Taylor Swift announces first track from Midnights and fans think they’ve cracked album’s secret
Taylor Swift announces first track title of new album. (TikTok/Taylor Swift)
Taylor Swift has sent fans into a spiral announcing the first track from her upcoming album, Midnights
In her latest TikTok, posted at midnight, the singer-songwriter sits next to a lottery ball spin machine filled with 13 balls, for the album’s 13 songs.
She starts the video saying: “I know that I have a have a habit of dropping cryptic clues and Easter eggs when giving you information about my new music and I’m not here to deny that but I am here to defy that.”
She dubbed the new series “Midnights Mayhem With Me” and explained the ball machine would “allow fate to decide exactly what track titles I’m going to be announcing and in what order”.
After suspiciously getting her favourite number, 13, she picked up a red phone and said: “Track 13 is called ‘Mastermind’.”
@taylorswift Midnights tracklist reveal!! Introducing: Midnights Mayhem with Me 🌌😎 #TSmidnighTS #SwiftTok #MidnightsMayhemWithMe ♬ Midnights Mayhem episode 1 – Taylor Swift
So there we have it, “Mastermind” is the name of the 13th track on Taylor Swift’s Midnight. And despite her claims to be dodging any cryptic clues, that hasn’t stopped Swifties for looking for them.
One TikTok user has already dropped their theory that Swift’s entire album will be “M” themed since it is the 13th letter of the alphabet, and that fans should expect all the track titles to being with M.
@dailyxsav NO WAY THIS ISNT TRUE @Taylor Swift #tsmidnights #taylorswift #swiftie #swifttok #midnights #swift #theory ♬ original sound – Savannah
Others are taking the (hopefully) daily game-show format to mean Taylor Swift will be releasing the first single from Midnights in 13 days time.
Although time will tell if any of these guesses are correct, Swift has also recently given more insight into her behind-the-scenes songwriting process.
In her acceptance speech for Songwriter-Artist of the Decade award at the Nashville Songwriters Association International ceremony she explained her three secret genres.
“I’ve never talked about this publicly before, because, well, it’s dorky but I also have, in my mind, secretly, established genre categories for lyrics I write. Three of them, to be exact,” she said.
She continued: “They are affectionately titled Quill Lyrics, Fountain Pen Lyrics, and Glitter Gel Pen Lyrics,” the singer said.
“I came up with these categories based on what writing tool I imagine having in my hand when I scribbled it down, figuratively,”
So the “antiquated” Quill style is “if I was inspired to write it after reading Charlotte Brontë or after watching a movie where everyone is wearing poet shirts and corsets.
“If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great grandmother while sewing a lace curtain,” she explained, such as her song “Ivy”.
Her fountain pen style “sound like confessions scribbled and sealed in an envelope, but too brutally honest to ever send” such as “All Too Well”.
Finally “the third category is called Glitter Gel Pen and it lives up to its name in every way. Frivolous, carefree, bouncy, syncopated perfectly to the beat,” she said, citing “Shake It Off” as a prime example.
Taylor Swift poignantly finished the speech: “A song can defy logic or time. A good song transports you to your truest feelings and translates those feelings for you. A good song stays with you even when people or feelings don’t.”
Midnights will be released on 21 October.
