Ranking Every Taylor Swift Song by the Lyrics

Taylor Swift has always been focused on the words. More recently, she’s gotten serious treatment as a writer: reviews analyze her lyricism, columns crop up comparing her to famous poets, and professors design more and more courses around her lyrics. Oh yeah, and she got an honorary doctorate from NYU.

But even before the critics and champions swarmed around her words, she was a writer at heart. A quick search reveals she won poetry contests as a child, and dropped references in the liner notes of her albums to poets such as Pablo Neruda as early as 2012’s Red. I’m sure deeper fans could find even deeper cuts. With the release of The Tortured Poets Department, I’ve took it upon myself (a bit of an expert in ranking Taylor Swift) to analyze and rank each of her songs by their lyrics. Call me the next Rob Sheffield (seriously, someone, hire me). …Ready for it?

The C- Lyrics

A note before you draw swords — I’m a harsh grader. If it makes you more comfortable, you can add a half-letter (or full letter) to each grade. Or you can ignore the grades and just compare songs’ individual rankings. Grades are rough tiers to clump together overarching feedback, but there’s a wide spectrum across songs. A high C- is closer to a low C than it is to a low C-.

I describe a C- as below-average. While a C song doesn’t particularly stand out or move songwriting forward, a C- song either leans on tired tropes or advances troubling themes in a way that would make me concerned if I were the writer. The best are a let-down, the worst are embarrassing.

247. Me!

This song came pre-Kidz-Bopped. When I first listened to it, I thought it was satirical: surely, there’s no way this cotton candy is the lead single after Reputation? But alas. She eschews specificity, narrative, and maturity in the name of saturated, saccharine pop geared to the lowest common denominator without any coherent message beyond “I’m special too.”

The worst lyric (below) is emblematic of the song: confused, trite, and problematic. First, is there even a “me” in “team”? Let’s say there is. The traditional phrase “there’s no I in team” is meant to ego-check individuals who are bad team players. Taylor’s response? To emphasize that actually, it’s good to put yourself first. Adding to the confusion: the song is ostensibly directed at a lover (“when it comes to a lover / I promise that you’ll never find another like me”). Then who is the “girl” she’s speaking to? Is this the subject of the song? The singer in the mirror? Or, most likely, a third party who’s introduced just for this refrain, then arbitrarily jettisoned?

I’m not going to get into the “hey kids / spelling is fun” nonsense, which has to be camp — right? But it shows “Me!” was written to target a younger audience, with the hope her older fans would have enough loyalty to get behind a simply bad song. It’s meant to juxtapose with the maturity of Reputation — and it succeeds, in that it produced something truly juvenile.

Best Lyrics:
I’m the only one of the me
Let me keep you company

Worst Lyrics:
Girl, there ain’t no “I” in “team”
But you know there is a “me”

246. You Need to Calm Down

Beyond the cringe and snark, I genuinely believe that Taylor thought she was doing something here. Which makes it even more disappointing. It takes an anti-activism stance to promote LGBTQ+ rights, as if calming down and just “being GLAAD” is enough to resolve entrenched homophobia and bigotry. Vague snappy language across the track mixes metaphors — is it the progressives or the bigots who need to “take several seats and then try to restore the peace”? Does the juxtaposition between “Tweet” and “street” below suggest she wants bigots to spew hate speech in the public square? Read directly, it’s a call to arms for conservatives. But even taking the lyrics charitably, they’re still too little, too late. It’s awfully convenient to put out an allyship song telling bigoted Americans to get over their hatred in 2019, after public opinion shifted such that bigots found themselves in the minority. Waiting until you’re in the majority to be an advocate is…not quite advocacy.

Best Lyrics:
Making that sign, must’ve taken all night

Worst Lyrics:
Say it in the street, that’s a knock-out
But you say it in a Tweet, that’s a cop-out

245. I Hate It Here

A quick note on Swift’s latest album: when I saw that The Tortured Poets Department dropped 31 songs in a self-described anthology, I was hoping it’d have the chaotic assemblages of the White Album (was she one-upping the tracklist?), with experimentation across genres and a diversity of subjects. Instead, we get a suite of songs that are almost all about the start and end of relationships with two people (one getting a disproportionate amount of space). Not everything’s about her relationships: some focus on her fight with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West over her integrity. Others make reference to her catalog and copyright battle. And then a few, like this one, blend everything together with a confessional “I’m not okay!” These aren’t bad things to sing about, but they’re nothing new. Now that she has universal fame and near-universal acclaim, I’d really like to see her experiment more. Dare to fail! Or risk failing anyway, like with this song.

Sebastian the Crab said it best: the seaweed is always greener in somebody else’s lake. That is basically the thrust of this song, plus she’s really sad. Like it’s bad. But she swears she’s fine. This kind of don’t-worry-about-me-but-I’m-struggling language works better in a song like Death by a Thousand Cuts. She says a lot of things that indicate she is not fine — and a lot of things that indicate she has a lot of learning to do about historical references in songs. In the most insensitive lines of the album, she both trivializes the oppression of the 1830s and attempts to compare sexism to racism. Both are big mistakes. First, she conditions her choice of which decade to live in (the 1830s, which, why?) on the absence of “racists.” There are racists now. Reducing enslavers and the entire system of slavery to racism whitewashes the scope and scale of past atrocities. Moreover, she then remarks “getting married off for the highest bid” — which of course calls to mind auctions for enslaved persons. Both systems of oppression were horrible. But you can’t fall into traps of comparisons.

Less offensively to the soul, but still offensive to the ears, she describes the subject of the song as “a poet trapped inside the body of a finance guy.” I think the point of this is to contrast the corporate work of the subject and their heady thoughts. But when she says body of a finance guy, it seems like that makes it about a physical frame. And I don’t know what that looks like, unless she’s making an assumption about who can be a finance guy (which might be a little racist too…). I would rather she say he’s trapped in the clothes of a finance guy — but I digress.

She tries again and again to escape to places where she’ll be happier. The secret garden reference is nice, but the best location she selects is the far-off lunar valley. Specifically, I like “only the gentle survived,” which is a bit of a twist — since you’d imagine the gentle are the least likely to make it off the rock. Karma?

Best Lyrics:
I hate it here so I will go to lunar valleys in my mind
When they found a better planet, only the gentle survived

Worst Lyrics:
My friends used to play a game where
We would pick a decade
We wished we could live in instead of this
I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists
And getting married off for the highest bid

244. Timeless

While not saying anything particularly new, this song is cute in its sentiment: love across lifetimes is a sweet idea. But the delivery is just…embarrassing. A sheer naiveté permeates the lyrics. Hope and love are not enough to overcome an arranged marriage from the 1500s or — are you kidding me — the horrors of World War II? It trivializes systemic injustice and tragedies of the past in the name of a romantic ideal that everything would have been just fine if you had a little love in your pocket. I’m not saying this is how we get into wars. But it’s how we sanitize them. Timeless? More like tasteless.

Best Lyrics:
’Cause I believe that we were supposed to find this
So, even in a different life, you still would’ve been mine
We would’ve been timeless

Worst Lyrics:
On a crowded street in 1944
And you were headed off to fight in the war
…
I would’ve read your love letters every single night
And prayed to God you’d be comin’ home all right
And you would’ve been fine

243. So It Goes…

This song wins the award for the containing the tightest anti-feminist couplet in Swift’s repertoire. In just fourteen words, she perpetuates divisions between “good” and “bad” women, infantilizes women as “girls,” uplifts the (presumably male) subject of the song as entitled to make judgments on who is a “good girl” or “bad girl,” seemingly rewards him by changing her behavior, and positions herself as someone who can uniquely transgress this boundary — by extension, knocking other women down. She also describes herself as the subject’s possession in the immediately preceding lines, which weakens any argument that she’s empowering herself by doing these bad things of which she speaks.

Best Lyrics:
And all the pieces fall right into place
Getting caught up in a moment
Lipstick on your face

Worst Lyrics:
I’m yours to keep
And I’m yours to lose
You know I’m not a bad girl, but I
Do bad things with you

242. Fresh Out The Slammer

I have a really hard time respecting a song that has a central concept of “doing one’s time” in another relationship and comparing it to prison. I understand some relationships are dangerous and oppressive. On a structural level, intimate partner violence could be discussed and perhaps analogized to the prison industrial complex, with lots of contextualization. At the individual level, and particularly in this case, it’s just not reasonable to call it prison. It does better than So It Goes… because it’s not actively pro-prison in the way that So It Goes… is by implication anti-women. Totally separately, I’m a little uncomfortable at the prospect of getting out of one relationship and immediately knowing who you want to date next — it begs the question of how long you’ve been thinking about someone else during your current relationship. If it’s an unsafe relationship, fine; but otherwise, you should really end it earlier.

I will acknowledge a few strong couplets from the song. The best is totally unrelated to the central concept and imagines two (probably) young people on a playground imagining a future together. Another couplet uses the concept but more cautiously: “Years of labor, locks, and ceilings / In the shade of how he was feeling” — the best past here is the figurative ceiling on her mood. I also like “Camera flashes, welcome bashes, get the matches / Toss the ashes off the ledge.”

Best Lyrics:
At the park where we used to sit on children’s swings
Wearing imaginary rings

Worst Lyrics:
Fresh out the slammer, I know who my first call will be to

241. Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?

I think this is a reference to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but not beyond the surface level of the title. Like Fresh Out The Slammer, this song makes light of systemic oppressive structures — this time, gallows and asylums. The most palatable couplet evoking the sentiment of the song is: “You caged me and then you called me crazy / I am what I am ’cause you trained me.” It’s fine but nothing special. She gets lazy in places to make rhymes: “If you wanted me dead, you should’ve just said” — said what? Said so. The bridge has both the lows and highs of the song, first with the unnerving “You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me.” Explain to me which part of her life constituted an asylum. But the bridge improves with “I’m always drunk on my own tears,” and I like the listing of “That I’m fearsome and I’m wretched and I’m wrong.” The snappiest couplet is “Put narcotics into all of my songs / And that’s why you’re still singin’ along.” This is one of the few meta moments that works. Call them (media? fans? does it matter?) out!

Best Lyrics:
Put narcotics into all of my songs
And that’s why you’re still singin’ along

Worst Lyrics:
You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me

240. Christmas Must Be Something More

Too much deity in this one. She’s basically saying the point of Christmas is to celebrate “the birthday boy who saved our lives.” It’s a little whiny, saying “we all try to ignore” the true meaning. Even if you are religious, it doesn’t need to be your singular source of joy; it’s okay if “happiness came in a cardboard box” too, Taylor! The bridge is the most passable part, saying we’re too busy to think about what matters. The problem is that what she asserts matters simply doesn’t in the grand scheme of things.

Best Lyrics:
We get so caught up in all of it
Business and relationships
Hundred-mile-an-hour lives

Worst Lyrics:
You’d see that today holds something special
Something holy, not superficial
So here’s to the birthday boy who saved our lives
It’s something we all try to ignore

239. Bad Blood

This song gets a lot of attention for being…bad. Which it is, on many levels. And “band-aids don’t fix bullet holes” is the main takeaway. But so many other lines are also terrible and deserve ridicule. Beyond the visceral and over-the-top imagery, this song suffers from speaking in generalities which mean nothing unless and until you do the work of reading in a narrative. Fans might speculate it’s about certain friendship breakups and breakdowns. But this isn’t communicated through clever subtext. Swift relies on you knowing about her to know what she means, which isn’t a recipe for good writing. “Oh, it’s so sad to / Think about the good times / You and I” is substantively null.

This comes out best in the song’s worst verse (below). What is the “this” which the subject did to betray Swift? What exactly was shiny? How did the betrayal figuratively rust whatever it was that was shiny? Not mention the language itself is rather stilted: surely, one would say “I thought you could be trusted” — what purpose do those extra words add, except to force the line into the metre of the song? Oh, and an honorable mention for the shocking line in the Kendrick remix which clumsily compares a feuding friendship to civil war: “Now P-O-V of you and me, similar Iraq.” Really?

Best Lyrics:
You say sorry just for show
If you live like that, you live with ghosts

Worst Lyrics:
Did you have to do this?
I was thinking that you could be trusted
Did you have to ruin what was shiny?
Now it’s all rusted

238. Welcome to New York

It’s got a chorus only a New Yorker could love. It doesn’t even attempt to rhyme. It simply repeats the same phrase, which itself is not abstract, or clever, or even fresh. But nothing could be as embarrassing as Taylor’s NYC promotional campaign where she teaches the camera about bodegas. The best line does very little work for her, but paints with broad brushstrokes that people move to NYC because it’s special. What makes it stand out is its use of “sound” to symbolize everything people want out of the city. Though ironically, most people who live in the city don’t like the noise that much.

Best Lyrics:
Everybody here wanted something more
Searching for a sound we hadn’t heard before

Worst Lyrics:
Welcome to New York, it’s been waiting for you
Welcome to New York, welcome to New York

237. Say Don’t Go

With a catalog of over 200 songs, you’re bound to repeat some rhymes and echo some sentiments. But to use the same phrase over and over again without making it a self-aware callback is disappointing. Unfortunately, Swift has a tendency to recycle some phrases across songs. This feels like a Frankenstein of what we’ve heard before. Compare “I’ve known it from the very start / We’re a shot in the darkest dark” with Run’s “There’s been this hole in my heart / This thing was a shot in the dark” and Getaway Car’s “We never had a shotgun shot in the dark.” In this song, “Halfway out the door, but it won’t close” just merges Forever & Always’s “Halfway out the door” with Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve’s “tomb won’t close.” We also get hoax’s “twisted knife,” I Think He Knows’s “whisper in the dark,” Picture to Burn’s “strike a match,” I Did Something Bad’s “shaking, pacing,” Glitch’s “dudes who give nothing,” I Can See You’s “make me want you,” I Don’t Wanna Live Forever’s “you say nothin’,” and dorothea’s “but you won’t.” I know some of these are generic turns of phrase, but to whatever degree genericism excuses repetition, it also cheapens any novelty of her lyricism.

Best Lyrics:
Now your silence has me screaming

Worst Lyrics:
Why’d you have to make me want you?
Why’d you have to give me nothing back?
Why’d you have to make me love you?
I said, I love you, you say nothing back

236. The Great War

It’s another war song! To be clear, Swift must know that The Great War is World War I: she references poppies in the third verse. So she is intentionally comparing their relationship not just to some abstracted large-scale war, but a historical war with 40 million casualties. Oof. The best line leverages two meanings of “drew” to contrast her and her partner’s approach to the relationship. It’s not enough.

Best Lyrics:
You drew up some good faith treaties
I drew curtains closed, drank my poison all alone

Worst Lyrics:
I vowed not to cry anymore
If wе survived the Great War

235. Castles Crumbling

There are a few themes Swift leans on which I really don’t like. This song has the honor to blend two of them: fairytales and battles. I already briefly got into the issues of the latter theme with Timeless and Bad Blood. Maybe fairytales were acceptable in Debut, but even by Speak Now (uh-oh, I can tell some of you are drawing your swords) it comes across as juvenile when sung by a 20-year-old. Here, where the song wasn’t released until 2023, it’s downright strange to see Swift at her big age still singing about castles and monsters.

The best lyric could ostensibly be separated from medieval times: we still have bridges in the twenty-first century, and she expands on a common idiom of burned bridges to advance the idea she’s unreliable and repels others. The worst couplet should be acknowledged as poor even by the most vigilant Rennies. It just doesn’t make sense: if your “walls of regret” are falling down, wouldn’t that mean you don’t regret anymore? And if said walls are indeed falling down, then you’re no longer alone, right?

Best Lyrics:
I watch all my bridges burn to the ground
You don’t want to know me, I will just let you down

Worst Lyrics:
And here I sit alone behind walls of regret
Falling down like promises that I never kept

234. That’s When

I truly have no clue what this song is saying. There are two parties — confusing when Swift initially sings both parts — where one wants to know when they can try to repair the relationship. The other responds “When I wake up in the morning / when it’s sunny or stormin’.” This seems to indicate…immediately? But then they add “Laughin’, when I’m cryin’.” So when the first party is laughing, and the second party is crying, it’s a good time to come back? Or is the second party crying so hard they’re laughing? Or maybe laughing so hard they’re crying? Either way, the second party will be “waitin’ at the front gate” — so the first party had better be ready soon! This all begs the question: if the second party wants to get back together immediately, why do we need a song? Where’s the conflict?

Best Lyrics:
That’s when I miss you, that’s when I want you

Worst Lyrics:
And you said, “That’s when
When I wake up in the morning
That’s when, when it’s sunny or stormin’
Laughin’, when I’m cryin’
And that’s when
I’ll be waitin’ at the front gate
That’s when, when I see your face
I’ll let you in and, baby, that’s when”

233. The Moment I Knew

Musically, I find this song about as likeable as a dirge. Lyrically, it’s a smidgen better. She focuses on a specific evening that meant a lot to her, which is ripe for writing. But she uses barely any imagery or details, and the song is forced to trudge along. In the most disappointing lyric, she sets up a shimmering simile comparing her love to not a hundred, not a thousand, but a million shining stars — and then hits her climax stating she would’ve been “so happy.” Her party dress and lipstick weren’t understated, nor should her expressions be. This brings us to the best lyric, which emphasizes that without her love interest, there’s no point in wearing her dress or lipstick, because she doesn’t care about impressing her friends or family. It’s vulnerable and self-aware. It could be more detailed, but it’s the best we’ve got out of this song.

Best Lyrics:
Standing there in my party dress
In red lipstick
With no one to impress

Worst Lyrics:
And it would’ve felt like
A million little shining stars that just align
And I would’ve been so happy

232. London Boy

This is a treasure trove of tired tropes, with equal-opportunity offense across the ocean. First we get a description of America: it’s Motown! Faded blue jeans! Whiskey! Glug glug. But don’t worry, we’ll go drinking in London too — you can find Swift in the pub watching rugby with her lover’s friends from uni. Just watch out for the rain! I do like the chorus’s use of “fancy you” in its own little code-switching way. The best lyric lightly plays on an old proverb, contrasting the traditional “home is where the heart is” with transatlantic love. But this barely-fresh concept can’t overcome the panoply of surface-level references.

Best Lyrics:
They say home is where the heart is
But that’s not where mine lives

Worst Lyrics:
I love my hometown as much as Motown, I love SoCal
And you know I love Springsteen, faded blue jeans, Tennessee whiskey

231. thanK you aIMee

This is the shiny new toy of The Tortured Poets Department. People are calling it the new Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve. That’s a wild take. They are both diss tracks. But this has none of the force or vulnerability. We will watch all its colors fade. Aimee is an avatar for Kim Kardashian, who’s a high school bully of sorts (as she “threatens to push me down the stairs at our school”). But that’s the last detail given to explain who Aimee is. Look at the genericism of the chorus: “All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was buildin’ somethin’ / And I can’t forgive the way you made me feel / Screamed, “Fuck you, Aimee” to the night sky as the blood was gushin’ / But I can’t forget the way you made me heal.” She writes “headlines / In the local paper,” which is a poor analogy for Kardashian’s twitter campaign, since a local paper doesn’t have the same reach or readership. The best line is the cruelest, where she makes a dig at Kardashian’s superficial persona, describing her statue as spray-tanned. I understand why she includes the couplet “Everyone knows that my mother is a saintly woman / But she used to say she wished that you were dead,” but a death wish is a little extreme. The worst lyrics come in the third verse, where she asserts that she wrote an anonymous, generic, bad song on purpose in order to avoid identifying her tormentor — and that only the two of them will ever know the truth. That is a pretty silly thing to say if you capitalize letters in the song’s title to spell out the person…

Best Lyrics:
There’s a bronze, spray-tanned statue of you

Worst Lyrics:
And so I changed your name and any real defining clues
And one day, your kid comes home singin’
A song that only us two is gonna know is about you

230. Christmas Tree Farm

The tune is cute, and I’ve been known to play it in December. But as a piece of writing, this song is mediocre. It’s not a crime to reuse rhymes. I will note that Swift pairs “alone” and “home” on eight other songs (Teardrops On My Guitar, I Heart ?, Treacherous, All Too Well, The Last Time, Girl At Home, I Think He Knows, and Dear Reader). What confuses me about the lyric below is that apparently, Swift is “feeling alone” while she’s with her partner — not a great sign, by the way — and somehow, being with him resolves that. But if she’s already with him when she starts feeling alone, how ?

Best Lyrics:
And everythin’ is icy and blue
And you would be there too

Worst Lyrics:
And when I’m feelin’ alone
You remind me of home

229. hoax

Here we get another battle song. The chorus tries to be a little too smart, and packages a couplet so dense it communicates nothing until like five listens. Breaking it down, I think the subject of the song was unfaithful, and Swift knows that, and recognizes that the subject’s love is thus not true, i.e., it’s a hoax, and yet Swift still believes in the love. Maybe that’s too many layers I’m reading on. Or maybe it’s too dense a line. The metaphor “I am ash from your fire” is a gem worth further mining, and it’s a shame it’s wasted here.

Best Lyrics:
I am ash from your fire

Worst Lyrics:
Stood on the cliffside screaming, give me a reason
Your faithless love’s the only hoax I believe in

228. Wonderland

I’m not a Lewis Carroll fan, and I’m honestly not sure Swift is either. There are some hand-wavy references to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but the chorus basically drops this facade as it fails to make any discrete references to the book except that both she and Alice were “lost.” Otherwise, it’s totally different: I’m not sure whether Alice ever “pretended it could last forever” or would describe her time in Wonderland as “never worse, but never better.” And most frustratingly, I don’t think the Cheshire Cat ever calmed Alice — if my ever-fading memories of the book are correct, he was a confusing and often annoying figure to Alice. Likewise, I’m confused and annoyed thinking about this song.

Best Lyrics:
Haven’t you heard what becomes of curious minds?

Worst Lyrics:
Didn’t you calm my fears with a Cheshire cat smile?

227. This Is What You Came For

Written for some other artists, Swift goes simple here to accommodate their genre. It’s melodically catchy and fun to dance to, but lyrically doesn’t quite strike like lightning. The best lyric contrasts the rest of the room with the love interest in the song, who is looking at the subject. The worst lyric is bland and basic — they’re playing games, and “it’s gonna be this way.”

Best Lyrics:
And everybody’s watching her
But she’s looking at
You

Worst Lyrics:
We go fast with the game we play
I know why it’s gonna be this way

226. Safe & Sound

It’s another war song! It doesn’t get as much flak as Timeless because it takes itself somewhat seriously. I still think the chorus is pretty weak in that it offers false hope to subject of the song without any explanation. The best couplet has some nice turns of phrase: “don’t you dare” is a little out of place for the song but reads well. The statement that “everything’s on fire” is sad but true. Still, even with this line, the song’s just a lullaby — it doesn’t tell a full story or have any resolution beyond the false hope of the chorus.

Best Lyrics:
Don’t you dare look out your window
Darling, everything’s on fire

Worst Lyrics:
Just close your eyes
The sun is going down
You’ll be alright
No one can hurt you now
Come morning light
You and I’ll be safe and sound

225. I Did Something Bad

In this song Swift embraces being “bad” — which would be a fresh concept if it weren’t already covered in over half of the songs on Reputation. Still, the plain-spoken chorus is the best part. Meanwhile, the opening lyric sets up an unearned simile: we have never known Swift to play the violin. Maybe if she tied it into the “world’s tiniest violin” idiom there’d be more intrigue here. And while I won’t say that “narcissist” is an overstatement for the certain people she’s referencing here, I think it’d be more effective if she were understated in the labels she gave them. Apparently “If a man talks shit, then I owe him nothin’” is her first explicit lyric, and it’s wasted — the syllogism implies she does owe men who don’t talk shit? Some artists are immediately great at swearing at the right times. Swift gets better at it on songs like ivy and the 1. She’s still figuring it out here.

Best Lyrics:
They say I did something bad
Then why’s it feel so good?

Worst Lyrics:
I never trust a narcissist, but they love me
So I play ’em like a violin
And I make it look, oh, so easy

224. A Place in This World

This song might be her peak “country” song, in that all I see are platitudes. She’s got the radio, her blue jeans, her heart on her sleeve, some sunshine — the only thing she’s missing is originality. Even the best lyric relies on a basic “life goes on” concept. What makes it relatively stand out is that you could read into it a sequential story in three parts.

Best Lyrics:
I’ll be strong, I’ll be wrong, oh, but life goes on

Worst Lyrics:
Got the radio on, my old blue jeans
And I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve
Feeling lucky today, got the sunshine
Could you tell me what more do I need?

223. I Don’t Wanna Live Forever

The basic premise of this song is that someone no longer(?) wants to live forever, solely because they miss an ex. It’s a bold claim, but when you stack it up against the likes of Breathe or explicit I-can’t-live-without-you songs, it looks pretty weak in comparison. Also, “living in vain” is too vague and indirect to capture the sentiment she’s trying to express. It requires a second layer of explanation. Another confusing couplet: “Wonderin’ if I dodged a bullet / Or just lost the love of my life.” This shouldn’t be a question! The best lyric juxtaposes her mournful internal state against the glamorous world she inhabits. But it’s not enough to lift this song.

Best Lyrics:
I’ve been looking sad in all the nicest places

Worst Lyrics:
I don’t wanna live forever
’Cause I know I’ll be living in vain

222. All You Had to Do Was Stay

Coming in as her weakest track 5 song, generic language and a reliance on repetition here limit its potential. Where she drops details, they aren’t enough to mean anything. “The more I think about it now / The less I know / All I know is that you drove us / Off the road” is the only reference to a driving/road analogy. She could bring in a road-not-taken or a reckless-driver-reckless-heart motif, but instead it’s just this. The worst lyric makes me cringe — the “people like me” language is particularly cheesy and overly condescending. Contrariwise, the best lyric blends condescending with a faint sense of humor: “Let me remind you / This was what you wanted.” It’s not great, but it’s what we’ve got.

Best Lyrics:
Let me remind you
This was what you wanted

Worst Lyrics:
People like you always want back
The love they pushed aside
But people like me are gone forever
When you say goodbye

221. Run

Earlier, I poked fun at her tendency to recycle turns of phrase. Run’s not immune to this criticism. But the best lyric in this song is her best iteration of “shot in the dark”: pairing the cliché with another cliché, a “hole in my heart,” to suggest the shot left the hole. It’s not that deep, but at least it makes you think.

Otherwise, this song is basic in content and theme. Let’s run away! From “so-called friends,” from “them,” from “it all.” Apparently these gently-singing lovers, probably high schoolers, are also rebels who run from the law. Beyond substantive frailties, the song tries to pull off free verse as rhymes in places that just don’t work: “chase us / else is” and “take us / else is” stick out like sore thumbs. Other rhymes are cutesy: “And the note from the locket, you keep it in your pocket” drips. “There’s a heart on your sleeve, I’ll take it when I leave” confuses the point of the song — are they leaving together or separately?

Best Lyrics:
There’s been this hole in my heart
This thing was a shot in the dark

Worst Lyrics:
There’s a heart on your sleeve, I’ll take it when I leave

220. Question…?

I like the best lyric below, but it’s embedded in a pretty weak song. Basically, Swift is asking a former lover if he’s still into her. It’s centered around this one evening they had together and the subsequent breakdown of their relationship. The problem: I do not understand what happened this evening. Her lover’s friends made fun of him for kissing her but soon after clapped. Why did they start clapping? At first I thought this was a reference to a wedding, but based on his flight in the middle of the night it’s unlikely. All this being said, I do like her admonishment of gender roles, and “swept away in the gray” is a nice turn of phrase to describe uncertainties.

Best Lyrics:
Fuckin’ politics and gender roles
And you’re not sure and I don’t know
Got swept away in the gray

Worst Lyrics:
Did you ever have someone kiss you in a crowded room
And every single one of your friends was makin’ fun of you
But fifteen seconds later, they were clappin’ too?

219. Crazier

I don’t like use of the word “crazy” to describe passion. Most of the lines in this song are quite basic: “Baby, you showed me what livin’ is for / I don’t wanna hide anymore.” The best line suggests that the subject of the song took on the world in their own way — and effectively shaped how Swift perceived it. Another possible intepretation is that the subject was sad (blue), but given the rest of the song’s trajectory I don’t think that’s right.

Best Lyrics:
Every sky was your own kind of blue

Worst Lyrics:
Feels like I’m fallin’ and I am lost in your eyes
You make me crazier, crazier, crazier

218. Midnight Rain

I’m not sure this song needed to be written. Not to knock its quality — though I’d happily do so — but I genuinely don’t know what it adds to her discography or songwriting. It’s another song about ending a relationship because her career comes first. We’ve got the cages and fences of I Know Places, the pageant queen of Speak Now, the pretenders of Long Live, and of course the rain from about ten percent of her catalog. I’d like to specifically call out the line “jumping off things in the ocean,” which should really be “into the ocean.” There’s a better version of this on another song, which will get featured below. I like the concept of unraveling love, but would prefer it to be extended further.

Best Lyrics:
All the love we unravel
And the life I gave away

Worst Lyrics:
My boy was a montage
A slow-motion, love potion
Jumping off things in the ocean

217. My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys

In this song, Swift takes the worst line on Better Than Revenge and extends the analogy to an entire track. I don’t like reducing people to toys, even if it’s meant to be sung in disdain. The best part of this analogy is when Swift states in the second verse that if you “pull the string,” she’ll keep framing everything he does (even running away) as a sign he loves her. The bridge is empty (“Once I fix me / He’s gonna miss me”). She summarily references Ken to bring up Barbie, and that’s kind of the whole song. The peak of the song is the beginning of second verse, when she uses the excessive phrase “litany of reasons” — but I like it because it reminds me of this Billy Collins poem. The rest of it didn’t need to be released, and I struggle to understand how it made it all the way up to track 3 on the album. I think this song is about Joe, but you know what would have been a better analogy for Healy? The scorpion and the frog. Add that to your next wave of releases. You’re welcome.

Best Lyrics:
There was a litany of reasons why
We could’ve played for keeps this time

Worst Lyrics:
The sickest army doll
Purchased at the mall

216. The Last Time

I find the repetition in this song to teeter on the edge of anaphora and laziness. Swift’s best defense is that intentional repetition makes the singer an unreliable narrator — it’s not really the last time. But it seems like all of these statements are sung at once, so maybe it is the last time? The best iteration of the line drops some alliteration and parallelism with “break my heart in the blink of an eye.” Again, not an amazing line, but better than the rest of the song.

Best Lyrics:
This is the last time I’m asking you why
You break my heart in the blink of an eye

Worst Lyrics:
Disappear when you come back
Everything is better

215. Christmases When You Were Mine

I’m not saying this is sung well. But of her three official Christmas songs, this is technically the best lyrically. It’s pretty simple—she’s lonely at Christmas because she’s not with her ex. She starts the song off with a repudiation of the romantic traditions of the holiday: “Please take down the mistletoe / ’Cause I don’t wanna think about that right now.” She continues with a basic but good enough couplet that remarks about the changing seasons: “I’ve been doing fine without you, really / Up until the nights got cold.” The worst lyric comes when she tries to say in the last verse she won’t have a merry Christmas, but it’s delivered so milquetoast. Not our Taylor!

Best Lyrics:
I know this shouldn’t be a lonely time
But there were Christmases when you were mine

Worst Lyrics:
Merry Christmas everybody
That’ll have to be something I just say this year

214. It’s Nice to Have a Friend

It’s a friends-to-lovers arc, which isn’t all that common for Swift, but she’s done it a few other times — and the other times are better. The best line slides between twenty questions and truth or dare, which is somewhat artful. The worst couplet is the start of the third verse, which skips forward to a wedding. Getting married by the end of the song isn’t too unrealistic in the world of Swift, but it’s the relative jump here that bothers me. They go from a touch of a hand to a wedding. This is too big of a gap for the chorus to fill. Even reading the chorus’s second iteration of “It’s nice to have a friend” as subtext for their relationship isn’t enough.

Best Lyrics:
Twenty questions, we tell the truth

Worst Lyrics:
Church bells ring, carry me home
Rice on the ground looks like snow

213. my tears ricochet

In a ranking that evaluates songs holistically, this fares much better — but the lyrics just aren’t that strong, and are particularly disappointing for a track 5 (there were better options on folklore). I like the concept of going to a funeral and I wish she explored it more carefully. But the chorus instead shifts to a clunky analogy for her business dealings, and it doesn’t line up with the rest of the song: “And if I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake?” suggests, taken literally, the singer of the chorus is the person buried underground. Which could be creative, but then it seems like she’s a person mourning the fallen: “Look at how my tears ricochet.” The worst lyric tries to draw a comparison between rocks you hurl at people and rocks on your ring finger. But no one “gathers” pebbles and diamonds indiscriminately: the process of mining for diamonds is much harder and very problematic.

Best Lyrics:
Cursing my name, wishing I stayed
Look at how my tears ricochet

Worst Lyrics:
We gather stones, never knowing what they’ll mean
Some to throw, some to make a diamond ring

212. mad woman

She does this same concept more fluently in songs to come. The best line is the one where she swears — she’s getting better at it! — but the rest of the song, aside from a sonically pleasing “The master of spin has a couple side flings” is pretty mediocre. “And you find something to wrap your noose around” evokes unpleasant and unearned images. “Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn?” is strange and unrealistic — is she suggesting her face was mowed into someone’s grass or turned into a topiary? The lowest point of the song is the reference to “good wives,” which both leans on an uninspiring platitude and also reinforces gender roles which Swift claimed she was done supporting.

Best Lyrics:
Does she smile?
Or does she mouth, fuck you forever?

Worst Lyrics:
Good wives always know

211. The Very First Night

This song is very catchy. The lyrics are not. The best one drops what’s almost certainly a High School Musical reference, giving “broke” dual use. Some call this dual use antanaclasis, but I call bull. I’m not quite sure how their relationship broke the status quo, but I like High School Musical so I’ll give it a pass. The worst lyric lies to us when it claims that “No one knows about the words that we whispered” — now all of us do! Come on Taylor!

Best Lyrics:
We broke the status quo
Then we broke each other’s hearts

Worst Lyrics:
No one knows about the words that we whispered
No one knows how much I miss you

210. End Game

The song starts out with two sports analogies — “first string” and “A-Team” (maybe a reference to Ed Sheeran’s previous work) — and then moves to a chess one? Some of the rapping on here is a waste of space: “You so dope, don’t overdose, I’m so stoked, I need a toast / We do the most, I’m in the Ghost like I’m whippin’ a boat.” The worst lyric draws boundaries between herself and other “other girls” — boo! The best line on this song makes reference to the idiom of burying a hatchet: “And I bury hatchets, but I keep maps of where I put ‘em.” It’s not bad at all, suggesting that she’s not willing to fully forgive and forget. But compare it to Phoebe Bridgers’s more oblique treatment of the same idiom: “I buried a hatchet, it’s comin’ up lavender.” It’s less blatant, but more enticing, with a soft juxtaposition. As a whole, blatant and not enticing is a good description of this song.

