History Music / Midnights

* AlbumTitleDrop: The theme of staying awake until midnights is repeated several times in significant ways

* AntiHero: Discussed in the song of the same name. The narrator identifies as an anti-hero, being unreliable, impulsive, and sometimes selfish, but genuinely meaning well and wanting to do better. She laments that it must be exhausting to watch, and identifies herself as "the problem." In the music video, Taylor plays a ClassicalAntiHero, a nice, fairly ordinary person who is plagued by insecurity and doubt.

** "Midnight Rain" deconstructs the RomanticRain and sun imagery she used in her past albums: instead of using it to set the mood or show how in love she is, it is used in this song to show how ''incompatible'' she and her ex were because "He was sunshine and I was midnight (rain)" and list all the reasons why. The song chorus is also sung by a distorted deeper voice, implying that he agrees with her too.
*** The song is about her pre-fame love life - a topic she hasn't touched on since ''Music/{{Fearless}}''. This song explains that her pursuit of fame and "that pain" led to her breakup with a perfectly nice hometown boy who just wants to marry her and led an ordinary life. This breakup ultimately led him to move on and forget about her but caused her insomnia about what could have been.

** In a more positive example of Deconstruction, ''Music/{{Reputation}}'' has Taylor obsessed with bringing bad Karma to her enemies. "Karma" instead has her focus on good Karma in her life instead.

** One of the major conflicts in "You're Losing Me is the narrator wants to get married and her love interest clearly not interested:

* DrowningMySorrows: During the choruses of "Anti Hero", Taylor and her alter ego indulge in alcohol with giant Taylor joining during the last chorus. The second chorus deconstructs this as Taylor ends up drinking too much, getting sick and throwing up on her alter ego.

* IJustWantToHaveFriends: "You're On Your Own, Kid" has this as a reason why the narrator developed an eating disorder: In order to fit in.

* TheInsomniac: The entire premise of the album, being a collection of sleepless nights Swift had.

* LyricSwap: From "Karma," the line "Karma is the guy on the screen, coming straight home to me" was rumored to be written about her then-boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn. About a year later at the Buenos Aires stop of the Eras Tour, Taylor changed the line to "Karma is the guy on the Chiefs" as a ShoutOut to her new boyfriend, [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball Kansas City Chiefs tight end]] [[UsefulNotes/NFLOffensivePlayers Travis Kelce]], who was in attendance. At subsequent shows on the tour, many fans sang the modified lyrics during her performance of "Karma," sometimes loud enough to drown out Taylor singing the official lyrics.

* NoodleIncident: "Do you really want to know where I was April 29th?" from "High Infidelity". The oddly specific date has lead to lots of speculations, much of it centered around the circumstances surrounding the end of Swift's relationship with Music/CalvinHarris.

** "Question...?", "High Infidelity", and "Would've, Could've, Should've" has her being ''very'' sarcastically polite to her subjects.
** "You're Losing Me" has the narrator complain that her love interest doesn't realize that all of her passive aggressiveness toward them is proof that she is unhappy and insecure in their relationship:

** "Paris" is about having a love despite outside distraction that doesn't really matter.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: "Bigger Than the Whole Sky" is the narrator lamenting the loss of someone who she only know for a short time but left a profound impact on her.

** A more lighthearted version: The three adult children of "Anti-Hero"'s narrator proclaim that their mother must have left "some kinds of clues" in her will. They seem to a parody of Swift's more rabid fans (one of the children even has traits like writing books and making podcasts about her) who interpret ''everything'' she does as a hint for an upcoming project.

* YouAreNotAlone: Several songs alluded to her being rescued from her intrusive thoughts, insecurity, and loneliness from the people around her: "Labyrinth"; "Karma", "Mastermind", "The Great War", "Glitch", "Hits Different".

Preceded by ''Music/{{evermore|2020}}''. Succeeded by ''Music/TheTorturedPoetsDepartment''.

Preceded by ''Music/{{evermore|2020}}''.

At the 66th MediaNotes/{{Grammy Award}}s, ''Midnights'' was named Album of the Year, making Swift the first artist to have won the award four times.

* GiantWoman: The music video of "Anti-Hero" features a giant Taylor who later joins the two smaller ones and easily finishes off the bottle of wine they'd been sharing. During the performance of the song in the Eras Tour, the giant Taylor is shown in the background literally towering over a cityscape.