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Interrupting our #MidnightsTS series, I bring you a seasonal special: 'Tis the Damn Season, a line-by-line lyrical analysis! So buckle up, wipe the mud off your truck tires, and come on the road less taken with me. A 🧵: 
1) "If I wanted to know who you were hanging with while I was gone I would have asked you." As we all know by now, the narrator of this song is Dorothea: the girl who left her small town for a big life and big dreams in LA. The story begins with her return home over the holidays.
2) The stage is set with confrontation. On first encountering her old love, she is instinctively angry and defensive. She shields herself from any knowledge of his life and new friends without her--she doesn't want to know, to be pained by how he has learned to live without her.
The next song in our #MidnightsTS lyrical analysis series is Labyrinth! We will discuss how Taylor uses the lyrical AND sonic landscape to create (and then resolve) the feeling of anxiety, and how this approach compares to her past thematically similar work like The Archer. A🧵:
1) At its core, Labyrinth is a song about anxiety. Taylor shows us how this anxiety has sparked fear, distrust, and self-destruction in her past relationships, and she then takes us on a journey of how she came to to feel and accept emotional safety with her current partner.
2) The dreamlike, ethereal production that begins Labyrinth almost invites the listener to dissociate: to lose themselves in their own thoughts, their head in the clouds. This sonic atmosphere is incredibly fitting, as the song itself takes place in the labyrinth of her own mind.
I just may like to have a conversation....about the next song in our #MidnightsTS lyrical analysis series: Question...! We will discuss the MANY parallels to 1989, as well as how this song perfectly encapsulates the core Midnights theme of "wondering what might have been." A 🧵:
1) The song begins, not with new lyrics, but rather a direct callback to Out of The Woods: an echo of "I remember." Not only does this place this song firmly in the 1989 era, but it also creates an immediate parallel with that relationship and asks the question: what if?
2) Before we even begin, we are given rich context. She will be reflecting on a high-stress, high-profile relationship which meant a huge amount to her, but which she lost due to the high-stakes anxiety associated with it, leaving her only with unanswered questions and regret.
Here it is: an ongoing megathread of my #MidnightsTS lyrical analysis series!
1) Would've, Could've, Should've
1) Would've, Could've, Should've
And the next song in our #MidnightsTS lyrical analysis is: Bigger Than The Whole Sky! We will discuss how this song touches on the many aspects and manifestations of grief, as well as explore the potential lyrical connections to Would've, Could've, Should've. A 🧵:
1) A disclaimer to begin: this song is about grief, period. The genius of Taylor's songwriting is in the universality of her emotional expression, meaning that absolutely anyone can relate this song to their own personal experiences with grief. That is what makes it so beautiful.
2) Many have related this to a lost love, or else the unimaginable loss of an unborn child. This song can absolutely apply to any and all of these scenarios. The purpose of this analysis is not to speculate about what specific, deeply personal grief inspired this song for Taylor.
Next up in our #Midnights lyrical analysis series is...Maroon! This deep dive will focus on Taylor's use of highly sensory imagery to both convey the complexities of an intense, raw, flawed relationship and provide a mature contrast to the themes explored in the Red Album. A 🧵:
1) Before we start the Maroon analysis, it is important to consider where we left off with Red. The album's themes are well encapsulated in the title track, in which Taylor consistently depicts love as a a wild, high-stakes, emotionally fraught, "burning" force, built to consume.
2) Love was the rush of a high-speed Maserati, culminating in a violent crashing halt on a dead-end street. Love was the brilliant blazing color of autumn leaves, followed by a sudden demise in the dead of winter. Love was an all-consuming emotional experience.