Best Lyrics:
And I bury hatchets, but I keep maps of where I put ‘em

Worst Lyrics:
I don’t wanna miss you
Like the other girls do

209. …Ready for It?

Swift refers to this song as advancing an extended “Crime and Punishment metaphor.” Not quite. It starts off with its worst couplet, which mixes metaphors of murderers and ghosts. Also, Taylor, maybe don’t date murderers. Later in the song she calls her love interest her jailer; it’s icky and it symbolically foreshadows their relationship. The chorus is the best part, which expresses her desire and (maybe) reveals that the rest of the song is playing in her mind. She exudes confidence while getting a little vulnerable — a tough balance she manages to strike well.

Best Lyrics:
In the middle of the night, in my dreams
You should see the things we do, baby

Worst Lyrics:
Knew he was a killer first time that I saw him
Wondered how many girls he had loved and left haunted

208. Superstar

Before she herself was a superstar, Swift had her own celebrity crushes. If she played this song for her crush, I don’t think it’d get her very far. It’s generic, and she says things that don’t mean anything — what “rules” would she break to see this crush? She’s pleading for this person just to notice her, but then demands they confess they can’t take their eyes off of her. That’s a big jump. Also a big jump? Her being “desperately in love” with this crush. The best couplet in the song expands her self-concept beyond herself to her hometown and “world,” personifying this community as a collective entity to which her crush doesn’t belong, since he’s just traveling from town to town.

Best Lyrics:
Whеn my world wakes up today
You’ll be in another town

Worst Lyrics:
I knew from the first note played
I’d be breaking all my rules to see you

207. exile

Sung with Bon Iver, this is a “deep” song that lyrically is anything but. It’s just a breakup song. It starts with a forced “honey / body” rhyme. There’s a double reference to the subject of the song as being one’s “homeland” and “town” — pick one. The bridge and outro feature a nice sonic duet between the singers, but they’re just repeating the same word at the end of each line, which isn’t lyrically interesting. The best couplet almost rhymes, and it communicates the precarity of the relationship in a somewhat-fresh way: the branches aren’t just brittle, but already breaking beneath them. I think “Balancing on broken branches” would be better because it’d conjure an image of someone immediately falling, and signifies that whatever’s underlying the relationship is already beyond repair — but either is fine.

Best Lyrics:
Second, third, and hundredth chances
Balancin’ on breaking branches

Worst Lyrics:
And it took you five whole minutes
To pack us up and leave me with it

206. I Look in People’s Windows

This song has some very oblique references to some of her earlier songs, but only works if you happen to know her other songs very well. For instance, the chorus’s “I look in people’s windows” seems to be a callback to “I look through the windows of this love” from Death by a Thousand Cuts. The best line is possibly a reference to evermore’s “catching my breath / catching my death,” but I think this one is supposed to be about a more intimate moment. Other times, it’s not an intentional callback, and instead she just double-dips across songs: “I tried searching faces on streets” parrots I Don’t Wanna Live Forever’s “I see you around in all these empty faces.” In the worst line, she likens herself to “some deranged weirdo” — which doesn’t add anything and also otherizes members of our moral community. Sigh. I do like “Does it feel alright to not know me?” but otherwise, this song doesn’t add much to her catalog.

Best Lyrics:
I had died the tiniest death
I spied the catch in your breath

Worst Lyrics:
So I look in people’s windows
Like I’m some deranged weirdo

205. I Think He Knows

Some slippery analogies here: take “His hands around a cold glass / Make me wanna know that / Body like it’s mine.” Is the body in the question his, or the glass of water? I can see it being the latter because she wants to be held by him…but she probably wants to know his body, not the glass. I’m not sure what a “lyrical smile” looks like; it doesn’t seem to inspire in her any better lyrics. Why does she continually “bless her soul” in the song? What’s surprising about the fact she wants him? And for the worst lyric, which totally changes the pace of the song to give him an ultimatum: after all the feminism of The Man and political awakening of Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince, why are you still drawing lines between good and bad girls? The best line is a cute entendre in the chorus, where she says she wants to see what’s “under that attitude.” It’d work better if other lyrics in the song gave more detail to what his attitude was besides a “boyish look,” but we get that it has two meanings regardless.

Best Lyrics:
Wanna see what’s under that attitude

Worst Lyrics:
He’d better lock it down
Or I won’t stick around
’Cause good ones never wait

204. We Were Happy

Like Back to December does on Speak Now, we see an earlier lyric in which Swift acknowledges she played a role in the end of a relationship. The first verse starts off decent: “We used to walk along the streets / When the porch lights were shinin’ bright / Before I had somewhere to be / Back when we had all night.” It sets up the conflict of the song — that she’s getting busier with her career taking off. “You threw your arms around my neck / Back when I deserved it” uses enjambment to deliver the twist that she may be at fault for the relationship’s status in past tense. But the chorus reeks of repetition, stilted analogies, and country tropes. When it was good, it was good? Wow! No one could touch the way anyone laughs in the dark, because laughter is intangible. And were you really going to buy your daddy’s farm? All the way back in Pennsylvania? Bless your heart, that’s an awful long way from Countryville, USA!

Best Lyrics:
You threw your arms around my neck
Back when I deserved it

Worst Lyrics:
When it was good, baby, it was good, baby
We showed ’em all up
No one could touch the way we laughed in the dark
Talking ‘bout your daddy’s farm we were gonna buy someday
And we were happy

203. Paris

This song has some strong lyrics. I’m even willing to include two “best” couplets below. But this absolutely simply must be a C- song, because it attempts to force a rhyme between “Paris” and “somewhere else.” It’s like trying to square the Eiffel Tower. Also, why do you have to say somewhere else? Why isn’t Paris enough? If the point is to be anywhere else, then say that instead. A few other notes: I don’t believe Taylor drinks “cheap wine.” “Privacy sign on the door / And on my page and on the whole world” is clunky. But in other places, clunk kind of works: it’s camp when she says “I wanna brainwash you / Into loving me forever.” The stacked adjectives describing the words she’s scrawling to her love emphasize her bubbling enthusiasm. And elsewhere in the song, she’s got an elevated voice: “I’m so in love that I might stop breathing / Drew a map on your bedroom ceiling” is both more mature in theme and tone. It probably would be a C if not for the atrocious chorus.

Best Lyrics:
I’m so in love that I might stop breathing
Drew a map on your bedroom ceiling

Confess my truth
In swooping, sloping, cursive letters

Worst Lyrics:
Like we were in Paris
Like we were somewhere else

The C Lyrics

We’re moving on up! In contrast to a C-, a C is given to a song which is lyrically average. There are probably some good lines, and nothing deeply frustrates me, but I’m not particularly inspired. I don’t think it contributes to songwriting as a field.

202. Girl At Home

Some people really dislike this song. I think it’s…fine. The chorus is fairly basic, and starting the song with such direct, plain language does it no favors. It also relies on direct repetition to rhyme. Certainly a few of the lyrics induce a twinge of embarrassment — her remark that “it’s kinda like a code” is rough. But I think the general premise of the song is like, sure, there’s some value-add to include it in on the album. I think the second verse is cheeky in just the right amount — it directly explains why she’s going to repeat herself in the chorus, which is clever. And use of the word “sad” here lets her claim a lot of power over this unwanted flirt.

Best Lyrics:
I just wanna make sure
You understand perfectly
You’re the kind of man who makes me sad

Worst Lyrics:
But I feel a responsibility
To do what’s upstanding and right
It’s kinda like a code, yeah

201. Don’t Blame Me

I’m not the right person for love-as-a-drug/addiction analogies. I can recognize it’s got some merits to it without enjoying the experience. Some of it works: “For you, I would cross the line / I would waste my time, I would lose my mind,” for instance, captures attachment with a dose of anaphora. But the notion that the love in the song is presumably a good love she agentically wants to last makes it hard for me to square its description as an addiction which she can’t help but desire. A song which I rank higher, The Way I Loved You, captures this need-you sentiment much more strongly, without any use of maybe-it’s-bad-maybe-it’s-good drug references.

Best Lyrics:
Something happened for the first time
In the darkest little paradise

Worst Lyrics:
Lord, save me, my drug is my baby
I’ll be usin’ for the rest of my life

200. Call It What You Want

I struggle with this song, because I really do like the first three lines of the chorus. The simile is fresh, the concept of keeping his head down has a few interesting meanings — he’s devoted to her, he’s staying out the limelight, etc. Yet lest we have a solid chorus, Swift seems determined to ruin it with the next lines, which rhyme “to” with… “to.” Seriously?? And that’s not even the worst line of the song, which takes us south of Swift’s hometown of Tennessee to a state where “fraternal love” has a second meaning. Why, oh why, would you need to compare your trust for your lover with your trust of your brother? What does that add?

Best Lyrics:
My baby’s fit like a daydream
Walkin’ with his head down
I’m the one he’s walking to

Worst Lyrics:
I’m laughing with my lover, makin’ forts under covers
Trust him like a brother

199. Out of the Woods

This song is overrated, most of 1989 is overrated, and I’m comfortable resting in the minority with that position. In the name of #pop, almost every chorus is just repeating the same line or two lines over, and over, and over again. This chorus consists of nine “Are we out of the woods” and eight “in the clear yet” lines. Maybe, just maybe, she can get away with this by saying the repetition is intentional to reflect her recurrent anxiety. But excusing it is far different from respecting it. The best lyric slips in details from a real-life story with a tight couplet that constructs a narrative. But it’s an outlier in an otherwise fairly generic song.

Best Lyrics:
Remember when you hit the brakes too soon?
Twenty stitches in the hospital room

Worst Lyrics:
Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods?
Are we in the clear yet? Are we in the clear yet?
Are we in the clear yet, in the clear yet? Good
Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods?
Are we in the clear yet? Are we in the clear yet?
Are we in the clear yet, in the clear yet? Good
Are we out of the woods?

198. Florida!!!

Fuck timeshares, fuck Florida, and fuck !!! Despite the ballooning costs of timeshares, there is no way Swift has to “work her life away just to pay” for one down in Destin. It’s a messy song about a messy state, with hurricanes, boozy bathrooms, some burying, some drugs, and lots of death. Another cheating husband dies here, with a bunch more exes “sinking into the swamp.” I don’t like when they break the fourth wall to ask if this is a bad thing to say. They have a bit of a Houstatlantavegas moment when the verse shifts into the chorus: “The shitstorm back in Texas / Florida.” The best couplet bisects Swift’s friends into two categories: the ones raising children and the ones still smoking. Both reek, and both drive you “crazy” (but also, fuck ableism). It’s a clever line and shimmers in this clusterfuck of a song.

Best Lyrics:
And my friends all smell like weed or little babies
And this city reeks of driving myself crazy

Worst Lyrics:
And in my mind, they sink into the swamp
Is that a bad thing to say in a song?

197. Vigilante Shit

This song is half-revenge, half-feminism. It’s got some clunkers — the FBI is a strange name-drop, and “cat eye sharp enough to kill a man” is a bit much. There’s a pretty overt sexual reference here in “You did some bad things, but I’m the worst of them” that comes across as a little non-agentic. I like the “who or what do you dress for” lines, because that was my college thesis (which happened to cite Swift). The line that best threads together her getting-dressed narrative and her revenge narrative is “They say looks can kill and I might try.” I’ll note there’s a lot of talk of killing here, when it seems like all she did was rat someone out. Commit to the bit, Taylor.

Best Lyrics:
Sometimes I wonder which one’ll be your last lie
They say looks can kill and I might try

Worst Lyrics:
Draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man

196. Glitch

I’m not pulled into the world of this song. It’s an unexpected love. Sure. But why the metaphor of a glitch? If love is a computer glitch, does that mean we’re in a simulation? Glitches are generally bad things; presumably this glitch is welcome. Some of the rhymes are either forced or tired: the verse below manages to include both. I like the sweat line, but it’s not really in place with the rest of the song.

Best Lyrics:
I was supposed to sweat you out

Worst Lyrics:
A brief interruption, a slight malfunction
I’d go back to wanting dudes who give nothing
I thought we had no chance
And that’s romance, let’s dance

195. I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

Spoiler: she can’t. I understand it’s satirical, but satirical doesn’t work so well for me. Certain lines are a little smug: for instance, “A perfect case for my certain skill set.” I don’t like the analogy of guitar-as-pistol (that’s where you get calluses, right?). She could’ve done a hands-are-callused, heart-is-calloused juxtaposition, but alas. The best couplet screams it’s about Matty Healy while using Swift’s familiar editorializing passive voice: “The jokes that he told across the bar / Were revolting and far too loud.” There’s not much else lyrically to this song — fairly mediocre.

Best Lyrics:
The jokes that he told across the bar
Were revolting and far too loud

Worst Lyrics:
A perfect case for my certain skill set

194. Eyes Open

More war! Beat the drum. I don’t like the use of the word tricky at the start of the song — it comes across as a little quippy, but if the subject of the song is living in wartime then such sass is unearned. “Every lesson forms a new scar” inverts what would make more intuitive sense — every scar is a lesson — and rises to a second level: instead, lessons leave their mark. It’s not quite clear what kind of lessons Swift is talking about. If it’s scars which form lessons which form scars, we’re in a bit of a loop. Still, it makes you think.

Best Lyrics:
Every lesson forms a new scar

Worst Lyrics:
The tricky thing is yesterday we were just children
Playing soldiers, just pretending

193. Fortnight

The opening song on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift starts where Hits Different (and the album Midnights) left off: with her friends coming to take her away. Plot twist — they forget to come and get her! This is definitely about Matty Healy and not Joe Alwyn, and anyone who thinks the latter is delusional. It’s about dating someone for a fortnight. Come on, people. The “ask about the weather / comment on my sweater” lines are a clear-as-rain (yes, I went there) easter egg for When We Are Together. Otherwise, this is a basic song about a brief romance that doesn’t work out. And she loved him. Sigh. I don’t like the recurring desire to kill people, which is getting popular to sing about among artists from SZA to Samia. There are some lines which induce a twinge of embarrassment: “But what about your quiet treason?” and “I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary” stand out like sore thumbs. But the worst line foreshadows another song on the album, with some grandiose reference to the country — what are so special about lost fortnights in America?

Best Lyrics:
I was supposed to be sent away
But they forgot to come and get me

Worst Lyrics:
‘Nother fortnight lost in America
Move to Florida, buy the car you want

192. I Can See You

This somehow became the song of the summer; not by my hand (nor by my ear). It’s ostensibly about students in a high school hallway, but then in the bridge suddenly the love interest is wearing a suit and necktie — a little too adult for high school. The opening couplet of the chorus is the best part, even though there’s a jump between the love interest at the end of the hall and the two of them “up against the wall” — who runs to who? Which of them is actually up against the wall? These are the kind of details that would strengthen the narrative. Also, I think it should be “for me” instead of “from me.” The worst lyrics are just too wordy, and it’s confusing if these two “half the things” are the same half, overlapping, or mutually exclusive. Theoretically the things which her love interest wouldn’t believe are also the things she wants them to see — which begs the question of what’s going on with the other half.

Best Lyrics:
I can see you waitin’ down the hall from me
And I could see you up against the wall with me

Worst Lyrics:
You won’t believe half the things I see inside my head
Wait ’til you see half the things that haven’t happened yet

191. Down Bad

I don’t really like aliens as a device for strange or singular experiences. The first line sounds a little like “you beat me off,” which is such a Matty Healy line I kind of wish she went there. Instead, it’s about aliens (“I knew cosmic love”), or maybe angels (“I was heavenstruck”). The repetitive expletives in this song aren’t as effective as they are in some of her earlier work. The best line by far is “Everything comes out teenage petulance,” which is self-deprecating and gives her some credibility. In the bridge, she makes an effort to get creative by omitting a word for emphasis — but that word would’ve been “over,” which when rhymed with “takeovers” does not impress me. I did like the three prior lines, “I loved your hostile takeovers / Encounters closer and closer / All your indecent exposures” — the last of the three is the best. And “I’ll build you a fort on some planet / Where they can all understand it” emphasizes how no one on earth could comprehend her ex. I think the worst couplet is “They’ll say I’m nuts if I talk about / The existence of you,” which doesn’t work because none of Swift’s friends will deny the existence of Healy (or Joe).

Best Lyrics:
Everything comes out teenage petulance

Worst Lyrics:
They’ll say I’m nuts if I talk about
The existence of you

190. Dear Reader

This song is a fine idea — to mimic an advice column, which is then shared with Swift’s fans — but the advice is pretty bad. She tells the listener to “Pick somewhere and just run.” Wouldn’t recommend. “Desert all your past lives / And if you don’t recognize yourself / That means you did it right.” This is starting to sound a little like a cult manifesto. It’s confusing whether the chorus is meant to establish Swift as an unreliable narrator: “Never take advice from someone who’s falling apart.” I think that’s the point, based on this and the bridge. But then the second verse has advice that’s actually good: “Dear reader, bend when you can / Snap when you have to / Dear reader, you don’t have to answer / Just ’cause they asked you.” So should we not trust it? The best lyric uses figurative language to describe her advice as prayers, their trajectory as spilling out, and herself as a cursed man.

Best Lyrics:
These desperate prayers of a cursed man
Spilling out to you for free

Worst Lyrics:
Dear reader, get out your map
Pick somewhere and just run

189. Sweeter Than Fiction

This song was written for a movie about a singer who won Britain’s Got Talent. I don’t know if he’s the subject of the song, and I’m not sure it matters. It’s about picking yourself up after a hard time. The lyrics outside of the chorus don’t add much beyond this: “Wish I could make it better, someday, you won’t remember / This pain you thought would last forever and ever” progresses into “What a sight, what a sight when the light came on / Proved me right, proved me right when you proved them wrong.” Introspective! The bridge is the worst, because it takes place after the above-cited lyrics, and states “I’ll be one of the many saying / You’ve made us proud” — didn’t he just do that by proving her right? Sigh. The chorus is abstract and intriguing such that it has to be the best part of the song, even if I couldn’t tell you what it means. Are the subject’s eyes wide with fear? Excitement? Ambition? Shouldn’t her eyes be wide if she’s amazed by them? Still, the hyperbole of “wider than distance” and the something-close-to-hyperbole of “sweeter than fiction” catch your eye and make you think.

Best Lyrics:
Your eyes, wider than distance
This life is sweeter than fiction

Worst Lyrics:
I’ll be one of the many saying
You’ve made us proud

188. When Emma Falls in Love

This song has a slew of good lines and a slew of bad lines. They kind of even out. Something that frustrates me about a number of Swift’s songs is that they begin as a story about someone else, but invariably return to her. This should be a platonic love song praising the wonders of her friend Emma — but then she ends each chorus with “And to tell you the truth, sometimes I wish I was her.” Do you know how many songs you already have written about you, Taylor? SO MANY. Not only does this steal Emma’s spotlight, but it’s confusing, since it comes right after this line about how bad boys would be good boys under Emma’s wing. Is Swift saying she wishes that she was Emma so she could date these boys, or is she saying she wants to embody all of Emma’s qualities? Probably the latter, but I shouldn’t have to ask. At any rate, I don’t want to hear about your jealousy, I want to hear about Emma. The worst line describes Emma as “if Cleopatra grew up in a small town.” But if Cleopatra grew up in a small town, she wouldn’t be Cleopatra; that’s the whole point of her legacy. The best couplet cleverly introduces a relationship and its cause of death — as well as the aftershock implications for Emma. Another good couplet, which is a bit happier: “When Emma falls in love, she calls up her mom / Jokes about the ways that this one could go wrong.” Let’s hope Emma’s still happy today.

Best Lyrics:
Emma met a boy with eyes like a man
Turns out her heart fits right in the palm of his hand

Worst Lyrics:
’Cause she’s the kind of book that you can’t put down
Like if Cleopatra grew up in a small town

187. You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home

From Hannah Montana: The Movie, this chorus relies on anaphora and juxtaposition, building a list of things the subject can change about their life and then affirming one thing won’t change: “You’ll always find your way back home.” Note — this isn’t saying you’ll always be safe back home. It’s saying that you will inevitably make the return to your home. I’m not sure that’s as affirming as you think, especially given all the rebukes Swift has made of a repressed childhood in heartland America. But it’s a warm sentiment. Otherwise, the song is rife with generalities, such as “this world is big” and “maybe / This life is what some people dream about.”

Best Lyrics:
You can change your hair and you can change your clothes
You can change your mind, that’s just the way it goes

Worst Lyrics:
’Cause this world is big and it’s crazy
And this girl is thinking that maybe
This life is what some people dream about

186. I Heart ?

It’s hard not to hear the country twang when reading the words. A lot of the lines don’t make much sense: after a breakup, she states “And it was overrated / But just look what I’ve created.” What did she create? I’ll wait. She claims the breakup is more painful because instead of ending it harshly — which she refers to as “walking by” — the subject of the song affirmed she was in the right. And yet in the chorus, she paints the subject as pernicious: “And I’ll bet you thought you’d beat me.” The rest of the chorus shapes up a bit, and the concept of writing “I heart ?” on the back of your hand is cute — it’s the middle school version of thank u, next. The best couplet comes in the pre-chorus, which uses a little snark to cut off the subject before they patronize her by asking if she’s doing okay.

Best Lyrics:
Before you ask me if I’m alright
Think about what I had to do

Worst Lyrics:
I’d be fine if you just walked by
But you had to talk about why
You were wrong and I was right

185. Superman

This is a pretty domestic song — it really feels like she’s a stay-at-home wife or girlfriend, since she’s waving him off to work and seems to be hanging back, just “around.” The couplet “To save the world or go to work / It’s the same thing to me” leans into the idea that she’s amazed by his oh-so-heroic ability to work and push papers around. The best couplet furthers her idolization of him as (literally) above her, while recognizing her worth as his grounding force: “I’ll be right here on the ground / When you come back down.” The worst part of the song is a bleak list of adjectives. She already used a modified “tall, dark and handsome” in the first verse, which was funnier because it ended on superman — parodying “it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s superman.” And an album earlier, Swift already dropped a similar list of adjectives in The Way I Loved You to describe a love interest, which also included the oh-so-justificatory “complicated.” Moreover, she’s been idolizing him this whole song — where did “irrational” come from?

Best Lyrics:
I’ll be right here on the ground
When you come back down

Worst Lyrics:
Tall, dark and beautiful
He’s complicated, he’s irrational

184. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

This song comes across as very scolding. I don’t like songs that infantilize people of any stripe — so unsurprisingly, the titular couplet bottoms the barrel. Other lines are just so basic they may as well not be said: “There I was, giving you a second chance / But you stabbed me in the back while shaking my hand” isn’t even a development on an existing idiom. The best line figuratively describes her revenge on someone with whom who she tried to rebuild a friendship: “And so I took an axe to a mended fence.” It ranks a little higher than it deserves because I really dislike Kanye and have always known the phone call was a sham.

Best Lyrics:
And so I took an axe to a mended fence

Worst Lyrics:
This is why we can’t have nice things, darling
Because you break them, I had to take them away

183. Electric Touch

There’s another pretty famous song about an electric touch — which makes this one hard to appreciate as novel, since it relies so heavily on the titular concept. The best couplet could be inserted into pretty much any of her confessional songs, but it works particularly well here where the song is mostly filled with platitudes. Another set of decent lines leans on anaphora for effect: “Just breathe, just relax, it’ll be okay / Just an hour ’til your car’s in the driveway / Just the first time ever hangin’ out with you tonight.”

Best Lyrics:
I’ve got my money on things goin’ badly
Got a history of stories ending sadly

Worst Lyrics:
Got a feelin’ your electric touch could fill this ghost town up with life

182. The Albatross

Some years ago, I wrote a poem with the same name. And you can’t write about an albatross without paying homage to Coleridge. The way I read this, Swift is the albatross (who, spoiler, dies) and Joe is the sailor (who murders the albatross, then suffers as a scapegoat for the ship’s troubles). Then the way in which she “destroys” him in the chorus is by becoming his victim, in effect siccing her fans on him. The bridge is the kindest part of the song, and seems to affirm this analogy: “And when that sky rains fire on you / And you’re persona non grata / I’ll tell you how I’ve been there too / And that none of it matters.” But the last chorus changes the ending of the story (like another one of her songs): “I’m the albatross / I swept in at the rescue / The devil that you know / Looks now more like an angel.” So it’s a little loose — would appreciate more clear analogies here.

I like “A rose by any other name is a scandal,” but that’s a different poet altogether. Which wise men once said “One bad seed kills the garden / One less temptress, one less dagger to sharpen” — are any of these actual sayings? If they were wise, they’d say fewer ;)

Best Lyrics:
A rose by any other name is a scandal

Worst Lyrics:
Wise men once said
One bad seed kills the garden
One less temptress, one less dagger to sharpen

181. Should’ve Said No

We’re about to go through a run of Debut songs. So I’ll just mention here that a lot of her earlier songs relied on one interesting phrase for the chorus, and then chatgpt’ed the verses and the bridges. This one is a cheating song! And it’s very basic; the best part is its structural division juxtaposing the prechorus where the subject decides to cheat (saying “yes”) against the chorus, which follows up with “You should’ve said no.” It’s not rocket science, but it works for dramatic effect. A particularly weak line states that it feels wrong to even look at her partner. No duh — why wouldn’t it? The bridge doesn’t need to be there: “I can’t resist / Before you go, tell me this / Was it worth it? / Was she worth this? / No, no / No, no, no, no.”

Best Lyrics:
You should’ve said no, you should’ve gone home
You should’ve thought twice ‘fore you let it all go

Worst Lyrics:
Yesterday, I found out about you
Even now, just lookin’ at you feels wrong

180. A Perfectly Good Heart

The title is a little fresh — I like use of the word “perfectly” for effect. But the next few lines are so basic: “Why would you wanna take / Our love and tear it all apart now? / Why would you wanna make / The very first scar?” The bridge has the worst line, which describes her heart as “not unbroken anymore” — this doesn’t not deal in double negatives, and I don’t not hate it.

Best Lyrics:
Why would you wanna break
A perfectly good heart?

Worst Lyrics:
It’s not unbroken anymore
How do I get it back the way it was before?

179. The Outside

This one gets a slight nod over A Perfectly Good Heart and Should’ve Said No, because the chorus is a smidgen more abstracted. Let’s set aside the fact she claims “I’ve never been on the outside,” even though the whole point of the song is that she’s continually shunned by people. She gets to make a joke about how her perspective of these people is (literally) changing: “I can still see you, this ain’t the best view.” The best line is relatable even for those who’ve never been on the outside — she complains that she can’t prove herself or improve if no one gives her a chance. The worst couplet is contradictory, as the first line suggests the subject knew about Taylor’s plight and could have helped, but the second line claims “no one notices until it’s too late.” Make up your mind!

Best Lyrics:
How can I ever try to be better?
Nobody ever lets me in

Worst Lyrics:
You could’ve helped if you had wanted to
But no one notices until it’s too late to do anything

178. Don’t You

It has a nice melody, but judging by the lyrics, this one should’ve stayed in the vault. Every phrase is plain-spoken: the only figurative language in the entire song is “My heart knows what the truth is,” which barely counts. On the other hand, nothing sticks out like a sore thumb. The worst lyric is a little wordy, but not offensively so. She can’t figure out a way to hate her love interest. I can’t figure out a way to hate this song — but that doesn’t mean I like it.

Best Lyrics:
My heart knows what the truth is
I swore I wouldn’t do this

Worst Lyrics:
Sometimes, I really wish that I could hate you
I’ve tried, but that’s just somethin’ I can’t do

177. I Almost Do

The best part of this song is the end of the chorus, which relies on an enjambment that Swift helpfully communicates with a beat when sung: every time she doesn’t make a grand gesture of love, she almost does. Unfortunately, the more you think about it, the more it breaks down. How is this useful information for her ex? By definition, her ex doesn’t know about every time she stops herself from doing these things, so there’s also no way to quantify how many times she almost does them. The worst lyric isn’t bad, just vestigial: she says she thinks her ex is still awake but tired. Maybe her ex should go to sleep.

Best Lyrics:
And I hope you know that every time I don’t
I almost do

Worst Lyrics:
I bet this time of night, you’re still up
I bet you’re tired from a long hard week

176. So High School

Say it with your chest, Taylor: the game is called marry, fuck, kill — kiss is not one of the options. I know she isn’t overt in this song, but there are a whole lot of innuendos, so the substitute of “kiss” feels a little prudish in comparison. If she likes the consonance, what about make, or keep? Or Kate — then it could be like Mary-Kate! I should really be in her writer’s room. Here are some of her other innuendos on the song, just to bolster my argument: “Your friends are around, so be quiet / I’m trying to stifle my sighs”; “Brand new, full throttle / Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto”; and “Get my car door, isn’t that sweet? / Then pull me to the backseat / No one’s ever had me / Not like you.”

I like “I’ll drink what you think,” but not “I’m high / From smokin’ your jokes all damn night.” The worst line is the juxtaposition of “You know how to ball, I know Aristotle,” which is a washed-up version of “she wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts.” Does she know Aristotle? Is she a philosophy major?

Best Lyrics:
I’ll drink what you think

Worst Lyrics:
You know how to ball, I know Aristotle

175. Invisible

This is a pining song about someone who’s in a relationship but isn’t properly appreciated by their current partner. Some of the lines make you want to tell young Swift to get a grip: “And you can’t see me wanting you the way you want her / But you are everything to me.” No one should be your everything at fifteen! The best lines come in the chorus, where she gets optimistic about what could be. I’m charitably interpreting an intentional elision, which is that the two of them (“we”) are together in her mind, which she can visualize, but not see when she opens her eyes — and thus together, they’re invisible. Again, this is charitable. Probably, she’s really trying to say that she is invisible to him — but that would mean she’s missing a “like me” at the end of this chorus, which would be clunky.

Best Lyrics:
We could be a beautiful miracle, unbelievable
Instead of just invisible

Worst Lyrics:
And you can’t see me wanting you the way you want her
But you are everything to me

174. Bye Bye Baby

This is very similar to another song by Michelle Branch. Compare “Bye, bye to everything I thought was on my side” with “Goodbye to you / Goodbye to everything I thought I knew.” The worst line is her own, though, where she states “you took me home but you just couldn’t keep me” — which I know makes her an object; it might also be a reference to sex? There’s no reason given throughout the song why they break up, and this seems to hint at the subject doing something wrong and precipitating her exit; still, the immediately preceding line notes “all I have is your sympathy,” suggesting maybe she was the one broken up with? The best line contrasts earlier recollections of the past with a rude awakening back to the present.

Best Lyrics:
Then the here and the now floods in

Worst Lyrics:
And all I have is your sympathy
’Cause you took me home but you just couldn’t keep me

173. Bejeweled

The song’s highest moment is its opening, where she cautiously tells her love interest that she’s too nice to them — and the proof is in the pet name: “baby love.” An enjambed pair of gifted shoes serve as a figurative weapon rubbing salt (or dirt) in the wound when her love interest tramples her spirits. It’s downhill almost immediately from there, as she confusingly states “Puttin’ someone first only works when you’re in their top five.” Is this some reference to a category of five? Who are the five in question? The chorus is mostly cheesy and bedazzled in rhinestones: the “shimmer / remember” rhyme doesn’t work for me. I do like the “I polish up real nice” line. The worst line makes a reference to school out of nowhere — a place which Swift hasn’t been in a while, mind you — analogizing her effort as extra credit, and her partner’s corresponding appreciativeness as curved. What kind of curve, Taylor? Some curves are actually good, especially if you only did the extra credit because you needed to make up for an otherwise sub-standard performance.

Best Lyrics:
Baby love, I think I’ve been a little too kind
Didn’t notice you walkin’ all over my peace of mind
In the shoes I gave you as a present

Worst Lyrics:
Did all the extra credit, then got graded on a curve

172. The Alchemy

Is this song almost sampling The Spins? It’s pretty close… The first couplet is purportedly “This happens once every few lifetimes / These chemicals hit me like white wine,” but the first draft was almost certainly “white lines.” White wine doesn’t hit that hard. I like the bridge the best, but it’s not remarkable. It’s about Travis and the Superbowl and that was a fun night. It wasn’t a huge upset, so “There was no chance trying to be the greatest in the league” doesn’t hit that hard (about as hard as white wine). I’m not sure whether the hospital in the first verse is supposed to be an analogy for her past relationship or meant to be literal. I don’t like “Ditch the clowns, get the crown” or her other monarchist language like “That child’s play back in school / Is forgiven under my rule.” The recurring line “He jokes that it’s heroin, but this time with an E” isn’t clever — if she’s trying to insult him for claiming this was an original thought, then it works.

Best Lyrics:
Shirts off and your friends lift you up over their heads
Beer stickin’ to the floor, cheers chanted ’cause they said
There was no chance trying to be the greatest in the league
Where’s the trophy? He just comes runnin’ over to me

Worst Lyrics:
That child’s play back in school
Is forgiven under my rule

171. White Horse

Fun fact: this used to be one of my favorite Swift songs. It’s worn off as I’ve gotten older. It’s a quasi-fairytale song, in that it rejects the premise. I like a couplet in the chorus where she contrasts her folksy hometown with Hollywood (even though most fairytales take place in a rural village). She describes herself as a dreamer — perhaps of fairytales, perhaps of movies — before getting hurt by the subject of the song. I still don’t know what “My mistake, I didn’t know to be in love / You had to fight to have the upper hand” means in the context of this song. Is she saying she didn’t fight hard enough for their relationship? Or is she more cynically alleging that all relationships boil down to fights and one-upping each other? I guess it doesn’t matter, because someday she’s gonna find someone who might actually treat her well.

Best Lyrics:
This ain’t Hollywood, this is a small town
I was a dreamer before you went and let me down

Worst Lyrics:
My mistake, I didn’t know to be in love
You had to fight to have thе upper hand

170. I’m Only Me When I’m with You

This song sounds just like Kelly Clarkson. Okay moving on. Swift isn’t much of an individual here, but it’s a cute song about how her partner brings out another side of her. I can do without the country platitudes: “Just a small-town boy and girl / Livin’ in a crazy world / Tryna figure out what is and isn’t true.” But the chorus, while dosed in double negatives, has some good figurative expressions: “I’m only up when you’re not down / Don’t wanna fly if you’re still on the ground.” The best line describes the two of them point at constellations, which she creatively describes as “painting pictures in the sky.” If she added two more lines with that level of lyricism to each of her songs on Debut, they’d all go up at least a half-grade.

