"Anti-Hero" is the third track and lead single on "Midnights."Īhlgrim: "Anti-Hero" is certainly not the soul-bearing revelation that many fans expected, but underneath its '80s synths, glockenspiel plinks, and bouncy melodies, Swift has buried nuggets of her trademark wit and nuance. "Maroon" is an example of Swift's best storytelling, the kind that carries across albums, shading in new hues and perspectives with each new addition. "And how the blood rushed into my cheeks / So scarlet, it was maroon" recalls "I don't like anticipating my face in a red flush." There are shades of "Gold Rush" from "Evermore" too. With swaths of scarlet, burgundy, ruby, rose, and obviously, maroon, Swift paints a portrait quite similar to that of "Dress": "When you splashed your wine into me" is reminiscent of "I'm spilling wine in the bathtub, you kiss my face and we're both drunk" while "Like you were my closest friend" seems to nod to "'Cause I don't want you like a best friend." Larocca: "Maroon" is a brilliant play on Swift's outdated color theory about love, adapting it to a relationship that I'd presume happened post-"Red" (She wouldn't have been downing a bottle of discount wine prior to her 21st birthday) but pre-"Lover" (when she realizes love isn't red, but instead "golden like daylight.") This song is imbued with the sexiest shades of "Reputation," stripped of the album's annoying maximalism: "The lips I used to call home, so scarlet" recalls the feminine lust that's central to "Dress," for example, and Swift's delivery of "your roommate's cheap-ass screw-top rosé" could've been lifted straight from "King of My Heart." "Maroon" is the second track on "Midnights."Īhlgrim: If you got 2017 flashbacks from "Lavender Haze," you probably weren't prepared for the shimmery nostalgic rush of "Maroon." As someone with the correct opinion that the track is one of the best on "Lover," I'm thrilled by this direction. Production-wise, it reminds me of "False God" but at a faster tempo. Lyrically, it's quintessential Swift, who excels at redirecting common turns of phrase: Put "Damned if I do, damned if I don't" on her desk, and she'll hand back "I'm damned if I do give a damn what people say." Larocca: "Lavender Haze" is an immediate yes. Swift's artful revolt results in one of the strongest couplets on the entire album: "All they keep asking me is if I'm gonna be your bride / The only kind of girl they see is a one-night or a wife." (Every bait and switch was a work of art, haven't you heard?)
Swift teased "Lavender Haze" by telling fans she cribbed the title from an episode of "Mad Men," claiming it's a "common phrase that was used in the '50s" to describe being in love.īut the song itself isn't a picket-fence fantasy, rather a critique of that very expectation ("the 1950s shit they want from me"). I have spent many hours imagining what "Midnights" might sound like - agonizing even, since Swift declined to give us any singles or snippets beforehand - but I did not anticipate a return to the moody-pop landscape of "Delicate" and "Dress" (the two best songs on "Reputation"). "Lavender Haze" is the opening track on "Midnights."Īhlgrim: When those watery synths first entered my eardrums, I felt my eyes light up like a little kid's.
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