6. But Daddy I Love Him - the intros are great. love the acoustic sounds. i really like this one a lot... this is a lot more whimsical and could almost fit on a Speak Now-style record. yeah, this is fantastic. such a quintessential Taylor Swift song. i'm terrified of how literally people (millennials on tiktok) are going to take this.

7. Fresh Out The Slammer - YUHHHH these intros!! ugh god i love a western motif. this is beautiful. this might be my favorite so far. i can't help but wonder what "time" she did. rehab, like previously alluded to? a rebound? a tortuous relationship? the period in a public career where one is constantly criticized and scrutinized? another ring mention.

8. Florida!!! (feat. Florence + The Machine) - huh. weed and babies. awesome! i agree, florida is one hell of a drug. "cheating husband..." uhokok. ok yes swamp imagery! yes southern/florida gothic! what shitstorm happened in texas? taylor please eliminate the urban sprawl in florida it'll give you more room to bury bodies!! pleaseee.

9. Guilty as Sin? - again. great intros. uh oh. is it just me, or does this sound like a 1975 song?? i like the production regardless. "we've already done it in my head" again real af. this song is real af. this is like limerence... these lyrics are kinda pushing the envelope, no? for taylor's standards, anyway.

10. Who's Afraid of Little Old Me? - another western-esque motif. we are scared of you taylor, i promise. contained scandal... oh? is this the cheating allegation??? this bridge was legitimately chilling. her reputation era was only a scratch on the surface. i think she needs a legitimate full-blown villain era (as a treat). i'm scared for track 13.

11. I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) - moooore western motifs. yuh okay i like this one. more texas. what happened in texas? did anything happen in texas or is it just a placeholder? the vocals on this one are like velvet. "GOOD BOY"???? and the references to angels??? please. please. thank you, taylor.

12. loml - sigh. im not ready for this one. "better safe than starry-eyed" is a fabulous lyric. i can't wait to see that on fan merch everywhere. another reference to marriage. this is very reminiscent of "you're losing me." more rings and cradles. christ. loss of my life! loml.

13. I Can Do It With a Broken Heart - im not ready i dont think. the intro, again, is great. sounds like setting up the tour. i hope that this album was therapeutic for her. yesss i love this one actually. i love when artists do the sarcastic happy-sad trope. taylor, please know that 90% of the eras tour crowds was and is sympathetic; we were only cheering for you, not for what you do. yes key change! yes i love this one!

14. The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived - jehovah's witnesses mentioned. just wanting to know why is so incredibly valid and a universal truth, i think. this one left me with a pit in my stomach.

15. The Alchemy - chemicals... hospitals... i hope she writes an autobiography one day. touchdown! so this is a travis-era song? i like the sound design of this one.

16. Clara Bow - nooo im not ready. stevie nicks reference!! :) i don't think she's exactly regretting her fame, but certainly re-evaluating it here. we (media, society, swifties) need to leave her alone, please.

I hope that the creation of this album was cathartic for her; it feels intensely personal. I don't like speculating about her life, yet so many of these songs are extremely context-dependent. Most of all, I hope that she gets the healing she needs. She's such an important figure for so many people; more people want the best for her than don't. It's been very clear for a while that she's been suffering. Everyone breaks at some point... I keep seeing The Tower in my mind.

[takingontheworldtogether]

my friends who don't know shit about taylor swift requested a pre-album explainer of wtf is going on so i wrote them a little newsletter... if you want something to send to your non-swiftie friends it's beneath the cut

Good morning team,

Why do we need a Swiftie newsletter?

I mean, no one really needs this. But she’s dropping a new album (“The Tortured Poets Department” or TTPD for short) in three days and I’m here to provide you with the information you need before the album comes out. I’ll be back with a post-album review letting you know 1) what juicy gossip was revealed on the album, 2) what tracks you should listen to, and 3) a few things you can say to your Swiftie friends to sound cultured.

What’s this album about?

Okay, I know this is ancient history, but cast your mind back to 2016. Kanye and Taylor Swift are beefing, and Kim Kardashian posts a clip of a phone call that makes Taylor look like a liar. Taylor gets canceled on social media and disappears for a year. 

