Music / Midnights

"Meet me at Midnight."

We lie awake in love and in fear, in turmoil and in tears. We stare at walls and drink until they speak back. We twist in our self-made cages and pray we aren't - right this minute - about to make some fateful life-altering mistake. This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terror and sweet dreams. The floor we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lantern lit and go searching - hoping that maybe when the clock strikes twelve, we'll meet ourselves. Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life... Meet me at midnight.

— Taylor Swift's teaser statement in advance of the album

Midnights is the tenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released October 21st, 2022.

It is a Concept Album with its tracks designed to represent thirteen sleepless nights from Swift's life. In creating the album, she experimented with electronica, synth-pop, dream pop, and chill-out music styles, employing subtle grooves, vintage synthesizers, drum machines, and hip-hop rhythms. In some ways, it represents a sonic synthesis of her pop and alternative eras. The album's subject matter contains confessional yet cryptic lyrics discussing self-criticism, self-assurance, insecurity, anxiety, and insomnia. Jack Antonoff is a co-producer with Swift for all tracks on the standard version, and Aaron Dessner from The National contributes to 4 out of 8 of the additional tracks. Further contributing artists are Lana Del Rey, Zoë Kravitz, Sounwave, J. Sweet, Braxton Cook, Sam Dew, and Keanu Beats.

3 hours after the album's release, Swift announced a 3 am edition with 7 additional songs.

On October 31, 2022, the album reached an unprecedented record in music history by occupying the entire Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. The album's release was followed up with The Eras Tour, Swift's first full-scale tour since her departure from Big Machine Records and a celebration of her entire career.

At the 66th Grammy Awards, Midnights was named Album of the Year, making Swift the first artist to have ever won the award four times.

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Preceded by evermore, succeeded by THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT.

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Tracklist:^note singles italicized

1. "Lavender Haze" (3:22)
2. "Maroon" (3:38)
3. "Anti-Hero" (3:20)
4. "Snow on the Beach" (featuring Lana Del Rey) (4:16)
5. "You're On Your Own, Kid" (3:14)
6. "Midnight Rain" (2:54)
7. "Question...?" (3:30)
8. "Vigilante Shit" (2:44)
9. "Bejeweled" (3:14)
10. "Labyrinth" (4:07)
11. "Karma" (3:24)
12. "Sweet Nothing" (3:08)
13. "Mastermind" (3:11)
14. "The Great War" (Bonus Track) (4:00)
15. "Bigger Than the Whole Sky" (Bonus Track) (3:38)
16. "Paris" (Bonus Track) (3:16)
17. "High Infidelity" (Bonus Track) (3:51)
18. "Glitch" (Bonus Track) (2:28)
19. "Would've, Could've, Should've" (Bonus Track) (4:20)
20. "Dear Reader" (Bonus Track) (3:45)
21. "Hits Different" (Deluxe Bonus Track) (3:54)
22. "You're on Your Own, Kid" (Strings Remix)" (3:20) (Deluxe Bonus Track)
23. "Sweet Nothing" (Piano Remix)" (3:28) (Deluxe Bonus Track)
24. "Snow on the Beach" (featuring more Lana Del Rey)" (3:50) (Deluxe Bonus Track)
25. "Karma" (featuring Ice Spice) (3:22) (Deluxe Bonus Track)
26. "You're Losing Me" (From the Vault) (4:38) (Deluxe Bonus Track)

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It must be exhausting always troping for the anti-hero:

