Taylor Swift’s affinity for emo music and tradition is way past any doubt.
She’s carried out with Hayley Williams (and included her Paramore pal in her “Unhealthy Blood” music video), known as Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz her “favourite lyricist,” dueted with Boys Like Women, stated Dashboard Confessional’s emo traditional “Palms Down” is “perfection” and final 12 months collaborated with Phoebe Bridgers, chief of the New Emo Republic.
Learn extra: Taylor Swift pulls all-nighter and divulges remaining tracklist for Midnights together with a Lana Del Rey collaboration
However now, as Swift’s wildly anticipated new album Midnights — full with its ominous “13 sleepless nights” emo-adjacent aesthetic — is about to drop Oct. 21, we pose a brand new query: Precisely how emo is Swift’s catalog?
The brief reply: fairly rattling emo (or Sweemo, as has been so shrewdly coined on social media). A lot of the identical bleeding angst, ache, fury and desperation that comprise the touchstones of emo will also be present in Swift’s prolific catalog.
However right here’s the cream of the calamitous crop. These are her most emo songs of all time, ranked by pure emo-ness (you realize it once you hear it).
15. “peace”
Album: folklore, 2020
Greatest emo lyric: “All these individuals suppose love’s for present/However I’d die for you in secret”
Let’s kick this off with a more moderen observe solely the die-hards know, because it’s buried close to the underside of folklore. The slow-burner “peace” establishes a pillar of emo philosophy — emo is ageless, and the crush of life solely makes you extra emo as you trudge alongside. This tune nails a really adult-emo realization, shared from one companion to a different: That strive as they could, they’ll by no means deliver their lover the solace they search. That’s a tough capsule to swallow, however Swift unpacks it eloquently, questioning if giving all of herself may ever be sufficient.
14. “Mr. Completely Effective”
Album: Fearless (Taylor’s Model), 2021
Greatest emo lyric: “I have been Miss Distress since your goodbye/And also you’re Mr. Completely Effective”
The one factor worse than feeling depressing over a breakup is feeling terrible and seeing your ex on the market residing their greatest life. To paraphrase Halsey, they need to be unhappy, too! Nicely, the must-be-nice teen angst of “Mr. Completely Effective” is about precisely that. The man in query is presumably Swift’s new ex on the time, Joe Jonas, who she deems “casually merciless” (previous the “All Too Nicely” lyric). The entire emo saga performs like a forebear to Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u,” 2021’s emo-pop world-beater.
13. “coney island”
Album: evermore, 2020
Greatest emo lyric: “And I am sitting on a bench in Coney Island questioning the place did my child go?”
So, Coney Island in Brooklyn is not an inherently emo place. Curler coasters, enjoyable boardwalk meals, well-known scorching canine consuming contests! However sitting alone amid the amusement rides, contemplating the place all of it went incorrect? Nicely, that’s emo 101. That is one other of Swift’s grownup emo contemplations, with delicate wordplay and the consideration of affection’s fragility and erosion. The Nationwide’s Matt Berninger brings all of it house along with his patently doleful smolder.
12. “Fifteen”
Album: Fearless, 2008
Greatest emo lyric: “Laughing on the different women who suppose they’re so cool/We’ll be out of right here as quickly as we will”
Swift’s commentary on the naivety of lovelorn highschool freshmen performs out like an episode of The Secret Lifetime of the American Teenager (which additionally premiered in 2008) — ABC Household’s most emo present of all time. Additionally, Swift name-drops her greatest pal Abigail right here, and guess who Swift famously bought to play a music at Abigail’s birthday celebration in 2015? Chris Carrabba, aka emo deity Dashboard Confessional.
