midnights & memories
welcome to the wonderful world of the november theme, where we explore the album midnights, the theme of memories and dreams, and prepare for turning to the rest and wildness of winter.
“We lie awake in love and in fear, in turmoil and in tears. We stare at walls and drink until they speak back. We twist in our self-made cages and pray that we aren’t-right this minute- about to make some fateful life altering mistake. This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace, the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching—hoping that maybe, when the clock strikes twelve, we will meet ourselves. Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life.” -Taylor Swift
Memory as a Place
The middle of the night is a liminal space. It is sublimely dark, and until the sunrise is imminent, it is hard to tell whether it is 11 pm or 4 am. In ourselves, there is a restlessness that makes us know this time of the day, and it’s an isolating and clarifying space. Midnights is an album that explores the ethereal, the ephemeral, the delicate, and the distorted, all of which are summarized by the same emotion as midnight itself.
Memory, and our ability to control or return to it, is a central theme throughout this album. The set up for the album itself is a recollection of midnights, some of these nights themselves as times when memory was hauntingly present. Memory as a cherished gift and memory as ghost is something Taylor has played with before:
“At least you have something something to cling to—visions of dazzling rooms I'll never get let into. The memories were lost long ago but at least you have beautiful ghosts. And the memories were lost long ago so I'll dance with these beautiful ghosts.” —Beautiful Ghosts
“Hold on, just spinning around confetti falls to the ground.
May these memories break our fall.” —Long Live
“Remembering him comes in flashbacks and echoes. Tell myself it's time now, gotta let go,
But moving on from him is impossible when I still see it all in my head. It’s burning red.”- Red
In this album, a central question is a reckoning with what memory actually is, how it functions in our lives, and the many ways it can both distort and clarify our past, present, and futures. In bejeweled, it is about re-membering (here, putting back together) parts of herself that seemed to have been lost in a relationship. It is memory as a function of self-memory, and an ability to reclaim something of ourselves that might have seemed to be lost. Memory as a gift, and as something that is with us, is one important use. In sweet nothings, a relationship of calm, steadiness, sweet joy can be brought to mind as something comforting to carry within. In Paris, the memory of being somewhere else and that experience, and thus memory, is so strong that it transforms the mundane into something extraordinary. Memories can strengthen, imbue magic and glow, causing us to encounter some dreamy nostalgia within the folklore of our own lives.
But memory also haunts, and that aspect is especially strong through the extended, 3am edition of Midnights. The language of memory as traumatic, as intruding into the present and negative predicting the future is a theme in multiple songs on the album, perhaps most notably in The Great War, Anti-Hero, and Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve:
“I wake up screaming from dreaming one day I’ll watch as you’re leaving because you got tired of my scheming for the last time.” —Antihero
“My knuckles were bruised like violets, sucker punching walls, cursed you as I sleep talked, and maybe it's the past that's talkin' Screamin' from a crypt tellin' me to punish you for things you never did, so I justified it. We can plant a memory garden
say a solemn prayer, place a poppy in my hair.” - The Great War
“And now that I'm grown, I'm scared of ghosts. Memories feel like weapons. God rest my soul, I miss who I used to be. The tomb won't close, stained glass windows in my mind, I regret you all the time. I can't let this go, I fight with you in my sleep, and the wound won't close, I keep on waiting for a sign. I regret you all the time.” - Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve
Memory, in much of this album, is distortion. Memory barges into present life and changes how we see, sows fear and hatred where it might not deserve to be. Memory is an uncontrollable force that wakes up in the middle of the night, shaking our body, causing us to wonder what is real and what is not, what was truth and what was a lie.
Memory, as philosophers, scholars, poets, and scientists have written about for almost all time, is many, many things. It is both a gift, and a curse. It is both something that can remind us about the truth of ourselves, and can create haze and confusion. Memory is both, and is many other shades in between. In some ways, memory as a theme on midnights functions as making a mythology of Taylor’s (and our own) restless nights. Taylor is aware of all these facets of remembering, and writes with a view through a looking glass (to borrow an Alice in Wonderland-ism). Midnights is an album that opens us up to every part of ourselves here and now, but also in the past, and does not flinch at the glory or goriness of all of it.
Media & Aesthetics —
midnights magic expansion pack playlist
See the calender below for a preview of aesthetic, media, and other inspiration related to the midnights era. Journal Prompts listed as below, and will be posted individually on their days on instagram, here, with some aesthetic pictures to help you be inspired and opened to writing, too :) Activities will be explained on Tik Tok, here.
Lavender Haze: “Meet me at midnight”: You’re starting a new month and are ready to explore this album, with all its ideas of memories, dreams, time come undone. What is here for you, today? What are you bringing to this journal on day one? Everything can be brought to the page—to quote Taylor, “love and fears, turmoil and tears, sweet dreams.”