While all this is going on, she meets her boyfriend, the British actor Joe Alwyn. I have no clue what movies he was in at the time, but since then he was in The Favorite and Harriet, and also Conversations with Friends (I think, I haven’t seen it because Normal People put me off Sally Rooney). Here’s a quick timeline:

Late 2017: Taylor comes back with “Look What You Made Me Do” and reputation. People think reputation is a bad bitch album, but it’s actually an album about finding love in a time of despair.

2019: She drops Lover, which is about many things but primarily about how she loves him and wants to spend the rest of her life with him. 

2020: Pandemic. Taylor writes two quarantine albums, folklore and evermore. These are primarily fictional, but there are a few love songs about him. He co-writes some of these songs pseudonymously.

2022: Midnights. This album becomes wildly successful. It occupies all of the top ten slots on the billboard hot 100 in the week it comes out. It breaks a bunch of sales records.

2023: The Eras Tour starts! Two weeks in, they announce the break up. Taylor briefly dates Matty Healy of the 1975, who is by all accounts a total asshole. This appears to have been a shitty rebound. A bit later, she starts dating the football player Travis Kelce and everyone loses their minds about it. 

It looks like this album is going to be about the end of a relationship of six years and possibly rebounding/moving on. 

Okay, but like… why did they break up?

I mean, I don’t know any of these people, so all I can offer you are guesses based on song lyrics:

1 - He was really big into his privacy, which is kind of difficult if you’re dating Taylor Swift. 

2 - A lot of songs on Lover are about wanting to get married. There’s a song on Midnights that implies that she wanted to get married and he refused. Yikes. 

What’s the promo situation for this album?

The most notable thing to me (and what is this if not me rambling about my opinions) are some playlists curated by Taylor on Apple Music. Each playlist focuses on one of the five stages of grief in mourning a relationship, and they contain songs from her past albums. There are copycat playlists on Spotify, if you’re interested. My favorite is “am I allowed to cry?” which is the playlist for the bargaining stage. 

There’s also a wall in Chicago with a QR code that leads to a video of the words “Error 321 13” and a hidden message in her song lyrics that spells out “Hereby Conduct This,” which is presumably a message that will be finished by the time the album comes out. 

What do we already know about the album?

16 tracks with 4 bonus tracks. There’s a song with Post Malone (yes, really) and a song with Florence + The Machine. I agree, this is not an intuitive combination, but I’m excited. 

Two of the songs are over five minutes long. Two songs are entirely self-written, five are written with Aaron Dessner (from the National), and eight are written with Jack Antonoff (the producer who works with all the pop girlies). Her collaborations with Aaron Dessner are some of my favorite songs of hers, so this is good news to me. 

That’s my preamble to the Tortured Poets Department!

I hope this was informative, but I barely scratched the surface. You have no idea how deep this goes. Also, I need you all to know that I sat down and wrote this in one sitting without Googling anything, which probably means I know too much about this subject. 

In the meantime, I’ve been listening to “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter which is a very stupid song that is fun to listen to. I’ve also been listening to girl in red’s new album, I’m Doing It Again Baby! which is aggressively mid. If you want to listen to a song on it, I recommend “Pick Me.” 

See you in three days!

[sophietv]

