With Midnights, Swift kicks off a melancholic phase that isn’t afraid of the dark. The moon begins to dim. The tone turns to maturity, generosity, and sharing lessons learned. It makes sense that the stories on Midnights are pulled from across Swift’s life — she’s now able to look back and see her history through new eyes. In album-closer “Mastermind,” Swift sings, “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid / So I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since,” a nod back to themes of the outlaw in Reputation’s “Getaway Car” and prey vs. predator in Lover’s “The Archer,” that also adds new psychological depth to the core wounds driving her behavior. In “Maroon,” the too-hot love from 2012’s “Red” and 2019’s “Daylight” lyric “I used to think love would be burning red,” now becomes a more mature “so scarlet it was maroon.”
