I’m not one to create many theories or believe them – but there is one that is keeping me up at night.
First of all, Taylor ended Midnights Mayhem with Me while choosing violence and releasing them all on one date after dropping the bomb that “karma” is going to be a track name [I’ll address this later]. That night she broke her M,W,F schedule and posted the video immediately, followed by the following night dropping 4 track titles. Speculation is that it’s because her tracklist was leaked, and it makes sense, since the last two videos had pre-recorded videos that include language like, “now that we are getting closer to midnights…” when it was all the same day she released them hour after hour. However, if it wasn’t because of the leaked tracklist it would also make sense because it would have been the 13th day from the release of midnights and blondie wanted to choose violence and keep us up at night. But this album is called Midnights, not all nighter [lol].
First off, Karma.
Y’all remember me talking about Karma? Karma is a fan theory that many fans are in on – the scrapped album – the lost album. The album that shows up in the “Look What You Made Me Do” Video, as TS6 – crossed off with a big Reputation over it.
An album that never took off because of Ye and Kim – an album that remained grounded as Rep took off. Since writing in June there have been a lot of things on my mind- one, is all of the metaphors that Taylor Swift shares to show her presentational personas for the media. One, Very obviously, she demonstrates it in his music video, as the real Taylor Swift is on the plane with her Reputation. But there are so many other lyrics she has that discuss her in birdcages, glass boxes, locked away and unable to be reached. A part of her that cannot be shown because of the media. Two, did karma exist? OR was the release of midnights actually the album that was scrapped due to the pandemic – causing her to put her release date on hold and dropping the other albums expanded and inspired from writing “Carolina,” for “Where the Crawdads Sing.”
So, Taylor releases her next midnights mayhem with me- Karma being track 11.
Ok but the laugh at the end?? Confirms she knew about our Karma theory. But there are MANY things out there that she or Blake Lively have put out that indicates Karma was in fact a real thing.
Because of these posts – There is a speculation theory – stating that Karma is going to be a single first, and Music video will be directed BY Blake Lively. If you are unaware of the left image and its iconic display – in “the MAN” mv, Taylor walks into this wall [on the right] and Karma was written in front of a wall that included all of her other stolen albums – as she takes a pee. Blake recreated it on the left with Taylor’s ,”Not a lot going on at the moment,” status which everyone knows – that means blondie is planning chaos. I personally believe that this Thursday morning at 9 am [like folklore and evermore] Taylor will drop an announcement that a single will be coming Friday the 13th ad Midnight [because of course its the 13th] and it’ll be Karma. Financially it makes sense, and we all know she wants to hit record sales for her first week but only stans have preordered a copy [or 12 collectables lol] without hearing one single note or sound of the album. The locals need some convincing, and that single drop – a week prior to the release is a good, smart, and financially common sense move.
The next aspect of MMWM is the chaos that broke the internet when she released her number one track title, “Lavender Haze.” I’m not going to dive into this too deeply because the internet has already but there are some points I do want to make.
First point: Lavender Haze in Taylor’s discussion is about a pure love found. Taylor has had many songs now about her love being in question from the media, fans, and how it affects not only her, but her loves and relationships as well. I never saw “peace” so clearly, as I have in these last few years because of Tiktok and it’s harmful speculation as well as the tabloids and their constant ask if she is engaged.
“Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?” Would our love, everything we have built be strong enough if the speculation never ends? Another song, even in something so simple as “this is why we can’t have nice things,” the line “and here’s to my baby, he aint reading what they call me lately,” is still a small and potent aspect of this.
There are a specific group of people constantly telling the internet Taylor’s relationship is PR because she is gay, there is also a specific group of people questioning every relationship Taylor is ever in, gay, straight, bi – none of these speculations are okay.
Second point: Lavender, the color, does have potent meaning to the gay community. So when this track was announced many of them read the title and then heard her explanation and felt whiplashed. The truth is: if Taylor would have said “lavender marriage” or verbiage more along the lines of what it was called in history, it would be more of a reason to freak out – but the fact is she released this video and “Anti-Hero,” basically asking people to stop pushing their narratives onto her because she doesn’t feel human any more – and then – they did the opposite.