11. “Haunted”
Album: Converse Now, 2010
Greatest emo lyric: “I believed I had you discovered/Cannot breathe everytime you’re gone/Cannot flip again now, I am haunted”
“Haunted” makes the checklist for 2 causes. First, its string-heavy, flippantly foreboding instrumentation doesn’t not sound a bit of like scene-era Convey Me the Horizon. Second, and extra importantly, the just about visceral desperation on this rock-heavy observe actually nails the emo vibe. For all of Swift’s bleeding lyricism, not often does she sound determined, like she’s contemporary out of choices. However that’s how the “come on, come on”’s come throughout right here. Additionally, something referencing hauntings of any type is immediately emo. We don’t make the principles.
10. “Demise by a Thousand Cuts”
Album: Lover, 2019
Greatest emo lyric: “I look via the home windows of this love/Though we boarded them up/Chandelier’s nonetheless flickering right here/’Trigger I am unable to fake it is OK when it isn’t”
As if the tortured title wasn’t sufficient, the music’s thesis of not with the ability to recover from a breakup — and it’s driving you so loopy that you simply’re asking site visitors lights for assist — is high-tier emo. She additionally will get drunk to overlook — traditional emo trope — however it’s nonetheless not sufficient. The tongue-twisting bridge, one in every of Swift’s best (emo or not), is an excellent metaphor for racing ideas, in addition to the chaos that drives songwriters and listeners alike to enter the emo realm.
9. “The Second I Knew”
Album: Crimson, 2012
Greatest emo lyric: “I strive to not disintegrate/And the sinking feeling begins/As I say hopelessly/‘He stated he’d be right here’”
A birthday celebration ruined and crying in entrance of your folks as a result of the man you want by no means confirmed up — that’s supreme emo fodder. It’s additionally the entire scene Swift recreates on this downright depressing music detailing love unraveling (the core of Crimson). Additionally, “The Second I Knew” makes use of a cello, simply probably the most emo string devices.
8. “champagne issues”
Album: evermore, 2020
Greatest emo lyric: “You booked the night time practice for a cause/So you may sit there on this damage”
“champagne issues” appears like Panic! On the Disco’s “I Write Sins Not Tragedies,” however in an alternate universe the place they by no means even made it to the marriage as a result of the potential bride was “fucked within the head,” or so the cynics stated. Swift, a hopeless romantic, loves to ascertain traditional literary and theatrical themes — suppose “Love Story” — however typically issues simply don’t work out. And this mournful observe a few fancy proposal gone very incorrect (after which driving on the practice in sorrow) is all kinds of emo — even when it’s rich-people emo.
7. “Cornelia Avenue”
Album: Lover, 2019
Greatest emo lyric: “That is the sort of heartbreak time may by no means mend/I might by no means stroll Cornelia Avenue once more”
For those who promise to by no means step foot on a metropolis avenue ever once more attributable to reeling, borderless heartache, congratulations, you’ve written an emo music! “Cornelia Avenue” is certainly probably the most downtrodden tracks off an in any other case honey-soaked Lover. The music’s message is one in every of worry and desperation — that Swift may doubtlessly lose the love of her life: “I am so frightened of when you ever stroll away.” In different phrases, she’s in her head and unhappy earlier than she even must be unhappy. What’s extra emo than that?
6. “You Belong With Me”
Album: Fearless, 2008
Greatest emo lyric: “She’s cheer captain and I am on the bleachers/Dreaming in regards to the day once you get up and discover/That what you are on the lookout for has been right here the entire time”
Emo loves an underdog, and Swift established herself as the last word “take an opportunity on me” longshot in “You Belong With Me,” a traditional story of unrequited love and longing — a core emo precept. And why does the opposite lady at all times need to be a cheerleader? Pom Pom Squad in all probability has one thing to say about this. Anyway, “You Belong With Me” is among the hottest closet-emo songs of the final 15 years, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Sizzling 100 and additional establishing Swift as a pop drive who would unleash her angst on the world.
