Is Taylor Swift’s Lover the album that derails her career?
Taylor Swift’s latest album Lover is finally here and it’s lucky she made up with Katy Perry, because Swift’s new album Lover could become her Witness, the album that almost derailed Perry’s career. We go CSI on the lyrics of each track so you don’t have to.
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It’s lucky Taylor Swift has made up with Katy Perry because Swift’s new album Lover could become her Witness, the album that almost derailed Perry’s career.
The release of Lover follows lead singles, Me! and You Need To Calm Down, that haven’t performed like Taylor Swift singles usually perform on the charts.
And there’s parts of the album that will divide people — especially those ready to attack her now she’s politically outspoken — the same fate that awaited Perry in the bumpy Witness era.
Even Swift, a well known social media lurker, has seen the reaction to the album’s first single.
Now Me! has mercifully had the diabolical line ‘Hey kids! Spelling is fun’ surgically removed it doesn’t make it sound any less Wiggles-esque.
It’s also bumped to the tail end of the album (track 16), keeping fellow single You Need to Calm Down company at No.14.
So what’s else is new?
I FORGOT THAT YOU EXISTED
Each Swift album sees the world go CSI on the lyrics from the get-go. People are already assuming this is about Kanye West rather than an ex boyfriend — indeed there’s lyrics about going to the subject’s show (a flashback to the tilted stage of Look What You Made Me Do). Although Calvin Harris would fit that bill.
She’s certainly salty AF on the quirky pop tune singing in emojis about indifference, full of shout outs to shade, Drake’s In My Feelings and being taught some hard lessons.
But if you were really that over it, would you still be writing songs about it and opening your record with a song about it?
Hopefully she can move onto writing about Scooter Braun now.
KEY LYRIC: “You got out some popcorn as soon as my rep started going down, laughed on the schoolyard as soon as I tripped up and hit the ground.”
CRUEL SUMMER
Now we’re talking. Written with her main man Jack Antonoff and St Vincent (who produced her last record) this is gorgeous synth pop with some robo vocoder in the background. Super-sized chorus and classic Swift vibes make this probably the most obvious single here — distilling everything you loved about 1989 and Reputation (it’s very Getaway Car) in under three minutes. Also nothing to do with the Bananarama song.
KEY LYRIC: “I’m drunk in the back of the car, I don’t want to keep secrets just to keep you.”
THE MAN
Swift said she wasn’t going to shy away from hot topics here and indeed The Man is a bear poker.
Basically she’s updating Madonna’s narrative that if she was a man her business acumen and success would be rated, not slated. Everything from how she dresses to the perception of her hustle and talents.
The chorus runs “If I was a man, I’d be The Man.” Is this the first Taylor Swift song to use the word “b-----s?”
A lot of ears will be scorching hearing this song, written with Kiwi Joel Little.
KEY LYRIC: “What’s it like to brag about drinking and dollars and getting b-----s and models? And it’s all good if you’re bad. And it’s okay if you’re mad. If I was out flashing my dollars, I’d be a b---h not a baller, they’d paint me out to be bad.”
I THINK HE KNOWS
Potentially divisive. Starts with an R&B beat and morphs into something recalling Style. Swift’s rapid-fire vocals return to deliver a loved up tale on her most loved-up album.
KEY LYRIC: “He got that boyish look that I like in a man, I am an architect, I’m drawing up the plans.”
MISS AMERICANA AND THE HEARTBREAK PRINCE
Another synth-based dark midtempo track that merges 1989 and Reputation. Plenty of lyrical clues for fans to pore through when they’ve finished buying the four deluxe versions of this album.
KEY LYRIC: “The whole school is rolling fake dice, you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.”
PAPER RINGS
There’s a catchy guitar-led pop tune here (think Blondie meets Hannah Montana) and a pretty straight-up and seemingly super personal love song where Swift sings “I like shiny things but I’d marry you with paper rings.”
That should stoke fires about her latest relationship.
KEY LYRIC: “The moon is high like your friends were the night that we first met, went home and tried to stalk you on the internet, now I’ve read all of the books beside your bed.”
CORNELIA STREET
Back to Swift writing everything herself. Downbeat synth ballad that sounds like it could have been on Reputation. Will probably be a fan favourite.
KEY LYRIC: “We were in the back seat drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar.”
DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS
Wants to be an epic, with a piano undercurrent that sounds more Meat Loaf than Elton John. Some interesting musical choices here, but again, could be divisive. A grower.
KEY LYRIC: “I take the long way home, I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be alright, they say ‘I don’t know’.
LONDON BOY
Sheesh. Well that’s her boyfriend Joe Alwyn speaking at the start. And so Swift’s written a song about how much she loves spending time with him in London, shoehorning in as many British references as possible (Hackney, Bond Street, Stella McCartney, Brixton, Soho, Camden Market etc).
It’s clunky and awkward — remember when Madonna put on her English accent when she was with Guy Ritchie? This is that in a song.
All it needs is her saying ‘Do what Guv’ and ‘Toe rag’ and doing some Cockney rhyming slang.
KEY LYRIC: “And now I love high tea, stories from Uni, and the West End, you can find me in the pub, we are watching rugby with his school friends, show me a grey sky, a rainy cab ride.”
SOON YOU’LL GET BETTER (WITH DIXIE CHICKS)
Phew. Order is restored. If you thought you were getting country Taylor back after Reputation had taken Pop Taylor to the extreme, here’s three minutes and 22 seconds of what could have been.
And it reminds you of what we’re missing. More of this please. It’s stunning. It’s about her mother Andrea’s cancer battle.
KEY LYRIC: “And I hate to make this all about me, but who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do if there’s no you?”
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FALSE GOD
We’re back on track. This seems to be Swift bringing in her relationship, sex life, religious imagery and New York all into one song. With saxophone. Bravo.
KEY LYRIC: “The altar is my hips even if it’s a false god... I know heaven’s a thing, I go there when you touch me, honey.”
AFTERGLOW
Another song with her new pop writing duo Frank Dukes and Louis Bell (Camilla Cabelo). It’s a post mortem of fighting with a lover, with a kind of Cocteau Twins gone R&B vibe. Not bad at all.
KEY LYRIC: “Fighting with a true love is boxing with no gloves, chemistry ‘til it blows up, ‘til there’s no us. Why’d I have to break what I love so much? It’s on your face, and I’m to blame, I need to say.”
IT’S NICE TO HAVE A FRIEND
Shortest song here. There’s steel drums. Seems to be about a school romance. That’s about it. Would have been a bonus track if bonus tracks were still a thing
KEY LYRIC: “Wanna hang out?” Yes, sounds like fun. Video games, you pass me a note.”
DAYLIGHT
Swift fans know the final tracks on her albums are important. This is another one she wrote herself. And it’s yet another ode to Joe. It’s not for nothing the album is called Lover. This one beams with joy — talking about how he’s healed her from past relationships. This song, and most of the album’s lyrics, serve as the antidote to Reputation. The last thing you hear on the album is Taylor saying “You are what you love.”
KEY LYRIC: Luck of the draw only draws the unlucky and so I became the butt of the joke. I wounded the good and I trusted the wicked.”
VERDICT: It’s better than Witness. But no one needs to hear all the deep cuts from this album on the Lover tour. Time to bring some older hits back into the live show TayTay.