Best Lyrics:
Friday night beneath the stars
In a field behind your yard
You and I are painting pictures in the sky

Worst Lyrics:
Just a small-town boy and girl
Livin’ in a crazy world
Tryna figure out what is and isn’t true

169. happiness

The chorus of this song states that perhaps the most basic emotion known to humankind may arise as an effect of being around one’s partner, but is not dependent upon being around that partner. This is not revelatory. In the second chorus, she goes further, telling her partner that she, too, can bring about happiness. But worse than these mundane musings is the second post-chorus, which is incomprehensible. She states that a sunrise is dappled with light from a dress. That’s simply not how light works.

Some good things in this song: I like the interplay of “haven’t met the new me yet” to indicate both her ex’s new partner and Swift’s incarnation of herself post-relationship. I’m pretty sure the opening couplet is about getting high, but it’s also got some nice post-folklore see-the-forest-for-the-trees energy: “Honey, when I’m above the trees / I see this for what it is.” And honorable mention to “After giving you the best I had / Tell me what to give after that,” which is plain-spoken but a level up from her Debut writing.

Best Lyrics:
You haven’t met the new me yet
And I think she’ll give you that

Worst Lyrics:
There is a glorious sunrise
Dappled with the flickers of light
From the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind

168. Message In A Bottle

It’s hyper pop (not hyperpop), and it’s not trying to be deep. Good, because it’s not. She starts the song saying she knows the love interest likes her — but the rest of the song is unbottled uncertainty. The most embarrassing lyrical move on the song is “you’re so far away and I’m down.” She couldn’t even do the bare minimum of contrasting this present low with a former high? Why does she feel like a face in the crowd? Because she likes this person so much that she doesn’t care about the people around her? If that’s true, then aren’t they the faces? But I’m still giving this song some points because I like things in bottles.

Best Lyrics:
A message in a bottle is all I can do
Standin’ here, hopin’ it gets to you

Worst Lyrics:
But now, you’re so far away and I’m down
Feelin’ like a face in the crowd

167. Look What You Made Me Do

What was once the new Taylor becomes the old Taylor. This song has its merits: it inspired one of the better OHT videos of all time (not the best though). Of course, her famous spoken line is the highlight. Earlier, she makes a direct reference — explicit diss track? — to Kanye’s tilted stage. The song basically boils down to “I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time / I’ve got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined,” which is a nice encapsulation. But there’s a lot of stuff around it I’d trim. For instance, “You said the gun was mine / Isn’t cool, no, I don’t like you” — it’s a lot more than “not cool” to frame someone for murder. And maybe that gap in nuance is precisely why you shouldn’t hyperbolize to violence, battles, and death all the time. “I don’t like your kingdom keys / They once belonged to me” is confusing because she’s never really had much of a commercial or fanbase overlap with Kanye. The worst couplet foreshadows a (much better) song in her catalog by forcing karma to rhyme with drama. She also repeats herself twice seemingly just to get the right syllables in each line.

Best Lyrics:
I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now
Why? Oh, ’cause she’s dead!

Worst Lyrics:
The world moves on, another day, another drama, drama
But not for me, not for me, all I think about is karma

166. Change

It’s interesting because I just assumed Swift was conservative (or apolitical) until 2016 — but this was maybe (or maybe not) about Obama? Either way, it’d be stronger if she didn’t turn it into a fight song, and I could do without all the hallelujahs. The best line could definitely work for politics with the “repeating history” bit. The worst part is the bridge, which starts off decent with an inversion of the hallelujah refrain — beyond thoughts and prayers, Swift is ready to take action. But then she alleges the battle was long (past tense), the fight of her life, and yet somehow she’s able to speak with surety that she will win the whole shebang tonight. I think she means to say the war was long; even then, there’s too much slippage of tenses here. If you’re going to sing about war, do it accurately.

Best Lyrics:
You know it’s all the same, another time and place
Repeating history and you’re getting sick of it

Worst Lyrics:
Tonight, we stand, get off our knees
Fight for what we’ve worked for all these years
And the battle was long, it’s the fight of our lives
But we’ll stand up champions tonight

165. The Prophecy

This is a prayer song, but it’s noticeably not monotheistic — she references Eve once, but later covens and sorceresses. I wish she would go a bit further and explain how her lack of faith is what makes it hard to pray. Phoebe Bridgers (if you’ve heard of her) does this so well on Chinese Satellite: “I want to believe / Instead, I look at the sky and I feel nothing / You know I hate to be alone / I want to be wrong.” Compare this to “Don’t want money / Just someone who wants my company / Let it once be me / Who do I have to speak to / About if they can redo the prophecy?” Maybe the problem is that she’s agnostic instead of atheist. Even just copying the end of Cassandra would be so much more effective: “It’s so quiet.” I do like the word choice of “pad around the home” — it makes me think of a cat. I think the best lyrics come in the bridge: “And I sound like an infant / Feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen.” The latter is eminently relatable, and to my knowledge is a pretty fresh analogy (not yet dry).

Best Lyrics:
And I sound like an infant
Feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen

Worst Lyrics:
Who do I have to speak to
About if they can redo the prophecy?

164. Daylight

I liked this song before the much-celebrated Live From Paris version. Too bad that lyrically it’s not up to snuff. Again, we’re dealing in hunting/battle metaphors. I know the cloaks and daggers are a reference to her past eras, but if you’re over it, just be over it — don’t keep bludgeoning us! Most of the rest of the song sits on the daylight motif, which is not particularly fresh. That being said, there are two lyrics I really like. First, her spoken line at the end, which closes out Lover and is a good message for all: to strive to be defined by that which you love. Second, the surprisingly tight line “Clearin’ the air, I breathed in the smoke,” which has myriad meanings. First, it’s a play on the idiom to clear the air — she’s taking initiative to recalibrate with someone and move past past tension. But in the figurative world of this idiom, to clear the air she had to literally inhale all that was clouding it. So she purifies the external by polluting herself. Maybe the smoke was hers, and it’s just accountability. Maybe the smoke was someone else’s, and she’s self-sacrificing here. Either way, it’s at once measured and capacious. It’s also got a mini-callback to an earlier line that she became the “butt of the joke” — calling to mind a cigarette butt. I’m a fan! Of two lines, nothing else.

Best Lyrics:
I wanna be defined by the things that I love
Not the things I hate

Clearin’ the air, I breathed in the smoke

Worst Lyrics:
Maybe you ran with the wolves and refused to settle down
Maybe I’ve stormed out of every single room in this town
Threw out our cloaks and our daggers because it’s morning now

163. Lavender Haze

She really leaned into Gaylor for this one. If you take that interpretation to heart (though she claims she doesn’t want you to) this song gets a lot better: “The 1950s shit they want from me / I just wanna stay in that lavender haze” is so much better if it’s read as rejecting both gender norms and compulsive heterosexuality. But apparently “lavender haze” is not a gay awakening, it’s some 1950s term for love — which then kinda makes the central couplet fall in on itself, no? Here are a few more LGBTQ+-friendly lines: “You handle it beautifully / All this shit is new to me”; “All they keep asking me / Is if I’m gonna be your bride / The only kinda girl they see / Is a one-night or a wife”; and the peak of the song, “I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say.” This last one is the most clever, because, like, hell. Basically half of the song is a tribute to queerbaiting. The worst couplet invents a new phrase — love spiral — that doesn’t work for me in order to conjure a rhyme for viral. It also conflicts with the rest of the song, in which she’s been addressing her love interest. But this seems to shift to addressing the public at-large.

Best Lyrics:
I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say

Worst Lyrics:
Talk your talk and go viral
I just need this love spiral

162. epiphany

I do genuinely think Swift was trying to be respectful here. I’m just not sure there is a way to minutely compare war to a pandemic without insulting the integrity of both. The best couplet in the song, ending its bridge, gets the closest: “Just one single glimpse of relief / To make some sense of what you’ve seen.” The refrain also sticks within the guardrails of generalities: “And some things you just can’t speak about.” But the details of the song that describe death — “Sir, I think he’s bleeding out” and “Doc, I think she’s crashing out” — are bloated and we don’t get proper introductions to these third-party authority figures; nor do we know anything about the singers of the song beyond their generic jobs. If she stuck to generalities or was more systematic (which I’m not sure could fit in a song), it might work better.

Best Lyrics:
Just one single glimpse of relief
To make some sense of what you’ve seen

Worst Lyrics:
Holds your hand through plastic now
Doc, I think she’s crashing out

161. The Man

I appreciate any and all digs at Leonardo DiCaprio. And I wish I liked the rest of this. But this song — like, sadly, many of Swift’s direct attempts at feminism — brandishes a bit too much. Compare it to the vulnerability of Beyoncé’s “If I Were a Boy.” This song’s got sugary swagger, with a zeal that entwines masculinity with capitalism and leans into it all. She brings out the big guns: boss, alpha, hustling, power moves, dollar-flashin’, baller, b*tch. The central couplet is less wealth-centric and does the most work for her, reflecting “I’m so sick of running as fast as I can / Wonderin’ if I’d get there quicker if I was a man.” The worst line not only introduces the aforementioned “power moves,” but reduces her creative prowess to merely “good ideas.” If you’re gonna go big, go big — at least say great!

Best Lyrics:
And they would toast to me, oh, let the players play
I’d be just like Leo in Saint-Tropez

Worst Lyrics:
What I was wearing, if I was rude
Could all be separated from my good ideas and power moves

160. Haunted

That time Taylor went goth but just for one song. The worst lyric starts the song and struggles to make sense. Lines are generally pretty thin, so most would be fragile. And I don’t think they can break — branches can, as seen above in the best line off exile. The concept of being haunted has so much potential. I’ll grant it takes a different approach, but look at Phoebe Bridgers’s “I’ll find a new place to be from / A haunted house with a picket fence / To float around and ghost my friends.” Here, Swift has “eyes go cold” and “something’s gone terribly wrong” to express a figurative death. That’s it. There’s no ghost, no spookiness, not even a reference to nighttime, beyond “it’s getting dark.” Commit to the bit! The best line is “Something keeps me holding onto nothing,” which you shouldn’t think about too hard because it’s not that deep, but it contrasts “something / nothing” and has a nice ring to it.

Best Lyrics:
Something keeps me holding onto nothing

Worst Lyrics:
You and I walk a fragile line
I have known it all this time
But I never thought I’d live to see it break

159. Beautiful Ghosts

To be clear, I haven’t seen the movie, I’m sure it’s horrible. But the titular lyric is actually intriguing. Haunted could never! To be fair, the first line is backwards — the memories (these are the same memories as the one sung about in the song Memory) weren’t lost, because they’re still around. But the use of “beautiful ghosts” to describe one’s memories is at least a bit captivating. Other lines use repetition without any heft: “Should I take chances when no one took chances on me?” and “All that I wanted was to be wanted” aren’t quite groundbreaking. The worst couplet tries to do something by setting up an oxymoronic fear-taming from wild ones, but it doesn’t make sense in the context of the next line where Swift’s character sings that she is still indeed fearful.

Best Lyrics:
And the memories were lost long ago
But at least you have beautiful ghosts

Worst Lyrics:
Out here, the wild ones are taming the fear within me
Scared to call them my friends and be broken again

158. Cassandra

Cassandra was the canary in the coal mine, the boy who cried wolf the last time he did so, Chicken Little — she was punished for having prophecies (interesting interplay with the immediately preceding song on the album). What was Swift’s prophecy? This song seems to be about the call where she allegedly gave permission for Kanye to name-drop her as he did in Famous. The conflict there was whether or not Swift or Kim/Kanye were honest — a she-said-they-said tension. It’s an imprecise analogy. I do like the effort, though. I appreciate the setup for these intrusive thoughts, which is a clear allusion to The Beatles’s Fixing a Hole: in both songs, they’re patching up cracks in the walls, which are metaphors for distractions and unwanted memories. The best couplet in the song, “I was in my tower weaving nightmares / Twisting all my smiles into snarls,” employs alliteration and twists the verb weave in a figurative sense — instead of literally weaving hair like Rapunzel, she’s dreaming. The worst couplet references the snake emojis that were part of the social media campaign against Swift. She tries to use this as proof that she was right — but at the time, mainstream culture supported the barrage of snakes (not me), so it wouldn’t be interpreted as persuasive evidence of their complicity.

Best Lyrics:
I was in my tower weaving nightmares
Twisting all my smiles into snarls

Worst Lyrics:
So they filled my cell with snakes, I regret to say
Do you believe me now?

157. If This Was a Movie

Miley Cyrus wins the award for better grammar (also, can we take a second to appreciate “Uh-oh, there you go again, talkin’ cinematic / Yeah, you, you’re charming, got everybody starstruck”?). Swift also starts her song off strong, with an apt simile comparing the beat of her heart to her love interest’s path to her door. The next couplet reveals it’s imagined: “Six months gone and I’m still reaching / Even though I know you’re not there.” I don’t think “reaching” is the right to word here. Here are some alts: “Six months gone and I’m still dreaming”; “Six months gone and I’m still needing”; “Six months gone, my chest’s still teeming”; “Six months gone, I’m still repeating”; “Six months now, and still you creep in”; “Six months gone, you’re not receding.” The rest of the song is okay, but there’s nothing we haven’t seen in another Swift song — he’s standing in the rain on the other side of the door. The “time stood still” line is probably the worst in the song because it attempts to describe the whole relationship as a discrete era freezing the passage of time around her, but she’s already referenced “a thousand memories”; those appear to be in tension.

Best Lyrics:
Last night, I heard my own heart beating
Sounded like footsteps on my stairs

Worst Lyrics:
Maybe I’ve been going back too much lately
When time stood still and I had you

156. How You Get the Girl

This song takes the chorus of If This Was a Movie (which, again, wasn’t the first time she explored the subject) and digs in. The titular line frustrates me as an instructional how-to, which I hope no one applies to their own life. I also find the chorus’s verbal interpolation of wedding vows to be uninspiring: “I want you for worse or for better / I would wait forever and ever” isn’t a fresh take on romance. She’s smart enough to repeat the best couplet twice, though, which leverages parallelism to indirectly state they have cute pictures together. She only uses the best couplet once in If This Was a Movie, so this squeaks in above it.

Best Lyrics:
Remind her how it used to be
With pictures in frames of kisses on cheeks

Worst Lyrics:
And that’s how it works
That’s how you get the girl

155. I Know Places

In other songs, Swift is the hunter. Here, she’s the hunted. (In later, better songs, she’s both.) I don’t like the analogy on either side. Hunting is bad. Boo. “And they’ll be chasing their tails trying to track us down” doesn’t make sense if she’s the fox and they’re the hunters. But I like “Something happens when everybody finds out,” even if it’s incredibly vague. The best line is her pithy “Loose lips sink ships all the damn time”; the expletive is placed well and subtext makes the line her own. It brings the song up a bit, but if that’s her best line you can tell it’s not the most innovative.

Best Lyrics:
Loose lips sink ships all the damn time

Worst Lyrics:
’Cause they got the cages, they got the boxes and guns
They are the hunters, we are the foxes and we run

154. Shake It Off

Blank Space does the best part of this song (direct acknowledgement of media criticism) better. Afterwards, the songs diverge in their responses, with this song earnestly shaking it off and Blank Space cynically leaning in. Ordinarily, I’d prefer the former approach, but it just doesn’t shake out that way. The chorus is a bunch of repeated words and mindless rhymes: players play, haters hate, fakers fake. Boring! The interlude uses so many phrases which are passé that it makes you hope someone else wrote it: “gettin’ down and out,” “dirty cheats,” and “sick beat” weren’t in style (or in Style) when this song came out.

Best Lyrics:
I go on too many dates
But I can’t make them stay
At least, that’s what people say

Worst Lyrics:
Just think, while you’ve been gettin’ down and out about the liars
And the dirty, dirty cheats of the world
You could’ve been gettin’ down
To this sick beat

153. Guilty as Sin?

Here on your left you can see horny, at-risk Taylor. She’s stressing me out more than Kendall in Succession: “I dream of crackin’ locks / Throwin’ my life to the wolves or the ocean rocks” and “One slip and fallin’ back into the hedge maze / Oh, what a way to die.” I really don’t think she is trying to romanticize it, so I won’t ding her, but it’s on the edge. Back to the horny stuff: she’s describing such a specific (and idiosyncratic) action — writing “mine” on her upper thigh — that it almost surely happened. Which I don’t want to know about! The point of the song is most of their interactions are fantasized, but that can be shown, not told. Think of I Can See You or …Ready For It? “Messy top lip kiss” is too much detail and not working for me. “We’ve already done it in my head” is better, and reminds me a little of The 1975’s Sex. The best couplet comes in the second verse: “I keep these longings locked / In lowercase, inside a vault.” I’m not going to say that Swift stole my idea to use lowercase figuratively, but this is strike one.

Best Lyrics:
I keep these longings locked
In lowercase, inside a vault

Worst Lyrics:
Messy top lip kiss, how I long for our trysts

152. Enchanted

I maintain that nostalgia is the only thing driving this song’s streams. I’ll admit the bridge swells, but even melodically, the chorus and verses are sorely lacking. Start with a presumption that it’s not very good. The titular line is the worst part. Fun fact, she almost named the album Enchanted. I would’ve hurled. (It should have been named after another song, but I digress.) First, it’s fairytale language. Second, she misuses the word. And she knows this because in the first verse, she properly states “it was enchanting to meet you.” Then it shifts to “I was enchanted to meet you.” Maybe she’s trying to express a shift in time, such that she has become enchanted long-term by her romantic interest. But if that’s the case, then it should be “I am [present tense] enchanted after meeting you.” I think most likely, she’s using “enchanted” here as a substitute for lucky, blessed, or fortunate. In that case, use one of those words.

There are other problems with the song beyond its words. Namely, Swift meets someone at a party, has a single conversation, and immediately commits to “spend forever wonderin’.” I get she’s trying to say she hopes the love interest (Adam Young from Owl City — god) isn’t in a relationship, but the way she phrases “Please, don’t be in love with someone else” kind of suggests she expects him to be in love with her. After this one (1) night. Other issues include the second verse’s assertion that she sees his eyes first, but then only his silhouette as he walks over to her. This is maybe possible if the lighting in the room changed, but the point of the silhouette line is definitely to add mysterious intrigue — yet she already saw him well enough to have a figurative conversation with his eyes across the room.

I’ll say a few nice things about this song; “I’m wonderstruck, blushin’ all the way home” and “I’m wonderstruck, dancing around all alone” are cute representations of post-party reflections. “I wonder ’til I’m wide awake” uses consonance and (maybe intentionally) extends the wonderstruck lines. The best couplet starts the song: “There I was again tonight / Forcing laughter, faking smiles.” It’s tight and uses fresh phrasing. She knows how to write a hook! This song could’ve used a few better ones.

Best Lyrics:
There I was again tonight
Forcing laughter, faking smiles

Worst Lyrics:
All I can say is I was enchanted to meet you

151. no body, no crime

I’m going to go out on a limb and say I don’t like murder or songs about murder, no matter how reprehensible the subject may be. It’s lyrically proficient, avoiding most of the traps that sink some of the above songs. But it also doesn’t have any spectacular takeaways. The best couplet uses alliteration and creative phrasing to describe the male subject’s infidelity through liquored breath and jewelry debt. The worst line is about “catching him out,” which doesn’t seem necessary — since they’re going to murder him anyway, what’s the benefit of catching him in the act?

Best Lyrics:
She says, that ain’t my Merlot on his mouth
That ain’t my jewelry on our joint account

Worst Lyrics:
No, there ain’t no doubt
Somebody’s gotta catch him out

150. Better Man

The chorus of this song is plain-spoken: “Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I can feel you again / But I just miss you and I just wish you were a better man / I know why we had to say goodbye like the back of my hand / But I just miss you and I just wish you were a better man.” I think it’s on the refined side of plain spoken, but I could be convinced either way. The first line doesn’t do much for me, and I think the back-of-my-hand analogy is cliché. The refrain sets up the internal rhyme of “miss you / wish you,” and the latter clause explains why they aren’t together — which is the emotional source of the former clause.

Other lines in the song are fine — like “And it was always on your terms, I waited on every careless word.” But then it’s tarnished by the subsequent line, “Hoping they might turn sweet again like it was in the beginning.” A word can’t turn sweet; once it’s said, it’s already out there. And the “like it was in the beginning” is pretty clunky. The worst line award goes to “I just wish I could forget when it was magic.” Magic? Is that the best you’ve got?

Best Lyrics:
But I just miss you and I just wish you were a better man

Worst Lyrics:
And I see the permanent damage you did to me
Never again, I just wish I could forget when it was magic

149. dorothea

This is a cute song, but it’s not a very deep song. Repetition of “know” in the chorus is the best part. It doesn’t really use “know” differently each time, but there’s a contrast between Dorothea’s superficial social network out in LA or wherever and the deeper bond between Dorothea and Swift. “Skippin’ the prom / Just to piss off your mom and her pageant schemes” channels Kacey Musgraves, and that’s about it. Nothing’s horrible in this song, but it’s annoying when she uses British slang (“making a lark”) in a song about the heartland (specifically, Tupelo).

Best Lyrics:
And if you’re ever tired of bеin’ known for who you know
You know that you’ll always know me

Worst Lyrics:
When we were younger, down in the park
Honey, makin’ a lark of the misery

148. Stay Beautiful

I don’t know Cory, I’m not sure what it means to have eyes “like a jungle,” and I can’t imagine ever looking at someone’s smile and thinking “ah, yes, a radio.” But if it don’t make sense…stay beautiful ;)

It’s got a fairly mature message in a juvenile voice, which makes it sound even more mature. She’s willing to be patient — and understands that regardless of how he feels about her, he has his own life worth living. “I hope your life leads you back to my door” distances his actions from a discrete choice, so she doesn’t have to outwardly say “I hope you choose me.” And “stay beautiful” is a cute expression, although I wish she had some remarks on his inner beauty. She loses some points for leading into a chorus with “by the way,” which is the second time it happens on this album. “It’s hard to make a conversation” has an extra word in it, which I know is inserted so she can emphasize the right syllables across the line in iambic pentameter — but it’s just not conventional speech.

Best Lyrics:
And when you find everything you looked for
I hope your life leads you back to my door
Oh, but if it don’t
Stay beautiful

Worst Lyrics:
It’s hard to make a conversation
When he’s taking my breath away

147. Maroon

I cannot get over the fact that she describes one shade as so intense, it became another distinct shade. I could maybe see maroon compared with burgundy, or scarlet with crimson, but maroon and scarlet are just too far apart. She does mention burgundy as well, in the context of spilled wine — there’s also rosé in the verse. It’s a boozy song. “How’d we end up on the floor, anyway, you say / Your roommate’s cheap-ass screw-top rosé, that’s how” is a good line, but if you’re reading this please drink responsibly. Other dangers abound: please do not dance in New York without shoes. The best line is unquestionably “The rust that grew between telephones,” which does a lot of work for her to bridge the heat of romance and the fallout. But it’s executed well, with figurative language that evinces the gradual breakdown of a long-distance relationship. “And I wake with your memory over me” is an extension of Clean’s “You’re still all over me” or the titular line from You All Over Me, but given the messy, adult tones of this song, it’s probably meant to be read a little dirtier (in both senses). It’s a decent lyric absent the main line, but it doesn’t reach the level of the song it’s intended to directly address.

Best Lyrics:
The rust that grew bеtween telephones

Worst Lyrics:
So scarlet, it was maroon

146. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

I love this song more than most. But even I admit the lyrics aren’t visionary. The general premise is good, delivered with a light humor — I mean, look at all the “evers” in the chorus: “You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me / But we are never, ever, ever, ever getting back together.” There are other funny lines which are better heard than read, such as “some indie record that’s much cooler than mine” and “this is exhausting.” The best couplet is the first one, which sets up the joke of the song that she keeps getting back together with this person through a clever enjambment — she buries the lede for a whole six words. The worst part of the song is when she references Justin Bieber for literally no good reason. Yes, yes, it used to be a neutral phrase, but he claimed it. It’s just like if Bieber dropped “blank space” in one of his songs. Overall, it’s a ~fine~ set of lyrics, bolstered by an up-tempo beat and a fun music video.

Best Lyrics:
I remember when we broke up
The first time, saying this is it, I’ve had enough

Worst Lyrics:
And I used to say, never say never

145. “Slut!”

I’m glad she didn’t put this on 1989 — it would’ve been too discordant with some of the other songs on the album. The chorus doesn’t really work for me; I understand she’s reclaiming the word, but I don’t know if the media really labeled her a promiscuous figure so much as they labeled her a serial dater. Blank Space makes a lot more sense to me as a direct response to the specific kind of criticism she’s faced. “But if I’m all dressed up / They might as well be lookin’ at us” would’ve been great for my thesis. The “drunk in love” line just makes me think of Beyoncé, which, like, it’s fun to think about her, but it’s also distracting. There are only so many times Swift can express the sentiment of “In a world of boys, he’s a gentleman” across her catalog. (For the record, she’s also done it on Forever & Always, When Emma Falls in Love, …Ready For It?, King of My Heart, I Think He Knows, and Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince.) The worst line is “being this young is art,” which requires the listener to do multiple layers of interpretation before it means anything. It’s a weaker version of the youth glory days message that New Romantics communicates better.

The best line from the song is probably “Got lovesick all over my bed,” which is a deft play on words and creates a slant internal rhyme with the next line. “Handprints in wet cement” is a clever memory to use as an exemplar, since there should theoretically be a physical reminder in addition to the experience itself. Unfortunately, the love interest doesn’t end up loving her, and ends up focusing on the handprints of other people.

Best Lyrics:
Got lovestruck, went straight to my head
Got lovesick all over my bed
Love to think you’ll never forget
Handprints in wet cement

Worst Lyrics:
Clink, clink, being this young is art

144. Cornelia Street

Speaking of being drunk in love…if you’re going to make this analogy post-Beyoncé, do it in an allusion like this song’s first couplet: “We were in the backseat / Drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar.” It’s so much better than a direct reference. Unfortunately, the song is mostly downhill from its opening lines. The concept of avoiding a street post-breakup is good, but there aren’t that many lyrical nuggets here. There’s personification of street lights, but another song on the same album does the same thing much better. “That’s the kinda heartbreak time could never mend” isn’t a bad lyric, but it’s nothing special, and the “that” isn’t well-defined — presumably it’s an anticipated breakup, but what about it would be painful? I hold Swift to a higher bar over the years. By her seventh album, she should either write a more detailed narrative or intentionally create subtext for a song’s core emotions.

Conversely, “And baby, I get mystified by how this city screams your name” is so much better, not only for the internal rhymes, but for its fresh delivery and personification. The best line in the song is “Memorize the creaks in the floor,” which is an eminently relatable concept for anyone who’s walked on any old wood floors in a familiar location. It’s more powerful here because it adds flavor and nuance to the ways that Swift is starting to get accustomed to this love interest and their blossoming relationship.

Best Lyrics:
We bless the rains on Cornelia Street
Memorize the creaks in the floor

Worst Lyrics:
Back when we were card sharks, playing games

143. I Knew You Were Trouble

This is an angry song, and the chorus mostly devolves into “you suck” territory, but the verses are the highlights. Again with the opening lines: “Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago / I was in your sights, you got me alone.” She starts with a fairytale motif, then immediately twists that with a cynical admission she’s had many non-storybook endings. The second line pairs well, with a slant internal rhyme and a general setup for the rest of the song’s theme that the love interest here is not a good person. Another decent line comes in the second verse: “Pretends he doesn’t know that he’s the reason why / You’re drowning, you’re drowning, you’re drowning” is a strong contender for her best watch-out-red-flag-this-is-a-toxic-relationship couplet. The bridge is weak, with an accusation that the love interest is psychopathic and not much else. Why is that the “saddest fear” for Swift?

Best Lyrics:
Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago
I was in your sights, you got me alone

Worst Lyrics:
And the saddest fear
Comes creeping in
That you never loved me or her
Or anyone, or anything

142. the lakes

Taylor does something uncommon in this song: simply by writing this, she partially accomplishes the goal in her best lyric. This song is certainly sad prose. I like the use of wisteria here instead of a more conventional ivy. The haven’t-moved-in-years concept is nice, and she’ll do it even better on the next album. Some other lines in the song are also sad prose, but sad in a different sense. “With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief” is prose insofar as it’s not poetic in the slightest. “I’m not cut out for all these cynical clones / These hunters with cell phones” is closer to poetry, but it’s so out-of-place in this cottage-core piece. I know that’s probably the point, but the lines still throw me.

Best Lyrics:
I want auroras and sad prose
I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet
’Cause I haven’t moved in years

Worst Lyrics:
While I bathe in cliffside pools
With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief

141. The Tortured Poets Department

It’s wild to me that the album is allegedly about a group chat Joe Alwyn was in, but the titular song is about Matty Healy. The first verse of this song screams You’ve Got Mail. Name-checks in the chorus don’t work that well for me (but everyone should go stream Better Oblivion Community Center’s Dylan Thomas and Patti Smith’s album Horses). I will say that Healy would totally compare himself to Dylan Thomas. Charlie Puth definitely paid for this placement, right? See You Again has 6.2 billion streams, Taylor — not sure he needs to be a “bigger artist.” There’s an unelaborated analogy in “I chose this cyclone with you.” And no one, anywhere, ever, has referred to Matty Healy as having golden retriever energy. But I like the second verse’s seven bars of chocolate, and the existential “But you awaken with dread / Pounding nails in your head.” The best lyrics are unquestionably “But you’re in self-sabotage mode / Throwing spikes down on the road,” which is an apt analogy to describe Healy’s barbed watch-the-world-burn aesthetic.

I have a hard time believing the lyrics “At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger / And put it on the one people put wedding rings on / And that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding.” It’s a nice story that would work well if it were Joe — but we’re supposed to think Swift’s heart exploded at the thought of marrying Matty Healy? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Next.

Best Lyrics:
But you’re in self-sabotage mode
Throwing spikes down on the road

Worst Lyrics:
We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist

140. False God

I will talk when covering another song below about how I generally don’t like Swift sexualizing body parts. But “The altar is my hips” is somewhat reciprocal with “Religion’s in your lips,” and it’s specifically in reference to the concept of the song — a sacrosanct love, with a steamy take on what that love entails. Very Take Me to Church of Taylor. I very much don’t like the couplet about fighting and hell and patching it up — I don’t think that it’s explicitly about violence, but it’s ambiguous enough to be interpreted that way. The line “Staring out the window like I’m not your favorite town” is just not very good. Why is she a town, and why should she be the sole focus of her love interest’s attention? I like nature and I like looking out windows. Justice for her love interest!

Best Lyrics:
We might just get away with it
The altar is my hips
Even if it’s a false god
We’d still worship this love

Worst Lyrics:
Hell is when I fight with you
But we can patch it up good

139. Untouchable

Did Swift slip some innuendos onto Fearless? “Coming undone” could mean an emotional vulnerability like in Tied Together With A Smile or The Way I Loved You, but those were more volatile depressive and angry breakdowns. I think it’s probably about clothes (but in its defense, I think lots of things are about clothes). “It’s like a million little stars spelling out your name” does what The Moment I Knew couldn’t, and actually follows through with the visual. “Come on, come on, little taste of heaven” is a little too much for me, though. The song then repeats the same thing like ten times without any growth or development besides waking up from the dream and then falling back asleep and having the same dream and then waking up and sleeping and waking up and sleeping and waking up and now I’m asleep. [addendum: this is a cover?!]

Best Lyrics:
Untouchable, burning brighter than the sun
And when you’re close, I feel like coming undone

Worst Lyrics:
Come on, come on, little taste of heaven

138. Cruel Summer

I know that the Lover tour got cancelled. I understand this song is a bop. But if Swift could have gotten her fans to all memorize one bridge of hers to open her show, this is not the best one. “I don’t wanna keep secrets just to keep you” is its peak, but that’s not saying much. There’s garden-sneaking, which is done better on Love Story. There’s backseat drinking, which is done better on Cornelia Street. And there’s a reference to the devil, which is done better in the prechorus of this very same song.

The gambling devils are fine, but when “angels roll their eyes,” we know Swift is getting a little self-effacing. The twist of the conventional phrase “what doesn’t kill you makes you Stronger” is clever and a nice lead-in to the chorus. I hate when Ed Sheeran croons about body shapes, but Swift gets away with it when she sings “And it’s new, the shape of your body.”

But don’t think we’re done talking about the bad parts. “So cut the headlights, summer’s a knife / I’m always waiting for you just to cut to the bone” uses “cut” both times — the second should be slice or some other alternate word! “We say that we’ll just screw it up in these trying times / We’re not trying” tries to make a play on words, but “we’re not trying” is a toss-away line without more context. Presumably it’s about how they aren’t putting in the work for a relationship, but we need a bit more. The worst line calls her love interest a “bad, bad boy,” and a “shiny toy” to be bought. I won’t explain why these lines are weak and unappreciated.

Best Lyrics:
Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes
What doesn’t kill me makes me want you more

Worst Lyrics:
Bad, bad boy, shiny toy with a price
You know that I bought it

137. Lover

In a rare moment for Swift, the opening line is the worst. There’s a simple reason: everyone leaves their Christmas lights up until January (okay, maybe not everyone, but 61 percent is a healthy majority). The second verse fares better with “We could let our friends crash in the living room / This is our place, we make the call.” I like the simplicity of “Take me out and take me home,” but not the redundancy of “Can I go where you go? / Can we always be this close?” I’m not a fan of the “guitar string scar” line, because scars are overdone and a little gruesome. “And you’ll save all your dirtiest jokes for me” feels a little out of place. The best couplet in the song imagines their hearts as something borrowed and something blue, and makes an oblique reference to one of her hits while directly quoting Shakespeare.

Best Lyrics:
My heart’s been borrowed and yours has been blue
All’s well that ends well to end up with you

Worst Lyrics:
We could leave the Christmas lights up ’til January
And this is our place, we make the rules

136. So Long, London

I think the evolution of the chorus from a farewell (“So long, London”) to a declaration of prolonged history (“So long, London”) is smart. The first verse has a string of good lines: “I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift” plays on the Queen’s slogan, and like “My spine split from carrying us up the hill / Wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill.” The second verse isn’t as good, with a reference to some new “she” — but it also hosts the best line of the song, which will no doubt enter the conversation as one of the core takeaways of the album: “And I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free.” As of writing, I think the bridge is mediocre — there are ships going down like in gold rush, some language about how it’s hard to Breathe, and some holding on that brings to mind The Archer. The worst line is “two graves, one gun,” which seems out of place as a murder analogy. Of 31 songs, this was her Track 5! What happened?

