By Jamie Yoos
Correspondent
Pastels, love and butterflies aestheticized the music Taylor Swift fans awaited until midnight on Aug. 23, when the singer dropped her highly anticipated seventh studio album, “Lover.”
During Swift’s previous era with her album, “Reputation,” she capitalized on her declining status in Hollywood by reclaiming the snake-figure and acknowledging her mistakes, but also outlined her strength through perseverance.
“Reputation” had a much edgier vibe than any of Swift’s previous albums, which left fans excited to see the artist’s transition to the colorful and cheerful “Lover” era.
It’s speculated that the song “Cruel Summer” is about the summer of 2016 when Swift met her boyfriend, English actor Joe Alwyn. The song combines the feelings of love and happiness Swift had during her new relationship along with her simultaneous feuding with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.
The song has beautiful vocals from Swift, including an interesting deep vocal throughout that is sure to give you chills. It’s definitely a fan favorite and the chorus is one that will be stuck in your head for days upon listening.
“Lover” is the title track of the album, and for good reason. The song encompasses the entire theme of the album, which is love, romance, passion and joy.
The title track is a beautiful, yet adorable dedication to Swift’s lover, depicting little aspects about the relationship that are meaningful.
“Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand? With every guitar string scar on my hand, I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover,” she sings.
Some of the lyrics in this song caused Swifties to believe the singer may be getting married in the near future.
“The Man” is a very upbeat, powerful song about double-standards against women. It is one you can dance to, but it also really gets you thinking.
In this song, Swift sings about how she is “sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man.”
Swift sings, “If I was a man, then I’d be the man.” where she is saying if people took her seriously, she’d be seen in a better light by more people.
She touches on very valid points when she talks about topics such as if she flaunted her money, she’d be “a bitch, not a baller” — you know it’s serious when Swift uses the word “bitch” for the first time ever in a song. It’s one that you can really pump your fists to and chant the lyrics, and feel a therapeutic release while doing so.
“Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince” has one of the more complex themes of the album. The song takes Taylor’s classic high school lyrical trope and reformulates it to reflect America under President Donald Trump’s leadership.
“American glory faded before me / Now I’m feeling hopeless, ripped up my prom dress / Running through rose thorns, I saw the scoreboard /And ran for my life,” Swift belts.
“Cornelia Street” is an unbelievably beautiful and heart-wrenching song about being in a relationship that’s so good, you worry about how you’d survive if it ever came to an end.
It’s beautifully written in a way that tugs at your heartstrings just enough, with very obvious links to her boyfriend, Joe Alwyn.
“I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends, I’d never walk Cornelia Street again,” she sings.
Among other aspects, Taylor’s falsetto is breathtaking in this song.
“Death By A Thousand Cuts” is a song about how slow and painful it can be to say goodbye — a metaphorical death by a thousand cuts. Swift is known for her killer metaphors, but this song is a whole new level of beautiful metaphorical lyrics.
“I look through the windows of this love, even though we boarded them up,” is my personal favorite lyric because it is such a perfect metaphor for looking back on an ended relationship and the song is one of my favorites of all time for that reason.
The song’s co-writer and producer, Jack Antonoff, really shines through with his contributions in this track. The piano in the song screams Antonoff’s name, directly reminding me of the album “Strange Desire” by his band, Bleachers, with its dramatic indie-pop feel, as he and Swift have musical styles that always go well together.
