Taylor Swift has released her latest album, Midnights. Photo / AP
Kris Jenner works hard but Swifties work harder.
Taylor Swift’s brand new album, Midnights, dropped yesterday and as Swift fans have come to learn, she likes surprises so it was not entirely unexpected that along with the promised 13 tracks on the album, there were also seven bonus songs.
In what Swift has dubbed the 3am tracks, she told fans in the early hours of the morning that there were even more songs to listen to, and that means even more songs for fans to find Easter eggs in.
“Surprise!” she said in an Instagram post, adding, “I think of Midnights as a complete concept album, with those 13 songs forming a full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour. However! There were other songs we wrote on our journey to find that magic 13. I’m calling them 3am tracks.
“Lately I’ve been loving the feeling of sharing more of our creative process with you, like we do with From The Vault tracks. So it’s 3am and I’m giving them to you now.”
Finally, Midnights has dropped, and aside from fans acknowledging how it is the perfect mix of her past albums, Lover, Reputation and 1989, they are also decoding all the Easter eggs.
Each song is said to be storytelling sleepless nights throughout Swift’s life, and it has fans wondering why – or perhaps who, caused those sleepless nights. There are a lot of theories.
It’s no surprise the singer referenced her relationship with her long-time partner, Alwyn, throughout the 20-track album.
She told fans on Instagram last month the song Lavender Haze is about the couple’s attempt to navigate – and ignore - “weird rumours” released in the press. saying, “this song is sort of about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff.”
People Magazine reports there are multiple other songs suspected to be about the starlet’s beau in the album, including Snow on the Beach – a collaboration with Lana Del Rey.
In the song, she sings, “Now I’m all for you like Janet/ Can this be a real thing/ Can it?” – referencing Janet Jackson’s 2001 song All for You.
Other songs seemingly with references to her relationship with Alwyn include Labyrinth, Sweet Nothing and Mastermind but if there is one theme throughout, it’s that Alwyn appears to be her “safe space” away from the chaos.
And, Sweet Nothing - perhaps the sweetest of the lot - was written with the help of Alywn himself. Under his pseudo, William Bowery, Alwyn co-wrote the track, with many suspecting the song is a window into their notoriously private relationship.
Pedestrian has reported there is an underlying tone of Swift being sick of fame in the new album, and it could be because of the impact it has on her relationship.
A lyric that seems to imply this comes from the song Lavender Haze where Swift seemingly calls out the media by saying, “the 1950s sh*t they want from me”.
She also appears to reference the times she has gone viral in the past when moments from her life have been savaged in the media, “I find it dizzying, they’re bringing up my history, but you weren’t even listening.”
The lyrics hark back to the 2017 Reputation song, Delicate, where Swift sings about Alwyn ignoring the negative press around her.
She again seems to mention her fear of fame messing with her relationship in the song Anti-Hero, where she says, “It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero.” A lyric that appears to voice worries about her partner growing tired of her ways and leaving her.
The award-winning singer hints at her past traumas and how they tend to keep her up at night. In Anit-Hero she sings that sometimes her “depression works the graveyard shift”.
Swift has spoken candidly about her mental health struggles and the eating disorder that she developed during the 1989 era in her Netflix documentary Miss Americana.
She seems to mention it again in the song You’re On Your Own, Kid, where she sings “From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes/I gave my blood, sweat and tears for this/I hosted parties and starved my body/Like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss.”
Another song that references her worries keeping her up at night is Karma. While many suspected the song would be a nod to the project that was scrapped after her public feud with Kanye West, it seems it is instead a reference to her music ownership battle with Scooter Braun.
She sings, “Spider boy, king of thieves, weave your little webs of opacity. My pennies made your crown.”
It wouldn’t be the Swift we know and love if there wasn’t a cryptic nod to her ex-boyfriends, thankfully Midnights delivered.
Her previous songs All Too Well and State of Grace are most famously known for (allegedly) being about Jake Gyllenhaal, and now Swifties suspect there could be another song about the man.
Glamour Magazine reported that Midnight Rain is clearly about an ex and claim it could be about Gyllenhaal. Why? It’s all due to one lyric where she sings about getting caught in her partner’s “flames” - something the magazine reports could be a nod to the “twin fire signs” lyric in State of Grace.
Another ex-boyfriend who seemingly gets a mention is Harry Styles in, Question…? The giveaway moment is because the start of the song is a simple reworking of her very own 1989 track, Out of the Woods – which many think is about Harry Styles.
She sings in the Midnights track, “Did you ever have someone kiss you in a crowded room,” going on to sing, “every single one of your friends was makin’ fun of you?” which Glamour magazine claims could be a reference to her infamous NYE kiss with Styles.
Swift announced her new album at the MTV Video Music Awards on August 28, when she took out the win for Video of the Year for All Too Well (10-Minute Version). During her acceptance speech she told fans that as thanks for the award win, she had something for them in return.
“And I had sort of made up my mind that if you were going to be this generous and give us this, I thought it might be a fun moment to tell you that my brand-new album comes out October 21. And I will tell you more at midnight.”
She later took to social media at midnight and released the name of the album and artwork before describing the 10th album, “We lie awake in love and in fear, in turmoil and in tears.”
Swift wrote while describing the inspiration behind her new album: “We stare at walls and drink until they speak back. We twist in our self-made cages and pray that we aren’t - right in this minute - about to make some fateful life-altering mistake.”
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