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Taylor Swift: "Midnights"

 Taylor Swift's recent work has exciting moments of self-loathing; the obvious example is "Anti-Hero." The song's "sequel" begins with a memory of childhood:


Summer went away.
Still, the yearning stays.
I play it cool with the best of them.
I wait patiently.
He's gonna notice me.
It's OK, we're the best of friends....
Anyway.....

There are two voices here; one is a delusional kid who thinks the ne'er-do-well boy will eventually make time for her. Then, there is an adult Taylor, looking over the kid's shoulder, cringing in response to the memory.

With her standard, celebrated sense of efficiency, Taylor recalls a decision:

I see the great escape.
So long, Daisy May.
I picked the petals; he loves me not.
Something different bloomed--
Writing in my room.
I play my songs in the parking lot.
I'll run away.....

What is so interesting to me is that the ending seems unhappy. In Los Angeles, Taylor isn't self-actualized. She is surrounded by "better bodies"; she discovers that her dreams aren't rare. She develops an eating disorder. She is sexually harassed, and she goes to court. ("The jokes weren't funny; I took the money....") A writer is someone with a small chip of ice in her heart--someone who makes use of painful trials. But this is hard to explain to people; Taylor imagines herself as Brian De Palma's "Carrie," dressed in a blood-soaked prom gown, trying to reconnect with "friends from home."

I really like this song--and it makes me eager for the memoir that is (possibly?) on the horizon. It's nice to hear something that isn't simply a relationship post mortem (which isn't to say that the post mortem songs aren't impressive) .....

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