Best Lyrics:
And I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free

Worst Lyrics:
Two graves, one gun

135. cardigan

Of the teenage love triangle songs, this is the worst. It’s got a bunch of good stuff and a bunch of mediocre stuff. The opening verse is a bunch of vibe-setting and an opaque “When you are young, they assume you know nothing,” which doesn’t make sense in the context of a vintage tee, heels on cobblestones, black lipstick, and sequin smiles. The latter two descriptors seem to be about Swift herself, and not an imagined high schooler. The same line works much better in the second verse, when the singer indirectly states (but at least hints at) their love interest’s infidelity with a suggestive retooling of “A friend to all is a friend to none.” Each verse is brought into the chorus nicely with the juxtaposed assertion that despite what “they” assume, the singer knew their love interest. “Playing hide-and-seek and / Giving me your weekends” is relatively tight and communicates the thrust of the song. “I knew I’d curse you for the longest time / Chasin’ shadows in the grocery line” is a nice I-still-see-you-everywhere couplet.

Now for some of the mediocre parts: “Leavin’ like a father / Running like water” makes me groan. The first line isn’t about the singer’s father because it’s “a,” so there’s no defense of subjective experience. Water has no agency in its flow, and I think the point of the song is to chastise these male figures for making the choice to cheat and leave. I certainly hope that this song isn’t pronouncing male infidelity and abandonment as human nature. And “You drew stars around my scars / But now I’m bleedin’” doesn’t work for all the reasons I’ve given above on why I don’t like scar analogies. Lastly, note how I haven’t even brought up the central simile of the song. It’s not effective. I personally don’t stash vintage sweaters under my bed. In our current society, vintage sweaters tend to be highly valued, not neglected. Who is the “someone” whose bed the singer is under, and how did the love interest get there? Moreover, the chorus ends with the love interest admiring the sweater — shouldn’t there be another line or so in the chorus that reveals this admiration is only temporary?

Best Lyrics:
A friend to all is a friend to none
Chase two girls, lose the one
When you are young, they assume you know nothing

Worst Lyrics:
You drew stars around my scars
But now I’m bleedin’

134. cowboy like me

A relatively obscure song (if 180 million streams at the time of writing this counts as “obscure”), it’s got an advanced voice in a few lines which really shine. The opening couplet is solid: “And the tennis court was covered up / With some tent-like thing.” It starts with an “and,” which I love as a device to plunge the reader into a continuing story. The opacity of “some tent-like thing” establishes the narrator as fallible and perhaps out-of-place at the courts. The generality later in the verse that “This is gonna be one of those things” is fine by itself, but when paired with “I’m never gonna love again” it becomes paradoxical (and not in a clever way). If the singer has fallen in this kind of love before, then presumably they can do so again if/after this falls apart, no? I don’t like the chorus — cowboys aren’t exactly the most inconspicuous figures, and don’t really have things “up their sleeves” like, say, a magician might. “And the skeletons in both our closets / Plotted hard to fuck this up” is a wasted expletive. The couplet “Now you hang from my lips / Like the Gardens of Babylon” is beautiful and an example of her more advanced voice, but the narrator in this song is supposed to be an anti-elite without a lot of worldly knowledge — so it’s a bit out of place.

Best Lyrics:
And the tennis court was covered up
With some tent-like thing

Worst Lyrics:
Oh, I thought
This is gonna be one of those things
Now I know
I’m never gonna love again

133. seven

The song’s best lyrics are at its start. I like the direct request of “Please picture me in the trees,” which is an appeal to be remembered for one’s earlier, innocent days. Enjambment reveals a twist: instead of hitting her peak at seventeen years of age, which is where you expect the rhyme to go (and which comports with much of her work surrounding high school love and early fame), she literally peaks at seven feet over the creek. But of course, she’s also a seven-year-old child here, so the line works both ways. “Sweet tea in the summer / Cross your heart, won’t tell no other” plays on tea-as-gossip, and evokes children having to swear what’s seen as the most serious oath of secrecy (which as adults, we think is silly) in order to share information they don’t fully understand (which as adults, we know is likely domestic abuse). I appreciate her covering a more sensitive topic.

Other lines aren’t as effective, and I think the intent is to use a youthful voice, but they come across as a little empty, such as the first one in the following couplet: “Your braids like a pattern / Love you to the Moon and to Saturn.” I get the second line’s simplicity, but what even is the pattern of the braids? Or “Pack your dolls and a sweater / We’ll move to India forever” — this is more defensible as a childhood voice; it’s picking somewhere far away on a globe where they can run away together. But Swift the writer should know that exoticizing countries across the world is a no-no. I understand what Swift is trying to do with the recurrent love-as-folk-songs analogy, but it seems to zoom out from the in vivo song to give an adult perspective without any transition between the states of time.

Best Lyrics:
Please picture me in the trees
I hit my peak at seven
Feet in the swing over the creek

Worst Lyrics:
Pack your dolls and a sweater
We’ll move to India forever

132. coney island

This is a breakup song, and more could be said about it, but that’s basically all it boils down to. There are a few good lines, but nothing amazing, and a few mediocre lines, but nothing awful. Take “Did I close my fist around something delicate? / Did I shatter you?” — the first line is good, the second line is bad. “Will you forgive my soul / When you’re too wise to trust me and too old to care?” is biting as a self-effacing rhetorical question, but a little wordy and requires going down multiple independent mental rabbit-holes, which is a little burdensome. “Sorry for not making you my centerfold” is a good line but I don’t like the centerfold imagery. “If I can’t relate to you anymore / Then who am I related to?” is probably the best couplet, as it describes the unmooring of a relationship where your love interest was your rock — maybe even literally part of your family — and consumed your connections, such that without them you’re left feeling truly alone. In the worst line, the singer unabashedly refers to themselves as a coaxing rogue, and describes their gift of love as paradise — not very humble.

Best Lyrics:
If I can’t relate to you anymore
Then who am I related to?

Worst Lyrics:
And do you miss the rogue
Who coaxed you into paradise and left you there?

131. King of My Heart

The chorus of this song is bold: “And all at once, you are the one I have been waiting for / King of my heart, body and soul.” I don’t like Swift giving fealty (and herself over) to her love interest, but I’ll concede it’s a potent declaration. I like the opening couplet a lot as a setup for her initial stasis, and the correspondingly disruptive effect of meeting this love interest: “I’m perfectly fine, I live on my own / I made up my mind, I’m better off bein’ alone.” It also calls back to The Way I Loved You, where “perfectly fine” is in fact not good enough for Swift. The best couplet makes use of some British slang she just happened to pick up on (totally unrelated to her love interest, I’m sure) that allows her to use fancy as both a verb and an adjective. I don’t know if Swift actually drinks beer out of plastic cups, but maybe with the right person…

There are some weak lines here, too. “My broken bones are mending / With all these nights we’re spending” is maybe a play on the bone-breaking Brooklyn referenced in another song, but it’s too cutesy for me. “Change my priorities / The taste of your lips is my idea of luxury” is achieved better by the “fancy” line above. “Now you try on callin’ me “baby” like tryin’ on clothes” would be fine if she cut “callin’ me” — just make the figurative leap. Lastly, Swift is not a “Motown beat.” This feels like appropriation. I understand with “I’m your American queen” she’s juxtaposing American democracy with British monarchy, but it makes it seem as though her love interest’s loyalty to her only extends to when he’s in America.

Best Lyrics:
Drinking beer out of plastic cups
Say you fancy me, not fancy stuff

Worst Lyrics:
Salute to me, I’m your American queen
And you move to me like I’m a Motown beat

130. The Lucky One

Ostensibly about some other star, this song reminds me of the last great american dynasty. The chorus is unfortunately the worst part: it just repeats itself but rephrases the statement as a question. I understand this question is meant to add a little dramatic tension where Swift challenges the initial statement, but there are ways to do that isn’t a direct repetition. “Everybody loves pretty, everybody loves cool” is such a funny line, because these traits are socially determined — so of course the majority of people like what the majority of people think is attractive or popular. But yeah, I get the point. “And they tell you that you’re lucky, but you’re so confused / ’Cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used” is a little emo, but not cringeworthy. The best line juxtaposes Madison Square Garden with a rose garden (and not that one).

Best Lyrics:
They say you bought a bunch of land somewhere
Chose the rose garden over Madison Square

Worst Lyrics:
Yeah, they’ll tell you now, you’re the lucky one
But can you tell me now, you’re the lucky one?

129. Snow On The Beach

This is a tumultuous song. But first, let me just say: do not name a song after a specific phrase you use at the end of a chorus if you’re going to use a very similar but slightly different phrase at the beginning of the chorus. Or, simply use the same phrase both times! “And it’s like snow at the beach” could just as easily be “on.” It’s a shame, because there are some kernels of greatness here: “I saw flecks of what could’ve been lights / But it might just have been you” is both adoring and adorable. “And my flight was awful, thanks for asking” is relatable, because most flights are awful, but you can still appreciate the check-in. “Stars by the pocketful” is likely a nod to Natasha Bedingfeld, and the singer’s earnest “Can this be a real thing? Can it?” is heartwarming. Except it directly follows the two worst lines on the song, and possibly all of Midnights: first, she calls the subject of the song’s eyes alien saucers. Not alien green. The shape of saucers. Which don’t even have a universally recognized shape beyond circular, which, like, say that. Second, she rhymes planet with Janet. This is a reference to Janet Jackson’s song All For You, but the rhyme is already conceptually claimed by a Schoolhouse Rock song.

Best Lyrics:
I saw flecks of what could’ve been lights
But it might just have been you

Worst Lyrics:
But your eyes are flying saucers from another planet
Now I’m all for you like Janet

128. Afterglow

This is an apology song, and refreshingly, both the opening couplet and chorus are strong. “I blew things out of proportion, now you’re blue / Put you in jail for something you didn’t do” doesn’t need a carceral reference, but it’s a good setup for the song to come. I don’t like the hands-pinning and boxing analogies that follow in the first verse, but then the chorus begins with “Hey, it’s all me, in my head” — a statement of accountability, but also a possible reference to deeper anxiety or insecurity. It’s the original “It’s me, hi / I’m the problem, it’s me.” The “afterglow” here is the post-fight comedown. It kind of presumes that the fight was the initial glow, so it’s not a perfect analogy, but I think it’s refreshing, and the titular couplet gets the whole point of the song across: “it’s all me, just don’t go” does a lot of work for Swift. The bridge is the song’s weakest link, with the second half getting dinged extra for failing to rhyme after the first half did — at least, it did relatively better than “fault / want / heart.”

Best Lyrics:
Hey, it’s all me, just don’t go
Meet me in the afterglow

Worst Lyrics:
Tell me that it’s not my fault
Tell me that I’m all you want
Even when I break your heart

127. Only the Young

This is overtly political, and I understand the sentiment underlying an appeal for young people to run for office. Still, “But only the young can run / So run, and run, and run” comes across as pretty ageist in its literal sense. The first four lines of the song pretty directly state people’s reaction after Trump won in 2016. We’ve all been there. A lot of you didn’t do “all that you could do,” though. Just saying. The first line is the best because it’s also transferable to any secondhand trauma. Some of the later lines are trying to be impactful — she talks about gun violence, and blames Trump & Co. — but come across as cheesy: “the big bad man and his big bad clan” is so farcical it almost sanitizes him, despite the next line stating his hands are bloodstained. The worst line is the one that makes a sports analogy and also states “The game was rigged,” which is concerning given the whole election-is-rigged conspiracies (yes, they grew in prominence after the 2020 elections, but they were already floating in 2016 and Swift should’ve known better than to include this language).

Best Lyrics:
It keeps me awake, the look on your face
The moment you heard the news
You’re screaming inside and frozen in time
You did all that you could do

Worst Lyrics:
The game was rigged, the ref got tricked

126. Starlight

Did Swift date a Kennedy just to write a song about his family? I wouldn’t dare make such an accusation (though I would criticize her for picking one who had only *just* turned 18 when she was already 22). The worst lyric is one that makes a direct reference to the ever-growing family, not just for the number of children but for the saccharine “teach them how to dream.” “The night wе snuck into a yacht club party / Pretending to be a duchess and a prince” is incredibly inaccessible, and also I’m pretty sure the Kennedys didn’t have to sneak into the party. The best line questions why the singer (and by extension, the listener) doesn’t “dream impossible things,” which is juxtaposed nicely by the subject of the song’s attempt to skip rocks on the ocean — a nice detail.

Best Lyrics:
He was trying to skip rocks on the ocean, saying to me
Don’t you see the starlight, starlight?
Don’t you dream impossible things?

Worst Lyrics:
Ooh-ooh, we could get married
Have ten kids and teach them how to dream

125. All of the Girls You Loved Before

What if jealousy didn’t exist? Swift expresses the implications on a song that I respectfully have a hard time believing she sings with her chest, particularly when she’s written loads of songs about insecurity over the past. The chorus is fine, with its highlight the oxymoronic “Every dead-end street led you straight to me.” The verses are mediocre, with couplets such as “When I think of all the makeup / Fake love out on the town,” “Sneakin’ out into town / Holdin’ hands, just killin’ time” and, oh god, “Now I call you baby / It’s why you’re so amazing” — which confuses the “it” of the song. But the bridge brings it back around with the sultry and vulnerable “I wanna teach you how forever feels.” Swift has a tendency to lean on marriage as the final climax of songs. We see this on at least Stay Stay Stay, Starlight, Love Story, Lover, and It’s Nice To Have A Friend. Of all of them, this is the most potent and authentic (though Stay Stay Stay is the cutest).

Best Lyrics:
I wanna teach you how forever feels

Worst Lyrics:
Now I call you “baby”
It’s why you’re so amazing

124. Clean

As mentioned above on Don’t Blame Me, I’m not the best person for drug references. So the most explicit reference to sobriety is my least favorite couplet in the song. Taylor’s cure for addiction? Her best friend: rain. I’ll admit this is a nice image of rain coming through her punched-in roof. And the juxtaposition that it took her drowning to be able to breathe is clever. But otherwise, it’s nothing special. Keeping my side of the C clean and ranking it here.

Best Lyrics:
Rain came pouring down
When I was drowning, that’s when I could finally breathe

Worst Lyrics:
Ten months sober, I must admit
Just because you’re clean don’t mean you don’t miss it

The C+ Lyrics

I’m glad that most Taylor Swift songs exist. But I think a C+ song is good enough that other people should listen to it, and not just for the music: the words have something meaningful to add. It might be one or two excellent lines, or a lot of mildly good ones.

123. imgonnagetyouback

Unfortunately, Olivia Rodrigo beat her to this one. It doesn’t ruin the song, but it feels a lot less inventive. Of all the forks in the road in the chorus, the best is “flip you off or / Pull you into the closet,” then “be your wife / smash up your bike,” then “curse you out / Take you back to my house.” I think the best line in the song comes in the second verse, where she extends the idea of an upper hand with literal physical contact: “I can take the upper hand and touch your body.” I hate to be so dirty, but I feel compelled to mine for easter eggs, and she’s writing about a dirty, dirty man from a dirty, dirty band — I think the first line of the bridge is also an innuendo: “I can feel it comin’, honey, in the way you move.” The worst line adds the word “dumb” to balance out syllables, but it’s a weak adjective that shouldn’t be used. I also don’t like the reference to Aston Martins, because I am not a car expert and have no clue what they look like or represent.

Best Lyrics:
I can take the upper hand and touch your body

Worst Lyrics:
Flip the script and leave you like a dumb house party

122. Dancing with Our Hands Tied

Like Clean, this song references a flood, but this time it accompanies a fire and blackout: “I’d kiss you as the lights went out / Swaying as the room burned down / I’d hold you as the water rushes in / If I could dance with you again.” And this isn’t even the best lyric in the song. I think the award goes to the second verse, which has two independently good lines in a row. In the first, Swift acknowledges she’s a mess, but doesn’t see it as her responsibility to fix this for her love interest: it’s what they wanted. The second is open to interpretation, but blames/credits gravity for their relationship. Maybe the love interest doesn’t think they deserve better. Maybe the love interest has fallen for her. Maybe the love interest is under her. No matter how you interpret it, there’s intrigue. (I also love another song which makes a similar reference to gravity, and two other songs with gravity in the title — ignore the latter song’s artist.) But back to this song. Unfortunately, the worst lyric tries to do what the apocalyptic bridge does, but delivers it too directly: asking if her partner would dance through an avalanche just isn’t as artful as her declaration she would do the same amidst details conveying a blackout, fire, and flood.

Best Lyrics:
I’m a mess, but I’m the mess that you wanted
Oh, ’cause it’s gravity
Oh, keeping you with me

Worst Lyrics:
So, baby, can we dance
Oh, through an avalanche?

121. Beautiful Eyes

One of her earlier songs, I’m frustrated it’s so hard to find — hopefully it makes it as a vault song on Debut (Taylor’s Version). It’s young, and she’s still figuring out her voice. Strong lines follow weak ones, and vice versa: “I wake up, I’m alive / In only a little while I’ll cry.” The first is good! The second, a little whiny (sorry). The worst part of the song comes in the chorus, where she asks for the subject of the song to “make her fly,” but this just seems like an attempt to rhyme with eyes — there’s no other reference to themes of figurative flight.

But otherwise, the generalities in this song work pretty well. “I wanna be somewhere where you are” is deceptively smart: insertion of “somewhere” allows for repetition of “where,” and is a little more playful than the more intuitive “anywhere” would be. The best lyric is the close of the chorus, which can be interpreted a few different ways. Either she’s looking through his eyes and into his soul, or she’s seeing the world from his eyes. She’s not the first artist to use this looking-through-you concept, but it’s effective.

Best Lyrics:
I’m looking through your eyes

Worst Lyrics:
So baby, make me fly

120. Tied Together with a Smile

A song about an eating disorder, this is probably the most serious song on Debut. The best lyric is the titular couplet, which figures her friend putting on a smile in public but having a hard time keeping up this facade. To my knowledge, it’s a new phrasing which is both tactful and poignant. I cringe a little every time she sings the chorus and references how her friend “might not be the golden one” — unless it’s a specific reference to how her friend was referred to as a golden child, it doesn’t work for me. Moreover, despite being a song with a specific theme, that theme is absent in the chorus (perhaps intentionally to market it more broadly).

Best Lyrics:
And you’re tied together with a smile
But you’re coming undone

Worst Lyrics:
And no one knows
That you cry, but you don’t tell anyone
That you might not be the golden one

119. You’re Not Sorry

A friend compared the best lyric in this song to what I consider one of the most masterful lyrics I’ve read in the past three years: “If you’re a work of art / I’m standing too close / I can see the brush strokes” off of Phoebe Bridgers’s ICU. I don’t think it’s quite that good, but it does convey the same idea: with some people, the more you know them, the shine wears off. Thankfully, that’s not always the case! Alas, here it is the case.

Aside from this line, the rest of the song is not great. Depending on how you read it, the chorus either rhymes the same word with itself or forces rhymes across words that really don’t sound alike. It’s mostly direct language without imagery or creative phrasing.

Best Lyrics:
You used to shine so bright, but I watched all of it fade

Worst Lyrics:
You don’t have to call anymore
I won’t pick up the phone
This is the last straw
Don’t wanna hurt anymore

118. Foolish One

I think I liked this song a lot more than most people did when it came out. I’ve softened a bit on my stance, but I still think it’s got some cute lines. “And chances are I will talk myself to sleep again” is on the same level of self-effacing as “Guess I’ll just stumble on home to my cats” from Gorgeous. I like that she matter-of-factly states she will block out the voices of reason in her head. She knows exactly what she’s doing. Favorite line is a little over-the-top — I’ll acknowledge it’s a bit antiquated to check your mailbox for confessions of love — but if anyone can bring it back, it’s Taylor! Other lines are oblique references to concepts that don’t get enough development. One example is her attempt to “seem bulletproof,” which is meant to be a juxtaposition against the delicateness of the situation, but it’d be better to contrast it with her own fragility.

Best Lyrics:
Stop checkin’ your mailbox for confessions of love
That ain’t never gonna come

Worst Lyrics:
And it’s delicate, but I will do my best to seem bulletproof

117. Come In with the Rain

This reference to a higher power is phrased cleverly. The chorus is decent — I appreciate the sentiment that she wants her love interest to take initiative, but it’s probably not a good idea to leave your window open such that anyone could enter. The outro conveys her inclination to replay every possible sign of reciprocity back in her mind — and then the conclusion that she doesn’t want to keep obsessing over this person: “I could go back to every laugh / But I don’t wanna go there anymore.”

When is she screaming the love interest’s name?

Best Lyrics:
Talk to the wind, talk to the sky
Talk to the man with the reasons why

Worst Lyrics:
I’ve watched you so long, screamed your name

116. Mr. Perfectly Fine

This was the first big vault song — but its potency came more from the drama surrounding it than its inherent quality. It’s got a gimmicky quality, really leaning into “Mr.” as a catch-all introduction for any adjectives which describe her ex. The best iteration is “Hello, Mr. Casually Cruel / Mr. Everything Revolves Around You” — but she uses the first phrase, “casually cruel,” in a far, far, far, far, far superior song we’ll cover later. Conversely, “Mr. Too Late” is so cheesy that it might singlehandedly put the state of Wisconsin out of business. But there are a few other good lines: “I’ve been pickin’ up my heart, he’s been pickin’ up her” sets up a nice juxtaposition. “Sashay your way to your seat / It’s the best seat, in the best room” sounds amazing when Swift sings it, and it’s fine written but not as impactful.

Best Lyrics:
Hello, Mr. Casually Cruel
Mr. Everything Revolves Around You

Worst Lyrics:
And someday maybe you’ll miss me
But by then, you’ll be Mr. Too Late

115. loml

The twist of this song is that “loml” can stand for “love of my life” or “loss of my life.” It’s a little more deft, as she moves from her ex stating she was the love of their life “about a million times” to her stating they’re the loss of her life. There’s also a theme of renewal and undying love (at least in doses): “Still alive, killing time at the cemetery / Never quite buried.” She spends a lot of time around the cemetery these days. I don’t know if she quite reaches closure as to whether this relationship should stay buried, and this unintentional ambiguity prevents the song from placing higher on the list. But there are some nice word choices and flourishes across the song. I like “We embroidered the memories of the time I was away / Stitching we were just kids, babe” as a description of two exes catching up and distinguishing their past break-down from their current potential. I wrote a line for a poem I never published that’s a little similar, and I’m claiming it as mine now so no one thinks I was inspired by Swift: “I stitch into your skin a second chance.” That’s mine. I claimed it. Moving on. “You cinephile in black and white” isn’t in and of itself a pejorative description, but we know from context that it should be. Oh, she also calls back to Mr. Perfectly Fine with “Mr. Steal Your Girl, Then Make Her Cry.”

The bridge is the strongest part of the song, with lists and sass aplomb. Take “It was legendary / It was momentary / It was unnecessary.” Its opening four lines are the highlight, juxtaposing a long-term future (rings and cradles!) against negative remarks behind closed doors. I really like her “unrecall” — that’s a nice touch.

The worst line comes in the last chorus: “Your arsons match your somber eyes” — which analogizes two conflicting concepts. If it were meant to be oxymoronic, it might be more effective. But I think she’s trying to simultaneously describe her ex’s eyes as somber and ablaze, which are not quite contradictory but in tension.

Best Lyrics:
You shit-talked me under the table
Talkin’ rings and talkin’ cradles
I wish I could unrecall
How we almost had it all

Worst Lyrics:
Your arsons match your somber eyes

114. This Love

Perhaps unsurprisingly, “love” is the most common word in Swift’s song titles, boasting eight tracks (with But Daddy I Love Him the newest entry). This song falls right in the middle at fifth, with a few strong lines, a decent chorus, and couple clunkers. Let’s start positive. “Tossing, turning / Struggled through the night with someone new” begins with a pretty clear double entendre I won’t explain, but both interpretations are fresh for Swift — and while the reduction of her new romantic partner to just “someone new” is a little disempowering for them, it’s powerfully phrased to the listener. “And I could go on and on, on and on and I will” is adored by a certain group which wrote it into one of their songs. I think they use it better, but we’ll give Swift credit for writing it first. The cyclical nature of love is expressed as currents, as death and rebirth, and…a young kid running. At least she didn’t drop a boomerang reference. The worst couplet conveys two different ideas, which aren’t fresh and don’t advance the song.

Best Lyrics:
Tossing, turning
Struggled through the night with someone new

Worst Lyrics:
This love left a permanent mark
This love is glowing in the dark

113. The Other Side of the Door

Back to December is probably Swift’s best-known want-you-back song. But there are a few others which predate it in her early catalog: The Way I Loved You gets at the same idea implicitly, whereas this song is a bit more blatant. Blatant is putting it softly. The chorus declares, “I said leave, but all I really want is you / To stand outside my window throwing pebbles / Screaming I’m in love with you.” It’s a nice sentiment, but this is her third and weakest stone-throwing line on Fearless: Love Story is better because it’s a direct reference to a scene from this little play by Shakespeare, and Hey Stephen is better because it inverts the gender roles and makes it rocks instead of pebbles, which is objectively funnier.

Thankfully, the titular line is more coy: “all I need is on / The other side of the door.” And there are some other highlights dispersed throughout the song. We get some subtext with “After everything and that little black dress.” She’s got a working couplet in “Me and my stupid pride are sittin’ here alone / Goin’ through the photographs, starin’ at the phone.” It’s nice to see early Taylor have a little self-deprecation. We don’t want to let her bash herself, but these sorts of couplets show signs of self-awareness and even a little humor, which give her stronger emotive force.

Best Lyrics:
Me and my stupid pride are sittin’ here alone
Goin’ through the photographs, starin’ at the phone

Worst Lyrics:
Oh, babe, if you know everything
Tell me why you couldn’t see
When I left, I wanted you to chase after me

112. Suburban Legends

Taylor wants you to know that she (in the world of this song) is not okay. Being a teenager is hard. Getting old is hard. Etcetera. The best couplet evinces this turmoil with dual uses of “hold” and a well-placed screw. “I broke my own heart ’cause you were too polite to do it” is also so over-the-top but well-written! “Flush with the currency of cool” is nice but she could’ve leaned into the best part of this line (flush) with a second reference to a face being flush, either his when she called him out for cheating, or hers when recognizing her social status (because apparently she’s not cool in this universe). Instead she focuses on the currency part, stating “I was always turning out my empty pockets.” It’s decent. It’s better than the worst couplet in the song, in which the singer presumes that the school cares enough about her and her love interest to know their star signs — which, if she’s uncool, is about as likely as Swift (the real one) ever adjusting to suburban life.

Best Lyrics:
When you hold me, it holds me together
And you kiss me in a way that’s gonna screw me up forever

Worst Lyrics:
I had the fantasy that maybe our mismatched star signs
Would surprise the whole school

111. Cold as You

Another track 5 song, if it even counts as one. Lyrically it’s in the top half of Debut, so that’s something. The chorus has both the best and worst parts — but the good washes out the bad. Swift soliloquizes, and comes to the realization that she’s “never been anywhere cold as you.” Now, it doesn’t get that cold in Berks County, but we get the point. She did a good job making the titles the best parts of her songs on Debut, and this is no exception. The rest of the chorus isn’t terrible, just lacking — if the verses are accurately describing the relationship, then I’m not sure it really was a perfect day just ruined by some rain. What is he (or she) defending? Is it the relationship itself? Is it love more broadly?

Best Lyrics:
And now that I’m sitting here thinking it through
I’ve never been anywhere cold as you

Worst Lyrics:
Oh, what a shame, what a rainy ending
Given to a perfect day
Just walk away, ain’t no use defending
Words that you will never say

110. Long Live

I. Do. Not. Like. Fairytale. Songs. But I kinda like her dragon line. Sue me. “Long live all the mountains we moved / I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you” is cute — mostly the mountain-moving and “time of my life” part. It brings to mind both Ingrid Michaelson and Green Day, two artists I wouldn’t ordinarily imagine in the same room, let alone sentence. Honorable mention to “May these memories break our fall,” which sounds very nice. Pro tip: if you want to sound profound, start your sentences with “may.” “Bring on all the pretenders” is incidentally funny because at quick glance it looks like she’s calling out people who are fake, but it’s actually a historical term for someone who (checks notes) claims to be a rightful ruler but is actually not. Good reference!

Okay now onto the bad stuff. The second verse. I know Swift says the song is about her music team, but it’s definitely trying to also be about a love interest (“If you have children some day” is for sure about a singular you). The first interpretation fits poorly because you don’t get crowns at music award shows. Under the latter interpretation, the first verse could be about winning prom king/queen. The second verse is about…winning a baseball playoff series? I’ll admit that its last couplet makes more sense if it’s about her music team. But “a band of thieves / In ripped up jeans got to rule the world” is embarrassing no matter how you slice it. Next time, shred it.

Best Lyrics:
Long live all the mountains we moved
I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you

Worst Lyrics:
We are the kings and the queens
You traded your baseball cap for a crown
When they gave us our trophies
And we held them up for our town
And the cynics were outraged
Screaming, “This is absurd”
’Cause for a moment, a band of thieves
In ripped up jeans got to rule the world

109. I Wish You Would

This song benefits immensely from Swift’s voice. The bridge sounds great when it’s an aural cascade of wishes — but it reads as nothing special. The best part of the song comes in the chorus, specifically the “it’s all good” line. Using context clues, you can come to the careful realization that it is in fact not all good, she is just saying this to say it! Honorable mention goes to “We’re a crooked love in a straight line down” — it has nice internal contrast, although under the logic of the analogy, hopefully most crooked loves would have a straight line down, right? Worst couplet comes right after this shape talk, with dual reference to “make,” but it’s not creatively used a different way each time. It’s just repetition, and it doesn’t even count as anaphora because this “but it” clause sets up the second line.

Best Lyrics:
I wish you were right here, right now, it’s all good
I wish you would

Worst Lyrics:
Makes you want to run and hide
But it makes you turn right back around

108. willow

This song has like twenty versions, all which have the same words. By this marketing scheme, it’s also certainly become the most overrated song on the album — I’d rather have an acoustic gold rush than a pop version of this. I think everyone would agree this is first and foremost a vibes song. The refrain has the strongest couplet: “The more that you say, the less I know / Wherever you stray, I follow” almost sounds like a John/Paul fusion somewhere in the realm of Nowhere Man. I also like “You know that my train could take you home / Anywhere else is hollow,” although there’s some slippage — would other people’s trains take her love interest to these hollow places, or would her train do so if it doesn’t in fact take her love interest home (despite the statement that it could)? The “come back stronger than a ’90s trend” line is out of place, but the worst lyric calls her love interest a trophy or champion ring — they are not a prize to be won.

Best Lyrics:
The more that you say, the less I know
Wherever you stray, I follow

Worst Lyrics:
Head on the pillow, I could feel you sneakin’ in
As if you were a mythical thing
Like you were a trophy or a champion ring

107. Blank Space

This song stood out when it was released because Swift made it clear she was very aware of how media portrayed her love life — and she was willing to lean into it. She’s in on the joke. The music video was quite good. It starts off strong with a fresh exposition which explicitly situates the listener as the new love interest: “Nice to meet you, where you been? / I could show you incredible things.” The chorus also works: “So it’s gonna be forever / Or it’s gonna go down in flames / You can tell me when it’s over / If the high was worth the pain.” The best lyric, is, of course, the Starb — kidding! “I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream” takes the cake. We’ve got a metaphor and simile bundled as a quasi-oxymoron, with some consonance to boot.

What doesn’t work? A few of the lines are a little lacking. “Rose garden filled with thorns” feels redundant because at this point in the song she’s no longer rosy — maybe “Rose garden down to thorns” would better show her tonal shift? Also, the bridge doesn’t work for me. I’ve never liked its generalization, when the whole point of the song is that she’s trying to fight the assumptions people make about her by satirically filling that role. The bridge isn’t satirical, and it’s also not self-effacing. Why is it there?

Best Lyrics:
I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream

Worst Lyrics:
Boys only want love if it’s torture
Don’t say I didn’t, say I didn’t warn ya

106. 22

This isn’t meant to be a wordy song — it’s a dance beat — but it’s still got some good lines. The bridge’s “You look like bad news / I gotta have you” isn’t the most specific verbiage, but it gets the idea across efficiently. The best line isn’t efficient, but the list of adjectives in the pre-chorus runs so smoothly you want to hear a few more. The point is that 22 is a tumultuous age with a host of feelings — it’s “miserable and magical” (nice alliteration!). Sadly, 22-year-olds no longer want to dress up like hipsters, which dates the song.

Best Lyrics:
We’re happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time
It’s miserable and magical, oh yeah

Worst Lyrics:
It feels like a perfect night
To dress up like hipsters

105. Better than Revenge

I miss the old lyrics. It’s hard to be a feminist and approve the thrust of the song, including most of the lyrics she kept. It’s preachy and paternalistic. That being said…some of it really works! “No amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity” is a killer line, even if it should probably be retired. In less offensive language, I like the opening verse’s last “and”: “The story starts when it was hot and it was summer and.” It reminds me of when you’re venting to a friend about someone else and telling a story and start a run-on sentence. The worst line makes reference to juvenile concepts of toys and playgrounds, which when combined with paternalism, comes across as cheesy and itself rather juvenile.

Best Lyrics:
She should keep in mind
There is nothing I do better than revenge

Worst Lyrics:
Soon, she’s gonna find stealing other people’s toys
On the playground won’t make you many friends

104. Babe

I think this song is pretty funny! I might be in the minority here. It’s got something to it: if you use a pet name for your partner, and then you break up, you’re probably going to stop using that name. In the best line of the song, she uses “takin’” both literally and figuratively to describe pictures on the wall and plans she made for them in her head. I guess she could be talking about plans on a physical calendar, but I like my interpretation better. Another nice line is “Your secret has its consequence and that’s on you, babe.” Other lines in the song are just so plain and lack details that it’s hard to inject meaning into them: “You said, No one else / How could you do this, babe?” Like, the subject of the song probably cheated. But I want more. Spill the tea, Taylor! I get what she’s trying to do in the weakest line: their actions make it impossible for her to love them. But it’s a little clumsy in its delivery.