Hey hi 👋🏻

wow, your massive essay answering the question about LSK and the 2019 breakup is awesome, such a good breakdown of resources, it would have taken me a whole work day to put that together! I’d genuinely never seen that Fearless TV Audacity music interview, what a find, I’d have come round to LSK a lot sooner if I’d seen that. Up until about a year ago I was convinced they were done for good just from having seen the summer 2019 cover of ‘Can’t stop loving you’ and then hearing Folklore and Evermore… seemed too grief-filled not to have lost the love of her life right?! I’m aware there were still a ton of nods to Karlie’s in Taylor’s music and socials but I just thought she’s going to grieve that loss for the rest of her life. But then we got midnights and all these songs about surviving a really tough time with your partner and coming out the other end of it… I rewatched the long pond session and the implication of Taylor’s speech about Betty and James suddenly hit me right in the face. I’ve never wanted to believe in anything so badly in my life if there was even the slightest chance that they got back together. Keep in mind Karlie already had a child at this point so I had to let go of a lot of public narrative to keep an open mind about what might be happening. But boy have I never been happier to see how much she’s returning all of the nods that Taylor makes to her publicly and God have they got loud over the last 12 months! This has been such a lovely journey back to two people who gave me so much hope back in 2014 when I was newly out to all my friends and seeing the love shine out of their eyes when they look at each other, despite all the secrecy, just made me so happy. I’ll stop now because otherwise I never will, just thank you for compiling all of that so nicely, it’s something I’ll definitely go back to when I need my dose of a good real life love story to overcome a dull day ❤️

Reading your post made me emotional.

I truly hope that they know just how much we love them and are rooting for them.

Thank you fo your kind words 🫶

[thelesbiancanary]

Taylor Swift lyrics (from her songs) that sound like Shakespeare wrote them:

“I'd meet you where spirit meets the bones, in a faith forgotten land.”

Song: Ivy • Album: Evermore (2020) • By: Taylor Swift

“Your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand.”

Song: Ivy • Album: Evermore (2020) • By: Taylor Swift

“Is it romantic how all my elegies eulogize me? I'm not cut out for all these cynical clones.”

Song: The Lakes • Album: Folklore (2020) • By Taylor Swift

“Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die. I don't belong, and my beloved, neither do you. Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry. I'm setting off, but not without my muse”

Song: The Lakes • Album: Folklore (2020) • By: Taylor Swift

“I've come too far to watch some namedropping sleaze. Tell me what are my words worth.”

Song: The Lakes • Album: Folklore (2020) • By: Taylor Swift

“I want auroras and sad prose. I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet. 'Cause I haven't moved in years. And I want you right here. A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground. With no one around to tweet it. While I bathe in cliffside pools. With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief”

Song: The Lakes • Album: Folklore (2020) • By: Taylor Swift

“Lord, what will become of me, once I've lost my novelty?”

Song: Nothing New • Album: Red (Taylor's Version) (2021) • By: Taylor Swift & Phoebe Bridgers

“Familiarity breeds contempt.”

Song: Bejeweled • Album: Midnights (2022) • By: Taylor Swift

“You drew stars around my scars, but now I'm bleeding.”

Song: Cardigan • Album: Folklore (2020) • By: Taylor Swift

“Falling feels like flying till the bone crush.”

Song: Gold Rush • Album: Evermore (2020) • By: Taylor Swift

There's so many more Taylor Swift lyrics that sound like Shakespeare could've written them but these are just a few that came to my mind! The fact that Taylor writes ALL of her songs by HERSELF and manages to come up with these amazing lyrics proves just how phenomenal Taylor is as a lyricist/songwriter 💗

[togrowoldinv]

Midnights Thoughts!!!

Okay y’all I’m dropping my first thoughts on midnights below. Let’s chat about the album!

Overall, I love it, I love it, I love it! Very lyric styles of folklore and evermore meets the sounds of Lover and Rep!

Lavender Haze:

-Okay this is the pop music standard

-the lyric “one night or a wife” so true

-we are back in bridge city

Maroon:

-sick New York reference

-bopping chorus

-“so scarlet it was maroon” very Wanda

-“carnations you thought were roses, that’s us” JESUS CHRIST

-scarlet lips seems a lil fruity

-easily a fave

Anti-Hero:

-this is for the archer girlies

-“I’m the problem, it’s me” ☹️

-“I wake up screaming from dreaming”

-it is definitely exhausting being the anti-hero

-it’s giving Natasha

Snow On The Beach:

-the beginning of this song is like when you aren’t sure if you really saw someone or you just wanted to see someone so your brain told you that you did

-“stars by the pocketful” is actually so cute

-lyrically brilliant

-where’s Lana though?