Maroon: “ I wake with your memory over me, that’s a real fucking legacy to leave. The burgundy on my t-shirt when you splashed your wine into me and how the blood rushed into my cheeks so scarlet it was maroon. The mark you saw on my collarbone the rust that grew between telephones the lips I used to call home so scarlet it was maroon.” Memories come back in bits and pieces, details and shimmers. In Maroon, she speaks about a love and her memories of sleepless nights, then and now, and how that vivid experience both faded and deepened—from brilliant, blood red to dark, deep maroon. Midnights doesn’t shy away from difficult memories, memories tinged with sadness, grief, loss, and there’s something to be said about giving yourself permission to tell a story that still has emotion tied to it—whether that be to someone else, or to these journal pages. Tell us about a memory of an experience that has changed as you’ve gotten older—whether for sweeter or more bitter. Tell about an experience where the way you think about it now, seen through the distortion of time, has changed. (Reminder: be kind to yourself in your pages while you are being honest :) ).
Anti-Hero: “I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror.” Everyone has times when they couldn’t see something that was true about themselves, and we often associate that with difficult truths about ourselves. However, sometimes it’s hard to see the good things within ourselves. What’s something good about yourself you have had to learn how to see?
Snow On The Beach: “One night a few moons ago I saw flecks of what could've been lights but it might just have been you, Passing by unbeknownst to me.” Coincidence and fate are funny things. Is there any thing in your life that has happened that you felt like was meant to happen? Something that felt beyond just luck?
You’re On Your Own, Kid: “I looked around in a blood-soaked gown, And I saw something they can't take away.” “Everything you lose is a step you take, So make the friendship bracelets, Take the moment and taste it, You've got no reason to be afraid, You're on your own, kid, Yeah, you can face this, You're on your own, kid, You always have been.” What are things, memories, relationships, strengths that no one can take away from you? What are memories you have that you are glad to have, even if that relationship, experience, risk didn’t end exactly as you thought it would? What memories remain that are still worth it?
Midnight Rain: “My boy was a montage: a slow motion, love potion, jumping off of things into the ocean. I broke his heart because he was nice.” “It came like a postcard: picture perfect, shiny family, holiday, peppermint candy, but for him it’s everyday. I peered through a window: deep portal and time travel, all the love and we unravel.” We are all told, at different ages and about different aspects of growing up to want something specific, something that is “the best” or “the most right.” Sometimes people, places, choices appear before us that fit those boxes, and yet there is something in us yelling against it, and we are made to feel badly about that, as though it’s something dark about us. Tell the page about a time you choose what you felt was true within you instead of the perfect postcard or “right” choice. Tell us how you ended up being right. Tell us how you ended up being wrong.
Question…? “I’d just like to have a conversation. Can I ask you a question?” There are so many conversations we never have, for any number of reasons. What’s a conversation you wish you could have, or do over, or do honestly? Tell the page. Let emotion reign. See what comes out—it might surprise. You might write something you didn’t know you had within you.
Vigilante Shit: “I don’t dress for villains or for innocence, I’m on my vigilante shhhhh again.” For many people, anger and rage are hard to access, especially if you have been taught they are unkind or useless. But rage protects, and anger erupts in a fire around the beautiful things in the world that deserve to be defended. What’s your relationship with anger like? Is there a time you wish you had been allowed, or allowed yourself, to let anger show you what was important? What has rage tried to show you needs protection before?
Bejeweled: “I can still make the whole place shimmer.” Sometimes, as we go along the road, it can feel like we lose pieces of ourselves, and for any number of reasons. What’s something about you—maybe younger you, or a you in a different setting like on a trip abroad or with new groups of people—that you feel like you’d like to reach again? What feels unattainable about that former identity of yours? What’s still here?
Labyrinth: “Breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out.” What brings you back, and what brings you home? What helps you slow down, to breathe through, in moments where everything feels terrifying. Is it a certain person? A memory of a place? A smell? Something you love to do? What brings you back home?
Karma: “Ask me what I learned from all those years. Ask me what I earned from all those tears. Ask me why so many fade, but I'm still here.” What is something you have gotten through that you are proud of yourself for? What path have you traveled that is not for the faint of heart, and yet here you are, deep in the heart of things? Can you take a moment and be proud of yourself for climbing this mountain in a way that only you could?
Sweet Nothing: “And the voices that implore "You should be doing more" To you I can admit that I'm just too soft for all of it.” Who are the people in your life that remind you of your truth, who remind you to be kinder, to believe in yourself more, who have taught you it’s okay to be soft? Tell about one of them.
Mastermind: “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid so I've been scheming like a criminal ever since to make them love me and make it seem effortless.
Is this the first time I feel the need to confess?” When do you feel the most yourself? With what type of people? Who are you, when you don’t have to calculate? Who are you when you are the most alive, the most yourself, the most able to be true? Who doesn’t ask for you to wear any masks or hold any mirrors? Write about them.