Taylor is a beautiful story teller, and I full heartedly believe that she is trying to be more inclusive with language to get all people from many communities to feel at home with her lyrics and apply them to her life. I will tell you when I was 15 I wrote about my best friend moving to Virginia, and it sounded like a love song/break up song – but it was about a non-romantic friendship that I thought was ending and how much it devastated me. You could hear that song, and relate it to any heartbreak – just as you can with any song. ITS SO important we keep in mind the true purpose of art, and it’s to catch us when we are falling in any situation that is applicable to us. We can find theories and commonalities in music without projecting those exact experiences to the artist, and that is what is so incredibly important to remember. Even if she stated her songs about her life, that doesn’t make them autobiographical – it means inspired by – whether its from friends, family, books, experiences, imaginative escapism dreams, it all applies.
Third and final point about Lavender Haze and common songs: I want you to think about “Invisible String,” and the line “it gave me the blues, and then purple pink skies,” and then flash back to the lover album
Sunsets give most of us a hell of amount of Peace. Colors in a saturated pastel are calming – it’s why the sunset has been photographed over 2 billion times and is easily found on google images. These colors are a part of the bi flag- yes – but also are a sense of finalization, calm, sunset, peace. No one would describe stormy skies as something peaceful [lol]. And we know how much Taylor has always loved colors [red, golden, “Green was the color of your shirt,” “no other blue will do”]
Lavender haze relates to “dazzling haze” in lover, it relates to the blues, purple, pink skies in Invisible String, it relates to the Lover cover album art… it can also relate to the way you need to reference for YOUR own love life. There is no right or wrong to interpreting art – as long as it remains within the art and isn’t harmful to any one else. Celebrities may have money, but that doesn’t mean they don’t hurt, they don’t have anxiety or depression [we know Tay and Joe are anxiety ridden people, if you don’t know read my longer blog post], we know speculation isn’t their favorite – because they’ve stated it over and over again – whether in writing or for front interviews like Anti-Hero and Lavender Haze.
I am going to leave this here : too. And most new fans do not understand what it was like to grow up in our generation online since things are more accessible now.
Maroon
I’m really looking forward to this album because I think she got inspired looking at her old work and having to recreate it – and thinking about how she feels about those songs NOW. With an older perspective. The title track “Maroon,” to me is going to represent that [well see what the song is actually about]. Maybe it’s about the time “Red” didn’t win any awards, maybe its about Burning Love Red, that turned into a scar of maroon as it aged. I think all of these songs, besides recent cuts like the stealing of her Masters, are going to portray love and pain that has matured and persevered. I love that for her.
Labyrinth
Taylor also released a title is going to be called “Labyrinth,” my friend Kristen created an entire thread on this – and again, we wont know until we hear the lyrics but Im fully invested and am going to place these screen shots here for you all to see – and Ill link her too
Clowning Hour
Finally I am not one to clown but I am about this one, and specific thing.
Besides the single track, which I think is coming at the end of the week, miss swift had a few … questions? from my mind that need to be answered.
1. series vs season
Taylor referred to her MMWM as a series, but ended the finale with season. Giving us an indication that there is more than one series to these videos. That there are multiple seasons to one series
Two: Taylor Nation and their ominous post of… “we think”
what do you mean, we think.
Three: The double flag
It makes sense to have Taylor Swift Midnights, but why mirrored two? Why the other flag of tsts on there? and mostly that has us still asking about the cake topper in “I bet you think about me,” mv.
13 songs [16 with bonus] is … recently a very low amount of songs for Taylor to release. Red had 30 [although some were re-records], Folklore and Evermore had over 15 each and they were basically one album – and although there are 13 ‘sleepless nights’ highlighted, Taylor Nation keeps putting out tweets about ‘___ days until we never sleep again!!’ Which could mean that we’ll enter the phase of midnights and anxiety, or also there is a season 2 of midnights – whether it is in a few months or that week. But the ominous ‘we think,’ keeps me up at night because even with the bonus / remix tracks we ARE expecting them – but we wouldn’t be expecting 13 more songs. As an artist she may want to space these next double album tracks out – but also as an artist and creating hype, dropping it within the same album with no warning would also stir pop culture into a frenzy, in a good way.
Lana Del Rey and Parallels
Finally the last thing I will chat about before this release is the fun parallels between Lana and Taylor – someone made an entire post of them an I love them so much I am going to link this. Many fans have wanted to see these two collab with Jack – and it’s happening.
So check all these out if you want your mind blown into a million pieces lol
When this album was announced we thought it was all going to be tragically sad – but it looks like she had a blast making it and I’m feeling all those sleepless nights were the “hell was the journey bought it brought [her] heaven,” and I have a feeling those moments of pain will be reflected in a way that shows her growth as a person, artist and human.
Paige Young 