-the key change is good

You’re On Your Own, Kid:

-immediately chills

-this makes me nostalgic for high school

-reminds me of my friends and how I love them so much and how we have each other even as time changes

-“just to find my dreams aren’t rare” SHUT UP TAYLOR

-“pages turned with bridges burned” end of rep vibes

-very big sister energy

Midnight Rain:

-the beginning is wild

-lyrically I enjoy it

-very true of thinking of someone after a long time

-could make a good fic

Question…?:

-“a color I’ve searched for since” very illicit affairs like

-she says “her” a lot

-upbeat but sad

-“did you wish you put up more of a fight?”

-bridge city

Vigilante Shit:

-great vibes

-definitely the revenge she spoke of

-the girl from mad woman

-girl power anthem

-“don’t get sad, get even” tattoo this on my forehead

Bejeweled:

-“didn’t notice you walking over my peace of mind in the shoes I gave you” it’s giving my tears ricochet and the jewels she gave them

-obsessed with the way she says ✨shimmer✨

-this song scratches the itch in my brain

-one of my faves

Labyrinth:

-I cried a lot

-the breathing instructions, thank you Dr. Swift

-“I’ll be getting over you my whole life” PLEASE SEND HELP

-crying, shaking, throwing up

-Natasha Romanoff’s song

Karma:

-vibes

-lol spider boy reference

-“karma is my boyfriend” so true

-the voice layering is cute

Sweet Nothing:

-Joe!!!!!

-this is what love sounds like idc

-please someone love me like this

Mastermind:

-absolute banger

-get what you want bestie

-“I’m the wind in our free flowing sails”

-this song feels like the end of a movie when everyone comes home after a long day

Omg plus new tracks!

The Great War:

-okay the drums rock

-I like it and processing it is a lot with this chaotic surprise lol

-“I vow I will always be yours” cute!!!

Bigger Than The Whole Sky:

-“every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness” SAD but good fic material

-“I’ve got a lot to live without. I’m never gonna meet what could’ve been would’ve been” 😭

-I am a shell of a woman

Paris:

-funky fresh

-“draw a map on your bedroom ceiling” adorable!

-I love love

High Infidelity:

-great rhythm

-“the slowest way is never loving them enough” ouchie

-feels regretful yet unapologetic

Glitch:

-sounds like a rain stick lol

-interesting vibes

Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve:

-intro has similar sound to Mary Jane’s Last Dance

-“the gods honest truth is that the pain was heaven”

-Taylor don’t be shy and release the rock and roll version please

-“I regret you all the time”

-“god rest my soul, I miss who I used to be” GOOD GRIEF

Dear Reader:

-younger me needed this

-her whole heart is in it

-advice for Nothing New stans

[septembersghost]

you don't have to answer this if it's triggery but thinking about how easily we could've lost Taylor either bc she decided to retreat forever or worse things, how likely do you think it is she'll address that or even mention suicide on this album?

i think it's highly likely, to the point where we should be prepared for it. i'm not sure how directly she'll get into it, but it's something she's been alluding to since reputation, there are small glimpses of it on lover and she mentioned it in interviews, and then of course, death is a continuous theme on folklore/evermore. as much as those albums may be draped in metaphor and stories, many of the songs are also very personal and very much about her and her experiences, but even two years ago, i don't think she was ready to put that out there in quite as vulnerable a way. it was easier to dress in a little bit of fiction - i think so much about this is me trying, since i've been in the, "i didn't know if you'd care if i came back, i have a lot of regrets about that" moments myself. "pulled the car off the road to the lookout, could've followed my fears all the way down" is her way of exposing the depth of that despair there, and it recurs, specifically on hoax, "stood on the cliffside, screaming 'give me a reason.'" i've always agreed with the thought that "my sleepless night" refers to one particularly dark and specific moment, and hoax being an enigma and about several different situations was her safe outlet of addressing it there. it feels very possible to me that that sleepless night will be one of the upcoming tracks.

