It’s nearly winter — you’re wrapped in blankets fighting off the cold, damp mornings, seasonal depression has entered the chat and you’re completely unable to escape the unyielding grasp of bassy synth at the heart of Taylor Swift’s newest album “Midnights.” International hype surrounds the single “Anti-Hero,” which has dominated the Billboard Hot 100′s charts for almost two months straight.
But one new song, “Hits Different,” hasn’t been as omnipresent in the mainstream conversation about the singer’s latest musical era. The bonus track was an exclusive add-on to a special Lavender Edition CD, only available for purchase at Target.
Stylistically, “Hits Different” mirrors several of Swift’s past songs, with catchy undertones to a breakup throughline. But under a strummy guitar and upbeat kick-drum, it’s one of the only tracks in her discography to directly reference another woman in a romantic way.
In the good of the world, you once believed in me / And I felt you and I held you for a while / Bet I could still melt your world / Argumentative, antithetical dream girl
“If you understand grammar, there’s no heterosexual explanation for this lyric,” said Annika, a fan of the singer, who preferred not to give her last name. Through her online persona known as “swiftieplanntika,” Annika shares discussions of Swift’s music from a queer perspective to more than 27,000 TikTok followers.
Annika’s blunt commentary on “Hits Different” holds up; earlier verses establish Swift as the first-person narrator of the song (“I washed my hands of us at the club”) singing to an ungendered other person (“You made a mess of me”) until that character is revealed as “dream girl” in the bridge.
Despite the queer implications of “Midnights” through lyrics in “Hits Different,” and shared themes of curious love, regret and feeling trapped expressed in other songs, such as “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” Swift’s record-breaking 10th studio album doesn’t need lyrical or thematic support to prove it’s an anthem for LGBTQ+ people.
“Midnights” is a queer album because queer people such as Annika say it is — because that’s how they interpret it. And Swift’s music is nothing if not ambiguous for the sole purpose of allowing fans to receive her music in any way they see fit.
“Even though this is an album about Taylor Swift’s life and her very specific experiences, she has such a grasp on the human language that she can make it universally applicable,” Annika shared over a Zoom call.
The 24-year-old doctoral student classifies herself as a member of the Swift fandom known as “Gaylors.” These fans are largely members of the LGBTQ+ community who believe Swift to also be queer and that the artist shares stories and clues about her sexual identity in her music.
Over the past two years, the Gaylor fandom gained traction thanks to online venues such as TikTok giving them a platform to express their queer understanding of Swift’s music. The community grew exponentially as Gaylors worldwide unpacked the dense lyrics and LGBTQ+ symbolism in albums such as “folklore” and “evermore,” both released in 2020.
“As queer fans, naturally we tend to want to read subtext,” said Leah Dajches, a postdoctoral scholar at Penn State. “We tend to want to find some of those gaps in narratives where we can see ourselves.”
Much of Dajches’ academic research focuses on the role entertainment media plays on the identity of sexual minorities. In May of this year, she surveyed more than a thousand people online and published a queer examination of “folklore” and its impact on fans. Dajches found that self-identifying queer listeners of Swift’s music, who felt encouraged by representation in songs such as “betty,” were more accepting of all sexual identities.
The work received pushback mainly from self-identifying heterosexual supporters of the artist, however, who claimed speculation of Swift’s music as queer to be inappropriate. This response to the possibility of Swift being a queer-representing artist is why Dajches chooses to interpret Swift’s music like she does.
“I think at the end of the day, if you’re resonating with the music [and] the lyrics and it’s doing some type of good for you in terms of seeing representation that you need to see, that’s what’s most important,” she said.
For “Midnights,” Dajches was drawn to track seven from the album, titled “Question…?” The song reflects on a past relationship, with a chorus mimicking someone who could be asking for advice.
Can I ask you a question? / Did you ever have someone kiss you in a crowded room… Do you wish you could still touch… her? / It’s just a question
“There were lines and lyrics describing what it was like when I started to really explore my sexuality,” Dajches said. “It kind of felt reminiscent of when you’re in a first love with someone who identifies as a woman and you’re questioning.”
In the same spirit of curiosity, Annika shared a connection to the album’s fourth track, “Snow On The Beach.” The song, featuring Lana Del Rey, describes a moment of falling in love with someone while they’re unexpectedly falling in love with you.
Annika explains that lyrics from the bridge — “I can’t speak it / afraid to jinx it” — describe what someone developing same-sex feelings for the first time might feel. The song indicates the narrator might not be comfortable speaking about their romantic interest, similar to the way queer individuals may not feel comfortable or safe speaking about their romantic interests in heteronormative spaces.
According to Leigh Pfeffer, one way that LGBTQ+ people combat this discomfort is through queer flagging, a system where people identify themselves as queer through actions or symbols.
“With the LGBT community, there’s always been ways that people have found each other,” said Pfeffer, the manager of museum experience for the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco. Pfeffer is also the host of “History is Gay,” a podcast uncovering patterns of queerness throughout history and in famous historical figures.
