Taylor Swift’s latest album, Midnights, took me by surprise — but, it shouldn’t have. It’s realistic that Swift would return to her pop sound. While the music itself is much more upbeat than, perhaps, what we’re used to with folklore and evermore, many of the lyrics still read like poetry.
The most surprising thing about the release of Midnights was the seven additional songs, called the 3am tracks, that we received three hours after the album’s initial release. Midnights (3am Edition) quickly became one of my favorite Taylor Swift albums (though it hasn’t unseated my firm top three of reputation, Red (Taylor’s Version), and Speak Now), and my opinions on the songs have changed a lot since release day. Here’s where my ranking stands about a month after its release, from worst to best:
- Bigger Than The Whole Sky
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To begin with my least favorite of the bonus tracks, I actually haven’t listened to this song more than a handful of times. I just find it both sonically and lyrically boring.
Best lyrics: “And I’ve got a lot to pine about / I’ve got a lot to live without”
- Vigilante Shit
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I really wanted to like this song, and while I think there’s a time and place for it, some of the lyrics just make me cringe. Taylor has proved before with songs like “Blank Space” and “I Did Something Bad” that she can tastefully and strategically play into the media’s perception of her, but this one missed the mark.
Best lyrics: “Now she gets the house, gets the kids, gets the pride / Picture me thick as thieves with your ex-wife / And she looks so pretty / Drivin’ in your Benz”
- Dear reader
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I think if this song was simply a poem I’d like it more, but, like “Bigger Than The Whole Sky,” I just find it boring.
Best lyrics: “So I wander through these nights / I prefer hiding in plain sight / My fourth drink in my hand / These desperate prayers of a cursed man / Spilling out to you for free”
- Labyrinth
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This one has slowly grown on me since release day, and I’ll continue to like it more as time goes by. I really enjoy the lyrics, but something about it, sonically, is a bit off-putting.
Best lyrics: “Uh-oh, I’m fallin’ in love / Oh no, I’m fallin’ in love again / Oh, I’m fallin’ in love / I thought the plane was goin’ down / How’d you turn it right around?”
- Bejeweled
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This song is definitely a fun bop, and I really like the music video. However, I tend to lean away from Taylor’s most bubblegum-pop songs, and this definitely falls under that umbrella.
Best lyrics: “Sapphire tears on my face / Sadness became my whole sky / But some guy said my aura’s moonstone / Just ‘cause he was high”
- Anti-hero
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It might be an unpopular opinion to rank “Anti-Hero” this low, but I feel similarly about this song as I do about “Bejeweled.” Both this song and its music video are fun; it’s just not my vibe.
Best lyrics: “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism / Like some kind of congressman?”
- The Great war
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I definitely have a newfound appreciation for this song after all the internet jokes using its lyrics to explain how it felt getting tickets to Taylor’s upcoming Eras Tour, but it just isn’t my favorite. However, I enjoy its thematic idea of potentially destroying a good relationship because of trust issues from previous failed ones.
Best lyrics: “I drew curtains closed, drank my poison all alone / You said I have to trust more freely / But diesel is desire, you were playing with fire”
- Snow On The Beach (featuring Lana Del Rey)
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This song has also grown on me sonically since I first heard it, though I wish Lana Del Rey’s voice had a louder presence.
Best lyrics: “Life is emotionally abusive / And time can’t stop me quite like you did / And my flight was awful, thanks for asking / I’m unglued, thanks to you”
- Karma
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This song stands as the exception to my usual dislike of Taylor’s more upbeat hits — this accomplishes what “Vigilante Shit” failed to do in a really fun way.
Best lyrics: “‘Cause karma is my boyfriend / Karma is a god / Karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend / Karma’s a relaxing thought / Aren’t you envious that for you it’s not?”
- Sweet nothing
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This song is really sweet, and I always love a good William Bowery collab (aka Joe Alwyn, Taylor’s longtime boyfriend). It just doesn’t resonate with me as much as some of the other songs on the album, thus taking its spot at the halfway mark.