i've been remembering things she said and shared in 2019. it's been exactly six years today since this journal entry:

and here are a couple of quotes that have stuck with me from lover press/speeches:

there have been things she's referenced obliquely, and others i suspect she didn't feel ready to share with us at all until now. just the admission that she felt that and struggled with those dark thoughts felt huge to me every time, be it in interviews or lyrics, and it feels like a testament to her resilience that now she's feeling brave enough to go back over those events and create art about them. (and i don't think the whole album will be sad, of course! she mentioned joy and dreams along with sorrow and nightmares). there's a real sense of desperation in the album prologue, but also clarity and catharsis and intimacy.

what's remarkable to me is the journey that's gotten her here ("hell was the journey, but it brought me heaven"). she's been through so much, extreme ups and terrible downs, and the past few years alone have had tumult for her, including professional losses that were a blow, but she's managed to spin that into gold and reclamation. from the description, i don't know that this album would even exist without the process of the re-recordings. i think folklore and evermore were hugely restorative to her, despite the difficult circumstances for her and for the world as a whole that led to their creation. and honestly it seems like she's never been healthier and happier, and that in itself is why she can go back to such vulnerable places now. you can't confront certain things when you're in them. you can't talk about certain griefs when you're too directly immersed in them, when you're too fragile. she's worked so hard to heal and to get to this place, and i'm proud of her for it. step into the daylight, and sometimes the warmth and growth of that rising sun gives you the courage to blossom and to look back on the many midnights.

[antifataylorswift]

If Midnights is a revisiting of 1989 the way that it absolutely looks like it is, it's SO smart and I am SO unwell about it

1989 was poppy and bright, it was about Welcome to New York, about new beginnings and being young and optimistic and ready to take over the world. It's about going out with your besties and feeling invincible. It's about the high at the start of a new relationship that really feels like something more real than anything you've had before, to the point that you're willing to set aside your fears and say no matter how this ends, what we have right now is worth whatever heartbreak it brings.

Every album since 1989 has been *about* 1989. From rep through evermore, even including the "vault" tracks on the tv albums, everything has had its emotional roots in the 1989 era.

There was reputation, about how it sucks to go from being on the top of the world to being a persona non grata, and how your friends don't keep in touch or maybe dropped you, and how that's all okay because at least you've still got that relationship and she'll be cleaning up bottles with you on new years day even if she doesn't get your midnights.

Lover, trying to pretend that everything's okay, trying to repair that relationship by reminiscing on the start, about saying "hey look at these good times that we had. do you remember them? do you remember how we had good times? i want to have good times again, don't you?" and hoping that's enough to fix it. This is part of why Cruel Summer is such a Banger: it's firmly set in the 1989 era, the start of that relationship, and is the only honest look about how maybe it wasn't doomed from the start but it was certainly set up to fail — it's about how maybe what seemed romantic and exciting at the time was actually painful.

Then folklore and evermore, two albums that are nominally fictional but whose emotional roots again reach back to 1989. If Lover was about denial and bargaining, folklore and evermore are about grief and acceptance, and a little bit about rewriting pieces of the narrative to make it easier to bear (see: cardigan demo tape vs finished version). They're about accepting how there's no going back to how things used to be, how you can't go back to new york or to being a partnership just like you can't go back to being seven or how even though you can go back to your hometown you can't really go back because you've changed and things have changed so it isn't the same. They're about acknowledging that you've left a part of you there, in new york, in the past, with the other person — and acknowledging that they know that. They're about swearing up and down that you've come to terms with that and lying through your teeth that you don't need closure.

If Midnights is picking up the emotional thread that folklore, evermore and the tv vault tracks left off on, it makes perfect sense to mirror the 1989 era — this time as a lonely, insomnia-fueled reflection. A concept album of deep late-night contemplation naturally will circle around the period of time where everything was going perfectly right and it seemed like nothing could possibly go wrong.

If 1989 is moving to the big city as a young adult with all your shit newly-figured-out and feeling fully independent for the first time, having a blast with all your new friends who are in the same boat, then Midnights must be about laying awake at night 8 years later reconstructing exactly how you got to where you are from there, knowing that there's no changing anything and maybe not even wanting to change anything, but obviously still feeling a bunch of complicated, tangled feelings about that time and everything that's happened since.