Taylor Swift’s New Song Has Me Rethinking Think Pieces
Taylor Swift’s new pro-LGBTQ single has once again riled up her detractors on the Internet with criticisms of money-grabbing, self-serving, and poor ally-ship. But here’s an alternative take.
“You Need to Calm Down”
Last Friday, Taylor Swift dropped her new song “You Need to Calm Down,” the second single from her forthcoming album Lover (her seventh, due August 23rd).
Like the first single, “Me!” (a duet with Brendon Urie of Panic! At the Disco), it is a candy-coated, rainbow-colored pop confection that seems determined to show us that she has fully moved on from the relatively darker and more cynical era that surrounded her last album, Reputation.
Unlike the first single, however, underneath the synth beats and clever hooks there is actually a coherent, progressive, and dare I say bold theme embedded in the lyrics of “You Need to Calm Down.” This is hardly the first time Taylor Swift has written about living your best life despite the pathetic haters that try to get you down (two of her best songs — “Mean” and “Shake It Off” cover this exact ground). But, it is the first time she got quite so specific about it.
The first verse references the admittedly long-list of haters that Taylor Swift has and how they tend to hide behind their Twitter handles…