• Album Title Drop: The theme of staying awake until midnights is repeated several times in significant ways
  • The lead single "Anti-Hero":
    I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser
    Midnights become my afternoons
  • The first track to the album "Lavender Haze"
    Meet me at Midnight
  • The track "Midnight Rain"
    All of me change like midnight (Rain)
• Alone in a Crowd: "You're On Your Own, Kid" has the narrator singing about how, despite all the parties she hosts, attends, and even starves herself for in order to fit in, she still feels completely isolated.
• The Aloner: Several songs allude to her loneliness being a result of her actions.
  • "Midnight Rain" is about loneliness resulting from a breakup with a nice boy from her hometown and rejecting the "comfortable".
  • "Lavender Haze" and "Sweet Nothing" express her desire to be alone with her lover away from the world.
  • "High Infidelity" and "Bejeweled" are about the loneliness while being away from a bad partner who drives the narrator to leave ("Bejeweled") or cheat on them without bothering to hide it ("High Infidelity").
  • "Dear Reader" spells out that the narrator prefers to be alone "in plain sight" and walking to "a house, not a home" as one of the reasons people should not emulate her.
• All Take and No Give: The narrator accused her love interest to be this in "You're Losing Me" after listing out all the sacrifices she made for them:
  I gave you all my best me's, my endless empathy
  And all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier
  Fighting in only your army
  Frontlines, don't you ignore me
• "Anger Is Healthy" Aesop: One of the pieces of advice the narrator from "Dear Reader" gives:
  Bend when you can
  Snap when you have to
• Animal Motifs: Koi fish, which appear several times in her music videos, from a Freeze-Frame Bonus on the guitar on "Anti-Hero" and the balcony on "Bejeweled" to playing a big role as a Rule of Symbolism for the "Lavender Haze" music video.
• Anti-Hero: 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 Classical Anti-Hero, a nice, fairly ordinary person who is plagued by insecurity and doubt.
  I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror
  It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero
• Anti-Love Song: "Maroon" opens with the first verse painting a very in love couple, but the beat and background music are very dark and downbeat, and it was revealed during the chorus that the couple has broken up and the rest of the song explored their breakdown and the messy legacy her ex-love has left upon her.
• Bedsheet Ghost: In the music video of "Anti-Hero", Taylor is haunted by ghosts in tablecloths.
• Bowdlerise:
  • The clean version of "Maroon" changes "cheap-ass screw-top rosé" to "cheapest screw-top rosé", as well as changing "That's a real fucking legacy" to "That's a real lasting legacy."
  • "Snow On The Beach" is described as "Weird but it was beautiful" instead of "Weird but fucking beautiful" in the clean version.
  • Three examples from "Question...?":
    • "Lost in situations, circumstances" instead of "Fuckin' situations, circumstances"
    • "Meathead guy" instead of "dickhead guy"
    • "Caught in politics and gender roles" instead of "Fuckin' politics and gender roles"
  • The radio version of "Karma" has "You flip the script for the hell of it" instead of "You're talking shit for the hell of it". Later in the song, it changes "Flexing like a goddamn acrobat" to "Flexing like a Vegas acrobat"
  • "Hits Different" swaps out "Skip town like an asshole outlaw" for "Skip town like an unhinged outlaw" in the clean version.
• Break the Cutie:
  • The narrator of "You're On Your Own, Kid" starts off hopeful and idealistic, only to have her heart crushed time and time again, coming out stronger but more cynical, and still alone.
  • "Would've, Could've, Should've" is about a woman who was broken by an abusive relationship as a very young adult. A lot of the lyrics imply the relationship caused her faith in God to waver, if not crumble entirely, and she's very resentful over how much he hurt her.
    God rest my soul, I miss who I used to be
    The tomb won't close, stained glass windows in my mind
    I regret you all the time
    I can't let this go, I fight with you in my sleep
    The wound won't close, I keep on waiting for a sign
    I regret you all the time
• Break Up Song:
  • "Maroon" is a song about the messy legacy of a past relationship.
    And I wake with your memory over me
    That's a real fucking legacy to leave
  • "Question...?" is about confronting a cheating partner after seeing them again.
  • "Bejeweled" is an about-to-break-up song, with the narrator dolling herself up and going out for a night on the town to spite her neglectful boyfriend.
    And when I meet the band, they ask, "Do you have a man?"
    I can still say, "I don't remember"
