Is this girl okay?

Is that Taylor Swift, eating her feelings (see album art below)? I feel ya, Taylor; but I wish I could stay that trim when I eat my feelings. I guess it’s what you do if you feel like an outcast, or an “Anti-Hero,” which is the title to her first single off her tenth studio album, Midnights.

I’m not really a fan of Swift’s. Not because I dislike her or her music; her music has just never resonated with me. Only once have I heard a Taylor Swift song and said, “Wow, I love this! I need to listen to this again and add it to my playlist!” That was way back 2012 when I heard “I Knew you Were Trouble” for the first time. I don’t know what it was. Maybe because dubstep was still new(ish) and cool at the time (even though I was never a fan of dubstep, either). Maybe it’s just that music is a personal thing, and certain sounds either grate on you or give you joy. “I Knew You Were Trouble” was a great single – a nice mix of pop and dance that didn’t stray too far from Swift’s country-pop roots (which the song faced criticism for at the time).

Taking a gander at her singles over the years, the others I clearly remember (“22,” “Shake It Off,” “Bad Blood,” “Look What You Made Me Do”) didn’t resonate with me like that earlier hit did. I grew to like “Shake It Off” out of repetition (everyone loved it, so I played it a lot at clubs, weddings and events)…but again, not something I clamor to re-listen to.

That brings me to “Anti-Hero,” released as a single in October of 2022 and (of course) debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (Swift could sneeze into a microphone, release it as a single, and it would still reach the top of the charts) and was the highest-streamed song on Spotify upon launch (not shocking). If there’s one thing Swift is good at, it’s cultivating a rabid fandom and giving her audience what it wants.

“Anti-Hero” is another Swift track that won’t be in my replay library, but since I’m writing about music more, it gets a fair shot. And it’s not a bad sounding song at all. In fact, I rather like the synthesizer work and the looped drums – electronic sounds I’ve always been drawn to (I felt the same way when I first heard Swift’s 2016 single “New Romantics”).

Instrumentation aside, “Anti-Hero” is dark. Its lyrical content references depression, ghosting, narcissism; its themes suggest loneliness, and fame-as-alienation. It’s as if the rollercoaster of superstardom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Of course, that’s not what most of us poor regular folk are experiencing; sure, the depression and loneliness are there. But we don’t have million-dollar-selling albums and music contracts to soothe our pain. And sometimes, offering up anthems relating to listener anxieties based on your own experiences can backfire, as evidenced by an early backlash against the “Anti-Hero” music video’s depiction of Swift weighing herself on a bathroom scale (she was accused of “fatphobia,” of course, and the scene was edited out of the video). So I guess even Taylor Swift can’t shine a light on all the world’s ills.

But that’s not all it’s about. There are plenty of Swift fans (and non-Swift fans) that can relate, and I can’t help but be drawn in by the lyrics: “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem / everybody agrees / I’m the problem / At tea time, everybody agrees / It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero…”

So, is Taylor exhausted? Is this superstar life dragging her down? When you’ve literally accomplished more than almost anyone on Planet Earth (if she ran for President, would she win?), does it get boring? Is it depressing having nowhere left to go once you’ve done everything? I can’t speak to how autobiographical “Anti-Hero” is, but those are the questions rattling around in my head.

One thing’s for sure: she needn’t worry about “Anti-Hero” becoming the latest in a long line of chart toppers.