Best Lyrics:
What a waste
Takin’ down the pictures and the plans we made

Worst Lyrics:
I hate that because of you, I can’t love you, babe

103. You All Over Me

This is a country song. Yay. I like how in the first verse, she analyzes the car at the unit of the tires instead of the oh-so-popular truck (which will get referenced in the next song on the list). The chorus is fine; I like the titular line, but the preceding line “No amount of freedom gets you clean” is a bit confusing when the song’s released after Clean — I think here she’s just talking about scent/fingerprints/memories of the subject of the song on her. But it might also be a reference to drugs/addiction? Which I don’t like. I also don’t like the line which claims you can scratch graffiti off. First of all, don’t touch it. Second of all, I don’t think most graffiti is scratchable, and even if you get off the first layer, it doesn’t make the stalls look clean again (which is the point of the line).

Best Lyrics:
The way the tires turn stones on old county roads

Worst Lyrics:
You find graffiti on the walls of old bathroom stalls, you know
You can scratch it right off, it’s how it used to be

102. Tim McGraw

This is a country song written about other country songs I haven’t heard, which are sung by a country singer who I don’t know. But it avoids some of the traps of country lyrics by adding a little flavor. For instance, look at her use of “tendency” to uplift an otherwise-stale verse: “Just a boy in a Chevy truck / That had a tendency of gettin’ stuck / On backroads at night.” The best lyric personifies a month and uses enjambment for a twist — that she’s only thankful he was gone because that way he wouldn’t see her cry. This reveal isn’t that much of a revelation, though, since it comes after the first verse and chorus where it’s already established that she misses him. The bridge is the weakest part; it doesn’t add much but to propel the story by turning everything that came before it into a letter she’s delivering to the subject of the song. It’s a twist I don’t find compelling, and the words themselves don’t add any lyricism.

Best Lyrics:
September saw a month of tears
And thankin’ God that you weren’t here
To see me like that

Worst Lyrics:
And I’m back for the first time since then
I’m standin’ on your street
And there’s a letter left on your doorstep
And the first thing that you’ll read

101. Clara Bow

Step aside, John Lennon: Swifts describes herself on behalf of her fans as “the new God we’re worshipping.” I need to issue a mea culpa: I state in my analysis of invisible string that I don’t like when Swift describes herself as “an American singer,” but apparently I really don’t like when she says her own name. That made me jump. Otherwise, this is a pretty good song about how fame is hard. I think the second line of each verse — particularly the first — is clever in using a qualifier to underscore the conditional nature of her praise: “In this light, remarkable.” In other lights? We’ll see. The best couplet uses the concept of a picked rose to describe the initial excitement of being selected for fame — and then the withering effect of scrutiny.

Best Lyrics:
All your life, did you know
You’d be picked like a rose?

Worst Lyrics:
You look like Taylor Swift

100. Carolina

My notes on this song are “hate it but it’s got some bars.” The best line gets repeated in the chorus, which uses anaphora and a figurative expression to add subtext. It’s reminiscent of Ethel Cain’s “Say what you want, but say it like you mean it / With your fists for once” (a great song, by the way). The second verse artfully attributes bloodstains to the systemic injustice of the state, with what seems like a reference to Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before Congress regarding another instance of assault: “Carolina stains on the dress she left / Indelible scars, pivotal marks.” The worst lyrics, which come in the bridge, aren’t even bad — they just fail to create a unique rhyme, opting instead for repetition. I have a hard time ranking the song higher because it’s such a downer, but I can’t deny it’s written well.

Best Lyrics:
I make a fist, I’ll make it count

Worst Lyrics:
And you didn’t see me here
No, they never did see me here

99. Dear John

I feel like I’m going to get hate for this song’s placement, so let me affirm that I like it. This is just where it falls among all the songs in her catalog. There are some lines others love which don’t work as well for me. “You paint me a blue sky / And go back and turn it to rain” only makes sense if John Mayer is a painter. Is he? (Apparently yes, but I didn’t know that.) I don’t think he plays chess, and if he does I could probably beat him. The rules of chess don’t change, so her analogy doesn’t work (just like another song which references a crossword, featured below). Unlike some, I don’t find the “Dear John” introduction to the chorus to be that powerful, but the remainder of the chorus works well: simple language and use of “girl” shows the message that she’s too young! Moreover, inverting it into a question puts the blame on him: shouldn’t he have known? As a reminder, he was 31. She was 19. Here’s a photo for reference. I am at the perfect age to perceive him as old and her as young. Ick Ick Ick Ick Ick Ick Ick Ick Ic–

Best Lyrics:
Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with?
The girl in the dress cried the whole way home

Worst Lyrics:
And I lived in your chess game
But you change the rules every day

98. Today Was a Fairytale

As mentioned above, I’m not a fan of fairytale themes. But despite the title, this one stays in the real world. Which I appreciate! The chorus effectively uses juxtaposition (even if it reaffirms gendered clothing :( ). It’s simple and that’s kind of the point: she doesn’t need much with him to be happy. Not surprisingly, my least favorite part of the song is where she leaves the real world (Earth) and claims his smile takes her to “another planet” — which is strange because most fairytales are set on Earth.

Best Lyrics:
Today was a fairytale, I wore a dress
You wore a dark gray t-shirt
You told me I was pretty when I looked like a mess

Worst Lyrics:
You’ve got a smile
That takes me to another planet

97. Now That We Don’t Talk

Another song that is about the same relationship on the same album from the same vault communicates what I think is the same message, but better. Which isn’t to say this is bad; it’s just inferior. The second verse has the most interesting couplet, which almost insults the subject of the song for changing their presentation. But on closer look, it’s not pejorative: she’s just noticing that the subject seems to be going through something. A set of lyrics from the outro are more caustic and add humor: “important men who think important thoughts” is definitely pejorative. The chorus is fine. The bridge doesn’t add anything — it’s just Taylor using stilted speech while trying to force some rhymes. There’s no art in its words or phrasing, except for some clumsy enjambment.

Best Lyrics:
You grew your hair long, you got new icons
And from the outside, it looks like you’re trying lives on

I don’t have to pretend I like acid rock
Or that I’d like to be on a mega-yacht
With important men who think important thoughts

Worst Lyrics:
What do you tell your friends we
Shared dinners, long weekends with?
Truth is, I can’t pretend it’s
Platonic, it’s just ended, so

96. Nothing New

I really like Phoebe Bridgers, so it’s a shame this couldn’t end up higher on the list. A lot of the lyrics are mildly positive, but none are a breakthrough for either artist. For instance, the titular couplet “How can a person know everythin’ at eighteen / But nothin’ at twenty-two?” is like, good — but it, itself, is “nothing new” in the realm of getting-older songs. The worst lyric isn’t that bad; I just don’t know who the “they” are and it’s not clear what exactly they’re driving her out of. The best line is the acknowledgment that people get tired of both victims and victimization — so both artists (and Phoebe sings this line) have to measure the content of their songs. Don’t worry, plenty of tears are still shed in their subsequent eras.

Best Lyrics:
How long will it be cute, all this cryin’ in my room?
When you can’t blame it on my youth

Worst Lyrics:
I wonder if they’ll miss me once they drive me out

95. I Bet You Think About Me

This song is funny! Which is good, because it doesn’t have a whole lot else going for it. “And the girl in your bed has a fine pedigree” rolls off the tongue, and I don’t think it’s outwardly tearing down the woman in question, just judging the subject of the song’s own judgmental standards. The million-dollar couch is a zinger — and I think it’s a leather one, reducing his organic (presumably vegan) shoes to little more than a virtue signal. I realize Swift is trying to lean into her country origin and folksy roots — but it’s very misleading to state she was raised on a farm that wasn’t a mansion while conveniently leaving out its 15-acre expanse. And I’m sure she had plenty of “livin’ room dancin’,” but kitchen table bills? Her dad worked for Merrill Lynch. I’m not saying this means she was in the 1% (she was), and I get she’s contrasting herself with Gyllenhaal’s upbringing, but come on.

Best Lyrics:
I bet you think about me in your house
With your organic shoes and your million-dollar couch

Worst Lyrics:
I was raised on a farm, no, it wasn’t a mansion
Just livin’ room dancin’ and kitchen table bills

94. Wildest Dreams

I don’t think this song needed to be written, but it’s better than most of the singles off 1989, so I’ll take it. The chorus feels basic, written to appeal to everyone without giving any details beyond a “nice dress,” “red lips,” and “rosy cheeks.” The second verse still speaks in generalities, but is more nuanced: “His hands are in my hair, his clothes are in my room” leverages anaphora to tell the progression of an evening. The bridge communicates the theme of the song far more efficiently than the chorus: “You’ll see me in hindsight / Tangled up with you all night.” The opening of the song is its worst part, if only because he refers to wherever they are as both a city and a town, when everyone knows they are mutually exclusive terms.

Best Lyrics:
You’ll see me in hindsight
Tangled up with you all night

Worst Lyrics:
He said, Let’s get out of this town
Drive out of the city, away from the crowds

93. Come Back…Be Here

Some of it’s cute, some of it’s cheesy: it’s another I-miss-you song. She shines where she gets a little creative in her syntax, and rusts where she forces similes and overemphasizing things we already know. For instance: “This is falling for you when you are worlds away” is redundant with everything else preceding it. The analogy she makes of her mind spinning faster than his plane is too much of a jump — and also not an effective hyperbole, since the speed of thought isn’t comparable to spatial distance. I can think about the Sun and then return my thoughts to Earth faster than a spaceship could travel the same distance. But the chorus’s simplicity and imperative-style language is effective, and the best couplet lets us do the (not-too-heavy) work: “Taxi cabs and busy streets / That never bring you back to me” suggests that every cab and every street just remind her of him. There are a lot of streets in New York (and taxis).

Best Lyrics:
Taxi cabs and busy streets
That never bring you back to me

Worst Lyrics:
But in my mind, I play it back
Spinning faster than the plane that took you

92. Teardrops on My Guitar

I find the verses in this song to be pretty mediocre and a little naive, which is okay because she was young when she wrote this. The chorus and outro are suspiciously more mature in their voice, but I’m not one to speculate. The chorus employs creative syntax: “He’s the reason for the teardrops on my guitar.” It also uses a metaphor, comparing her love interest to an earworm: “He’s the song in the car I keep singing, don’t know why I do.” But the outro is a clear standout, with a metaphor, a tight juxtaposition, and heaps of subtext. On the other end, the first verse is redundant and also grammatically questionable: why not make it “That I want and I need,” which would be a closer rhyme? If Swift was worried about it sounding redundant, she could utilize need as a double-down: “That I want and I think I need.” While we’re at it, swap “should” with “could”: I know she’s trying to emphasize that they should be together, but “could” delivers it just as well and adds a sense of potentiality and hope.

Best Lyrics:
He’s the time taken up, but there’s never enough
And he’s all that I need to fall into

Worst Lyrics:
I fake a smile so he won’t see
That I want and I’m needing
Everything that we should be

91. The Black Dog

Swift uses Find My just like the rest of us! This song has a plain-spoken quality that draws in the reader. Look at the first verse: “I am someone who until recent events / You shared your secrets with / And your location, you forgot to turn it off / And so I watch as you walk / Into some bar called The Black Dog / And pierce new holes in my heart / You forgot to turn it off / And it hits me.” Every “and” transitions us to the next. Reads like poetry.

In the chorus, she takes a swing at her ex’s habit of dating younger people with “And you jump up, but she’s too young to know this song.” The third chorus has a nice “I hope it’s shitty” throwaway, but the second chorus is the best of the three, with an innuendo where she’s shaking in the rain (but it’s the shower): “I just don’t understand how you don’t miss me / In the shower and remember how my rain-soaked body / Was shakin’, do you hate me?” The worst couplet falls in the second verse, where she generically states “You said I needed a brave man / Then proceeded to play him.” It’s not as effective a take-down as anything else in this song. It’s worth mentioning that beyond the name of a place, the title can also be a symbol of depression, as seen on Arlo Parks’s Black Dog.

Best Lyrics:
I am someone who until recent events
You shared your secrets with
And your location, you forgot to turn it off
And so I watch as you walk
Into some bar called The Black Dog

Worst Lyrics:
You said I needed a brave man
Then proceeded to play him

90. Breathe

This is another of her many breakup songs. “People are people and sometimes we change our minds” is a nice line. Otherwise, most of the song — except the chorus — feels pretty generic: it’s killing her, it’s never easy, nothing’s gonna save her from the fallout, etc. The bridge is weak, stating it feels like she lost a friend. Maybe she wasn’t friends with this ex, but I think most people would say their romantic partner is also their friend — so use of a simile here not only weakens their relationship, but accessibility for a broader audience. “It’s 2 A.M., lost my love and I lost a friend” would be so much better! But the chorus buoys this song: she can’t do the most basic thing in the world (breathe) without the partner. The next four words are exceptional — and I’m not just saying this because I accidentally wrote a song about the same concept. It’s not “and I need to” or “but I’m trying to.” It’s “but I have to.” She’s so miserable that she’s only breathing because she knows (1) she has to do it to survive, even if she doesn’t want to, and (2) she has to move forward, since she can’t bring back the relationship. Here, “breathe” does triple duty. It’s such a great line that I don’t mind it’s the entire chorus.

Best Lyrics:
And I can’t breathe without you, but I have to

Worst Lyrics:
It’s 2 A.M., feeling like I just lost a friend

89. Sparks Fly

The chorus is the best part of this song, specifically the first couplet with its commands. Use of imperatives (literally) gives Swift power, and the concept of sparks flying — which appears on another song released on Speak Now — is Taylor-branded enough that I personally think it should’ve been the name of the album. (Funnily enough, before Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) dominated the media, I would sometimes accidentally refer to the album as Sparks Fly). The worst line comes after a decent one asking her partner to “whisper soft and slow” — but then she says she’s captivated like a fireworks show. Two problems: first, if she wants something quieter and more intimate, why use an explosive simile? Second, she uses sparks as the central metaphor of the song. By haphazardly adding in a reference to (much-stronger) fireworks in the bridge, it cheapens the chorus.

Best Lyrics:
Drop everything now, meet me in the pouring rain
Kiss me on the sidewalk, take away the pain

Worst Lyrics:
And lead me up the staircase, won’t you whisper soft and slow?
I’m captivated by you, baby, like a fireworks show

88. Fifteen

Confession: I didn’t like the first few albums much when they came out. Maybe I was too young. Maybe my tastes have changed. I remember this song was so overplayed at the time. Even now, where I’ve grown to like a lot of her earlier catalog, listening to this still brings back “ugh” memories. But despite this, of her “number” songs, as you may have realized by now, it’s the strongest lyrically. “In your life you’ll do things greater than / Datin’ the boy on the football team” is a bit of a platitude, but I understand why people like to quote it. It’s also not accessible to most people, which weakens its potency. Much better is “This is life before you know who you’re gonna be,” which is self-aware enough to make you think, hmm, she might be going places! The worst part (because I simply don’t like what it represents) is when she hopes a senior will flirt with her.

Best Lyrics:
This is life before you know who you’re gonna be
At fifteen

Worst Lyrics:
Hopin’ one of those senior boys will wink at you and say
“You know, I haven’t seen you around before”

87. the last great american dynasty

It’s a nice story where she inhabits someone else’s persona: here, the person whose house she bought. I wonder if her NIL came with the deed? “She had a marvelous time ruining everything” is a nice line that has made it into the captions of far too many posts on Instagram. It’s not as strong as a couplet in the first verse covering her wedding. The word “gauche” is so well-placed, as is “charming” — I can envision exactly the kind of people who would say this after a new-money wedding. I personally don’t like the twist where Taylor enters the story at the end of the bridge. I understand it adds a second layer, but I’d prefer the biopic (biotune?) approach.

Best Lyrics:
The wedding was charming, if a little gauche
There’s only so far new money goes

Worst Lyrics:
Free of women with madness, their men and bad habits
And then it was bought by me

86. Stay Stay Stay

This is a fun song. Taylor wants you to know that, as she explicitly says so in the outro. It’s about young love and a couple that is in a good place. Even their fights are cute! She’s still learning how to be in a relationship, and resorts to self-help books (or, more likely, a wikiHow). And he comes in with a football helmet so she can’t throw a phone at him again! Which is cute — though the phone-throwing was not, Taylor >:(

Best Lyrics:
This morning, I said we should talk about it
Cause I read you should never leave a fight unresolved
That’s when you came in wearing a football helmet
And said, okay, let’s talk

Worst Lyrics:
I threw my phone across the room at you

85. Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince

Those deep in the lore have like seven interpretations of this song. I think I see two: a political awakening and a high school whirlwind romance. The best couplet in the song can be read both ways: “American glory faded before me” could represent a disillusionment with high school in the heartland or with American exceptionalism. Both are things which propped up Taylor and which Taylor (in her earlier career) propped up — but her overt patriotism diminished as she grew up, especially after the 2016 presidential election. “Ripping up her prom dress” might be a literal purge at the end of high school, or might be a refutation of gender roles and the part she played in endorsing them (see: Love Story, Today Was a Fairytale, Fearless, Better Than Revenge, etc.). The worst couplet is trying to set up more of this gender dynamic, but referring to women as damsels is strange — unless she was forecasting our return to ancient abortion laws — and “boys will be boys” is fine as a cheeky throwaway, but the “wise men” invocation goes too far in the cutesy direction.

Best Lyrics:
American glory faded before me
Now I’m feeling hopeless, ripped up my prom dress

Worst Lyrics:
I’m feeling helpless, the damsels are depressed
Boys will be boys then, where are the wise men?

84. Begin Again

DON’T BRING UP EXES ON A FIRST DATE. Okay now we can move onto the good parts. This is a cute song that deals with a first date after a bad relationship, where she begins to admire the little things this new person does. It’s plain-spoken, and that’s perfectly fine (though her particular word choice here doesn’t make for amazing poetry). The best lyric encapsulating the song comes when she expresses appreciation for his small chivalrous act of pulling out her chair. She juxtaposes how she and he see the act, and there’s clear (but not overdone) subtext that this kind of generosity was missing in her prior relationship.

Best Lyrics:
You pull my chair out and help me in
And you don’t know how nice that is
But I do

Worst Lyrics:
And we walked down the block to my car
And I almost brought him up

83. Red

The song of a hundred similes and metaphors; most work! And some do not. I like the chorus’s invocation of colors — it’s not new but it’s clean. Honorable mention to “Faster than the wind, passionate as sin,” which has a nice internal rhyme. Unfortunately, some of these similes in the verses are clunky. The worst offender is the crossword simile: there are right answers! Charitably, she’s speaking about crosswords with typos. But in those cases, you can just call them up and tell them they misspelled the former ruler of Libya. I think a jigsaw puzzle would be more apt here, but maybe that’s just me.

Best Lyrics:
Losing him was blue like I’d never known
Missing him was dark gray, all alone

But loving him was red

Worst Lyrics:
Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword
And realizing there’s no right answer

82. I Forgot That You Existed

A humorous take-down of a former flame, here Swift swaps out revenge for indifference. The theme is fresh for Taylor but not for most people, and beyond the titular lyric there isn’t a whole lot of ground broken. I find the Drake reference kind of endearing and timely at the time of its release — though as both songs age, it grows dated. The best lyric is funny, declaring she forgot so much about the relationship that she no longer remembers any of the “hard lessons” from their breakup. The worst lyric recycles Last Kiss’s “name on my lips” and confusingly lines it up with “tongue-tied” — but those have contradictory connotations. Is she persistently repeating her love interest’s name, or is she unable to speak due to anxiety?

Best Lyrics:
Sent me a clear message
Taught me some hard lessons
I just forget what they were

Worst Lyrics:
Your name on my lips, tongue-tied
Free rent, living in my mind

81. Bigger Than The Whole Sky

The title is the best phrase of the song, and it’s nice at first glance, but doesn’t convey much upon further inspection: the subject was, like, a big deal. The titular couplet utilizes anaphora and pairs magnitude of (figurative) space and time, which is pleasant. Very frustratingly, she spoils a subsequent (and superior) song on Midnights at the end of the chorus: “What could’ve been, would’ve been / What should’ve been you.” You only get to use this once on an album, Taylor. The worst lyric takes the butterfly effect and, for no apparent reason, swaps in a bird. Perhaps a bird’s wings are stronger than a butterfly’s — but the whole point of the idiom is that even a tiny flutter across the world can have a seismic impact, so extending it to a stronger catalyst weakens its underlying bite.

Best Lyrics:
You were bigger than the whole sky
You were more than just a short time

Worst Lyrics:
Did some bird flap its wings ovеr in Asia?

80. Never Grow Up

This song deals a heavy dose of nostalgia. It’s strongest when she’s speaking from her own lived experience: a plea to treat her mother better (the wisest lyric in the song), an admission of vulnerability after moving to her first apartment, a realization that everything she has, someday, will be gone. It’s weakest when she tries to stretch beyond her own self to others — like the opening verse where she embodies a parent.

Best Lyrics:
But don’t make her drop you off around the block
Remember that she’s gettin’ older, too

Worst Lyrics:
Your little eyelids flutter ’cause you’re dreaming
So I tuck you in, turn on your favorite nightlight

79. Style

One of her sultriest songs, Swift does a good job here using stream-of-consciousness lyrics to build a narrative. We’re left to fill in the details, but that’s the point — different from some of the above songs where sparse lyrics are better attributed to carelessness. Moreover, here she guides our imagination: we know where his wild eyes are, and can guess what comes off after his coat. There’s a clever twist in the second pre-chorus where it sounds like she’ll be mad that the subject of the song has been unfaithful, but then she reveals right before the chorus that she too has “been there a few times.” 1989 Taylor has grown up.

I know the chorus and title of the song is likely a reference to a certain artist’s name, which is fine. The concept of styles coming in and out is perfectly reasonable. But trying to then pair this with some sort of turbulent crash/comeback doesn’t work for me. Not to mention that crashing down and coming back aren’t perfect converses.

Best Lyrics:
So it goes
He can’t keep his wild eyes on the road
Takes me home
The lights are off, he’s taking off his coat

Worst Lyrics:
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
’Cause we never go out of style

78. The Way I Loved You

An early entry, this song captures her desire for a passionate (what some might call toxic) former flame to return and replace her current partner, who’s “sensible” and “endearing” but doesn’t catch her heart. She acknowledges that she’s “perfectly fine,” but that just isn’t enough.

This is a list song, and some lists are better than others. The chorus is the best: “screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain” tells a story (though I’m not sure what distinguishes the screaming from the fighting). The bridge is the worst: it’s a smattering of adjectives that are all pretty surface- level. He’s a wild and crazy guy! He’s complicated! Overall, it’s a good sliver of a story, though I think an older Taylor would probably give us a proper conclusion either confronting the subject of the song or explicitly resigning herself to her current relationship.

Best Lyrics:
And I feel perfectly fine
But I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain
And it’s 2AM and I’m cursing your name

Worst Lyrics:
And you were wild and crazy
Just so frustrating, intoxicating, complicated

77. Sad Beautiful Tragic

Two quips in the song stand out, both of which lean on repetition. The first calls out the subject for taking too long to deliver her a note (probably an apology of sorts). Here, she doubles up use of the word “little” to emphasize an implicit third use: there’s little either can do to repair the relationship. The second personifies time, evolving the idiom of taking one’s sweet time to put time itself in the driver’s seat. It’s a clever phrase which has deservedly ended up on tumblrs and laptop stickers.

Unfortunately, the chorus is pretty basic. Half of the words rhyme, but the other half just repeat themselves, so that doesn’t earn her wordsmithing points. The bridge starts off strong with a narrative list that tells a story: “Distance, timing / Breakdown, fighting.” But then it collapses with repetition that is neither artful anaphora nor clever entendres: “Kiss me, try to fix it / Could you just try to listen?” The second line seems like a direct question posed to the subject, while the first line is a bird’s-eye description. A sad, not-so-beautiful, tragic stumble.

Best Lyrics:
Long handwritten notes, deep in your pocket
Words, how little they mean when you’re a little too late

And time is taking its sweet time erasing you

Worst Lyrics:
Kiss me, try to fix it
Could you just try to listen?

76. Anti-Hero

People really like this song. And it was very on-theme during the eclipse. I do like the chorus’s admission “It’s me, hi / I’m the problem, it’s me.” And the personification of depression is clever and opens up possibilities for some complementary morbid concepts. I don’t even mind the “sexy baby” line, although it certainly doesn’t boost the song for me.

The two issues I have with this song are that (1) it’s simultaneously self-effacing and self-victimizing, and (2) in some places, it tries too hard to be clever. Everything which makes the chorus’s above admission powerful works against the titling of the song as “anti-hero” — at least the way I understand anti-heroes, they’re still respected and beloved figures like Zuko or Han Solo or Jack Sparrow.

As mentioned above, I do appreciate the cleverness of some lines here. But in a few places, she drops tongue-twisters and cascading rhymes which fail to impress. The “screaming / dreaming / scheming” rhyme would be more impressive if she didn’t also force in “leaving.” And while I admire an attempt to get political, none of “narcissism / altruism / congressman” rhyme — and are all congresspeople narcissists? Be more specific with your jabs please.

Best Lyrics:
When my depression works the graveyard shift, all of the people
I’ve ghosted stand there in the room

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

75. Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus

Note to fans: if you say you miss the old Taylor, that might just break her heart. The opening couplet is a little gimmicky with a hologram, which is a shame because the second line is so well written, leveraging alliteration and teeming with subtext: “Your hologram stumbled into my apartment / Hands in the hair of somebody in darkness.” On a more substantive note, I like her use of multiple names to reference her ex’s partners, some of which are feminine-typed and some of which are masculine-typed. We support bisexuality; I hope she’s not using this as a dig. I also hope that Travis wasn’t a high school bully, but based on a couplet here he might’ve been: “And you saw my bones out with somebody new / Who seemed like he would’ve bullied you in school.”

The highs and lows of this song come in threes. I don’t like the triplet “Can we watch our phantoms like watching wild horses? / Cooler in theory, but not if you force it to be / It just didn’t happen.” I’m not sure who watches wild horses, I don’t like the use of “cooler,” it doesn’t rhyme, and it’s unclear what “just didn’t happen.” The peak of the song is the second verse, where she sets herself up against drugs — which she loses to — employs another un-word like in loml, and lobs an ambiguous phrase to capture an amorphous state of being: “You said some things that I can’t unabsorb / You turned me into an idea of sorts / You needed me, but you needed drugs more.”

Best Lyrics:
You said some things that I can’t unabsorb
You turned me into an idea of sorts
You needed me, but you needed drugs more

Worst Lyrics:
Can we watch our phantoms like watching wild horses?
Cooler in theory, but not if you force it to be
It just didn’t happen

74. Picture to Burn

Easily the funniest song on her first album, this also benefits from a smart (and striking) metaphor in the chorus. Its weakest components stem from its placement in the country pantheon, where tired tropes and half-hearted references to the heartland limit its potential: I’m not impressed by her depiction of a “redneck heartbreak” with a “stupid old pickup truck.” But the invectives — oh, the invectives! She starts off with the pitiless “I realize you love yourself more than you could ever love me.” And the oh-so-thinly-veiled threat that “coming back around here would be bad for your health.” And, of course, the extended metaphor of their memories as “just another picture to burn.” As mentioned above, I could do without the Americana. Nor am I a fan of the threat of “daddy” — the health line is so much better!

Best Lyrics:
So watch me strike a match on all my wasted time
As far as I’m concerned, you’re just another picture to burn

Worst Lyrics:
And if you come around sayin’ sorry to me
My daddy’s gonna show ya how sorry you’ll be

73. Mastermind

Speaking of striking metaphors: you can see in the best lines from this song how far Swift’s writing has come. Again, she sparks a light. But here, she employs passive voice to deflect from her behind-the-scenes actions. The words flow whether read or sung. Another couplet which flows well: “The dominoes cascaded in a line / What if I told you I’m a mastermind?” The phrasing of the chorus as a question is itself interesting and builds intrigue.

I don’t like that she moves from a personal narrative to a broader gender dynamic in the second verse, and then promptly returns to a story about herself. I’m not sure what the value is in the reference to “wisest women,” except to make the song more relatable for people not already drawn by the individual story. But the story should be enough to carry the song: if not, don’t write about it. As it stands, the song’s weakest link — perhaps the first domino — falls in the second verse.

Best Lyrics:
And the touch of a hand lit the fuse
Of a chain reaction of countermoves
To assess the equation of you

Worst Lyrics:
You see, all the wisest women
Had to do it this way

72. You’re Losing Me

This song has a bunch of good parts. I like the death of love/death of life analogy in the chorus because it’s not too visceral and gets the point across directly. There are a few standout lines — honorable mention goes to “And the air is thick with loss and indecision / I know my pain is such an imposition.” The clear winner is the most-quoted line, with the mellifluous self-description as a “pathological people pleaser.”

Unfortunately, the song leans in a few places on the battle/war trope, one which I’ve critiqued above and which corrodes so many of her otherwise good lyrics. I just don’t find love-as-a-battle storylines to be compelling. Taking the metaphor at face value: what, exactly, is she bleeding? If she’s in the frontlines of her partner’s army, against whom is she fighting?

Best Lyrics:
And I wouldn’t marry me either
A pathological people pleaser

Worst Lyrics:
And all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier
Fighting in only your army, frontlines, don’t you ignore me

71. mirrorball

I think this is an excellent song musically. Lyrically, it’s all right. The notion of being a mirror for others is not new in music — but it’s still not a common topic, and she writes it well. She shines brightest in the chorus, where dual superlatives of “tallest tiptoes / highest heels” emphasize the extent to which she’ll stretch herself — literally — for her partner.

I’m not a fan of the bridge’s first couplet, which is apparently about the pandemic. The circus is maybe her Lover tour? or maybe it’s the stock market? I honestly have no clue. But it seems to make light of the plight people faced in 2020 and beyond.

Best Lyrics:
But I’m still on my tallest tiptoes
Spinning in my highest heels, love
Shining just for you

Worst Lyrics:
And they called off the circus, burned the disco down
When they sent home the horses and the rodeo clowns

70. Holy Ground

The best lyric on this song might be her best lyric we’ve covered so far: it’s got a remarkable maturity to it, casually cruel in its phrasing. It reduces the romance of her and the subject of the song to just another cycle, and here the “guess” is particularly effective. The “story” line is a nod to another song which we’ll talk about later on.

Unfortunately, the rest of the lyrics don’t live up to this couplet. Swift delivers them with charm, but when stripped from the melody, they’re fairly basic. The chorus calls their romance “good” and then “holy ground,” which aren’t consistent in scale or scope. The weakest line compares their romance to a “green light, go” — no.

Best Lyrics:
And I guess we fell apart in the usual way
And the story’s got dust on every page

Worst Lyrics:
Took off faster than a green light, go

69. You’re On Your Own, Kid

One of the presumptive highlights off of Midnights, it received a lot of attention as a track 5 darling. And it’s not bad by any means. It’s got a lone-wolf message that doesn’t really track with the upbeat tempo, but that’s not too much of a concern when analyzing the lyrics independent of the music. There’s growth throughout the song as she gets older, but I don’t know if it earns the ultimate twist that being alone is a good thing — there’s something missing at the epiphany stage of the bridge. The best lyric uses consonance and with just six words shows the singer’s progression from playful youth to somber adulthood. The worst lyric doesn’t do much — “I hear it in your voice” has the potential to communicate subtext, but the next line states it’s literal; and it’s not some damning realization, just a logistical hiccup. What’s the big deal, unless smoking is a dealbreaker for her? “I hear it in your voice, again you’re with your boys” would hint at a repetitive prioritization of his friends over her. “I hear it in your voice, she’s with you and the boys” would allude to another girl/young woman who sparks jealousy or insecurity. As it stands, the lyric is empty — Swift can do better.

Best Lyrics:
From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes

Worst Lyrics:
I hear it in your voice, you’re smoking with your boys

68. Labyrinth

Dr. Swift dropped hints of this song in her commencement speech at NYU. It’s a good song, but let’s just say it’s not the reason she got that honorary degree. It’s about boomeranging to a new love after a former relationship ends. Ironically, the brief reference to the past love is the strongest lyric: she twists the first line with the second, revealing that she was constantly in pain, hoping it’d get better — count to 10 and start again. The worst line sets up two turns of phrase that don’t mesh: if a plane is going down in a nosedive, then it needs to pull up — not be turned “right around,” which at least to me is strongly associated with horizontal 180° turns.

Best Lyrics:
It only hurts this much right now
Was what I was thinking the whole time

Worst Lyrics:
I thought the plane was goin’ down
How’d you turn it right around?

The B- Lyrics

Going from the Cs to Bs is hard — these are songs which I think substantively forward songwriting by doing things which other songs ordinarily don’t. It could have compelling storytelling, or a string of impressive lines, or especially creative phrasing. These are songs which are strong as a whole, and I have to look for problems.

67. Mary’s Song

This is an underrated song off her first album — it’s a toss-up when Swift embodies someone else, but here she does Mary (an old neighbor of hers) justice. It’s got some country charm to it, but we’ll let that slide in the name of narrative. And boy, does she tell a story. It’s not remarkable, but it’s got a discrete beginning / middle / end, with some dramatic irony and callbacks interspersed. The worst lyrics have two rough patches. First, it’d be much cleaner to cut “the time” and say “Take me back to when we walked down the aisle.” Second, the “and I did, too” is a little clunky. But otherwise, it’s not bad at all. The lines in the best couplet are independently strong. The first line situates the perspective of the singer and subject as children in a small town where the furthest reaches they could imagine were down the street — making each other the only people they knew. The second tells the story of young flirtation, with the singer vacillating in her actions. And when placed together, they carry assonance, consonance, and a fresh rhyme. The rest of the song isn’t quite as strong, but it’s still a solid entry.

Best Lyrics:
Take me back when our world was one block wide
I dared you to kiss me and ran when you tried

Worst Lyrics:
Take me back to the time when we walked down the aisle
Our whole town came and our mamas cried
You said, “I do,” and I did, too

66. How Did It End?

With a right where you left me-quality to it, Swift is aimless after a breakup and the vultures descend — except she says it in a much smarter way: “The empathetic hunger descends.” I like the dig at gossips after — “We’ll tell no one / Except all of our friends.” She sprinkles in more advanced vocabulary and grammatical structure throughout the song, such as “Our maladies were such / We could not cure them.” She also goes the other route, with more juvenile analogies like “My beloved ghost and me / Sitting in a tree / D-Y-I-N-G.” But she does best when she writes in the middle, rephrasing well-known idioms and making them her own. Here, the best iteration is “We learned the right steps to different dances.” Otherwise, the song’s concept is not particularly fresh, much like the morsels on which the vultures feast. The worst line is “Lost the game of chance, what are the chances?” — which uses “chance” twice in the same way. Also, unrelated, does anyone else hear “smut” when she sings “smug,” or is that just me?