    Familiarity breeds contempt, don't put me in the basement
    When I want the penthouse of your heart
    Diamonds in my eyes, I polish up real, I polish up real nice
  • "Midnight Rain" is a song about breaking up with a small-town boy because she was pursuing fame and he just wants an ordinary life.
  • "Would've, Could've, Should've" reflects on a past relationship with an abusive older man, the narrator lamenting her lost innocence and how traumatized she still is.
  • "You're Losing Me" is an "about to break up" song, with the narrator detailing how her relationship is falling apart and how she is falling out of love with her love interest even though she is desperately trying to save the relationship.
  • "Hits Different" is about the narrator reeling from the aftermath of a break up and ranting about her hurt and disappointment.
• Call It Karma: The entire premise of "Karma". And the narrator even takes this further by comparing Karma to many other things.
• Cinderella Plot: The "Bejeweled" music video is a homage to the Cinderella story with Taylor in the titular role, the Haim sisters as the stepsisters, Laura Dern as the stepmother, and Jack Antonoff as the prince.
• Continuity Porn: The music video for "Bejeweled" is loaded with references to Taylor Swift's career and previous songs. Taylor said that she had a PDF file for all the Easter eggs.
• Crazy Cat Lady: In the "Anti-Hero" music video, Taylor's older self is pictured with a dozen cats at her funeral and it's revealed that she turned her beach house into a cat sanctuary.
• Crisis of Faith:
  • "Would've, Could've, Should've" has the narrator going through a crisis of faith after being taken advantage of by the older predatory man and that has permanently led to her fractured relationship with God. To drive the point home, the song repeatedly uses religious symbolism throughout.
  • The narrator of "Bigger Than the Whole Sky" wonders if God took the person she's mourning away from her because she didn't pray enough, possibly as punishment for her wavering faith.
• Deconstructor Fleet: Swift deconstructs the public persona and imagery she used several times in her past music.
  • Her 1989 and Lover persona is about her finding friendship and romance. This album brutally reveals that many of the relationships she made during that time are fair-weather friends and uncaring people who still left her isolated and alone. ("You're On Your Own, Kid", "Dear Reader", "Bejeweled", "Question...?", "Sweet Nothing")
    • Furthermore, one of the themes in 1989 is finding her self-confidence and image. This album reveals the downside of finding said self-confidence: Her lack of self-reflection and lingering insecurity that made her exhausting to be around. ("Anti-Hero", "The Great War", "Bejeweled")
    • "Afterglow" from Lover references a nonspecific argument between Taylor and her boyfriend that is her fault; she doesn't understand why. "The Great War" acts as unofficial sequel to the song and gives us the reason: her paranoia and defense mechanisms due to traumas from past romantic relationships.
  • "Maroon" deconstructs the red imagery she frequently used during Red by showing that the red love she sang about (most likely from the same person) has darkened into a maroon color - signaling the darker reality that she now reflected upon as well as the end of the relationship due to lack of communication but still leaving her with unresolved issues.
  • "Would've, Could've, Should've" shows the relationship she sang about from Speak Now (especially "Dear John"), when she was nineteen, was extremely predatory and left her with permanent anger, regret, and shame.
    • The song also deconstructs her religious Girl Next Door image from her first, two albums, showing her fractured relationship with God due to the predatory man and her naïveté that led to her current trauma.
  • "Midnight Rain" deconstructs the Romantic Rain 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 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.
  • "You're Losing Me" contains several callbacks to songs on reputation, Lover, and folklore (most notably "Cornelia Street", "I Think He Knows", "Paper Rings", "exile" and "peace"), mostly pertaining to the subject of marriage, of miscommunication between the two parties and of painful reminders of happier times in a relationship that is falling apart.
  • Her hometown was used in her first four albums as a source of romance and a symbol of safety and comfort. Here it is revealed to be filled with Hypocrites, judgmental pretenders, and Small Town Boredom, and becomes a direct or indirect source of conflicts in several songs in the album ("You're On Your Own, Kid", "Midnight Rain", "Mastermind", "Would've, Could've, Should’ve").
  • In a more positive example of Deconstruction, reputation has Taylor obsessed with bringing bad Karma to her enemies. "Karma" instead has her focus on good Karma in her life instead.
