Pop Culture Reviews With Kassidy: Midnights by Taylor Swift

With the recent release of “Midnights” by Taylor Swift, many people have the album on repeat and find themselves constantly ranking in their minds what songs they like best. My own personal rankings on the songs have changed quite a bit since the first release and will probably continue to change the more I listen.

The first part of the list below however is my current top five, which include some of the seven songs from the “3 am Edition”. For these first five, I am going to do what English majors do best and analyze everything. And I mean everything. Following that, I will then just list out the rest of the rankings without going into depth.

1. Anti-Hero

At the top of my list, I have Anti-Hero. This song has quickly become a fan favorite and holds the number-one spot in many different categories. Swift has said that out of all the songs she’s written in her career, this one is the most exposing of her innermost thoughts and really explores all the dark corners of her mind.

Because of this open vulnerability, many fans heavily relate to the songs with simple lyrics like “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me”. Swift expresses the scrutiny she has not only placed herself under but has been placed under by the media and everyone around her. In her mind, she is solely responsible for all her problems and she believes that everyone around her feels the same way.

In the music video for this song, there are three versions of Swift that we see. The main two, however, are supposed to represent Swift as herself. The third version is supposed to represent the source of all her problems, therefore literally representing that she is the problem.

Another difficulty that Swift alludes to through these lyrics is the possibility that she often feels like she is this out-of-place person who doesn’t fit conventional beauty standards.

Swift’s line “Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby, and I’m a monster on the hill,” specifically refers to the feeling of not being up to the beauty standards of everyone else, that she is the odd one out. It also slams society’s infantilization of women and is just another place where Swift slams the patriarchy.

Many fans were confused by this lyric in the song due to its wording and uncomfortable pairing of the words “sexy baby”, but others were quick to point out the reference that was made to an episode of 30 Rock, where Tina Fey’s character tells Cristin Milioti’s character that she can “drop the sexy baby act”.

Another take on the three versions of Swift that we see in the video was given by a Swiftie (the name fans call themselves) on TikTok.

This fan, who goes by the username “skepticalswiftie”, said in their video that they believe these three Taylor’s are equally the “true” form of the artist.

Their take on what each Taylor represents is slightly different from my original thoughts but still shows a lot of similarities.

The first one that we see in the video they have dubbed “Vulnerable Taylor”. Like what I said earlier, the fan believes that the first Taylor in the video is supposed to represent all of the ugly emotions such as depression, loneliness, anxiety, fear, and fear of failure, that Swift experiences.

Because of this vulnerable side, she goes looking for reassurance and comfort which is what creates the second version of Taylor, “Coping Taylor.” This is the persona that Swift has developed in order to protect herself from the world around her. She parties and drinks and builds up walls around herself.

I believe that both my view of this Swift and skepticalswiftie’s view of this Taylor go hand in hand. As a whole, Swift believes that this version of herself, which she has created in order to cope and to present to the world, is essentially the solution to her fears AND the reason for all her problems. Hence why she may feel like an anti-hero.

Finally, the third Taylor we see is this gigantic version that resembles a literal giant in comparison to everything around her.

This Taylor is roughly two stories tall and quite literally doesn’t fit in anywhere. It’s pretty clear to most people that this visual representation of the lyric “And I’m a monster on the hill,” symbolically represents the persona she has gained over the years in her pop career.

Many people, even fans have placed her on this pedestal because of her achievements. Therefore, she is seen as this larger-than-life person which causes her to often feel out of place and “too big to hang out.”

2. Bejeweled

The ninth track of the album, called Bejeweled, has made it difficult to choose a favorite. Based on the lyrics, I believe this song focuses mainly on Swift’s relationship with her ex: Singer and Songwriter Calvin Harris.

It’s widely speculated that this relationship was extremely damaging to Swift and her mental stability. In her lyrics, Swift has left hints and Easter eggs about this relationship.

On top of the references to her relationship with Harris, where she constantly felt underappreciated, I also believe that this song also nods to her long-lasting career as a singer and pop star. In her interview with Jimmy Fallon, Swift mentions that she feels “lucky” to still be relevant in the music industry and to still be receiving so much love from fans.