Best Lyrics:
The empathetic hunger descends
We’ll tell no one
Except all of our friends

Worst Lyrics:
Lost the game of chance, what are the chances?

65. New Romantics

This should’ve made it onto 1989 standard edition. It’s got a plain-spoken delivery that works well in some places and not as well in others. The first couplet captures an ennui of millennial culture, and is also reminiscent of Company: “We’re all bored, we’re all so tired of everything / We wait for trains that just aren’t coming.” Then we get a little Hawthorne: “We show off our different scarlet letters / Trust me, mine is better” — it’s clever less because of the reference and more because it could be interpreted multiple ways. Swift and co. could be discussing their trauma/drama, or could be discussing new people they’re dating — which transfers the stigma over to their romantic interests, simultaneously reducing them to a letter. Tricky stuff. “Honey, life is just a classroom” speaks both to a test-it-out phase of adulthood, as well as millennials having a difficult time crossing that threshold.

The chorus is a mixed bag: “I could build a castle / Out of all the bricks they threw at me” feeds into victimhood, but it’s snappy. “And every day is like a battle / But every night with us is like a dream” comes across as a little too self-aggrandizing for the song — unlike the “mine is better” quip above, I don’t think this one is meant to be ironic. The second verse has the worst and best lines of the song. “It’s poker, he can’t see it in my face / But I’m about to play my Ace” is one too many card references for the album. Also, what’s her Ace? The peak of the song, which is representative of its best parts and the whole, is “The rumors are terrible and cruel / But, honey, most of them are true” — it’s got the victimhood, the overstatedness of redundant adjectives, the admission of reality, the sass of “honey.” Great!

Best Lyrics:
The rumors are terrible and cruel
But, honey, most of them are true

Worst Lyrics:
It’s poker, he can’t see it in my face
But I’m about to play my Ace

64. Is It Over Now?

There are some really solid lyrics on this song with internal rhymes, sprinkled details, and a (relatively) steady voice. “I think about jumping / Off of very tall somethings / Just to see you come running” is particularly clever, though please nobody try this at home. It’s a tough competition for the best lyric on this song, but it’s got to be the couplet with the “blue eyes / surmise” pairing — so well done.

It’s a shame this didn’t make it onto the original 1989; it’s far superior (lyrically and melodically) to a song like Out Of The Woods. Notice how they describe the same event: “When you lost control / Red blood, white snow” vs. “Remember when you hit the brakes too soon? / Twenty stitches in the hospital room.” The first uses subtext, internal slant rhymes, and juxtaposition. Meanwhile, the latter is still the best lyric off that song.

The reason this probably didn’t make it onto the original album (if you believe that it was really written back in 2014) is that it’s a little more overtly sensual than the other songs on 1989, and I agree those are the weakest parts of the song — I much prefer the verses to the chorus. In the bridge, I understand why she includes the “Only rumors ‘bout my hips and thighs / And my whispered sighs,” but I don’t love the sexualization of the body parts. The worst line of the song is definitively “You search in every maiden’s bed for something greater,” which gets replaced in the second verse with a search in models’ beds. I think she did this to emphasize that the kind of people with whom her former lover’s been sleeping have changed over time, but who still uses the term maiden?

Best Lyrics:
Let’s fast forward to 300 awkward blind dates later
If she’s got blue eyes, I will surmise that you’ll probably date her

Worst Lyrics:
You search in every maiden’s bed for something greater

63. High Infidelity

This song is the epitome of “I support women’s rights and wrongs.” Stan culture pays off! But Swift writes cheating pretty well — maybe she should do it more often. Here, I think some of her sparse lyrics don’t do quite enough work for her. For instance, “Lock broken, slur spoken” is a nice rhyme, but is she really suggesting her partner broke into her place in order to yell at her? Or just unlocked the door? The weakest lyric forces a “lonely / money / know me” rhyme and sloppily uses the verb “pay” to demonstrate she wants something badly. The (rough) idea is that she got “dragged down the aisle,” married someone, and now is a stay-at-home wife whose spouse works late nights and supports the family — but she doesn’t feel loved by them. “Pay” is trying to invert the financial dynamic between the two of them, but it’s too vague without an adjective to effectuate this: would you pay anything? Everything? All that being said, the chorus is good! She weaves two idioms (bending the truth and dancing around a subject) and makes them her own. The April 29th line is a wash for me — it’s just an Easter egg for fans, and isn’t the kind of detail that adds to poetic writing.

Best Lyrics:
I bent the truth too far tonight
I was dancing around, dancing around it

Worst Lyrics:
At the house lonely, good money
I’d pay if you’d just know me

62. Forever Winter

Wow, is this song sad — especially relative to its melody/instrumentation! The chorus juxtaposes the subject of the song’s mental breakdown with Swift’s own breakdown at the thought of losing him. The titular couplet stands out with another juxtaposition of summer / winter, both cast as metaphors for her state of mind. What elevates the juxtaposition is that she’s not just saying she’ll be happy if he’s here, sad if he’s gone. Instead, Swift says she’ll be summer sun for him — as in, will do whatever she can to lift his spirits. Which sets up a second layer of juxtaposition between the two of them akin to earlier lines in the chorus. Alas, the verses aren’t as strong, and some lines are pretty cliché. That might be intentional if they’re direct lifts from past conversations, but it still drags the song a bit.

Best Lyrics:
I’ll be summer sun for you forever
Forever winter if you go

Worst Lyrics:
He says, why fall in love, just so you can watch it go away?

61. Tell Me Why

This is a pretty good entry in the “you’re treating me badly and I’m mad at you” songbook. I think the most-quoted lyric from the song is “Well, you could write a book on / How to ruin someone’s perfеct day.” And it’s a cutting line which feels very Taylor — but I think a more enduring line in the song plays with notions of falling. The figurative fall she has gives her a new (spatial) perspective on her partner. And of course, the dual use of “took” is clever, which is also employed in the earlier line “I took a chance, I took a shot.” None of the lyrics on the song are terrible, but the worst attempts to contrast her feeling small and her partner feeling “whole inside.” It’d be stronger if she made it about power dynamics or pride, and could more directly contrast her partner as feeling big and important.

Best Lyrics:
You took a swing, I took it hard
And down here from the ground, I see who you are

Worst Lyrics:
Why do you have to make me feel small
So you can feel whole inside?

60. Sweet Nothing

Critics will call it bubblegum. And in fairness, “nothing” is in the title. But that’s kind of the point. It’s about interiority in the face of strife. I don’t love the message that you can escape from it all indefinitely. But at least in snippets, it’s important to have this kind of reprieve. Speaking of snippets, two lyrics stand out. The first contrasts two visions of masculinity — a violent one (whether figuratively pushing in business, or literally in physical conflict) and a domestic one. Her partner is happy “in the kitchen” and seems satisfied just to be around her.

The second lyric is simple but it emphasizes the sustainability and stability of this relationship: “This happens all the time.” Even better, it caps a verse which was apparently inspired by Paul McCartney, who said he would show Linda poems after runs and she would reply with “what a mind.” What a deft way to compare yourself to one of songwriting’s greats!

It’s not all highs. The song falls a little flat when she tries to rib the music industry with “smooth-talking hucksters out glad-handing each other.” And the weakest link, unfortunately, is the song’s first line, which is so generic it’s been done before to start a song — and whenever this one comes on, I hear KYLE in my head.

Best Lyrics:
Outside, they’re push and shovin’
You’re in the kitchen hummin’

On the way home
I wrote a poem
You say, what a mind
This happens all the time

Worst Lyrics:
I spy with my little tired eye

59. ’tis the damn season

Like many of the songs on folklore, her voice is matured, and the swears don’t come across as forced or cringe. The consonance in “road not taken looks real good now” slides off the tongue, and I’m a sucker for Robert Frost. She also gets to try the road out — even if she can’t travel it forever. It’s a good “hometown” song that explores a could-have-been. The worst part is when she bashes her adult home with her (pout) “so-called friends.” If you don’t want to be friends with them, just…don’t be!

Best Lyrics:
And the road not taken looks real good now
And it always leads to you and my hometown

Worst Lyrics:
So I’ll go back to L.A. and the so-called friends
Who’ll write books about me if I ever make it

58. Karma

This song has some great lines. “Spiderboy, king of thieves / Weave your little webs of opacity” might not mean a lot, but boy is it fun to read! The best part of the song is the beginning of the chorus — where she begins to list metaphors for what encapsulates karma. The first four lines are striking, describing karma in different ways with enough space between the lines to make you think. I don’t think it’s perfect; it’s not always clear whether Swift is describing what karma is as personified or what karma brings. “Karma is my boyfriend” seems like the latter — she’s not dating karma. But “Karma is a god” is probably the former — I don’t think she’s saying that karma created a god for her to worship. Still, it’s a fun batch of lyrics. It gets a little weaker as it goes along. I like cats, and the vocal tilt on “flexing like a goddamn acrobat.” But the rest of the chorus’s extended emphasis on karma being a cat just doesn’t work as well as earlier lines. I slightly cringe at some of her linguistic code-switching such as “Me and karma vibe like that.” Still, the weakest lyric is “Don’t you know that cash ain’t the only price,” which is comes across as folksy in a way the rest of the song (and album) studiously avoids. Squeezing this into the same verse as the above “webs of opacity” line is particularly telling.

Best Lyrics:
Karma is my boyfriend
Karma is a god
Karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend
Karma’s a relaxing thought

Worst Lyrics:
Trick me once, trick me twice
Don’t you know that cash ain’t the only price?
It’s coming back around

57. But Daddy I Love Him

A scathing rebuke of all the parasocials out there — fan and foe alike — as well as gender roles and America writ large, this is one of Swift’s stronger “fuck off” songs. The first four lines really seem like a critique of her past music and marketing approach cornering the country genre: “I forget how the West was won / I forget if this was ever fun / I just learned these people only raise you / To cage you.” I’m always a fan of high horse analogies, so “Too high a horse for a simple girl / To rise above it” works for me. By the second verse, it’s clearly about gender: “Dutiful daughter, all my plans were laid / Tendrils tucked into a woven braid,” which might as well have “of suppression” after it. The first post-chorus and bridge hammer home the attack on parasocials: “I’ll tell you something ‘bout my good name / It’s mine alone to disgrace / I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empath’s clothing.” I like the substitution of emperor for empath! And then “God save the most judgmental creeps / Who say they want what’s best for me / Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see / Thinkin’ it can change the beat / Of my heart when he touches me.” I think her use of sanctimonious is on the cusp of unnecessary, but on the whole I think I like it. And of course, the simple “You ain’t gotta pray for me.”

Okay so what’s missing in this song? One, it’s long, and it could be trimmed. Second, she gets controversial again with a “baby” line — this time, instead of sexy babies, she announces she’s pregnant just to see people’s reactions. And I get the point — it’s really not our business if she does or doesn’t, so if we’re uncomfortable about the lyric, then we’re sticking our heads where they don’t belong. But also, in the imagined world within the song where Swift is someone else, and that character seems young, I think it’s maybe reasonable for us to be a little concerned about a pregnancy. Is that too paternalistic to her character? Other things: “He was chaos, he was revelry / Bedroom eyes like a remedy” is too distant of a rhyme; I think the “gray for me / white noise” is a stretch of a juxtaposition; and “I know he’s crazy” frustrates me as a little ableist.

Best Lyrics:
Dutiful daughter, all my plans were laid
Tendrils tucked into a woven braid

Worst Lyrics:
I’m havin’ his baby
No, I’m not, but you should see your faces

56. invisible string

The titular lyric of the song is a nice concept, even if it’s not Taylor’s own. But her verses shine as she frontloads adjectives, switching up her syntax in a way that’s pretty fresh (at least for her). The best is the third, which describes how much she’s grown in her life, with a soft reference to her earlier catalog. The first line is fluid: “Cold was the steel of my axe to grind.” Instead of intensifying the verse with more complex lines, she draws down into a matter-of-fact delivery: “Now I send their babies presents.” Substantively, it’s lovely as a listener to hear that she’s gotten closure over all (or at least most) of the exes in her prior songs, and that they’re now on good terms. It also speaks to generational cycles: babies will grow. The worst line is when she alleges some server was rude to ask if she was, indeed, Taylor Swift. Moreover, there’s no way the server said “you look like an American singer.” It feels like Taylor’s hiding her own name as if it’s embarrassing to admit to her fame. This comes across to me as the pop-star equivalent of “a small school in Boston.”

Best Lyrics:
Cold was the steel of my axe to grind
For the boys who broke my heart
Now I send their babies presents

Worst Lyrics:
Bold was the waitress on our three-year trip
Getting lunch down by the Lakes
She said I looked like an American singer

55. Speak Now

Swift is so funny on this track, which is necessary to get over the hump of stigma surrounding a speak-now-or-forever-hold-your-peace speech. The song peaks early, with a juxtaposition between herself and its subject, who are both not the kind of person who should do what they’re about to do — and that’s why Taylor has to do what she does, so he won’t. “Fond gestures are еxchanged / And the organ starts to play a song that sounds like a death march” creatively uses passive voice and a plain-spoken simile to capture a more youthful (but creative) narrator. I don’t like the jabs Swift makes at the bride and her family, no matter how snotty they may be. And “She floats down the aisle like a pageant queen” doesn’t make sense, because they don’t float. But otherwise, this is a cute song with a humorous tilt.

Best Lyrics:
I am not the kind of girl
Who should be rudely bargin’ in on a white veil occasion
But you are not the kind of boy
Who should be marrying the wrong girl

Worst Lyrics:
She floats down the aisle like a pageant queen

54. Getaway Car

Swift goes Dickensian on us in the opening line, making it her own with the substitution of “crimes” and quickly following up with a figurative contrast between a lit spark and a blown mind. Another solid couplet later in the song plays on colors: “The ties were black, the lies were white / In shades of gray in candlelight.” The chorus repeats the line “Think about the place where you first met me” to emphasize why the subject of the song should know their days were numbered. In the world of the song, it means she’s a freewheeling outlaw. In a deeper sense, she might be saying that whatever state she was in prior to their first encounter (insecurity? unavailability?) is a state to which she’ll inevitably regress, so their relationship is doomed. The worst lines come in the first pre-chorus, which name-drop an old fashioned for no reason, lean into a treasure map analogy (diverging from a heist), and use a very-tired, please-retire, “shot in the dark” phrase.

Best Lyrics:
It was the best of times, the worst of crimes
I struck a match and blew your mind

Worst Lyrics:
X marks the spot where we fell apart
He poisoned the well, I was lyin’ to myself
I knew it from the first old fashioned, we were cursed
We never had a shotgun shot in the dark

53. I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

This song is fascinating because we get a look into her inner reflection of her outward presentation during the Eras Tour. This elevates it beyond other I’m-happy-on-the-outside-but-not-on-the-inside songs, because we really have the real-world context. This is more production than lyrics, but I like the use of the count-offs (“one, two, three, four”) throughout the songs. “Lights, camera, b*tch, smile” evokes paparazzi, and “All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting more” is an indictment of fans and the media who get excited every time she breaks up. “I’m so depressed, I act like it’s my birthday every day” is fresh, and the heart of the song comes in the couplet “I cry a lot, but I am so productive, it’s an art / You know you’re good when you can even do it with a broken heart.” I think the last line is the worst insofar as I don’t think many people want to be her. Oh, also: when she speaks at the end of the song, particularly “‘Cause I’m miserable, haha,” it sounds a lot like The Spins.

Best Lyrics:
I cry a lot, but I am so productive, it’s an art
You know you’re good when you can even do it with a broken heart

Worst Lyrics:
Ah, try and come for my job

52. ivy

Like High Infidelity above, this is a song about an affair. It’s a little more poetic, with verdant motifs and imagery. The chorus has the honor of hosting the best couplet, which upgrades the “palm of your hand” idiom with a figurative hold that further implies a literal grip. The titular lyrics are also vivid: “I can’t / Stop you putting roots in my dreamland / My house of stone, your ivy grows / And now I’m covered in you.” It’s an interesting way to describe impurity, because ivy is typically seen as a beauty, not an eyesore — but of course, it’s destructive to structures. Other songs with the same title don’t even mention the plant, so I appreciate Swift taking it head-on. Another solid couplet: “Crescent moon, coast is clear / Spring breaks loose, but so does fear.” I like the continuation of nature symbolism. But I don’t really like her “Grieving for the living” line, since it’s unclear who she’s grieving for — herself not being able to run away with this person? The worst lyric is the clunkiest, a little basic, and with a troubling message to boot: “Your opal eyes are all I wish to see / He wants what’s only yours.” First, opal’s not a color. Second, stating that you are someone’s is pretty conventional. Third, it’s not great to subject yourself to being someone else’s object. Fourth, it’s a little contrary to the central imagery of the lover being ivy on Swift’s house — the house doesn’t become owned by the ivy.

Best Lyrics:
Oh, goddamn
My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

Worst Lyrics:
He’s in the room
Your opal eyes are all I wish to see
He wants what’s only yours

51. peace

This song is similar to I Know Places in that Swift is trying to get her and her partner out of the public eye. This one’s more defeatist, and stronger for it. She concedes in the chorus that she could never give her partner peace, and asks pleadingly if that would be enough. The “it” of the chorus is the media — and I like the literal second meaning that “it’s just around the corner” takes on. She also calls out media speculation that her relationship is just for optics: “All these people think love’s for show / But I would die for you in secret.” I like “Your integrity makes me seem small,” but not “I talk shit with my friends, it’s like I’m wasting your honor.” The worst line evokes some of the crudely-drawn 1989 characters: “robbers to the east, clowns to the west” only makes sense if you’re willing to do the work for Swift and treat these characters as easter eggs to excavate. Yes, we know it’s about Scooter Braun and Kanye West, but only because we already know the context. Without more details in the song, these characters receive no development and are mere paper tigers.

Best Lyrics:
And it’s just around the corner, darlin’
’Cause it lives in me
No, I could never give you peace

Worst Lyrics:
But there’s robbers to the east, clowns to the west

50. The Bolter

I don’t know if this is an account of her real life or an analogy, but here Swift weaves a compelling narrative of someone who had a near-death experience as a child and tends to run from things (some might say bolt) as soon as she gets the sense there’s danger ahead. It’s a little more pre-emptive and apprehensive than it’s time to go, but in a similar vein. This has some of her better lyricism on The Tortured Poets Department, with a blend of pithy syntax, imagery, and plain-spoken phrasing. I relish her voice as she describes her childhood: “By all accounts, she almost drowned / When she was six in frigid water / And I can confirm she made / A curious child, ever reviled / By everyone except her own father.” The best lines in the chorus are “Ended with the slam of a door / Then he’ll call her a whore / Wish he wouldn’t be sore,” which is powerful because the insult seems to slide off her — she rationalizes it as a him problem. The post-chorus links together the past and present: “All her fuckin’ lives / Flashed before her eyes / It feels like the time / She fell through the ice / Then came out alive.”

Her analogies get a little slippery in the second verse, where it’s unclear if her love interest is the trophy hunter or the bear. There’s a grown-up reference to Jump Then Fall: “Watching him jump then pulling him under.” The Central Park Lake jaunt sets up the best analogy of the song — “That’s when she sees the littlest leaks / Down in the floorboards” — to describe a fleck of a sign that things are going wrong.

Best Lyrics:
Central Park Lake in tiny rowboats
What a charming Saturday
That’s when she sees the littlest leaks
Down in the floorboards

Worst Lyrics:
Just like any good trophy hunter

49. The Archer

This song takes a big-picture approach to Swift’s relationships: what keeps going wrong? And she looks inward. She realizes that she might see love as a battle (no, really?), both when seeking out a relationship (“I’ve been the archer, I’ve been the prey”) and once she’s in one (“Combat, I’m ready for combat / I say I don’t want that, but what if I do?”). I don’t like her battle songs, but the rest of the song thankfully avoids extending the analogy. Instead, we get some great short lines, mimicking an out-of-breath, shaky delivery. “Easy they come, easy they go / I jump from the train, I ride off alone / I never grew up, it’s getting so old” packs a lot into three lines. And later on, “all of my enemies started out friends” is a nice easter egg for the superfans, but also relatable for many.

The crown for this song is the recurring line at the end of each prechorus, which gets its best treatment the second time: “I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost / The room is on fire, invisible smoke / And all of my heroes die all alone / Help me hold on to you.” First, the invisible smoke is a callback to some of her apocalyptic imagery in earlier work, but more subdued. Second, note all the internal rhymes here! Third, look at the repetition and dual use of “all” in the third line. But the key is this last line: she realizes that she isn’t (figuratively) strong enough to hold on to her love interest, so she needs them to give her extra reassurance — or, in the figurative sense, to grab her slipping hand. The worst lyric is a little confusing: she says that “cruelty wins in the movies,” but the rest of her catalog would beg to differ.

Best Lyrics:
I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost
The room is on fire, invisible smoke
And all of my heroes die all alone
Help me hold on to you

Worst Lyrics:
’Cause cruelty wins in the movies

48. Hey Stephen

I think this is Swift’s cutest song — certainly up there in contention with Jump Then Fall and Paper Rings. But between the humming, it’s also somewhat profound: take “I know looks can be deceiving / But I know I saw a light in you.” It’s effective for its anaphora, which juxtaposes a truism with a truth. And the second line is far deeper than a schoolyard crush: to see a light in someone gets down to their soul. Hey indeed. In “Of all the girls tossing rocks at your window / I’ll be the one waiting there even when it’s cold,” she inverts the stone-throwing canon, taking on the mantle of the wooer and defying gender stereotypes. She also replaces stones with rocks, which as mentioned above I find quite amusing. In other places, it’s just a cute song: “Cause I can’t help it if you look like an angel / Can’t help it if I wanna kiss you in the rain, so” and “Come feel this magic I’ve been feeling since I met you” and “Hey Stephen, why are people always leaving? / I think you and I should stay the same” and “They’re dimming the street lights, you’re perfect for me” and “All those other girls, well, they’re beautiful / But would they write a song for you?” This song doesn’t have to melt your heart. But if it doesn’t soften it, you might be frozen. Unfortunately, some lines don’t come across as cute: “Hey Stephen, boy, you might have me believing / I don’t always have to be alone” has a bit of a fishing-for-compliments energy to it. The worst couplet is the “give you fifty reasons / Why I should be the one you choose” because it becomes about her qualities instead of his — and focusing on the latter is what makes the song powerful.

Best Lyrics:
I know looks can be deceiving
But I know I saw a light in you

Worst Lyrics:
Hey Stephen, I could give you fifty reasons
Why I should be the one you choose

47. Ronan

This is a song about a real child who passed away from cancer. Swift received permission from the family before writing, performing, and recording the song. I won’t question whether or not it’s an effective testament to this child for this family. I think there are a few lines that work particularly well. And there are other lines that, if it were written about me or someone I knew, I would want to scrap or revise. “You were my best four years” is the more potent takeaway. “Flowers pile up in the worst way” is a good line; it could be applied to a lot of hardships. “And it’s about to be Halloween, you could be anything / You wanted if you were still here” uses enjambment for a good twist, but we already know the end, so it’s less of a twist. Also, on some sites it’s not enjambed. The worst line is “army guy” simile, both because it entrenches the military-industrial complex and because the phrase is incredibly informal but not leveled down to a child’s language — “fighter guy” would make more sense.

Best Lyrics:
You were my best four years

Worst Lyrics:
You fought it hard like an army guy

46. betty

The second of the teenage love triangle songs, this one is sung from the perspective of the boy, and it makes you think that Swift would be a pretty effective fuckboy/sadboi. The chorus reminds me of how Shakespeare dumbed down Romeo a bit: “But if I just showed up at your party / Would you have me? Would you want me? / Would you tell me to go fuck myself / Or lead me to the garden?” It’s plain-spoken and naïve, insofar as the last line reads as the equivalent of “haha, jk…unless?” Honorable mention goes to the cardigan callback: “Standing in your cardigan / Kissin’ in my car again.” I also like “Those days turned into nights / Slept next to her, but / I dreamt of you all summer long,” not because it’s well written, but because it captures the voice of the character. I don’t like the “patch your broken wings” line, and I’m pretty sure they’ve kissed before, so the dreaming line above it doesn’t work for me. Also, when he calls the love interest’s friends stupid…red flag alert!

Best Lyrics:
Would you tell me to go fuck myself
Or lead me to the garden?

Worst Lyrics:
If you kiss me, will it be just like I dreamed it?
Will it patch your broken wings?

45. Everything Has Changed

This is also a cute song, but it straddles young love and growth into something more serious, so it doesn’t reach the highest highs of Hey Stephen. I like the repetition of “all I know” throughout the song to emphasize the humility of the singer (not unlike betty’s “I don’t know anything / But I know I miss you”). The best iteration is “All I know since yesterday / Is everything has changed,” but I also like “All I know is pouring rain / And everything has changed.” This all-I-know phrasing contrasts well with the refrain of “I just wanna know you better now.” The worst part sounds like Ed Sheeran’s voice, where he offers to take down “tall blue” walls and open up a door for the love interest. Are there walls or a door between them? If the whole wall’s coming down (and, in fact, there are multiple walls coming down; unclear why they all need to), then wouldn’t the door also come down by implication? But don’t let this ruin the overall song, which is generally a simple and sweet song about how a great first encounter with someone can make you think your life’s changed. Almost like…you could…Begin Again…

Best Lyrics:
All I know since yesterday
Is everything has changed

Worst Lyrics:
And all my walls stood tall, painted blue
But I’ll take ’em down, take ’em down
And open up the door for you

44. august

This is the best of the teenage love triangle songs, even though the chorus frustrates me a little. August slipping away is good — sipping away is not, because wine doesn’t sip away — the person drinking it does. But the bridge is excellent, truly excellent — the strongest part is when Swift’s character states she would cancel plans just in case her love interest would call. It’s so lovesick you might think it’s a hyperbole until it happens to you. It also lightly reminds me of a couplet from Waiting Room inspired by First Day of My Life. But beyond this desperate sentiment, the bridge also cleverly uses enjambment such that “For me, it was enough” both emphasizes the preceding line and transitions into the next phrase. And “To live for the hope of it all” sounds like a basic, tired phrase, but based on a rudimentary search it appears to be a Swift original. The second verse is the weakest link of the song, with an unrelatable wish to write her name directly on her love interest’s back and a conflicting line where she states she thought she did “have” him. Also, following the write-with-the-maturity-of-your-character rule she seems to use in betty, it’s unclear to me why this singer so plainly states “Will you call when you’re back at school?” after the complex, heady personification of August in the chorus.

Best Lyrics:
Back when we were still changin’ for the better
Wanting was enough
For me, it was enough
To live for the hope of it all
Cancel plans just in case you’d call

Worst Lyrics:
Your back beneath the sun
Wishin’ I could write my name on it
Will you call when you’re back at school?
I remember thinkin’ I had you

43. Mean

A fun bashing song that’s directed at her critics instead of love interests, this song peaks in its bridge. After a strong chorus that states the critic is just mean, Swift proceeds to list a number of other pejoratives that he also is, by the way, such as a liar, and pathetic, and alone in life. In so doing, she ironically gets a little mean herself. A band I love, Jim’s Big Ego, has a great song to this effect, aptly titled Meanies. Another good couplet is “You have pointed out my flaws again / As if I don’t already see them,” which allows her to get a little vulnerable. But fear not: this is all just a pretense to keep calling the critic a bully (and a liar, and pathetic, and alone in life). The worst line is where she makes this “weaker man” analogy, which I don’t like because it both uses man as a gender-neutral term and calls Swift weaker — which, by this point, she is certainly not. She has the bully pulpit, after all.

Best Lyrics:
All you are is mean
And a liar, and pathetic
And alone in life, and mean

Worst Lyrics:
You, pickin’ on the weaker man

42. Delicate

This song blends vulnerability and sensuality quite well — when the whole world was “against her” (please emphasize the quotation marks) and she felt at her lowest, Swift found someone who took her in and brought her back. I like the dual use of “make” in “We can’t make / Any promises now, can we, babe? / But you can make me a drink.” She gets a little raunchy, but it settles into a more wholesome affection in “Oh, damn, never seen that color blue / Just think of the fun things we could do / ’Cause I like you.” Less effective is “Sometimes, when I look into your eyes / I pretend you’re mine all the damn time,” which I understand is intentionally playing with stacked conceptions of time, but stumbles on itself. And “Handsome, you’re a mansion with a view” doesn’t signify much — he is a house you can get inside and look out of? Or he’s a house with a pretty garden? I need more.

Best Lyrics:
Is it cool that I said all that?
Is it chill that you’re in my head?
’Cause I know that it’s delicate

Worst Lyrics:
Handsome, you’re a mansion with a view

41. closure

Swift hits it out of the park with the first few lines: “It’s been a long time / And seeing the shape of your name / Still spells out pain.” I think everyone can relate to the recoil they feel when seeing a certain name pop up on their social media. She uses “spells out” literally here, but “shape of your name” is a nice way to reduce letters to squiggles — powerful squiggles. Unfortunately, she then stumbles on her way around the bases: “It wasn’t right / The way it all went down / Looks like you know that now.” Talk about spelling out pain. Could she be any more generic? It’s too bad, because other lyrics have a much more mature voice, such as “Don’t treat me like / Some situation that needs to be handled / I’m fine with my spite / And my tears, and my beers and my candles.” That’s also generic, but at least it’s interesting. The chorus is conceptually good, but not great: “Yes, I got your letter / Yes, I’m doing better / It cut deep to know ya, right to the bone” does the job. I’d prefer a non-visceral analogy, but she uses it for a reason.

Best Lyrics:
And seeing the shape of your name
Still spells out pain

Worst Lyrics:
It wasn’t right
The way it all went down
Looks like you know that now

40. Love Story

People will be furious this isn’t higher. I want to be clear that this is still a good grade and rank, and if this is your favorite song, you should be proud of it. The best line comes in the second chorus, where she makes reference to a collective “they” and then expresses “This love is difficult, but it’s real.” The opening line is also iconic: “We were both young when I first saw you” isn’t quite The Beatles, but it has endured as one of her most recognizable phrases. I like the anaphora in “See the lights, see the party, the ball gowns / See you make your way through the crowd.” She deftly transitions from the real world into the analogy of Romeo and Juliet with the metaphor “Little did I know / That you were Romeo, you were throwing pebbles.” It’s the song that got people thinking she’s a literary artiste, and it made some pretty boring Shakespeare popular among a new generation of children.

…Are the stans gone? Okay. Use of “scarlet letter” in the second verse double-dips literary references, and shallowly at that. “Escape this town for a little while” contradicts the whole let’s-run-away storyline. And I despise the happy ending Swift invents. First, they’re not ready to get married. Second, she’s already losing her faith in this so-called Romeo — but then he proposes and that makes it okay? Third, it’s NOT THE ENDING OF ROMEO AND JULIET. What makes that play powerful and iconic in the canon is its tragic ending. You’re stripping the analogy of its potency, and now it’s just a kid whose parents disapprove of their kid’s suitor — not a generational reciprocal feud that ends in the death of naïve, lovestruck children.

Best Lyrics:
Romeo, save me, they’re trying to tell me how to feel
This love is difficult, but it’s real

Worst Lyrics:
I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress
It’s a love story, baby, just say, ‘Yes’”

39. Peter

Just like Wendy, Swift was let down by someone who promised they would grow up and then come find her. I don’t mind the repetition throughout the song; it’s a simple concept, but every utterance entrenches the expectation Swift had — and the disappointment at the letdown. I think the “Promises oceans deep / But never to keep” at the end of each chorus is effective — here, I’m presuming the figurative depth of the promise alludes to how long her love interest promised he would stay once he returned (forever). With the context that it’s about Peter and Wendy, I think the couplet “And I didn’t wanna come down / I thought it was just goodbye for now” has a few meanings: to come down from flight, to come down from her fantasies, to come down from their dwindling mercurial high, etc. I understand that with the couplet “Underneath the same moon / In different galaxies,” she’s trying to emphasize she and her ex are figuratively galaxies apart. But Peter and Wendy didn’t live on different galaxies. The best couplet in the song is wise beyond her years (which are more than his): “With your feet on the ground, tell me all that you’d learned / ’Cause love’s never lost when perspective is earned.” Of course, the first phrase speaks to his stability and pragmatism once he returns. The second line creates a new adage, arguing that a loving relationship can bridge gaps in time, since new perspective from time apart enhances the relationship and makes the gap worth it.

Best Lyrics:
With your feet on the ground, tell me all that you’d learned
’Cause love’s never lost when perspective is earned

Worst Lyrics:
Underneath the same moon
In different galaxies

38. Paper Rings

This song is funny! And I think it’s got the first actual drugs (not symbolic) that Swift references in a lyric. She starts off leveraging multiple meanings of the word “high,” and in the next couplet contrasts her initial “unilateral research” to their reciprocated knowledge of one another. I appreciate the second enjambed couplet of “The wine is cold / Like the shoulder that I gave you in the street,” but I don’t like that she treated her love interest that way :( The chorus is cute, with the central concept of “I like shiny things, but I’d marry you with paper rings.” This is the equivalent of peace’s “But I would die for you in secret,” but make it happy. “I hate accidents, except when we went from friends to this” is also quite cute. And I like the semi-stream-of-consciousness that emerges when she uses each of the words she gives multiple meanings (see high, cold above) as a device to transition between stories and concepts. For instance, take “I’m with you even if it makes me blue / Which takes me back / To the color that we painted your brother’s wall.” Weak spots: I’m not a fan of her bridge here, with cliché “I want” anaphora and invocation of “baby boy,” which I sincerely hope is not her pet name for any of her love interests. She then repeats these four lines instead of giving us more. Bridges are supposedly her strong suit. Prove it!

Best Lyrics:
The moon is high
Like your friends were the night that we first met
Went home and tried to stalk you on the internet
Now I’ve read all of the books beside your bed

Worst Lyrics:
I want to drive away with you
I want your complications too
I want your dreary Mondays
Wrap your arms around me, baby boy

37. long story short

This song has a Lewis Carroll slant to it, but instead of truly going down the rabbit hole, she keeps it short and sweet. The chorus is the yada yada of songs. Still, despite oozing generalities, her word choice is singular: “Long story short, it was a bad time / Pushed from the precipice / Clung to the nearest lips / Long story short, it was the wrong guy.” “Now I’m all about you” is a much more palatable and agentic way to show a consuming interest than “I’m yours.” She gets a little profound with “I always felt I must look better in the rear view,” and wholesome with “And my waves meet your shore / Ever and evermore.” The best line reinvents the often-negative proverb “if the shoe fits, walk in it” to support a relationship if it feels right — with alluded omnipresence giving a soft subtext of marriage. The worst couplet deals in battle analogies and states they live in “peace,” when we know that that isn’t the case.