Best lyrics: “And the voices that implore, ‘You should be doing more’ / To you, I can admit that I’m just too soft for all of it”
- Glitch
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This song is both entertaining and sonically unique, but I don’t have a strong attachment to it.
Best lyrics: “In search of glorious happenings of happenstance on someone else’s playground / But it’s been two-thousand one-hundred ninety days of our love blackout / The system’s breaking down”
- High Infidelity
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This song — which is most likely about Taylor’s relationship with Calvin Harris — is a great addition to the only two other songs we really have about him (“I Forgot That You Existed,” and technically 50% of “Getaway Car”). It’s fun, hard-hitting, and absolutely makes me want to know what Taylor was doing on April 29th.
Best lyrics: “Do you really wanna know where I was April 29th? / Do I really have to chart the constellations in his eyes?”
- Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve
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This song is basically “Dear John” on steroids — it’s powerful, painful, and overall just a beautiful piece of writing.
Best lyrics: “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”
- Mastermind
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The more I listen to this song, the more I like it. I love the little reveal at the end of the song that the person she’s singing about (likely Joe Alwyn) knew she was a mastermind all along. It’s super catchy and relatable for many listeners, and I’ll likely have it on repeat for a while.
Best lyrics: “What if I told you none of it was accidental? / And the first night that you saw me / I knew I wanted your body / I laid the groundwork, and then / Just like clockwork / The dominoes cascaded in a line”
- Lavender Haze
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We’ve reached the part of the ranking where I have nothing but compliments for these songs — they’re some of Taylor’s best. “Lavender Haze” is sonically unique compared to most of the other songs on the album, and its hard-hitting lyrics shift the narrative away from being the perfect American Dream, “good girl,” persona that was forced onto Taylor by the media. Instead, it focuses on a love that feels like a perpetual honeymoon phase.
Best lyrics: “I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say / No deal / The 1950s shit they want from me / I just wanna stay in that lavender haze”
- Midnight rain
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The beginning of the song confused me on my first listen, but once I figured out that it was Taylor’s voice pitched-down and not some mysterious anonymous collaborator, I quickly realized how much I loved it. Its high ranking might get a personal boost because it’s one of the songs from the album that I most relate to, but the song is also a fan favorite.
Best lyrics: “My boy was a montage / A slow-motion, love potion / Jumping off things in the ocean / I broke his heart ‘cause he was nice”
- You’re on your own, kid
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Taylor’s track fives are notorious for being her most emotional songs, and “You’re On Your Own, Kid” is no exception. Despite the song being deeply personal and introspective, it’s also quite hopeful, and it is possibly my favorite track five.
Best lyrics: “From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes / I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this / I hosted parties and starved my body / Like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss”
- Paris
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This song is just so fun, and I love singing along to the opening verse as if I’m gossiping to my friends. I think it sums up the thematic side of Midnights that focuses on having found genuine happiness within a relationship really well.
Best lyrics: “Stumbled down pretend alleyways / Cheap wine, make believe it’s champagne / I was taken by the view / Like we were in Paris”
- Question…?
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Way back when we saw the lyric “did you ever have someone kiss you in a crowded room?” on a Spotify billboard while Taylor was marketing the album before its release, I knew I was going to like whatever song it came from — and I was right. This song is extremely relatable, and it captures that feeling of wondering how someone you’ve fallen out of touch with feels about the end of the situationship.
Best lyrics: “’Cause I don’t remember who I was / Before you painted all my nights / A color I’ve searched for since / But one thing after another / Fucking situations, circumstances / Miscommunications”
- Maroon
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Here we are at number 1: “Maroon” is my unequivocal favorite song from Midnights — I knew that by my second listen of the album. Back when Taylor was revealing the track titles through her “Midnights Mayhem with Me” series on TikTok, I had low expectations for this one (based on nothing but its vibes), and I couldn’t have been more wrong. I am in love with this masterpiece, sonically and lyrically, and it has a justified place somewhere in my top 10 Taylor Swift songs of all time list.
Best lyrics: “The mark thеy saw on my collarbone / The rust that grew bеtween telephones / The lips I used to call home / So scarlet, it was maroon”
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