In a way, I believe the song is simultaneously a nod to her reminding herself and everyone else that she still has the ability to top the charts and has the same effect on fans and listeners that she did during what some may consider “the height of her career”.

3. Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve

This song was definitely unexpected as it wasn’t only one of the seven surprise songs released in the 3 am edition, but it was clearly a cutthroat response to John Mayer and their previous relationship that took place while Swift was just 19 and Mayer was 32, the age that Swift is now when she released the song.

In it, she seemingly calls out the insane age gap between the two and the fact that Swift was basically still a child. She was still finding her way in the world and he was a grown man, which is something she says in the song. Swift also makes the comparison that this thing she considered to be love between her and Mayer was merely just pain, therefore she began to associate love with pain.

Verse three of the song, or as I see it, a continuation of the bridge, is a beautiful rant where Swift indicates that it has taken her years to get over what Mayer put her through and that now she just wants to put him in his place, or as she said in the song “hitting you where it hurts.”

Basically, her goal is to expose the ugly truth of the relationship and is no longer wearing the rose-colored glasses she wore in the relationship nor feeling the pain of a breakup with a man she thought she loved; like she displayed in her song Dear John.

4. Maroon

Many fans have drawn connections between the lyrics in the chorus of this song and Swift’s previous use of colors displaying emotions in many of her former songs; particularly in her song from the album of the same name, Red.

Swift uses several different shades of the color red in the chorus to describe various elements of the relationship. Such as the way this person made her blush, the color of wine being a shade of red, and the color of burgundy that the wine stained her shirt.

Because of the song’s use of different shades of red, some fans believe that the song is a mature version of Red where Swift has grown and is now able to look back on the relationship from the eyes of someone who has lived and moved on rather than a young girl who was heartbroken and reeling from an important relationship in her life.

Other fans believe that the song is actually about Harry Styles. A British singer whom she dated for a small period of time. It’s been pointed out that not only did the line about the wine on her shirt match up with a line from the song Olivia by One Direction, a band Styles was in at the time, but there is also picture evidence of Swift and Styles dancing together.

If it is about Styles, it wouldn’t be the first one Swift had written about him as it is highly hinted and speculated that both Out of the Woods and Style from her 1989 album are both about him.

Another clue the song is about Styles is in the line in the first verse where Swift sings about the partner having a roommate. Styles notoriously shared an apartment with former bandmate Louis Tomlinson, however, based on when the two moved out of that apartment, it could be possible that Styles was living with Ben Winston at the time.

However, if the line was being said to Swift rather than Swift being the one to say it, it’s possible that the roommate in question was Cara Delevingne, who she was said to live with in New York for a short period of time.

5. Paris

Paris was one of the seven extra songs that fans were surprised with the release of Midnights, and it feels like a perfect mix of the synth songs that make up her album 1989 as well as the happiness and love that is found in the lyrics of the songs on her album Lover.

This song is incredibly easy to sing along with and is easy for fans to insert themselves into the lyrics and story being told with lines like “Cheap wine, make believe it’s champagne”. But the lyrics I want to focus on are the ones that seem to focus on her current relationship with her longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn.

In the song, Swift sings, “Privacy sign on the door and on my page and on the whole world. Romance is not dead if you keep it just yours.” This line seems to allude to her radio silence after a controversy she faced in 2016 and how she decided based on her past relationships that it would be best to keep her personal life and her relationship away from the public.

She also realizes that it’s important to keep the people you love close to you and that some of the magic of a relationship revolves around having things that only the two involved in the relationship know and experience.

Swift also possibly makes a reference to a few different songs where she talks about receiving “shade”. I believe the line “Sit quiet by the side in the shade and not the kind that’s thrown. I mean, the kind under where a tree has grown.”

Not only does this line directly mention the shade people threw at her due to the controversy, but she also seems to reference her previous song Invisible String, where she talks about wanting to show her true love around Centennial Park, where she used to read, and constantly brings up throughout the song.

Ultimately, I believe this song is just another love letter to Alwyn whom she’s been in a relationship with since 2016.

Now for the rest of the rankings.

Go listen to the album to hear these songs for yourself and to figure out where they would fall in your own rankings. It’s available in any retail store as well as on any streaming platform.