Meet Me at Midnight: A Review of Midnights by Taylor Swift
Part 2
By: Mallory Johnson
Next comes the self-written shocker Vigilante Shit, where Taylor talks about how she is getting revenge against (unnamed in the song, but fans figured out that it was) Scooter Braun, who deeply wronged her in her master’s situation. She talks about exposing his cheating to his (now) ex-wife and exposing his white-collar crimes to the FBI. She also says that he was doing lines of cocaine and crossing all her lines! My favorite lyrics are, “while he was doing lines/and crossing all of mine,” “she looks so pretty/driving in your Benz….” and “picture me thick as thieves with your ex-wife.” Track nine is another one of my favorites, and it is the glittery Bejeweled, which has an equally glittery music video. It is basically a fun version of her Folklore track mirrorball. She says in the chorus, “best believe I’m still bejeweled/when I walk in the room, I can still make the whole place shimmer!” I love the “nice” effect in the chorus! My favorite lyrics are “did all of the extra credit then got graded on a curve/I think it’s time to teach some lessons” and “some guy said my aura’s moonstone just cause he was high” and “what’s a girl gotta do? A diamond’s gotta shine!” She brings the mood down with the pretty yet sad song Labyrinth. She sings about her worries as she is falling in love again. My favorite lyrics are the very first ones, “it only hurts this much right now/is what I was thinking the whole time.” Song eleven is another fun, petty song - and is called Karma. She sings vaguely about people who have wronged her, and in the chorus, discusses all the good things that she has - because she has not done anything wrong, karma is good to her.
My favorite lyrics are “Karma is the guy on the screen/coming straight home to me!” This refers to her British actor boyfriend Joe Alwyn. She slows it down on the twelfth song Sweet Nothing, which was written with Joe Alwyn under the pseudonym William Bowery. The song is a very sweet love song about loving despite the noise. My favorite lyrics are “On the way home/I wrote a poem/you say, ‘what a mind’/this happens all the time.” The final song on the standard edition of the album is Mastermind, in which she sings about how she schemed and planned for her and Joe’s relationship to work. She says, “what if I told you none of it was accidental?” My favourite lyrics are “I laid the groundwork, and then saw a wide smirk/On your face, you knew the entire time.” The first song on the 3am edition is called The Great War, and it discusses hardships in a relationship. My favourite lyric is “there’s no morning glory/it’s war it wasn’t fair.” The next song is a heartbreaking song about grief called Bigger Than the Whole Sky.
My favourite lyric is “every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness.” Moving on, the next song called Paris is a fun poppy bop that I love. She describes pretending that her and her lover are in Paris instead of where they are. My favourite lyrics are, “Let the only flashing lights/ be the tower at midnight.” This refers to them not needing to worry about paparazzi camera flashes, only the Eiffel tower flashes. Next is High Infidelity, which is about cheating. My favourite lyrics are “do you really want to know where I was April 29th? /Do I really have to chart the constellations in his eyes?” Next, we have Glitch, which has fun alternative beats/effects which I love. My favourite lyrics are “five seconds later, I’m fastening myself to you with a stitch.” Next is another favourite of mine, the heartbreaking Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve, and is about the emotional abuse and grooming she experienced when she dated John Mayer when she was nineteen and he was thirty-two, told through religious trauma metaphors. The most heartbreaking (and my favourite lyric, possibly on the whole album) is “give me back my girlhood, it was mine first.” I also love the lyric right before that one which says, “living for the thrill of hitting you where it hurts.” The album closes with the slow ballad Dear Reader, in which Taylor gives the listeners advice, then turns around and tells us not to take it. My favourite lyric is, “no one sees when you lose/When you’re playing solitaire.”
Overall, I genuinely really love this album - I love the production, to me it sounds a lot like the album Melodrama by Lorde, which makes sense because producer Jack Antonoff worked on both albums. The album feels like a warm hug, and I am so grateful for it. I (obviously) give it a strong 10/10 and cannot wait to see where Taylor takes us next!