Best Lyrics:
And he feels like home
If the shoe fits, walk in it everywhere you go

Worst Lyrics:
And we live in peace
But if someone comes at us, this time, I’m ready

36. State of Grace

An excellent opener for an excellent album (though not as great lyrically as it is sonically), this song has a bunch of couplets that work well, even though the titular couplet itself isn’t that meaningful. There’s a compelling narrative progression in the song. Compare parallel excerpts from the first and second verses: “And all we know is touch and go / We are alone with our changing minds / We fall in love till it hurts or bleeds or fades in time” shifts to “Now all we know is don’t let go / We are alone, just you and me / Up in your room, and our slates are clean / Just twin fire signs, four blue eyes.” It’s a healthy combination of plain language and conceptual nuggets: I particularly like “we are alone with our changing minds” to communicate uncertainty early in a relationship and “our slates are clean” to signify that it feels like the first time (it feels like the very first time). The best lyric packs a list of words which can only be described as humble and earnest: Swift proclaims their love is “something good and right and real.” This is so much better than her declaration that love is “a ruthless game / Unless you play it good and right.” I’m going to pretend the second line doesn’t exist so that good and right only exists in the context of the earlier one.

Best Lyrics:
This is the golden age
Of something good and right and real

Worst Lyrics:
Love is a ruthless game
Unless you play it good and right

35. evermore

Critically, I’m not sure the song’s jump from depression to recovery is fully earned. That being said, I think the titular line for the chorus (and album) works as a concept. It’s not overstated, even though it’s a bold statement, and I appreciate the enjambment. The use of “so peculiar” is a nice touch for a more mature voice.

For the verses, she has some nice, fresh play on words, such “Motion capture / Put me in a bad light” and “I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone.” She evokes some right where you left me energy with “I rewind the tape, but all it does is pause / On the very moment all was lost.” I don’t like how she reuses the same rhyme scheme in the bridge. Come on! But it rebounds with “To be certain we’ll be tall again,” which gets points for an unusual use of tall. We’ve got some other poetic couplets in the verses: “Writing letters / Addressed to the fire” conjures notions of futility and ephemerality. “In the cracks of light / I dreamed of you” evokes Leonard Cohen. The song as a whole has a more refined and measured voice.

Best Lyrics:
I had a feeling so peculiar
That this pain would be for
Evermore

Worst Lyrics:
Can’t not think of all the cost
And the things that will be lost
Oh, can we just get a pause?

34. Treacherous

So many things to say about this song, which I think is severely underrated. First, this song is incredibly sensual for Swift; at a time people were still speculating whether the red scarf symbolized her virginity (they were wrong), I can’t believe no one brought up “And I’ll do anything you say / If you say it with your hands.” Or “Out of focus, eye to eye / ’Til the gravity’s too much.” Or “And all we are is skin and bone / Trained to get along.” Second, all of those lines are so good! Particularly the last one, which I don’t think is meant to have a broader message about socialized gendering of bodies, but I’ll read it in anyway.

Third, if we’re talking bridges, this one might be her pinnacle. “Two headlights shine through the sleepless night / And I will get you alone / Your name has echoed through my mind / And I just think you should know / That nothing safe is worth the drive and I would / Follow you, follow you home / I’ll follow you, follow you home.” It’s so artfully worded for a nighttime escapade, and it’s quite daring: her confidence that she will “get them alone” is reminiscent of her upcoming work on Reputation, and her declaration that “nothing safe is worth the drive” is just, mwah.

Best Lyrics:
Two headlights shine through the sleepless night
And I will get you alone

Worst Lyrics:
Forever going with the flow
But you’re friction

33. Jump Then Fall

If Hey Stephen or Paper Rings don’t win cutest song, this should be it. It starts off with a bit of an innuendo, which she quickly walks back in the second line before moving steadily into wholesome territory: “I like the way you sound in the mornin’ / We’re on the phone and without a warnin’ / I realize your laugh is the best sound / I have ever heard.” I think the titular line works as a concept: “Don’t be afraid to jump, then fall / Jump, then fall into me.” She wants her love interest to jump into the relationship, and then fall for her — but she blends them into a singular continued motion, which when it happens upon her, still feels a little bit like an innuendo. Another gem comes in the youthful exuberance of “I like the way you’re everything I ever wanted.” The worst couplet rhymes face with face, and then remarks “You got the keys to me,” which isn’t bad per se, but jumps and then falls flat in comparison to the rest of the song.

Best Lyrics:
I like the way you sound in the mornin’
We’re on the phone and without a warnin’

Worst Lyrics:
Huh, well, I like the way your hair falls in your face
You got the keys to me, I love each freckle on your face

The B Lyrics

These songs could be submitted for publication as poems and would be taken seriously by an editor as a work of writing. They don’t all read as poems, but they have significantly more strengths than weaknesses, and some have no errors at all — at least, none which are glaring.

32. Gorgeous

I liked this song from its first listen — it has a fresh voice for Swift, with the starstruck passion of Hey Stephen but the more mature lived experience that accompanies songs on Reputation. Of course, this song is immature in its approach to a crush despite her lived experience, which is what makes it funny. The highlight is the couplet where she tries to explain her emotional turbulence, like Kacey Musgraves’s Happy & Sad, which is similar (and different at the same time). Close honorable mention goes to “And you should think about the consequence / Of you touching my hand in a darkened room,” which takes a scolding tone to reclaim power while expressing vulnerability — a tricky balance. I don’t mind that the verse rhymes face with face, because the point is that she’s lost for words: “You’re so gorgeous / I can’t say anything to your face / ’Cause look at your face.” The worst line is a throwaway reference to an older boyfriend who’s doing drugs somewhere. Maybe she shouldn’t be with this person — just a thought.

Best Lyrics:
You make me so happy it turns back to sad
There’s nothing I hate more than what I can’t have

Worst Lyrics:
And I got a boyfriend, he’s older than us
He’s in the club doin’ I don’t know what

31. The Manuscript

This song tells the story of a relationship with a problematic age gap (cough, cough, John Mayer), its demise, and then the younger partner’s catharsis achieved through conversion of their stories into a play. The early encounter she treats us to is humorous and biting: they swap driver’s licenses, he’s not an organ donor, but he gives her a line about how he’d give her his heart, she calls him out, he retorts that he’s a good samaritan (either because of his generosity with his heart or his other body parts). He then says if the physical intimacy can keep up with the banter, they’ll end up together. They don’t.

We find out in the second verse that he was fifty percent older than her; she emulates “adult” life while they’re together, and regresses once it ends. I like “In the age of him, she wished she was thirty” to convey his age (think of the first phrase as a proxy for “In the likeness of him”) and also how she considered him an era of her life. “Then she dated boys who were her own age / With dartboards on the backs of their doors” is a nice couplet. Look at all those “d’s” and “b’s”! But if those were their grades, I’m a bit worried for them. For reference, I never had a dartboard on the back of my door. Maybe a mini basketball net, but don’t worry about it.

Depending on how you view it, the bridge and third verse either trail off or jump the shark. Either way, it’s a small step down from the first half of the song. Maybe it’s a bit harder to believe because Swift hasn’t ever (to my knowledge) taken a college course in playwriting. Regardless, she writes about their life, it somehow becomes a hit play, and that gives her closure — after an emotional viewing where her “tears fell / In synchronicity with the score.” The best line from this swath of the song is “Lookin’ backwards / Might be the only way to move forward,” which summarizes the whole section. It’s still fine, just more plot-driven and less evocative than her expository verses. Also, a manuscript is not published — but this one was.

Best Lyrics:
Then she dated boys who were her own age
With dart boards on the backs of their doors

Worst Lyrics:
Then the actors
Were hitting their marks

30. Dress

Probably Swift’s most risqué song, the chorus’s titular line is creative, suggestive, and honest: “Only bought this dress so you could take it off.” As someone who’s interested in why we wear what we wear (and for whom we wear it), this is a gold mine. Moreover, it’s surrounded by clever lyrics that retain agency. “Carve your name into my bedpost / ’Cause I don’t want you like a best friend” makes Swift’s desire the anchoring catalyst for the song. She is in control. I like “There is an indentation in the shape of you,” which doesn’t fall prey to the Ed Sheeran criticism because it’s about a tattoo. And there’s a fluidity to the couplet “All of this silence and patience, pining and anticipation / My hands are shaking from holding back from you.” The second verse’s couplet “I’m spilling wine in the bathtub / You kiss my face and we’re both drunk” has a plain-spoken quality that conveys a hazy stream-of-consciousness appropriate for a boozy night in. The worst line isn’t all that bad, but it uses a basic juxtaposition of seeing the truth in someone past their lies: “Even in my worst lies, you saw the truth in me.”

Best Lyrics:
Only bought this dress so you could take it off

Worst Lyrics:
Flashback to my mistakes, my rebounds, my earthquakes
Even in my worst lies, you saw the truth in me

29. The Best Day

This is an adorable song about Swift’s mother taking care of her after she experienced some bullying. She emulates a child’s voice fairly well, which you can see in the short phrasing and first-person focus in “I’m five years old, it’s getting cold, I’ve got my big coat on / I hear your laugh and look up smiling at you, I run and run.” I like her “don’t know” lines throughout the song, which emphasize her relative youth and set up a contrast with her certainty that Today Was a Fairytale — no wait, the best day. It’s similar to her “All I know” lines in Everything Has Changed. “I don’t know who I’m gonna talk to now at school / But I know I’m laughing on the car ride home with you” is particularly effective as a couplet which advances the story by slipping in some characters to reveal Swift’s cause for stress. I also like “And I love you for giving me your eyes / For staying back and watching me shine”; even if I’m not a fan of parents who force their kids into the spotlight, it seems like Swift appreciated it. I don’t like the bridge with the rest of her family, which feels tossed in just so they don’t get left out. It affirms this man-is-strong stereotype, has a religious reference, and blanketly asserts her brother is better than her — a little self-effacing and without explanation. Same goes for “And Daddy’s smart / And you’re the prettiest lady in the whole wide world.” Sigh. We can’t have it all.

Best Lyrics:
Don’t know how long it’s gonna take to feel okay
But I know I had the best day with you today

Worst Lyrics:
I have an excellent father
His strength is making me stronger
God smiles on my little brother
Inside and out, he’s better than I am

28. illicit affairs

There are some stellar turns of phrase in this song: “dwindling, mercurial high” and “clandestine meetings and longing stares” are standouts. But the best line in the song contrasts the beginning of this relationship with its current state, juxtaposing “beautiful rooms” (itself a nice phrase) with parking lots. Of course, this is a song about infidelity, but also about a special connection, and “You showed me colors you know I can’t see with anyone else” is a good, if a bit wordy, way to express the singularity of this relationship (everything’s in technicolor!). There’s really only one line on this I dislike, and it’s “So you leave no trace behind / Like you don’t even exist”; the latter line feels redundant.

Best Lyrics:
What started in beautiful rooms
Ends with meetings in parking lots

Worst Lyrics:
So you leave no trace behind
Like you don’t even exist

27. Innocent

To be clear, I disliked this song for a long time. I’m still not sold on it musically, but lyrically it’s kind of a gem? There are two highlights here. Both express rehabilitation and forgiveness. “Your string of lights are still bright to me” is a fresh phrasing. “Time turns flames to embers / You’ll have new Septembers” could be used for really any period of downturn — a breakup, a depressive episode, you name it — time heals everything. The chorus also has the same sentiments, but it’s a little more plain-spoken and not quite as inspirational: “Who you are is not what you did / You’re still an innocent.” The worst line is obviously the one about war paths, but that’s kind of it. The rest of the song is solid. If it had a tune…

Best Lyrics:
Your string of lights are still bright to me

Time turns flames to embers
You’ll have new Septembers

Worst Lyrics:
Left yourself in your war path

26. champagne problems

Astute fans will notice we have 26 songs left, and almost a quarter of them are on evermore. This is a great song about a rejected proposal. The titular lyric is thus a retooling of the idiom, which falls somewhere between first-world problems and the world’s tiniest violin. This is a real problem! And there’s champagne because, you know, engagements. The subject of the song is wallowing, in a lyric that also brings to mind a certain fictional president: “You booked the night train for a reason / So you could sit there in this hurt.” In the best lines, Swift juxtaposes speech and speechless, and she expresses frustration at an inability to explain why she had to break off the engagement. I also like “Your heart was glass, I dropped it / Champagne problems” — it’d be better if she didn’t drop their hand six lines earlier, but it’s evocative. “November flush and your flannel cure” is sparse but enough to tell the story — the subject gave her a jacket to keep her warm. “She would’ve made such a lovely bride / What a shame she’s fucked in the head” is a fun expletive, but not as great as people say. The worst couplet namedrops fancy champagne and hints that her friends didn’t applaud, but it’s unclear if they were actually there in person or not.

Best Lyrics:
You had a speech, you’re speechless
Love slipped beyond your reaches
And I couldn’t give a reason
Champagne problems

Worst Lyrics:
Dom Pérignon, you brought it
No crowd of friends applauded

25. The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

This is one of the dissiest diss tracks on a very dissy album. And she comes swinging. She calls him a Jehovah’s Witness (a big insult for Healy) and claims he doesn’t measure up “in any measure of a man” (but it’ll get bigger if you know what I mean!). Knowing Healy’s proclivities and Swift’s penchant for easter eggs, the title of the song is probably also a dick joke. The bridge is devastating. Its opening four lines use rhetorical questions to attack his integrity: “Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead? / Did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed? / Were you writin’ a book? Were you a sleeper cell spy? / In fifty years, will all this be declassified?” The best couplet is “And you deserve prison, but you won’t get time / You’ll slide into inboxes and slip through the bars.” No one deserves prison, but I think the point here is that he’s unjustifiably able to get away with illegal things because he’s famous. He also escapes social prison (cancellation) — he’ll keep sliding into people’s DMs and hooking up. And “slip through the bars” is about prison, but also a crafty verb to describe him slinking (slippery when wet) through pubs. I also like “You kicked out the stage lights, but you’re still performing” — you might even say we’re all always performing. Other great couplets: “You hung me on your wall / Stabbed me with your push pins” twists the analogy (and pin (and knife (in his back))). I like the imagery of “If rusting my sparkling summer was the goal,” even though it comes across as a little helpless.

This all being said, despite the strength of the song, there are a few lines here that don’t work as well. “You said normal girls were boring / But you were gone by the morning” is itself a little boring. And there’s pageantry language in “‘Cause once your queen had come / You’d treat her like an also-ran” — but I don’t like people calling their romantic interests queens or kings, or Swift referring to herself that way, even if she’s quoting him.

Best Lyrics:
And you deserve prison, but you won’t get time
You’ll slide into inboxes and slip through the bars

Worst Lyrics:
’Cause once your queen had come
You’d treat her like an also-ran

24. Our Song

The best song off her first album, it starts strong, tells a story, has a verse-chorus structure in which both speak to each other, and is delightfully meta. Also, can we acknowledge that the second couplet of this song sneaks in an innuendo? I’m not sure what else “He’s got a one-hand feel on the steering wheel / The other on my heart” could mean. The chorus is the best part, which she sings from her love interest’s perspective. It uses metaphor to analogize candid snippets from their life as “their song.” Kinda sweet! She also inspired confusion in a generation by choice of the word “slow” instead of “low” — why would talking slowly make it harder for their parents to overhear? I like the second verse’s message that even on bad days, she’s happy with her love interest. Fun fact: I always mishear “Had gone all wrong or been trampled on / And lost and thrown away” as “in a lost and grown-up way,” which I think is better, but I digress. It’s a nice reveal that her love interest is waiting with roses and a note containing the lyrics of the chorus. And the bridge is very, very cute, in which she listens to lots of other music, but nothing will “come along / That was as good as our song.” The worst part is the religious reference. It’s also unclear why the time between her return home and her prayer is their song, but the time praying isn’t. Maybe she’s reflecting on the date and buzzing?

Best Lyrics:
Our song is the slamming screen door
Sneakin’ out late, tapping on your window
When we’re on the phone and you talk real slow
’Cause it’s late and your mama don’t know

Worst Lyrics:
And when I got home, ‘fore I said amen
Askin’ God if he could play it again

23. this is me trying

It is a crime that this wasn’t the track 5 on lover. It is metes and bounds above my tears ricochet — remember that one? Like 150 songs ago? It’s a confessional where she’s trying (vocally) to make a relationship work. It starts off with a one-two punch of a plain-spoken lyric and vivid imagery: “I’ve been having a hard time adjusting / I had the shiniest wheels, now they’re rusting.” She “has a lot of regrets about that” — a catch-all phrase I attribute to her. The post-chorus adds gravity, with a plaintive “I just wanted you to know that this is me trying / At least I’m trying.” Her best couplet in the song is probably “They told me all of my cages were mental / So I got wasted like all my potential.” I love the dual use of “wasted” here (antanaclasis, for those of you who remember), and the inverted syntax of mental cages. But I also love the simplicity of “It’s hard to be anywhere these days when all I want is you” — which gets deeper the closer you look at it. I think “be anywhere” is a stand-in for going out, but also for just living. As someone who currently isn’t in her best graces once said, it’s not living if it’s not with you. The worst line isn’t bad, but I don’t like the “Fell behind all my classmates” phrase, because it removes us from Swift’s life a little — as in, it’s hard to think about Swift pursuing an academic path instead of her music career. Still, this song is a highlight of folklore, only surpassed by a song that had to stay in its song placement, and this is the perfect level of melancholy — would’ve, could’ve, should’ve been the track 5. Alas.

Best Lyrics:
I’ve been having a hard time adjusting
I had the shiniest wheels, now they’re rusting

They told me all of my cages were mental
So I got wasted like all my potential

It’s hard to be anywhere these days when all I want is you

Worst Lyrics:
I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere
Fell behind all my classmates and I ended up here

22. Mine

A great leadoff song for a great album, this squeaks past State of Grace because it has better storytelling and some incredibly tight lines. Two are highlights: “I was a flight risk with a fear of falling” says so much with such splendid alliteration. And “You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter” juxtaposes the singer against her father while communicating that she herself is growing out of her shell — but in a different direction than her father, as distinguished by use of “rebel” instead of “careless.” I like that she zooms in on their first romantic encounter, first in vivo, then as a memory that they hold to keep them together: “Do you remember, we were sitting there by the water? / You put your arm around me for the first time.” I appreciate that she’s the possessor instead of the possessed here: “You are the best thing that’s ever been mine.” Like in another song below, she uses the transition between the chorus and verse to propel time: “Flash forward and we’re taking on the world together / And there’s a drawer of my things at your place.” I don’t think she tells the older-life side as well as the young love side, because at this point in time she hadn’t lived it, but it’s not cringe-inducing. The worst line is a plain-spoken expository lyric where she tells instead of showing: “I ran out crying and you followed me out into the street.” But on most of the song, she does a better job with this, and the outro that she “can see it now” ends on a warm note.

Best Lyrics:
I was a flight risk with a fear of falling

You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter

Worst Lyrics:
I ran out crying and you followed me out into the street

21. Death by a Thousand Cuts

For a song that starts with 32 iterations of “my,” it’s fantastic. The central concept of an incredibly painful breakup invokes an old form of torture, but don’t think too much about that. Think of it instead as an idiom for lots of little pangs. While the vocabulary isn’t the most haughty, the syntax of the chorus reads like a poem: “Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts / Flashbacks waking me up / I get drunk, but it’s not enough / ’Cause the morning comes and you’re not my baby.” I adore the start of the second verse, where she gets dressed to distract herself and talks to traffic lights! And they talk back! And of course they don’t know, they’re just traffic lights — they don’t have any context!

The cascading bridge is a work of art. I know I said above that Treacherous is her top bridge, but this one spills onto the page. It starts with a list of parts of her you think might ache — but then she reveals it’s everything that her partner’s touched (literally and figuratively): “My heart, my hips, my body, my love / Tryna find a part of me that you didn’t touch.” Then it moves to a reflection of things they shared, calling back to an early hit of hers: “Our songs, our films, united we stand / Our country, guess it was a lawless land.” There’s a great line that makes dual use of paper: “Paper cut stings from our paper-thin plans.” And the final line tosses out an understatement so the love interest won’t worry about her: “But I’ll be alright, it’s just a thousand cuts.” The worst line is a drug reference, but it’s not bad, just unnecessary. A solid song.

Best Lyrics:
I dress to kill my time, I take the long way home
I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be alright
They say, I don’t know

But I’ll be alright, it’s just a thousand cuts

Worst Lyrics:
Gave up on me like I was a bad drug

20. it’s time to go

Unlike musicians of an earlier era, Swift has the ability to tack on songs to each of her albums as “bonus tracks.” However, she still releases them after the standard album, so they aren’t always associated together. Like her questionable choice of singles, many attribute her decision to leave certain highly regarded songs off the standard album — such as New Romantics, Hits Different, and Come Back…Be Here — to an inability to judge her own work. I’d argue that she intentionally sandbags songs to spark secondary and tertiary waves of streams. Whether or not she intends to save her best songs for bonus tracks, I am of the firm belief that this song and right where you left me are the Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever of evermore (for those who need context, they were left off Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). I’m already of the minority belief that evermore is her best work, but if these two songs were released on December 11, 2020 with the rest of the album, I bet a few more of you would agree.

There are so many things I like about this song. She addresses different times when it’s appropriate to give up. Unlike Sweet Nothing, these are only last-case situations. “Or that moment again, he’s insisting that friends / Look at each other like that” is dripping with subtext. The nepotism couplet is a little clunky, but otherwise they work well. But the chorus is the heart and gem of this song: you feel it in your gut, or your heart, or “That old familiar body ache,” or “snaps from the same little breaks in your soul” — just gorgeous language. And the outro’s repetition resonates like Phoebe Bridgers’s I Know The End: “And, well, you know, you know, you know, you know / When it’s time to go / So then you go and then you go / You just go.”

Best Lyrics:
That old familiar body ache
The snaps from the same little breaks in your soul
You know when it’s time to go

Worst Lyrics:
Twenty years at your job, then the son of the boss
Gets the spot that was yours

19. You Are in Love

There are 16 songs above this. But it’s the one that reads most like poetry. Clipped lines cabined to three to five words force Swift to be economical, and it pays off. I’m inserting the whole first verse for reference:

One look, dark room
Meant just for you
Time moved too fast
You play it back
Buttons on a coat
Light-hearted joke
No proof, not much
But you saw enough
Small talk, he drives
Coffee at midnight
The light reflects
The chain on your neck
He says look up
And your shoulders brush
No proof, one touch
But you felt enough

The last three lines are the strongest, probably because they’re the climax — it’s a subdued peak, but subdued is, for lack of a better word, enough. The chorus uses anaphora and four lines to tell a story, taking us from the silence they share to the ride home to the evening in bed. I interpret this chorus as taking place after they part, with her buzzing post-encounter, but it could also be interpreted as them going home together. Unfortunately, the second chorus is a bit weaker than the first, and the bridge falls a little flat — I particularly don’t like the “lost their minds and fought the wars” phrase, since most wars aren’t fought over love (unless it’s Helen of Troy). I understand why she decides to get meta at the end of the bridge, but I don’t find this self-referential line effective; it takes me out of the song.

Best Lyrics:
And your shoulders brush
No proof, one touch
But you felt enough

You can hear it in the silence
You can feel it on the way home
You can see it with the lights out
You are in love

Worst Lyrics:
And you understand now
Why they lost their minds and fought the wars
And why I’ve spent my whole life trying to put it into words

18. Ours

Like Innocent, this is one of the less popular songs off of Speak Now. But it has some really good lines! You have to suspend your disbelief and imagine Swift as someone pushing paper in a corporate job. Got it? Okay, now look at this take-down: “Elevator buttons and morning air / Strangers’ silence makes me want to take the stairs / If you were here, we’d laugh about their vacant stares / But right now, my time is theirs.”

The peak of the song is its chorus. Every single line, but particularly the second and third, have the pithiness and profundity of proverbs. I had to research them to confirm they’re originals. And the fourth sets up two idioms as sources of conflict, which she cuts through with the simple comment that this love is theirs. It’s unclear whether the love itself can overcome the conflict, or fact that it’s the two of them that matters. Either way, it’s sweet. Oh, another couplet which is cute, maybe a little too cute, but still enjoyable: “And any snide remarks from my father about your tattoos / Will be ignored, ’cause my heart is yours.” Like You Are in Love, the worst line is the one where she gets meta: “I’ll fight their doubt and give you faith with this song for you.”

Best Lyrics:
So don’t you worry your pretty little mind
People throw rocks at things that shine
And life makes love look hard
The stakes are high, the water’s rough
But this love is ours

Worst Lyrics:
I’ll fight their doubt and give you faith with this song for you

17. marjorie

Talk about proverb — this song is stacked with them! They’re meant to come from her now-passed grandmother as trinkets of wisdom. The chorus has a lot of heart, expressing the idea that people live on through others: “What died didn’t stay dead / You’re alive, you’re alive in my head.” The bridge is a string of memories, now and then, of her grandmother. I particularly like “You’d always go past where our feet could touch” to represent her daring nature and her literal size relative to a young Swift. One particular couplet, “I should’ve asked you how to be / Asked you to write it down for me” does the best job underscoring Swift’s humility and wish that she could still lean on her grandmother for emotional support. The worst couplet is sadly one of the proverbs — “Nevеr wield such power / You forget to be polite,” which is fine in some contexts, but I worry it could be weaponized to entrench gender roles; i.e., women’s power should be limited to accommodate their civility. I recognize it’s set up against the inverse (“Never be so polite / You forget your power”) but I still think it’s okay to have lots of power and also not be polite to those who don’t deserve it. This is a small point in an otherwise heartwarming and contemplative song.

Best Lyrics:
What died didn’t stay dead
You’re alive, you’re alive in my head

I should’ve asked you how to be
Asked you to write it down for me

Worst Lyrics:
Nevеr wield such power
You forget to be polite

16. Soon You’ll Get Better

A tear-jerker about her mother’s health conditions, Swift gets vulnerable here in a way that works much better than in Ronan, since this time it’s personal. The opening stanza is just that — a stanza. She starts with a zoomed-in, generalizable detail, adds more specific detail in the second line to imply there’s a health issue, and in the third line express that the issue continues: “The buttons of my coat were tangled in my hair / In doctor’s-office-lighting, I didn’t tell you I was scared / That was the first time we were there.” The chorus reads as a statement, but is evidently a plea: “You’ll get better soon / ’Cause you have to.” The second verse admits to this — she recognizes her delusion, and her mother accedes to “make the best of a bad deal.” Still, she offers to do all she can to lift her mother’s spirits, whether painting the kitchen neon or brightening the sky. The bridge acknowledges that by singing this song from her own perspective and elevating its profile, Taylor’s making the situation about Taylor — but it’s her only way to process it. The last couplet is the weakest, without any new substance: “This won’t go back to normal, if it ever was / It’s been years of hoping and I keep saying it because” would be nice if it did more than just repeat the sentiment that came before a little more explicitly.

Best Lyrics:
I know delusion when I see it in the mirror
You like the nicer nurses, you make the best of a bad deal

And I hate to make this all about me
But who am I supposed to talk to?
What am I supposed to do
If there’s no you?

Worst Lyrics:
This won’t go back to normal, if it ever was
It’s been years of hoping and I keep saying it because

15. Fearless

This is a purely happy song — no stress, no drama except for some rain and the prospect of a goodnight kiss. She states in the chorus, “I don’t know how it gets better than this.” Her writing gets better, but her unbridled joy might be at its zenith in this song. There are of course later songs with more sensual, more wise, and more sustainable takes on love — but for young love, this might be as good as it gets.

There are two places that are as good as it gets for this song: the lead-in before the first chorus, and the chorus itself. I simply adore her placement of “absent-mindedly,” both in her choice to use it and her enjambment, such that the adverb appears at first glance to apply to her instead of her partner. The peak of the chorus itself has maybe her best (or at least most iconic) reference to rain — which is saying something for Swift. She’s willing to ruin her best dress and get soaked in a storm if it means she can dance with her partner. For a teenager, where clothing is very important, often the most valuable thing you have and a part of your identity, this is huge! The worst couplet isn’t even bad, but I had to pick something. The last verse’s “You put your eyes on me / In this moment now, capture it, remember it” could do more to help transition us narratively from the car to the doorway, but instead it focuses on his eyes. Which, if they’re like the jungle, is understandable.

Best Lyrics:
I’m trying so hard not to get caught up now
But you’re just so cool, run your hands through your hair
Absent-mindedly making me want you

And I don’t know why but with you I’d dance
In a storm in my best dress, fеarless

Worst Lyrics:
You put your eyes on me
In this moment now, capture it, remember it

14. Forever & Always

For a time (though it’d soon be outpaced by a song apiece on Speak Now and Red, and eventually by one on Midnight), this was Swift’s best angry break-up song. And (scared little) boy, is she angry. It starts like a fairytale: “Once upon a time / I believe it was a Tuesday when I caught your eye / And we caught onto something.” No notes. She only gets a few more lines in before the big twist: “Were you just kidding?” I think the chorus might be the most singable of her choruses. The couplet between the titular lines focuses on rain, and I know I just said that Fearless (the song) has the best reference to it, but I changed my mind. Here, rain is more explicitly a metaphor for sadness (also, probably anger), and the repetition belabors the point that she is in a funk everywhere, with him, without him, in his bedroom, outside of his bedroom — the sum total of all locations. Another gem of a couplet in the second verse: “So here’s to everything coming down to nothing / Here’s to silence that cuts me to the core.” She’s toasting! The sass is what cuts to the core. The second verse frustratingly calls her ex a “scared little boy,” which entrenches gender roles and the assumption that men should be big and brave. But otherwise, this song is quite strong.

Best Lyrics:
Oh, and it rains in your bedroom, everything is wrong
It rains when you’re here and it rains when you’re gone

Once upon a time
I believe it was a Tuesday when I caught your eye
And we caught onto something

Worst Lyrics:
Did I say something way too honest, made you run and hide
Like a scared little boy?

13. Last Kiss

I am going to be honest and say that I thought this song was so-so until I listened to Every Single Album, and Nathan Hubbard’s emphatic praise convinced me to listen closely a couple times in a row. And it is really, really good. It’s the converse of Forever & Always in that Swift spends the whole album mourning a relationship and going through the recovery process. She bears her ex no ill will. In the bridge, she maintains certain friendships solely for the purpose to get secondhand news about her ex. And she hopes that wherever her ex is, it’s nice, and the sun shines, and it’s a beautiful day. Still, she’s broken up — and broken up about it. In the prechorus, she resigns herself to just sitting on the floor, ensconced in her ex’s clothes (maybe not helpful for getting over them) and once more invokes a knowledge juxtaposition: “But now I’ll go / Sit on the floor wearin’ your clothes / All that I know is I don’t know / How to be somethin’ you miss.” Within her recollections of the past, I find one couplet particularly captivating: “I do recall now, the smell of the rain / Fresh on the pavement, I ran off the plane.” It’s more rain, and it still works. She’s the rain expert. “How you kissed me when I was in the middle of saying something / There’s not a day I don’t miss those rude interruptions” is pretty cute. Is it too late to give this relationship another shot? We do have a few weaker lines on this song: “I’m not much for dancing, but for you, I did” simply isn’t true, and “Because I love your handshake, meeting my father” is a little get-my-father’s-approval-coded. The worst line is the chorus’s declaration that her ex’s name will forever be on her lips — I think it’s maybe a stretch, and it doesn’t go far enough to create imagery which blends with the “last kiss” concept. Yes, lips are also used in kissing. But that’s not enough to align the concepts. Also, time proves their name is no longer on her lips. Last Kiss, I bestow upon you the gift of #13.

Best Lyrics:
I do recall now, the smell of the rain
Fresh on the pavement, I ran off the plane

All that I know is I don’t know
How to be somethin’ you miss

And I’ll keep up with our old friends just to ask them how you are
Hope it’s nice where you are

And I hope the sun shines and it’s a beautiful day
And something reminds you you wish you had stayed

Worst Lyrics:
I never imagined we’d end like this
Your name, forever the name on my lips

The B+ Lyrics

B+ songs are truly excellent. If an artist has even a single B+ song, they should be proud. I’d be elated to have written one of these, and my authority to critique them diminishes — but I’ll do so anyway.

12. gold rush

First of all, this song is not about Joe Alwyn. Sorry. It’s not. I’d put my money on Harry Styles, but it’s also a strong contender for a Gaylor theory. To my knowledge, it’s a completely new figurative use of the phrase “gold rush” to connote a flood of emotions — it moves beyond the moment of eureka and striking gold to emphasize the state of oversaturation. The best part is probably the chorus, though there are flecks of gold throughout. First, it’s a twist from the verses — instead of saying she’s excited about this love interest, she shuts it down. This is communicated through anaphora in the first three lines. It’s conceptually complex, describing anxiety that precedes an encounter with them. She hyperbolizes to emphasize her love interest’s status, claiming anyone would trade their life for physical contact with them. The next two lines also use anaphora, and spread like butter: “Everybody wants you / Everybody wonders what it would be like to love you” employs either assonance, consonance, or both on every stressed syllable.

Other great parts: she namedrops her previous album with “My mind turns your life into folklore / I can’t dare to dream about you anymore.” This is helpful in a meta sense because it shows us through analogy what Swift conceptualizes as “folklore.” In the line “I don’t like that falling feels like flying ’til the bone crush,” she describes an Icarus-like path of attraction, similar to her so-happy-it-turns-back-to-sad language on Gorgeous. I like how she finds herself in this very song falling into the trap of imagining them together, and then has to catch herself: “At dinner parties, I call you out on your contrarian shit / And the coastal town we wandered ‘round had nеver seen a love as pure as it / And thеn it fades into the gray of my day-old tea / ’Cause it could never be.” The first four lines aren’t as captivating as the rest of the song, which just describes the love interest’s eyes and her temptation to jump into waters — I think she’s saying the sinking ships are inviting, but people often say that water itself is inviting, so it’s a bit hazy.

