Written by Hannah Ireland<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Swifties have long wondered about singer-songwriter Taylor Swift\u2019s sleep schedule, with lines like \u201c3 a.m. and I\u2019m still awake\u201d in \u201cI Bet You Think about Me\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s 2 a.m. in your car\u201d in \u201cI Wish You Would.\u201d Earlier this semester, Taylor promised an answer of sorts when she announced her latest original album, \u201cMidnights,\u201d and the (Swiftie) world counted the days until the release. (There were 53, for those wondering.) The album hasn\u2019t disappointed, either; while not her best work, it\u2019s a new era with a unique blend of \u201cFolklore\u201d and \u201cEvermore\u2019s\u201d folksy style and \u201cReputation\u2019s\u201d edgy pop, as some Swifties described it. It\u2019s the perfect combination of musical styles and eras for an album of stories spanning the years since her debut album up until her most recent and longest relationship with actor Joe Alwyn. But just how many sleepless nights has this woman had? At least 20, according to this latest album, and those 20 have led to many, many more for Swifties worldwide. Taylor has several understandable reasons for the sleepless nights that inspired \u201cMidnights,\u201d listing things like heartbreak, what-ifs and revenge fantasies \u2014 you know, fairly run-of-the-mill stuff. From staying up wondering what might have happened if she\u2019d stuck it out with one boyfriend in \u201cBigger Than The Whole Sky\u201d to relishing the good karma she\u2019s reaped and the bad karma she expects to fall upon her more prominent haters in \u201cKarma,\u201d Taylor explores one of the more commonly celebrated and debated aspects of the human experience: that of romance and heartbreak. The overarching factor, however, seems to be the common thread of overthinking we see woven through many of her lyrics (and not just in \u201cMidnights\u201d). In \u201cAnti-Hero\u201d she sings, \u201cI should not be left to my own devices \/ They come with prices and vices \/ I end up in crisis\u201d; in \u201cQuestion\u2026?\u201d she asks a past lover to confirm her suspicions about his behavior and whereabouts on a particular night. I could go on, but since I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve either already listened to the album 27 times since its release or have heard more than you ever wanted to know about it from your friends, I\u2019ll stop there. The point is that Taylor is a self-documented overthinker, often falling prey to the same imagination that put her on the top of the charts to begin with. Self-awareness is the first step to recovery from overthinking and the first to the ultimate goal of getting Swift \u2014 and therefore her fans \u2014 a good night\u2019s sleep. Somehow, though, I don\u2019t see that happening anytime soon, not while sleepless nights and midnight album releases bring Taylor as much money and attention as any star naturally appreciates. In conclusion, our best bet as exhausted Swifties is to grab some caffeine and truck through until the next album comes along. And hey, you can always listen to \u201cMidnights\u201d again while you\u2019re at it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Written by Hannah Ireland Swifties have long wondered about singer-songwriter Taylor Swift\u2019s sleep schedule, with lines like \u201c3 a.m. and I\u2019m still awake\u201d in \u201cI Bet You Think about Me\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15068,"featured_media":18148,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}