Decoding the Secret Meaning of Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero" Lyrics, a "Tour" of Everything She "Hates" About Herself
The first song off of Swift's newest album, Midnights, which was released on October 21, 2022, is "Anti-Hero." Following 2020's Evermore and Folklore, 2019's Lover, 2017's Reputation, 2014's 1989, 2012's Red, 2010's Speak Now, 2009's Fearless, and her 2006 self-titled debut, Midnights is Swift's tenth studio album. Midnights is Swift's fourth album with Republic Records, a division of Universal Music Group, the record label she joined in 2018 after leaving Big Machine Records, where she had spent more than a decade.
13 songs total, including seven bonus tracks on the Midnights (3am Edition) deluxe edition, were written by Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner, Lana Del Rey, and Swift for the album. Swift described Midnights as a collection of "tales of 13 sleepless nights" from her life in an Instagram post from October 2022. We are crying and in turmoil as we lie awake in love and terror. We sip till the walls start speaking while we glare at them. We twitch in our self-made cages and hope that we aren't going to make some terrible mistake that will change the course of our lives right now," she wrote. This is a collection of late-night songs that takes the listener on a journey through terrifying nightmares and delightful daydreams. We pace the floors while battling our demons. For all of us who have tossed and turned and chosen to keep the lanterns burning and continue looking in the hopes that perhaps, at twelve, we will run into each other.
Midnights, which tells the tales of 13 slumberless evenings spread throughout her life, will be released on October 21. I'll see you at midnight. In a tweet from the time, Swift also discussed how Midnights reflected the "highs and lows, ebbs and flows" she had gone through in her life. "Midnights is an intense collage of peaks and valleys, ebbs and flows. Life might be frightening, exhilarating, gloomy, starry, hot, cold, romantic, or lonely. Similar to Midnights," she wrote.
Returning to the lyrics from Taylor Swift's song "Anti-Hero," What exactly are the words to Taylor Swift's song "Anti-Hero" about? Continue reading to learn more about Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero" lyrics and why it is one of her most "honest" songs to date.
What is the subject of Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero" lyrics?
What is the subject of Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero" lyrics? Swift and Jack Antonoff, the lead singer of Bleachers, collaborated on the writing of "Anti-Hero," the third track and lead single from Midnights. They also wrote "Getaway Car" from Reputation, "Cruel Summer" from Lover, "August" from Folklore, and "All Too Well (10 Minute Version) from Red (Taylor's Version).
Swift revealed that "Anti-Hero" is a "guided tour" of her fears and the things she tends to "detest" about herself in a video posted on her Instagram in October 2022. "'Anti-Hero', the third track, is one of my all-time favorite songs. I don't think I've ever gone this deeply into my fears before. I find it very difficult to accept that my life has grown too big," she added at the time. "I battle with the thought of not feeling like a person, not to sound too depressing. Never feel sorry for me. You are not required. This song provides a thorough tour of the aspects of myself that I find most repulsive. We all have traits that we despise. If we want to be this person, we have to accept all of those facets of the qualities we like and despise in ourselves. Because I believe it to be really honest, I truly enjoy "Anti-Hero."
In addition, Swift confirmed that "self-loathing" was one of the five themes of Midnights, along with fantasizing about retaliation, wondering what may have been, and falling in love, in a video for Spotify in October 2022. "Self-loathing is the first thing that kept me up at night and helped create the Midnights record," she stated. The chorus, which says, "I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror / It must be exhausting, always pulling for the anti-hero," is an illustration of this concept.
Another instance is the first stanza of "Anti-Hero," where she alludes to the "depression" she encounters every evening at around midnight: When my depression works overnight shifts, "midnights become my afternoons" and "all of the folks I've ghosted stand there in the room." I should not be left to my own devices, she continues in the prechorus. "They come with prices and vices / I end up in crisis I've realized all this time / I wake up screaming from dreaming / One day I'll watch as you're going / Cause you got weary of my plotting / For the final time."
Swift discussed the "public shaming" she had following Kim Kardashian's infamous 2016 Snapchat video of a conversation she and Kanye West had over his song "Famous" and its lyrics about Swift in an interview with Vogue in 2019. At the time, Swift remarked, "A global public shaming, with millions of people screaming you are canceled, is a very isolated experience. "I doubt that many people can truly comprehend what it's like to have millions of people express their hatred for you in such a public way. It's not a TV show when you claim someone has been cancelled. It's an actual person. You're essentially telling this individual to stop talking, go away, or even to commit suicide by sending them a barrage of messages.
"I realized I needed to rearrange my life because it seemed totally out of control," she continued. I realized right away that I had to write music about it because I knew that was the only way I could make it through. It was the only way I could both convey the narrative of what it was like to experience something so humiliating and maintain my mental health.
0 comments:
Post a Comment