• Differing Priorities Breakup:
  • The narrator of "Midnight Rain" and her boyfriend loved each other, but she wanted to pursue a career and become famous, while he wanted to stay in their small town and settle down, making them ultimately incompatible.
    He wanted it comfortable
    I wanted that pain
    He wanted a bride
    I was making my own name
    Chasing that fame
    He stayed the same
    All of me changed
  • One of the major conflicts in "You're Losing Me is the narrator wants to get married and her love interest clearly not interested:
    And I wouldn't marry me either
    A pathological people pleaser
    Who only wanted you to see her
• The Diss Track: "Vigilante Shit" and "Karma" are two entire long diss tracks towards her old record label boss Scott Borchetta and the guy who bought her old masters Scooter Braun.
• Drugs Are Bad: Downplayed. Both times she mentioned drugs in "Vigilante Shit" and "Bejeweled" it is used to paint the guys in the songs as either sleazy ("Vigilante Shit") or annoying and speaking nonsensically ("Bejeweled").
• The Dog Bites Back: The entire premise of "Vigilante Shit".
• Downer Ending: The 3 AM edition ends with "Dear Reader" - a song about how the narrator hates being looked up as a role model because she is falling apart but can't really help to "shine so bright" anyway.
• Drowning My Sorrows: 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.
• Face on the Cover: The inset photograph on the cover shows Swift with eyeshadow on her eyelids looking down holding a lit Zippo lighter.
• Five Stages of Grief: The narrator of "Bigger Than the Whole Sky" goes through this in the wake of a devastating loss. A notably more realistic example of this trope since the narrator repeats the chorus, indicating that she repeated a stage of grief and did not go through stages in a linear fashion.
• Freudian Excuse: The narrator of "Mastermind" is a bit manipulative and underhanded when it comes to relationships, but it's because she's too insecure to believe she can make friends or find love any other way. She clearly isn't proud of it.
  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
• Friendless Background: Several songs on the album allude to Taylor’s paucity of friends growing up due to her distaste for her hometown’s fakeness: "You're On Your Own, Kid", "Midnight Rain", "Mastermind".
• Giant Woman: 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 and wreaking havoc.
• Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: Both the adulterer in "Question...?" and "Vigilante Shit" are treated with no sympathy, but "Bejewled" and "High Infidelity" come from the perspective of a more sympathetic one.
• Grief Song: "Bigger Than the Whole Sky" is a ballad lamenting the death of someone who died too soon, with the narrator grieving both their loss and the fact that they never got to know them very well. One interpretation of the lyrics is that the narrator never got the meet the person they're mourning at all.
  I've got a lot to live without
  I'm never gonna meet
  What could've been, would've been
  What should've been you
• Height Angst: In the second verse of "Anti-Hero," Taylor calls herself "a monster on the hill / too big to hang out." A giant version of her also appears in the music video as large enough to take up a whole corner of her dining room while the other guests are normal-sized.
• Idiosyncratic Cover Art: Back cover art in this case, with the four different editions forming a clock.
• "I Am Great!" Song: "Bejeweled" has the narrator reminding her boyfriend who doesn't appreciate her that she's a real catch, and to prove it, she's going out tonight looking like an absolute knockout.
  What's a girl gonna do?
  A diamond's gotta shine!
• I Just Want to Have Friends: "You're On Your Own, Kid" has this as a reason why the narrator developed an eating disorder: In order to fit in.
• Inappropriate Role Model: "Dear Reader" is about the narrator begging people not to listen to her and emulate her because she is a lonely, damaged person.
• Inheritance Murder: In "Anti-Hero", the narrator dreams about her daughter-in-law killing her for her money. The joke's on her, though - while the lyrics simply imply that the narrator didn't leave them in the will, the music video expands upon it by having the children receive 13 cents and the narrator's beach house being given to her cats.
• Innocence Lost: "Would've, Could've, Should've" is about the narrator being broken by an abusive relationship, and still reeling from it several years later. There's a lot of death-related imagery in the song, showing how she feels her past self isn't just gone, but dead.
  Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first!
• The Insomniac: The entire premise of the album, being a collection of sleepless nights Swift had.
• In the End, You Are on Your Own: "You're On Your Own Kid" is essentially this trope, but a more hopeful take. The upside of always being alone is that you can survive independently after losing your Fair-Weather Friend.
