Taylor Swift Leaves Fans Breathless by Revealing ‘Midnights’ Lyrics She First Teased 5 Months Ago
Taylor Swift‘s newest lyric reveal has Swifties all but hyperventilating. Unveiled with a billboard located in Mexico City — the latest of several spontaneous light-up signs planted by the pop star in cities all over the world — a line from one of the songs off Midnights was confirmed to be one very sneakily teased by Swift five months ago during her commencement speech for New York University.
Part of a Midnights pre-release partnership between Swift and Spotify, the billboard lit up at the stroke of midnight in Mexico City, just as its successors in New York City, London, São Paulo and Nashville did on different days throughout the past week. “Breathe in, breath through, breathe deep, breathe out,” it read, white lettering layered over a blue and orange watercolor graphic.
Those words may sound familiar to those who tuned in to the speech Swift gave at NYU’s spring commencement ceremony, at which she was presented with an honorary doctorate in fine arts. At the end of her 20-minute address, she delivered the line as a simple piece of advice to graduates — before quipping, “I’m a doctor now, so I know how breathing works” — without giving any sign to Swifties that they’d just unknowingly heard lyrics to an album they didn’t even know existed yet.
Earlier in the speech, the singer-songwriter also said, “Scary news is, you’re on your own now. Cool news is, you’re on your own now.” Sounds eerily similar to the title of Midnights track five, “You’re on Your Own, Kid,” doesn’t it?
The locations of Swift’s lyric reveals were all teased by Spotify’s official Twitter account a few hours before each billboard went up, meaning Swifties in each of the lucky cities had the chance to hunt them down before 12 a.m. and watch live as new lyrics were unveiled. That’s exactly what fans in Mexico City did. In the moments leading up to the “All Too Well” singer’s newest reveal, a group congregated nearby and joined together in a performance of “August,” a track off Swift’s Folklore.
The Mexico City unveiling marked just 23 hours left to go until Midnights, the 11-time Grammy winner’s 10th studio album, arrives at 12 a.m. ET Friday (Oct. 21). After the record drops, Swift has a busy week ahead of her.
On release day, she’ll premiere a music video for lead single “Anti-Hero” and treat fans to a “special very chaotic surprise,” as she shared in a recent Instagram post. Later, she’ll make appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Graham Norton Show, and drop a second music video for a still unidentified song.
See Taylor Swift’s newest lyric reveal in Mexico City below:
Hannah Dailey
Billboard