5. “the lakes”
Album: folklore (deluxe model), 2020
Greatest emo lyric: “Take me to the lakes the place all of the poets went to die/I do not belong and, my beloved, neither do you/These Windermere peaks seem like an ideal place to cry/I am setting off, however not with out my muse”
Romanticizing useless poets is a few profoundly emo shit — and a good reminder that at her core, Swift is a Tumblr lady who was all about these grayscale playing cards with centuries-old poems typed in swirly typeface. This acoustic, dirge-y bonus observe, which sings of “auroras and unhappy prose,” is mainly a kind of weblog posts set to music, and a banner punctuation on folklore, which discovered all of us throughout a pandemic-emo period and injected some catharsis into our sorrows.
4. “Teardrops on My Guitar”
Album: Self-titled, 2006
Greatest emo lyric: “Drew walks by me/Can he inform that I am unable to breathe?/And there he goes, so completely/The sort of flawless I want I may very well be”
There’s an argument to be made that Swift’s debut — her most overtly nation, twang-and-drawl effort — can be one in every of her most emo. It is smart: She was about 16 years outdated when it was written, and the rawness of sweet sixteen sensibilities — from elation to anguish — lend properly to the emo artwork kind. A number of cuts off her S/T may’ve match this checklist: “Image to Burn,” “Chilly As You.” However the fitting name right here is “Teardrops,” whose highschool longing may’ve simply been a Hey Monday music with just a few tweaks. Additionally, what’s extra overdramatic than tears beading on a musical instrument?
3. “Nothing New”
Album: Crimson (Taylor’s Model), 2021
Greatest emo lyric: “How lengthy will it’s cute, all this crying in my room?/Whеn you possibly can’t blame it on my youth/And roll your eyes with affеction”
It’s a easy equation: Any music — particularly a woeful, contemplative ballad like this one — that employs final sad-girl star Phoebe Bridgers immediately will increase its emo cred by an element of 10. This nearly maudlin vault observe off Swift’s Crimson re-release in 2021 is deep in its emotions, as Swift considers how for much longer the music trade, her followers and humanity at giant will tolerate her as soon as she’s “misplaced [her] novelty.” Bridgers provides her patented bittersweet lilts because the music mimics a drunken night time of self-wallowing.
2. “Higher Than Revenge”
Album: Converse Now, 2010
Greatest emo lyric: “I am simply one other factor so that you can roll your eyes at, honey/You may need him, however I at all times get the final phrase”
The “Higher Than Revenge” origin story should go one thing like this: A 20-year-old Swift walks into the studio, clearly pissed off, and tells her producers: “We’re writing a goddamn Paramore music at present.” As a result of “Higher Than Revenge” is not solely a pop-punk music with much less heavy guitar, however it’s mainly “Distress Enterprise.” The seething sentiment, the hyperlink between controversial strains — Paramore’s “As soon as a whore, you’re nothing extra” and Swift’s “She’s higher identified for the issues that she does on the mattress” — and the songs’ thesis, that the protagonist (Hayley Williams/Swift) would at all times emerge victorious within the sport of affection. Possibly that’s not the most emo message, however nonetheless, this bounding tune is as shut as Swift’s ever gotten to a Warped Tour-ready jam.
1. “All Too Nicely” (10-minute model)
Album: Crimson (Taylor’s Model), 2021
Greatest emo lyric: “He is gonna say it is love, you by no means known as it what it was/Until we had been useless and gone and buried/Test the heart beat and are available again swearing it is the identical / After three months within the grave”
You already knew. What’s broadly considered Swift’s single biggest observe (or a minimum of her magnum opus) can be absolutely her most emo, as she spends what appears like a lifetime skewering her ex (actor Jake Gyllenhaal, in fact) with exceedingly melodramatic prods and jabs. The panoramic ballad is all fury, ache, ardour, insecurity, hypersensitivity — and her famed “misplaced in translation” bridge unloads a uncooked uppercut eternally worthy of scream-cries within the automobile. It’s an emo epic for all seasons, all ages and all people who’ve ever felt a nasty feeling. The corresponding brief movie is waaay emo, too. We bow down as soon as extra to Swift, in awe of her peerless, heart-strung lyricism, as we await the subsequent emo blow from Midnights.
