Taylor Swift - Midnights

I gave it a spin a few weeks ago after loving "Glitch" on Four Tet's Spotify playlist. Pretty solid album!

I re-listened today… every track after the first three still ended up being a skip for me, except for “Karma” & “Sweet Nothing” (“Hits Different” is also OK).

Curious: what’s the consensus about the meaning of the lyric “at tea time” in Anti-Hero? Does Taylor mean to imply that her critics are upper crust snobs drinking tea at a country club, or is it a draggy reference about serving tea?

totally thought it was about serving tea

Thought it was about gossip — tea — so “at tea time” = when ppl are gossiping (everybody agrees)

yeah seems pretty clearly like the latter to me?

I’ve always maintained that Taylor’s narrator may be winning out on the links but, rhetorically, she’s straight up getting wrecked by the other players

I always thought it was a “my critics are snobs” line (and the only weak line in an otherwise fairly brilliant lyric)

My bf thinks she’s referencing drag

Either way it’s not my favourite line in an otherwise delightful lyric? Idk there’s a lot of good stuff there

LL's gloss seems definitive to me

Thought it was about gossip — tea — so “at tea time” = when ppl are gossiping (everybody agrees)

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Thursday, March 2, 2023 5:24 PM

this is how i hear it.

Yeah, clearly about gossiping. That's when everybody agrees she's the problem!

It’s HER

I thought she was just using "tea time" in the British sense? She's spent a lot of time there the past few years so it wouldn't be odd for some British phrases to sneak into her writing.

i'd read it as both the british sense and about gossip

Yeah I'm not suggesting it doesn't draw on that double meaning, more that I don't think it is intended to imply anything about the people agreeing - it's everybody! The song is pretty focused on directing the criticism and loathing inward - the only exception (the daughter in law who kills her) is imaginary, and is more a metaphor for what she fears her value may be reduced to.

yeah i agree there

“Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby
And I'm a monster on the hill
Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city”

This is not pop lyric writing imo, this is something else and something very good and very funny.

Did you hear my covert narcissism
I disguise as altruism
Like some kind of congressman?

This part gets me every time, but the entire song is full of memorable lyrics.

The part that shocked me into caring about this song was that line — the narcissism/altruism/congressman line. It seems to come out of nowhere?

In the video where the crowd was singing along she absolutely spits the word congressman — that took me by surprise too.

What I love about the congressman line is that it’s not clear whether she’s speaking in general or specifically critiquing even her own confessionalism on this song, like, “look, even now I am crying out for attention and to be loved, and trying to make myself look like a more self-reflective person than I really am.”

lol she sure seems to be going ridiculously all out for this tour

It cost them so much babysitting and other jobs, but my kids are going to lose their shit.

LOL same here. We are going to Nashville. They are approaching Losing Their Shit stage currently and should be at full-on Interstellar Overdrive (or something like that) stage by the time we get there.

she played “enchanted” ;_;

i don’t love the setlist personally. shoutout to her for doing 45 songs tho

Here’s the chunk I’d be all over (could leave the rest):

“Tis the Damn Season”
“Willow”
“Marjorie”
“Champagne Problems”
“Tolerate It”
“…Ready for It?”
“Delicate”

When your fans have no taste

The Evermore segment included live debuts of “’Tis the Damn Season,” “Marjorie,” and “Tolerate It,” as well as a self-aware gag from Swift, who said the album is one that “I absolutely love—despite what some of you say on TikTok… I’ve seen it. I’ve seen all of it!”

otm

Looks like she's actually dividing it up into eras, which makes sense given the name of the tour, but seems like a bit of a missed opportunity to put songs from different eras together in interesting ways.

xp I think she's adressing weird persistent rumours that SHE didn't like evermore and has 'buried' it since release. Although yeah, the fans also underrated it.

Oh thanks, interesting. (I won’t pretend to understand the logic of that rumor, considering that she did the thing of breaking the songs up into a bunch of digital EPs, giving “Willow” a ton of remixes, etc.)

My daughter gave me the lowdown this morning. Apparently she barely tweeted or posted anything about Evermore, compared to Folklore (which got its own special?), and then didn't mention the album on its "birthday" (anniversary) either.

Ok, definitely a different level of tea-leaf reading happening there.

Just did some Twitter searching (yes, I'm bored) – she only tweeted twice about Folklore, post–2020: (a) in Feb. 2021, announcing she put FL & Evermore together in a playlist; (b) in July 2021, the "Happy Anniversary" tweet (debuting a new version of "The Lakes"). As for Evermore – she tweeted about it seven (7) times in 2021 (and that's not counting the aforementioned playlist tweet, or an announcement of a deluxe version of the LP).

I think if an artist was tweeting a lot about their albums’ birthdays I’d probably block them

I would like to celebrate the anniversary of every post I made on ILX.

both the opening and closing tracks are very confusing choices

I was there last night. My daughter’s Christmas present. Great stage/set and performance.

There really should be one catch-all thread for her at this point. Anyway, assuming it is accurate, I was impressed by this:

Taylor Swift was one of the only celebrities who did their due diligence on crypto exchange FTX, according to the lawyer suing the now-bankrupt company’s celebrity promoters.

Attorney Adam Moskowitz has gone after basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal, football star Tom Brady, “Seinfeld” creator Larry David and more than a dozen other FTX promoters in a class action lawsuit that accuses them of promoting the sale of unregistered securities.

Moskowitz is seeking $5 billion in the lawsuit, he said during an episode of The Scoop podcast with Frank Chaparro. He claims the exchange’s celebrity boosters didn’t do their due diligence to check whether they may be breaking the law before cutting TV and digital ads for FTX.

“The one person I found that did that was Taylor Swift. In our discovery, Taylor Swift actually asked them, 'Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?’” Moskowitz said. Swift reportedly came close to inking a $100 million sponsorship deal with FTX, but the partnership never materialized. Swift did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

https://www.theblock.co/amp/post/226981/taylor-swift-ftx-shaquille-oneal-lawsuit

embarrassing that she even got that close to it at all really

Yeah, even promoting a "bona fide" scheme for $100million, and yet they still shout about John L / Country Life Butter....

Where was Beyonce in all this? Busy doing private shows for dictators or something? (I wonder if Swift does that stuff, too. Probably. A Wall Street friend of mine says that Coldplay is *always* taking corporate gigs, and god knows those dorks don't need the money.)

Oh, goddamn
I almost got caught up in a crypto scam
They said "Shaq's on board," but I responded
"Oh, tell me
Are these unregistered securities"
They wouldn't say, I never signed
And now I'm grateful

swift does do corporate gigs but i don't think she's done the middle eastern dictator circuit or anything. at least if she has it hasn't gotten out publicly afaik

I would be so fucking embarrassed to be an audience member at a fucking corporate gig gee wiz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otc8CboPT2s

How many global pop superstars still are on the "private shows for dictators" circuit?

Guarantee it's a least double the number of ones we actually know about.

Taylor Swift actually asked them, 'Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?’” Moskowitz said.

Strongly doubting this quote but kudos to her for having a good team.

I doubt the quote too but it's also not entirely implausible either considering her dad is a stockbroker and her mom worked in mutual funds that she picked up a few things along the way