After years of sad heartbreak songs, lyrics about relationships gone awry and chart-topping power tracks, Taylor Swift released a lighter, happier album that will leave a smile on your face. Swift’s new record “Lover” is fittingly dreamy and romantic. Her songs focus on the positive and on the light that her various loved ones have brought to her life.
Of course, love has always been a major theme for the pop star. However, on “Lover,” Swift often celebrates a simpler, more innocent version of love. As opposed to some of her previous break-up anthems or songs about pining for someone, the tracks on “Lover” are mostly positive and feature healthy, happy relationships that allow the people in them to grow personally and to grow together.
The title track defines the album. “Lover” is a signature Swift ballad, slow and sweet. The song could easily be featured in a romance movie for the moment when the two lovers finally realize they’re meant for each other. The music video is accordingly sentimental, featuring Swift and her lover acting out different situations in the different rooms of a dollhouse inside a snowglobe. Of course, the snowglobe is part of a bigger, even more sentimental plot, but I won’t give any spoilers here.
Swift said the song “Lover” is one of the ones closest to her heart from this album, as she wrote it entirely herself (she writes or cowrites all of her own songs). But other tracks like “Soon You’ll Get Better,” about a family member’s illness, and “London Boy,” about boyfriend Joe Alwyn, are also deeply personal.
Other songs on the album are simply cute and upbeat tunes to get stuck in your head. The catchy “Paper Rings” and the playful “It’s Nice To Have A Friend” showcase the more whimsical, fun side of romantic love.
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“Just wanna lift you up and not let you go
This ultraviolet morning light below
Tells me this love is worth the fight”
Swift alludes to visions of light throughout the songs on the album. Often, the mention of light functions as a symbol for growth or change. In “Afterglow,” Swift speaks about taking the blame for a failed relationship. She’s the one who “burned us down,” but it’s not what she meant, and she takes all the blame for it when she meets her lover in the “afterglow.”
Similarly, “Daylight” is a song about her new perceptions of love. Instead of the pain and suffering that she’s used to experiencing in romantic relationships, she’s grown to believe that love should be a positive and happy experience. Lyrics like “I once believed love would be (burning red) / But it’s golden / Like daylight” help get her message across.
The theme of growth and change is fitting for Swift, who is at a transitional point in her life and career. The singer is 29 and will turn 30 in December, opening up a new decade of life in which she’s sure to have plenty more hard work to do and hit songs to write.
Swift is adamant about taking ownership of her work (she’s spoken often about why writing her own songs allows her to be a more authentic artist), and she plans to re-record tracks from her first five albums starting next year so that she will be the one who owns them. The singer has also stated that she’s proud “Lover” will be the first album that she owns herself.
Because she writes her own songs and is very involved in many aspects surrounding her music (music video concepts, planning tours, etc.), I always find Taylor Swift’s work to be genuine, authentic and original. “Lover” is no different. I like the happy vibes this album and its packaging give off. It’s one of Swift’s sweeter, happier records, and there’s no doubt her long-time fans will be lovers of this album.
Rating: 3.5/5
Thumbnail photo from Pexels.com.
Stephanie Santillo is a staff writer for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at stephanie.santillo@uconn.edu.