• Insecure Love Interest: The narrator of "Mastermind" is convinced the only way she can get people to spend time with her is to manipulate the situation to force them into it. She's genuinely surprised when her love interest reveals they knew exactly what she was doing, and went along with it because they wanted to be with her.
• Ironic Echo: "The Great War" repeats the purple color and the love haze from "Lavender Haze", but instead depicts internal trouble threatening the relationship instead of external trouble.
  My knuckles were bruised like violets
  ...
  Somewhere in the haze, got a sense I'd been betrayed
• Last Disrespects: "Anti-Hero" has the narrator describing a nightmare where she's murdered for her money, and all her family cares about is who's in the will, only to find she's cut them out. Taken up a notch in the music video, where her uncaring children and in-laws are live-streaming the funeral and wearing her clothes for attention, eventually brawling inside the funeral room.
  She's laughing up at us from Hell!
• Love Hurts:
  • "Question?..." is about all the unasked questions and feelings the narrator has for her ex who cheated on her.
  • "The Great War" is about the aftermath of a bad fight between the narrator and her love interest.
  • "Bigger Than The Whole Sky" is about the grief of losing someone you love so deeply despite the short time you had together.
  • "High Infidelity" is about a love that is on the verge of falling apart in which the narrator cheated to feel loved and appreciated.
  • The narrator from "Would've, Could've, Should've" berates her former love for taking advantage of her when she was 19 years old, leaving emotional scars that haunt her years later.
  • "You're Losing Me" is about the sadness and grief of a relationship that the narrator is desperately trying to save.
  • "Hits Different" is about a bad breakup that the narrator is struggling to cope with.
• Lyric Swap: 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 Shout-Out to her new boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end 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.
• Madonna-Whore Complex: "Lavender Haze" has the narrator list this trope as one of the reasons she doesn't want to leave her lover and the aforementioned Lavender Haze.
  All they keep asking me (all they keep asking me)
  Is if I'm gonna be your bride
  The only kind of girl they see (the only kind of girl they see)
  Is an one-night or a wife
• Meta Twist: Has two of them
  • Swift was infamous for having Track 5 in her other albums to be extremely sad and personal. While "You're on Your Own, Kid" starts out extremely sad, it ends on a reassurance that while you might be on your own, the friendship and growth you experienced along the way is worth celebrating.
  • All of her previous tracks with her then-boyfriend Joe Alwyn in folklore and evermore (as William Bowery) were extremely depressing Break Up Song, "Sweet Nothing" is instead a Silly Love Song.
• Milholland Relationship Moment: "Mastermind" ends with one, with the narrator feeling guilty over having secretly created the circumstances that led to her dating the person she liked, leading her to confess, despite being scared this will make them leave... and her partner just smiles at her.
  You knew the entire time!
  You knew that I'm a mastermind,
  And now you're mine
• Misery Builds Character: The narrator of "You're On Your Own, Kid" finds that being alone has given her the inner strength to get through hardships without help.
  And I saw something they can't take away
  'Cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned
  Everything you lose is a step you take
• Noodle Incident: "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 Calvin Harris.
• Numerological Motif: "Would've, Could've, Should've" has the number motif of 19: Being the age of the singer when she was in the abusive romance with the older man; the age that ties the song to the Speak Now romance and being track 19 on the 3 am edition.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat:
  • "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:
    Every mornin' I glared at you with storms in my eyes
    How can you say that you love someone you can't tell is dyin'?
    I sent you signals and bit my nails down to the quick
    My face was gray, but you wouldn't admit that we were sick
• Pet Heir: In the "Anti-Hero" music video, Taylor cuts her ungrateful children out of the will (save for thirteen cents), leaving her fortune to her cats.
  Daughter-in-law: Wait, who got the beach house?
  Son: She's having it turned into a fucking cat sanctuary.
  Daughter-in-law: What?! Cats don't even like the beach!
• Poor Communication Kills: One of the main reasons the relationship in "You're Losing Me" is dying is because the two people in the song no longer understand each other:
  You said "I don't understand" and I said "I know you don't"
• Rejected Marriage Proposal: In the "Bejeweled" music video, House Wench Taylor wins a competition to get a castle and a proposal from the Prince. She keeps the castle and ghosts him, although he doesn't seem to mind.
• Restrained Revenge: The premise of "Karma", with the narrator deciding to just live her life unbothered because her enemies would get what's coming for them because they are bad people.
• Ruder and Cruder: The album doubles down on the Precision F-Strike. "Question...?" even has the word "dickhead".
• Self-Deprecation:
  • Mixed in with a twinge of sincere insecurity and despondence in "Anti-Hero". The song features Taylor poking at her own personal flaws and anxieties in a tongue-in-cheek way ("Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby / And I'm a monster on the hill"), but at its core, it's clear that these issues — namely her fraught relationships with her loved ones and the public at large, making her the Anti-Hero of her own narrative — are a taxing challenge that genuinely depresses her and makes her question her self-worth.
    It's me, hi
    I'm the problem, it's me
  • In "Dear Reader," she explicitly refers to herself as a flawed role model who shouldn't be emulated, and laments that her fame means that people will look up to her anyway.
    Never take advice from someone who's falling apart...
    You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking...
    You should find another guiding light, guiding light
    But I shine so bright
• Serial Spouse: Implied in "Bejeweled" music video. The stepmother proudly shows her eight wedding rings.
• Shout-Out: To Janet Jackson and her song "All For You" on "Snow On The Beach":
  Now I am all for you like Janet
• Silly Love Songs:
  • "Lavender Haze", per Word of God, is about ignoring the "weird rumors" surrounding her romantic relationship and allowing herself to be immersed in it.
  • "Snow on the Beach" is about a love that's "weird, but fucking beautiful," with the narrator being unable to quite believe that it's really happening.
  • "Labyrinth" is about "falling in love again" hard and fast after a particularly hard period of the narrator's life.
  • "Sweet Nothing" is about the narrator's domestic life with her partner and how they don't expect anything from her, unlike the rest of the world.
  • "Mastermind" is about the narrator orchestrating her current romance to land her love interest... And the love interest knew the entire time!
  • "Paris" is about having a love despite outside distraction that doesn't really matter.
  • "Glitch" covers a relationship steadily upgrading from friends to something more serious.
• Small Role, Big Impact: "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.
  Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
  You were bigger than the whole sky
  You were more than just a short time
• Small Town Boredom:
  • "You're On Your Own, Kid" has the narrator say, "I didn't choose this town, I dream of getting out," but admits there was a boy she had a crush on who she might've stuck around for. But he didn't return her feelings, so she left.
  • The narrator of "Midnight Rain" wanted to get out of her small town and become famous, while her boyfriend wanted to stay, leading them to break up.
• Spiteful Will: Implied in "Anti-Hero". The narrator mentions a hypothetical scenario in which her daughter-in-law murders her for her fortune, presuming that she and the rest of the family were in the will. However, after reading the will, someone screams that the narrator is "laughing up at us from Hell" implying none of the family are getting what they expected. The music video goes into more depth, revealing the children only receive 13 cents and the narrator's cats get her beach house.
• Take That, Audience!:
  • 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.
  • A more serious version in "Dear Reader", where the narrator states that no one should listen to her because she is a lonely, confused, and damaged person who is falling apart.
• Weight Woe: Swift discusses her eating disorder in multiple songs. "You're on Your Own, Kid" states that she starved herself to fit in with the crowd. The "Anti-Hero" music video has her weight as one of the reasons she is insecure about herself.
• Wicked Stepmother: Laura Dern plays Taylor's Laughably Evil "stepmommy" in the music video for "Bejeweled," mocking and degrading Taylor as a "tired and tacky wench."
• You Are Not Alone: 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".
  • Deconstructed and Subverted in "Would've, Could've, Should've". The narrator stated that the older man rescuing her from boredom is one of the reasons she fell in love with him, which is why it hurt her so much when he "tried to erase (them)".

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