Best Lyrics:
But I don’t like a gold rush
I don’t like anticipating my face in a red flush
I don’t like that anyone would die to feel your touch
Everybody wants you
Everybody wonders what it would be like to love you

My mind turns your life into folklore
I can’t dare to dream about you anymore

Worst Lyrics:
Gleaming, twinkling
Eyes like sinking
Ships on waters
So inviting, I almost jump in

11. Back to December

Her best I-was-wrong song, this gets too much attention for being about Jacob and not enough attention for being really good. It tells a compelling story, jumping right into their first conversation after the breakup: “I’m so glad you made time to see me / How’s life? Tell me, how’s your family?” In the last line of the verse, she notices that his guard is up, but she knows why—the pre-chorus reveals that she broke up with him. And the chorus is her declaration of remorse—is she trying to get back together with him? Not necessarily. But she really, really regrets the breakup. Possibly Swift’s strongest original proverb (certainly in the top ten), the chorus swells at “Turns out freedom ain’t nothing but missin’ you.” In the second verse, the seasons change, and so do people, and she makes dual use of “dark days.” She juxtaposes what she and her ex give each other: all his love versus her goodbye. The bridge is the weakest part of the song, but it’s not bad—I just don’t love her emphasis on his tanned skin, and find “so good to me, so right” a little cheesy.

Best Lyrics:
I’m so glad you made time to see me
How’s life? Tell me, how’s your family?

Turns out freedom ain’t nothing but missin’ you

You gave me all your love and all I gave you was goodbye

Worst Lyrics:
I miss your tanned skin, your sweet smile
So good to me, so right

10. Robin

A tender song either about children or cats, Swift writes eloquently here about keeping the world “in sweetness” for them and encouraging their imagination to run wild. I’m going to be honest and say I’m not sure yet what all the lines mean — but I know their thrust and I know they’re intriguing. Poetry doesn’t have to be obvious; it has to draw in the reader, and this draws me in. The recurring phrase “You have no idea” juxtaposes the innocence of the subject of the song against her lived reality. She describes the subject as reigning in the first verse, and as a “just ruler” in the second. They are only a ruler over Swift: they can barely communicate, babbling/growling out the window in the first verse.

I’m still wrapping my head around the first prechorus: “Strings tied to levers / Slowed-down clocks tethered / All this showmanship / To keep it for you in sweetness.” First, it’s beautiful mechanistic language, describing how Swift is laboring with complex devices that the subject doesn’t understand in order to make the world appear magical. If it’s about a kid, I think “strings tied to levers” describes a piano she’s playing, and the slowed-down clocks are figurative, as Swift tries to slow down the wheel of time to protect the child’s innocence. If it’s about a cat, then it could describe a rod with a string attached and a spring at the end — a spring is a key part of a clock. Either way, it’s captivating.

In the chorus, she coaxes the subject: “Way to go, tiger / Higher and higher.” This could reference her dangling a cat toy ever-so-slightly higher, or tossing a kid in the air, or pushing them on a swing, or just supporting a figurative ascension. She also juxtaposes this height against the secrets she “buried down deep” to hide them from the subject.

The bridge is also beautiful, included below in its entirety:

You got the dragonflies above your bed
You have a favorite spot on the swing set
You have no room in your dreams for regrets
The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean
You’ll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline
But now we’ll curtail your curiosity
In sweetness

I particularly like the favorite spot on the swing set, very relatable, and the alliteration (and word choice) of “curtail your curiosity.” Small tiny things if I were writing it: I’d take out the “the” in the first line, drop “you have” in the second and third lines, make “regrets” singular in the third line to keep the words ending each line aligned, take out “the” before cruel and mean in the fourth line to allude to the subject themselves dishing it out, swap “just” for “on” in the fifth line because the subject bounces, not the trampoline, add “for” in the sixth line, and swap “in” for “with” in the seventh line to make curtail more grammatically appropriate. So instead, it’d read:

You got dragonflies above your bed
A favorite spot on the swing set
No room in your dreams for regret
The time will arrive for cruel and mean
You’ll learn to bounce back like on your trampoline
But for now we’ll curtail your curiosity
With sweetness

But these are tiny edits; it’s in quite good form. Even the worst lyric in this song, “you are bloodthirsty,” isn’t itself bad — it’s good exposition, but it slightly conflicts with the theme of the song: the subject is meant to be innocent and ensconced in sweetness. If “The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean,” that means that bloodthirstiness isn’t cruel and mean. For a cat, it’s not; for a child, it probably is. Oh, last thing — it sounds a lot like Ingrid Michaelson’s Wonderful Unknown.

Best Lyrics:
Strings tied to levers
Slowed-down clocks tethered

Worst Lyrics:
You’re an animal, you are bloodthirsty

9. You Belong with Me

Her first song I truly admired, this leans into high school stereotypes and gender roles while placing Swift in the position of the “uncool” girl pining for the boy next door. She pits herself against the cheer captain, knocking her down a few times in the process. Now, these are not good messages to entrench—but it’s a time capsule for that period, and she writes yearning so well. The second half of the first verse dabbles in alliteration and compares herself to her love interest’s partner in such a funny way—Swift is “listening to the kind of music she doesn’t like.” What kind of music? The Smiths?

The chorus’s juxtapositions are some of her strongest across her catalog, simple and sympathetic: “She wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts / She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers.” The question in each chorus isn’t hopeless, but rather aspirational: “Been here all along, so why can’t you see? / You belong with me.” The second verse went viral on TikTok, with her gushing “And you’ve got a smile that could light up this whole town / I haven’t seen it in a while since she brought you down.” I don’t like TikTok, but I like this couplet. The bridge’s anaphora is a little cheeky, and again she declares she knows her worth: “Think I know where you belong / Think I know it’s with me.” The weakest couplet is fine, but she rhymes “that” with “that”—even though the “thats” are different.

Best Lyrics:
I’m in my room, it’s a typical Tuesday night
I’m listening to the kind of music she doesn’t like

She wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts
She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers

And you’ve got a smile that could light up this whole town

I know your favorite songs
And you tell me ‘bout your dreams
Think I know where you belong
Think I know it’s with me

Worst Lyrics:
You say you’re fine, I know you better than that
Hey, whatcha doing with a girl like that?

8. Hits Different

Swift sandbagging this song and making it unavailable on Spotify for months was cruel. I wish I could say it’s her best I-am-not-okay song, but there are a few which outrank it. Still, this is an excellent, engrossing song. She is so rapt in her despair that she begins to think she’s losing her mind.

The song begins with an implicit reference to Macbeth—her hands (and heart) will never be clean. She’s throwing up on the street when she thinks about her ex in love with someone else. Intrusive thoughts overwhelm her public persona. She calls back to it’s time to go, proclaiming “They say that if it’s right, you know / Each bar plays our song / Nothing has ever felt so wrong.” The chorus is simple—it’s a singularly difficult breakup (it hits different) because it’s this ex, who is special. She spends a lot of time talking about red, and scarlet, and maroon, and apparently greige, but “catastrophic blues” is one of her better shades.

I love the second verse’s “the sun burns my heart and the sand hurts my feelings.” Everything is going wrong—the world is against her. Powerfully (and sadly), her friends give up on her, since her “sadness is contagious.” Ugh. “I stopped receiving invitations” definitely won’t make it onto people’s Instagram captions, but I think everyone can relate. I really can’t decide my favorite line from the song—probably “the sand hurts my feelings,” but it’s too hard—I’m a big fan of the third verse, which is half the length but packs twice the punch. She starts hearing things: namely, her ex’s key turning in the door. She starts asking the subject, who is most definitely not in the room with us, whether it’s his key, whether he’s okay, whether it’s him, or if it’s the people who will “take her away,” presumably to some rehabilitation center for people dealing with extreme grief (and possibly delusions).

There are only a few lines I don’t find compelling: “I trace the evidence, make it make some sense / Why the wound is still bleedin’”; “A wrinkle in time like the crease by your eyes”; and “Like waiting for a bus that never shows / You just start walkin’ on.” The last of these excerpts is the weakest, since the latter line serves as a proverb she’s applying to herself, but the rest of the song is sung from first person.

Best Lyrics:
I washed my hands of us at the club
You made a mess of me
I pictured you with other girls in love
Then threw up on the street

Freedom felt like summеr then on the coast
Now the sun burns my heart and the sand hurts my feelings

I slur your name ’til someone puts me in a car
I stopped receiving invitations

I heard your key turn in the door down the hallway
Is that your key in the door?
Is it okay? Is it you?
Or have they come to take me away?

Worst Lyrics:
Like waiting for a bus that never shows
You just start walkin’ on

7. the 1

Swift has a lot of great leadoff tracks which set up themes for the album to come—State of Grace, Fearless, and I Forgot That You Existed among them. The is the exemplar leadoff track, as a standalone song and as a marker for a new era of Swift. Look at this opening verse:

I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit
Been saying yes instead of no
I thought I saw you at the bus stop, I didn’t though
I hit the ground running each night
I hit the Sunday matinée
You know the greatest films of all time were never made

She starts with a quick life update—she’s good—and drops a conversational expletive. The third line reveals she and the subject are estranged, and its simplicity begets subtext as we wonder how many times she “sees” this person in public. The last line is a proverb unto itself: art and experiences which could be breathtaking or life-changing often don’t manifest. I read it as a broader recognition of the randomness of the world, and the injustice that carries: the most technically proficient singer of all time may have been born centuries ago in a rural town, far from recognition or recording devices. Or the most creative painter could be born into a socioeconomic status such that they can’t afford to make art. It’s conceptually similar to a couplet from Better Oblivion Community Center’s Chesapeake—“My hero plays to no one, in a parking lot / Even though there’s no one around”—but this is better. Of course, she’s more directly implying that the love between her and the subject of the song could’ve been the best movie of all time. More specifically, the subject could’ve been the 1 (one).

I find the curls in the chorus tantalizing: “In my defense, I have none / For never leaving well enough alone.” Perfect is the enemy of the good, and the setup/reveal that she has no defense is cleverly framed. And then again, like “I thought I saw you at the bus stop, I didn’t though” in the first verse, she takes an understated approach to her admission of regret: “But it would’ve been fun / If you would’ve been the one.”

The rest of the song is still wonderful, but can’t reach these lofty highs. I like the understatedness and pragmatism of the second verse: “I have this dream you’re doing cool shit / Having adventures on your own / You meet some woman on the internet and take her home.” She doesn’t describe this as a nightmare, she doesn’t vilify him—she just acknowledges that his life moves on. The last chorus flips from “you would’ve been the one” to “it could’ve been me,” and she writes herself a nice layup with “sweet” as a conceptual transition between wine and memories to their potential: “Rosé flowing with your chosen family / And it would’ve been sweet / If it could’ve been me.” The only line I don’t like uses bleeding as a metaphor for her struggling, and I don’t like thinking about blood if I can help it.

Best Lyrics:
You know the greatest films of all time were never made

I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit
Been saying “yes” instead of “no”

In my defense, I have none
For never leaving well enough alone
But it would’ve been fun
If you would’ve been the one

Worst Lyrics:
And if you never bleed, you’re never gonna grow

6. The Story of Us

Despite its title, this song is not about the many chapters of a relationship—it’s about an awkward evening out where Swift runs into her ex and she doesn’t know how to interact. And her despair is our delight. The song begins with its titular line, and lets the listener know from the second word that this is not going to be a happy song: “I used to think one day we’d tell the story of us.” There are some call-backs and call-forwards to other songs: Sparks Fly and the soon-to-come The Lucky One. The couplet “I used to know my place was the spot next to you / Now I’m searchin’ the room for an empty seat” says so much in so little. She wraps the first verse by leaning into the storybook concept with “I don’t even know what page you’re on.” In the prechorus, I adore “So many things that I wish you knew / So many walls up, I can’t break through.” What things? So. Many. Things.

The chorus has a wonderful oxymoron, Swift’s best, which emphasizes how lonely and isolated she feels despite being surrounded by people. It’s just like a song by Jack’s Mannequin which I simply adore. She wants to speak through the silence to see if it’s hurting him as much as it hurts her. She reveals that their tale isn’t a love story—but a tragedy. And at the end of the chorus to sweep into the second verse, she drops the pithy “Next chapter.”

The rest of the song isn’t quite as groundshaking, but “I’ve never heard silence quite this loud” is another great oxymoron. The bridge recedes into battle analogies, but it’s not too painful—she’s willing to “lay her armor down,” which doesn’t induce the same aversion as her clunkier analogies. And she’s got a great way to wrap up the song and their story: “The end.”

Best Lyrics:
Now I’m standin’ alone in a crowded room

I used to know my place was the spot next to you
Now I’m searchin’ the room for an empty seat

Worst Lyrics:
The battle’s in your hands now
But I would lay my armor down
If you said you’d rather love than fight

The A- Lyrics

What separates an A- from a B+ is that an A- has maturity, storytelling, detail — every element I’ve described above as a facet. They’re all in these songs. I consistently get lines from these songs stuck in my head, not even with the melody — just the words alone. I’m including every lyric of these songs so you can read along in context.

5. right where you left me

This is the track 5 of all non-track 5s—so it’s fitting that it falls in fifth on this ranking. She can’t get over the specific moment when and where her relationship ended, and is literally trapped. There’s no closure to the song, because she can’t get any.

From the first verse, we’re in for a treat: the opening couplet juxtaposes friends from strangers, loss from love, life from death, and every other permutation by implication. She’s chain-burning matches while poring over pages of past memories, and they’ve started to blend together.

The pre-chorus starts with a plea for help—and we’re introduced to the site of the breakup. She’s turned into a shell of a person who haunts the corner booth of a restaurant, with strangers pitying her. I like the figurative stretch of “find somewhere” in “They expected me to find somewhere”—it reminds me of Company’s “find somebody.” And it enjambs to the next line, which enjambs to the chorus: “Some perspective, but I sat and stared right where / You left me, you left me no, oh, you left me no / You left me no choice but to stay here forever.” The buildup of “you left me” to “you left me no” to “you left me no choice but to stay here forever” sounds like someone who’s struggling to get out the words—and it’s an incredibly vulnerable thing to say. I also love the double meaning here of “left.” And I’m stealing it for my own song (this is me crediting her).

The only couplet in the song that tugs me the wrong way is “Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen? / Time went on for everybody else, she won’t know it.” I don’t like that Swift zooms out to the third-person, or use of the word “girl.” I also think “she won’t know it” isn’t the best way to communicate that she won’t experience time in the same way as others.

Song:
Friends break up, friends get married
Strangers get born, strangers get buried
Trends change, rumors fly through new skies
But I'm right where you left me
Matches burn after the other
Pages turn and stick to each other
Wages earned and lessons learned
But I, I'm right where you left me

Help, I’m still at the restaurant
Still sitting in a corner I haunt
Cross-legged in the dim light
They say what a sad sight, I
I swear you could hear a hair pin drop
Right when I felt the moment stop
Glass shattered on the white cloth
Everybody moved on, I, I stayed there
Dust collected on my pinned-up hair
They expected me to find somewhere
Some perspective, but I sat and stared right where

You left me, you left me no, oh, you left me no
You left me no choice but to stay here forever
You left me, you left me no, oh, you left me no
You left me no choice but to stay here forever

Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen?
Time went on for everybody else, she won’t know it
She’s still twenty-three inside her fantasy
How it was supposed to be
Did you hear about the girl who lives in delusion?
Breakups happen every day, you don’t have to lose it
She’s still twenty-three inside her fantasy
And you’re sitting in front of me

At the restaurant
When I was still the one you want
Cross-legged in the dim light
Everything was just right, I
I could feel the mascara run
You told me that you met someone
Glass shattered on the white cloth
Everybody moved on
Help, I’m still at the restaurant
Still sitting in a corner I haunt
Cross-legged in the dim light
They say what a sad sight, I, I stayed there
Dust collected on my pinned-up hair
I’m sure that you got a wife out there
Kids and Christmas, but I’m unaware ’cause I’m right where
I cause no harm, mind my business
If our love died young, I can’t bear witness, and it’s been so long
If you ever think you got it wrong, I’m right where

You left me, you left me no, oh, you left me no
You left me no choice but to stay here forever
You left me, you left me no, oh, you left me no
You left me no choice but to stay here forever

Best Lyrics:
They expected me to find somewhere
Some perspective, but I sat and stared right where
You left me, you left me no, oh, you left me no
You left me no choice but to stay here forever

Worst Lyrics:
Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen?
Time went on for everybody else, she won’t know it

4. Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve

This song is the end of and for John Mayer. It’s her most gutting song, more than All Too Well, more than The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, certainly more than thanK you aIMee. Of all the shitty things that have happened to Swift, and there have been plenty despite her privileged fame and wealth, I have decided that John Mayer was the worst. In case you have forgotten:
He was thirty-two. She was nineteen. As someone at the midpoint of those two ages…I’m shellshocked. Disgusted. How did anyone in her life think this would work out okay?

Soon after their relationship ended, she wrote some songs that took him down a peg, most notably Dear John, but time and trauma brewed in the cauldron. And this song is brutal. She calls him out on everything: he knew it was wrong, he treated her terribly, he took her girlhood, he irreparably altered her life, and he still haunts her.

I would focus more on specific lyrics, but the god’s honest truth is that they’re all strong. The top three are probably the pithy “And now that I know, I wish you’d left me wondering,” the matter-of-fact “I regret you all the time,” and the vindictive and vulnerable “Living for the thrill of hitting you where it hurts / Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first.” The worst line is “Gone along with the righteous,” but I think she also leans on “And the God’s honest truth is that the pain was heaven” a little too hard—does this mean the relationship was simultaneously (but independently) painful and heavenly, or is it a more masochistic, self-destructive enjoyment of pain itself?

The Song:
If you would’ve blinked, then I would’ve
Looked away at the first glance
If you tasted poison, you could’ve
Spit me out at the first chance
And if I was some paint, did it splatter
On a promising grown man?
And if I was a child, did it matter
If you got to wash your hands?

Ooh, all I used to do was pray
Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve
If you’d never looked my way

I would’ve stayed on my knees
And I damn sure never would’ve danced with the devil
At nineteen
And the God’s honest truth is that the pain was heaven
And now that I’m grown, I’m scared of ghosts
Memories feel like weapons
And now that I know, I wish you’d left me wondering

If you never touched me, I would’ve
Gone along with the righteous
If I never blushed, then they could’ve
Never whispered about this
And if you never saved me from boredom
I could’ve gone on as I was
But, Lord, you made me feel important
And then you tried to erase us

Ooh, you’re a crisis of my faith
Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve
If I’d only played it safe

I would’ve stayed on my knees
And I damn sure never would’ve danced with the devil
At nineteen
And the God’s honest truth is that the pain was heaven
And now that I’m grown, I’m scared of ghosts
Memories feel like weapons
And now that I know, I wish you’d left me wondering

God rest my soul
I miss who I used to be
The tomb won’t close
Stained glass windows in my mind
I regret you all the time
I can’t let this go
I fight with you in my sleep
The wound won’t close
I keep on waiting for a sign
I regret you all the time

If clarity’s in death, then why won’t this die?
Years of tearing down our banners, you and I
Living for the thrill of hitting you where it hurts
Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first

And I damn sure never would’ve danced with the devil
At nineteen
And the God’s honest truth is that the pain was heaven
And now that I’m grown, I’m scared of ghosts
Memories feel like weapons
And now that I know, I wish you’d left me wondering

God rest my soul
I miss who I used to be
The tomb won’t close
Stained glass windows in my mind
I regret you all the time
I can’t let this go
I fight with you in my sleep
The wound won’t close
I keep on waiting for a sign
I regret you all the time
Oh, God rest my soul
I miss who I used to be
The tomb won’t close
Stained glass windows in my mind
I regret you all the time
I can’t let this go
I fight with you in my sleep
The wound won’t close
I keep on waiting for a sign
I regret you all the time

Best Lyrics:
And now that I know, I wish you’d left me wondering

I regret you all the time

Living for the thrill of hitting you where it hurts
Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first

Worst Lyrics:
If you never touched me, I would’ve
Gone along with the righteous

3. All Too Well

Pretty much everyone thinks this is her best song. I agree! But it’s not quite her best lyrics (even among her track 5s). Don’t get me wrong — the writing is far superior to most of her early work, particularly that on Debut and Red. The 10 Minute Version is a pinnacle of songwriting in its heft. There are no lines that have to be deleted. But still…kill your darlings. This goes for albums, too.

I know I can’t say anything bad about this, so I’ll skirt past criticism and just note that “I walked through the door with you, the air was cold / But something ‘bout it felt like home somehow” isn’t her best opener, and the 10 Minute Version’s “And then you wondered where it went to as I reached for you / But all I felt was shame and you held my lifeless frame” doesn’t add much, nor does “I’m a soldier who’s returning half her weight.”

She tells a story of a past relationship, which she crucially remembers all too well. And at times, she’s not sure if it was as good as she thinks it was, or if he’s also torn up about their past. But she continually returns to the chorus, asserting “It was rare, I was there / I remember it all too well.” He doesn’t get to reframe it as something less—she was there too. The chorus is best part of the song, and the title is best part of the chorus. It’s a fresh phrasing of “I remember everything.”

Indeed, Swift remembers the relationship so well that she slips in precious details. Some of them come by way of subtext, like how her partner’s “sweet disposition” implies that they’re singing a song by that name together in the car. Other details, such as the red scarf—which Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve proves is not her virginity—still call to mind other times that they spent together beyond the confines of the song. Her megastar boyfriend is humanized by a photo album of his childhood, and they find themselves “dancin’ ‘round the kitchen in the refrigerator light.”

As the details erode and the relationship ends, she moves from details to wordplay: “you call me up again just to break me like a promise.” Similes give way to metaphors as she becomes “a crumpled-up piece of paper lyin’ here.” And of course, she invents a new descriptor, casually cruel, which is placed in a creative syntax: “So casually cruel in the name of bein’ honest.”

After the breakup, she returns to the detail of the red scarf, and the outro asks him whether he, too, remembers her (and their love) all too well. I wish she fed us a few more details, a little more context as to how they met and why they ended, and what her life looks like outside of the relationship after it ends. And I also wish it were shorter. Oxymoronic? Casually cruel? Sorry. I have high standards.

The Song:
I walked through the door with you, the air was cold
But somethin’ ‘bout it felt like home somehow
And I left my scarf there at your sister’s house
And you’ve still got it in your drawer, even now

Oh, your sweet disposition and my wide-eyed gaze
We’re singin’ in the car, getting lost upstate
Autumn leaves fallin’ down like pieces into place
And I can picture it after all these days

And I know it’s long gone and
That magic’s not here no more
And I might be okay, but I’m not fine at all
Oh, oh, oh

’Cause there we are again on that little town street
You almost ran the red ’cause you were lookin’ over at me
Wind in my hair, I was there
I remember it all too well

Photo album on the counter, your cheeks were turnin’ red
You used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin-sized bed
And your mother’s tellin’ stories ‘bout you on the tee-ball team
You taught me ‘bout your past, thinkin’ your future was me
And you were tossing me the car keys, “Fuck the patriarchy”
Keychain on the ground, we were always skippin’ town
And I was thinkin’ on the drive down, “Any time now
He’s gonna say it’s love,” you never called it what it was
’Til we were dead and gone and buried
Check the pulse and come back swearin’ it’s the same
After three months in the grave
And then you wondered where it went to as I reached for you
But all I felt was shame and you held my lifeless frame

And I know it’s long gone and
There was nothing else I could do
And I forget about you long enough
To forget why I needed to

’Cause there we are again in the middle of the night
We’re dancin’ ‘round the kitchen in the refrigerator light
Down the stairs, I was there
I remember it all too well
And there we are again when nobody had to know
You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath
Sacred prayer and we’d swear
To remember it all too well, yeah

Well, maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much
But maybe this thing was a masterpiece ’til you tore it all up
Runnin’ scared, I was there
I remember it all too well
And you call me up again just to break me like a promise
So casually cruel in the name of bein’ honest
I’m a crumpled-up piece of paper lyin’ here
’Cause I remember it all, all, all

They say all’s well that ends well, but I’m in a new hell
Every time you double-cross my mind
You said if we had been closer in age, maybe it would’ve been fine
And that made me want to die
The idea you had of me, who was she?
A never-needy, ever-lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you
Not weepin’ in a party bathroom
Some actress askin’ me what happened, you
That’s what happened, you
You who charmed my dad with self-effacing jokes
Sippin’ coffee like you’re on a late-night show
But then he watched me watch the front door all night, willin’ you to come
And he said, “It’s supposed to be fun turning twenty-one”

Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it
I’d like to be my old self again, but I’m still tryin’ to find it
After plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own
Now you mail back my things and I walk home alone
But you keep my old scarf from that very first week
’Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me
You can’t get rid of it
’Cause you remember it all too well, yeah

’Cause there we are again when I loved you so
Back before you lost the one real thing you’ve ever known
It was rare, I was there
I remember it all too well
Wind in my hair, you were there
You remember it all
Down the stairs, you were there
You remember it all
It was rare, I was there
I remember it all too well

And I was never good at tellin’ jokes, but the punch line goes
“I’ll get older, but your lovers stay my age”
From when your Brooklyn broke my skin and bones
I’m a soldier who’s returning half her weight
And did the twin flame bruise paint you blue?
Just between us, did the love affair maim you too?
’Cause in this city’s barren cold
I still remember the first fall of snow
And how it glistened as it fell
I remember it all too well

Just between us, did the love affair maim you all too well?
Just between us, do you remember it all too well?
Just between us, I remember it (Just between us) all too well
Wind in my hair, I was there, I was there (I was there)
Down the stairs, I was there, I was there
Sacred prayer, I was there, I was there
It was rare, you remember it all too well
Wind in my hair, I was there, I was there (Oh)
Down the stairs, I was there, I was there (I was there)
Sacred prayer, I was there, I was there
It was rare, you remember it (All too well)
Wind in my hair, I was there, I was there
Down the stairs, I was there, I was there
Sacred prayer, I was there, I was there
It was rare, you remember it
Wind in my hair, I was there, I was there
Down the stairs, I was there, I was there
Sacred prayer, I was there, I was there
It was rare, you remember it

Best Lyrics:
It was rare, I was there
I remember it all too well

Worst Lyrics:
And then you wondered where it went to as I reached for you
But all I felt was shame and you held my lifeless frame

2. tolerate it

Based on a novel, this song has a precise voice that separates it from so many of her other songs about difficult relationships. For the context of the song, she is a young woman in her 20s who marries a wealthy, 42-year-old widower. I won’t spoil the book, but suffice it to say that she is unshakably insecure about her age, her lived experience, and her status. It’s what age gaps are made of, and she emphasizes the singer’s relative youth by leaning on lots of first-person statements in short clipped phrases. But some of these apparently simple lines are still profound, underscoring the singer’s wisdom and perceptiveness. “I notice everything you do or don’t do” looks at his negative space, meaning she’s always on alert. It also hints that there are many things he doesn’t do for her.

But she’s “just a kid”: no matter how hard she tries to be a good housewife, she’s still drawing pictures with her best colors. Despite not knowing much, she knows she deserves to be loved and celebrated—and yet, he merely tolerates it. The chorus almost asks for him for gaslight her, because the reality seems too painful: “If it’s all in my head, tell me now / Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow.” As the song progresses, her vocabulary becomes more complex and she uses advanced literary devices, with the most satisfying couplet “I made you my temple, my mural, my sky / Now I’m beggin’ for footnotes in the story of your life.” She strongly considers leaving in the swell of the bridge and final chorus, but seems to settle back down and resign herself to continue watching her partner—returning from whence she came, and indicating this song may have all taken place in the span of an instant. Unsurprisingly, I don’t like the battle reference, but it’s brief. That’s the only thing keeping this from the top tier.

The Song:
I sit and watch you readin’ with your head low
I wake and watch you breathin’ with your eyes closed
I sit and watch you
I notice everything you do or don’t do
You’re so much older and wiser, and I

I wait by the door like I’m just a kid
Use my best colors for your portrait
Lay the table with the fancy shit
And watch you tolerate it
If it’s all in my head, tell me now
Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow
I know my love should be celebrated
But you tolerate it

I greet you with a battle hero’s welcome
I take your indiscretions all in good fun
I sit and listen
I polish plates until they gleam and glisten
You’re so much older and wiser, and I

I wait by the door like I’m just a kid
Use my best colors for your portrait
Lay the table with the fancy shit
And watch you tolerate it
If it’s all in my head, tell me now
Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow
I know my love should be celebrated
But you tolerate it

While you were out buildin’ other worlds, where was I?
Where’s that man who’d throw blankets over my barbed wire?
I made you my temple, my mural, my sky
Now I’m beggin’ for footnotes in the story of your life
Drawin’ hearts in the byline
Always takin’ up too much space or time
You assume I’m fine, but what would you do if I (I)

Break free and leave us in ruins?
Took this dagger in me and removed it
Gain the weight of you, then lose it
Believe me, I could do it
If it’s all in my head, tell me now
Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow
I know my love should be celebrated
But you tolerate it

I sit and watch you

Best Lyrics:
I sit and watch you
I notice everything you do or don’t do

I know my love should be celebrated
But you tolerate it

I sit and listеn, I polish plates until they gleam and glistеn

I made you my temple, my mural, my sky
Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life

Worst Lyrics:
I greet you with a battle hero’s welcome

The A Lyrics

An A is a superlative — there are incredibly few songs I’ve taken the time to analyze which I’d give this grade. There’s not a single line I would remove. I could play around with some substitutions, but I don’t feel the need to — I just appreciate the words washing over me. For reference, two other songs which I would give an A are Here, There, and Everywhere and ICU — songs by artists whom I hold in the highest regard. At this point, Taylor’s getting up there too.

1. New Year’s Day

This song is possibly perfect. It’s the interiority of Sweet Nothing, with the forever-love of Lover, with the wisdom of Peace. She gifts three couplets which impeccably capture three distinct sentiments.

First, the titular couplet of the song, which juxtaposes the passion and jubilation of midnights (at parties or together alone) against the sobering headache of the morning after. “I want your midnights / But I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day.” She wants this person through it all: the highs, the lows. The crescendos and the falls. The climaxes and the come-downs. But beautifully, because this is about New Year’s Day, it’s not just any old morning after: it’s a threshold of time, a chance to reflect on one’s past, an excuse to contemplate new beginnings. It’s the midnight kiss of songs. She wants to spend her future with this person, and is willing to work through the hard stuff.

Second, the refrain: “Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you / And I will hold on to you.” It’s All Too Well, but happy. She uses “hold” in two different ways, personifies memories, and juxtaposes the subject from her. The first line by itself is powerful—memories can sustain and nourish you when times are hard. And these are good memories. But the second line, the promise that she, too, will hold on. Compare this to the desperation of The Archer’s “help me hold on to you.” It’s simplicity. It’s forever. It’s Swift.

Finally, the outro, which asks the subject of the song to never drift: “Please don’t ever become a stranger / Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere.” This alludes to the same I-see-you-everywhere concept she’s referenced in the 1 and Holy Ground and many others, but this time it’s an aural encounter—a laugh, which adds detail and nuance. She’s scared not only to hear him laugh, but to laugh with others: there’s some jealousy by implication.

While these couplets have each taken a life of their own in my head (and I hope in yours, too), the song has so much more to mine. The details of glitter and shoes and candle wax and Polaroids. Her gentle goading not to “read the last page” (a callback to The Story of Us) and then immediately spoiling the ending anyway. Every time I hear the line “You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi,” I think of Dr. Bartlet and Jed in the back of the presidential car—which isn’t a taxi, but the conceptual link won’t die. Just like Swift and her lover in that Polaroid on the hardwood floor: “You and me forevermore.”

The Song:
There’s glitter on the floor after the party
Girls carryin’ their shoes down in the lobby
Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor
You and me from the night before, but

Don’t read the last page
But I stay when you’re lost and I’m scared and you’re turnin’ away
I want your midnights
But I’ll be cleanin’ up bottles with you on New Year’s Day

You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi
I can tell that it’s gonna be a long road
I’ll be there if you’re the toast of the town, babe
Or if you strike out and you’re crawlin’ home

Don’t read the last page
But I stay when it’s hard or it’s wrong or we’re makin’ mistakes
I want your midnights
But I’ll be cleanin’ up bottles with you on New Year’s Day

Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you
Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you
Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you
And I will hold on to you

Please, don’t ever become a stranger
Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
Please, don’t ever become a stranger
Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere

There’s glitter on the floor after the party
Girls carryin’ their shoes down in the lobby
Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor
You and me forevermore

Don’t read the last page
But I stay when it’s hard or it’s wrong or we’re makin’ mistakes
I want your midnights
But I’ll be cleanin’ up bottles with you on New Year’s Day

Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you
Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you
Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you
And I will hold on to you

Please, don’t ever become a stranger
Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
Please, don’t ever become a stranger
Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
And I will hold on to you

Best Lyrics:
I want your midnights
But I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day

Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you
And I will hold on to you

Please don’t ever become a stranger
Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere

Reflection

If you’ve gotten this far, congratulations. I’m curious where your thoughts align and diverge — you can let me know using this form, make your own ranking using this template, or send me messages at @zssranks on Instagram.

Superfans will note I didn’t include some songs where she’s been credited. I didn’t feel comfortable judging the lyrics as hers when she’s a featured artist or contributing writer, because it’s not clear to me she had final say over them. Maybe you can convince me to include them. For what it’s worth, I’d rank them Renegade, Both of Us, The Alcott, Two Is Better Than One, Best Days of Your Life, and The Joker And The Queen.

For those of you into visualizations, here’s a cumulative ranking of each of her albums:

Swift’s Albums, Ranked by Average Lyrics Score

Evermore is the lyrical powerhouse of her catalog, which explains why I like it so much. Albums which are more pop-heavy, Lover and 1989, fare the worst. It’s worth mentioning that Lover and The Tortured Poets Department both get dragged down by a few problematic songs, and they’d otherwise place higher. Even then, The Tortured Poets Department is disappointing given its title. I recognize it’s a satirical bite against Joe’s groupchat (or maybe against Healy’s self-reverence), but she still leans into the concept of being a poet herself—take the prologue/epilogue of the album (which I’m not counting as songs for the purpose of this ranking). It also suffers from its size (unlike Healy (sorry)). If you only average the top fourteen songs from each album (the length of Debut), it soars from eighth to fourth:

Swift’s Albums, Ranked by Average Lyrics Score of the Top 14 Songs

Still, nothing shakes the 1–2–3 placement of evermore, Speak Now, and Fearless. What does this tell us? There aren’t too many bad songs on these albums, particularly evermore, whose worst song (happiness) is only 169th—ahead of 13 songs off of The Tortured Poets Department. Her storytelling shot up after Debut, where she was able to grasp some good titular concepts but struggled to elaborate on them in the verses. Contrariwise, these top three albums flesh out verses with details and literary devices.

Much like her newest work, I’m worried this piece has become bloated. I’ve now surpassed 60,000 words. Hopefully some of them were compelling. I’ll wrap this up by affirming my respect for Swift and her writing. That’s why I take it seriously. I’m excited to see her future work, and I hope that she continues putting words to paper and to voice memo—our world is better with her words in it.