Every new album that Taylor Swift releases is an attempt at reinvention. She changes into different personas as she grows older, including her neighbor girl, guitar-strumming teen years, her brilliant, pop star years, her vengeful, angry years, and her pandemic-influenced, woodsy, acoustic years. The latest Swift album to be centered on her personal life was “Lover.” Swift welcomed the brightness in “Daylight,” the album’s upbeat single. As the song ends, she declares, “I want to be identified by the things that I love, not the things I despise.” “not the things that frighten me. Certainly not the things that keep me up at night.”
Swift departs from the light of “Lover” with “Midnights,” delving into those nighttime phobias with, as she put it on Instagram, “tales of 13 restless nights spread throughout my life.”
Another new period, marked by late-night reflections, persistent meditation, as well as mature self-reliance, is ushered in with “Midnights.” Swift’s most sophisticated songs to date, “Midnights” has a sound that mirrors its artwork: think deep blues and purples with a shimmering, glittering sheen. It combines the bright, synth-filled pop of “1989” with the quiet, pared-down poeticism of “folklore” and the darker, R&B-inspired sounds of “Reputation.”
viberThe deeply personal tracks of “Midnights” are full of oblique references to Swift’s history in classic Swiftian style. Here is a list of every one of the album’s numerous hidden meanings.