The term “queer flagging” dates back to the 1970s when gay men in New York City would wear certain colored hankerchiefs to subtly announce they were looking for other gay men. Modern queer flagging happens across the entire LGBTQ+ spectrum, however, and manifests in online trends (for example, indicating you’re a queer woman by saying you “listen to Girl in Red”) and through symbolism in popular music such as Swift’s.
The use of queer symbolism in the singer’s 2020 album, “evermore” — arguably Swift’s most lyrically poetic and raw production, released at the height of COVID-19 lockdowns — had fans buzzing with inferences about songs such as “right where you left me.” The album’s bonus track strangely includes a moment quiet enough to hear a “hairpin drop,” instead of using the common phrase “you could hear a pin drop.”
The significance of “hair” in this lyric relates it to “the hairpin drop heard around the world,” an alias for The Stonewall Riots, or a series of protests made by gay community members in New York City in 1969 on behalf of LGBTQ+ equality. Pfeffer said “dropping hairpins” was also a slang term used to hint that you were gay during the 1960s.
The connections to queer history within “evermore,” the album preceding “Midnights” (not including Swift’s re-recorded albums), may explain why speculation for the singer’s latest release to be an LGBTQ+ haven was more prevalent than in the past. And while the flagging in “Midnights” may not be as loud as “hairpin drop,” songs from the era are hardly void of symbolism.
Different types of flowers, for instance, signifying importance to the LGBTQ+ community — from violets to carnations to lavender — appear in the songs “The Great War,” “Maroon,” and “Lavender Haze.”
No deal, that 1950s shit they want from me / I just wanna stay in that lavender haze
When the chorus from the album’s first track so closely references the ‘50s and lavender in the same breath, it’s difficult for historians such as Pfeffer not to think of the Lavender Scare, a movement named for persecuting queer people from government jobs during that time period.
Not to mention lavender’s association as a color of queer desire, a connection drawn from lyrics of the 7th century BC poet Sappho, who wrote erotically about women with “violet tiaras” — lavender being a lighter shade of violet. Further, there’s the band Lavender Country, whose self-titled 1973 album is considered the first known queer-country recording in music history.
Through this lens, it’d be a phenomenal coincidence that the song opening this essay, “Hits Different,” would only be available on a lavender edition “Midnights” CD.
“It’s important to allow people to read between the lines and see where things are hidden in a world that’s very othering when you’re LGBT,” Pfeffer said.
If physical symbols such as lavender aren’t convincing enough evidence that “Midnights” is a queer sanctuary, thematic motifs also fall upon several songs in the album. Most notably “Anti-Hero,” which calls on the historically queer trope of leading a double life.
In the chorus of her lead single, Swift explores a battle of living between extremes, the singer’s public persona — a musical sensation fans recognize — and her private life. This suggests she may be someone entirely different than the person audiences are rooting for, calling herself an “anti-hero.”
It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me… It must be exhausting, always rooting for the anti-hero
According to Pfeffer, a queer individual grappling with the self-doubt expressed in “Anti-Hero” may worry about persecution from loved ones if they were to discover that person’s true identity.
“I felt almost like I was reading my own diary as I was listening to these songs because it so beautifully mirrored my own queer experience,” Annika said.
The TikToker discovered Swift’s second studio album, “Fearless,” when she was 10 years old. She felt drawn to the queer themes uncovered in the singer’s discography because of how she grew up, isolated by her sexuality in a tight-knit Mormon community in Salt Lake City, Utah. She’s found joy interpreting LGBTQ+ meanings in the stories Swift shares with her fans through music and social media.
But outside of seeking to better understand the queer messages Swift may be sharing through her art, Annika and Dajches found community in evaluating the singer’s enigmatic songs.
Other fan communities of the singer felt similar revelations through songs such as “Bigger Than The Whole Sky,” a “Midnights” deluxe album (known as “3am Edition”) track about the heartbreaking loss of a loved one. The lyrics of this song resonated with grieving fans, especially those who suffered from a pregnancy loss or miscarriage.
In spite of any prior evidence uncovered through the lyrics, symbols and themes of “Midnights,” perhaps the biggest indication that there’s more to the cryptic nighttime-inspired album than what’s on the surface is the final track of the deluxe “3am Edition.”
Swift spends her final minutes implicating listeners in a direct confrontation through “Dear Reader,” a slow, ethereal ballad built like the advice column from a newspaper.
Dear reader / You don’t have to answer / Just ‘cause they asked you... Dear reader / The greatest of luxuries is your secrets
Through the subsequent lyrics, “I prefer hiding in plain sight,” it sounds as if Swift has already shared every detail about her career, sexuality or any future goals that she plans on sharing outwardly at this time. Since Swift has never publicly denied the queer undertones in her music, fans are left to their own devices when interpreting songs.
“I would encourage people to open their minds to the idea that the stories that she’s telling could be surrounding the queer experience,” Annika said. “It’s not inherently invasive to analyze her art through that lens — art that she has willingly constructed and put out in the world to be analyzed.”
“Midnights” ends with Swift’s suggestion to “find another guiding light,” perhaps by seeking interpretations of her music from Annika, Dajches and other inquisitive fans — or really, anyone who isn’t Taylor Swift.