What is Reputation like when you listen to it all the way through?
Here is a little guide to help you:
1. Are You Ready...
And Ed Sheeran said he has no idea she was even coming out with an album… the liar. This track is the perfect transition from number 1 and provides a good beat and fun lyrics. It’s about wanting to be someone’s end game, last love, etc.
3. I Did Something Bad
Taylor wrote this song on the piano, but you’d never know with the beat and production of the song. Taylor says she had a dream and woke up with the beat in her head. Taylor says, about the song, “…and this is when we first kinda knew we might be onto something with the album.”
4. Don't Blame Me
5. Delicate
“This ain’t for the best. My reputation’s never been worse, so you must like me for me….” These lyrics open up the song and Taylor used a vocoder to get the vocal effect. She says, “we tried it in the studio and I thought it sounded really emotional and really vulnerable and really sad but beautiful.” The song is about when you meet someone you really like and you worry about what they think and how you appear to them. Taylor is quoted in a Secret Session: “This is the first point of vulnerability in the record where you’re like, ‘Oh, maybe this does actually matter a little bit,’ and questioning the reality and the perception of a reputation and how much weight it actually has.”
6. Look What You Made Me Do
Taylor Allison Swift does satirical writing best. And this song is chalk full of it. We thought Blank Space was incredible, just watch all her little Easter eggs in the music video for it. There are direct references to the media, some people who have done her wrong, and other little surprises. It’s like the big “f-you” we never knew we needed to the media.
7. So It Goes...
She uses this phrase a lot in her past songs such as, “Style,” and “You Are In Love.” The line in general comes from the book The Slaughterhouse Five which had the narrative of whenever a death occurs, it transitions to another subject. Which could be symbolic to the transition of the “new” Taylor since she has said, “The old Taylor is dead.”
8. Gorgeous
It opens up with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynold’s adorably sassy daughter and goes on with a great beat and describes Taylor meeting a new, and attractive guy, while she is in a relationship. The lyrics are simple and relatable and about her current beau Joe Alwyn. In a Secret Session she told fans that the positive love songs are about him.
9. Getaway Car
This song is my jam. It’s about a girl taking off with a new guy after a relationship, and how short-lived it was. It’s a fast-paced song that is great for when you’re driving down the road. Her illustrations within the song paints a beautiful water colored picture of love and running away.
10. King of My Heart
The first few lyrics go into Taylor adjusting to the single life and slowly being rescued by a new lover. It’s the kind of song you dance to in the kitchen at 1 A.M. thinking about that one guy you have a crush on or in a relationship with.
11. Dancing With Our Hands Tied
This song is the one me and my girlfriends jam out to. It just has that late-night club beat with lyrics that can beat the ones in Red.
“I’m a mess, but I’m the mess that you wanted.”
“I’d kiss you as the lights went out. Swaying as the room burned down.”
Many Instagram-worthy and poetic captions to use for your bios, posts, etc.
12. Dress
This song is a more steamy one of Taylor Swift and reminds us that she’s older now. In a Secret Session, her mom and dad apparently had to leave the room for this song because it was, “awkward for them.” The lyrics include:
“Only bought this dress so you could take it off.”
“Carve your name into my bed post.”
She even makes fun of her bleached hair:
“Flashback to when you met me, your buzzcut and my hair bleached. Even in my worst times, you could see the best of me.”
So in conclusion, this song will be the one that I conceive my children to.
13. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Taylor throws such major shade at all her haters (one in particular) and I love every minute of it. Taylor says that it’s about her relationship with the media and how they try to twist everything she does.
“I had to take them away.”
This lyric is in reference to her hiding and deleting all social media and basically going M.I.A for three years. Giving the media no fire to fuel and spin into something corrupt.
The bridge in this song is my absolute favorite and is a song I will gladly scream at the top of my lungs forever and ever.
14. Call It What You Want
You can feel how happy Taylor is in this song and depicts how her current love and how she feels now. She says, “And this last part of the album feels like settling into where I am now. So it started where I was when I started making the album, and ends with kind of my emotional state now. And this song reflects that.”
15. New Year's Day
This song is more mature but is reminiscent of her older tracks. She talks about cleaning up and moving on in the future. It’s basically a song that makes me cry and want to hug my best friend and make her swear that she will never, “become a stranger who’s laugh I can recognize anywhere.”
