Taylor Swift says her new album contains themes of “self-hatred”.
The 32-year-old – whose tenth studio album “Midnights” has been the subject of intense speculation over its apparently personal lyrics – explained it had been inspired by feelings that surface in the early hours.
She told “New Music Daily” on Apple Music about the song “Karma” from the record: “So one of the themes about ‘Midnights’ is how you’re feeling in the middle of the night, and that can be intense self-hatred.
Watch video:
“You go through these very polarising emotions when you’re up late at night, and your brain just spirals – it can spiral downward, or it can spiral way up, and you can just be really feeling yourself and ‘Karma’ is written from a perspective of feeling like really happy really proud of the way your life is... feeling like this must be a reward for doing stuff right and it’s a song that I really love because I think we all need some of those moments.
“You know, we can’t just be beating ourselves up all the time. You have to have these moments where you’re like, ‘You know what karma is, my boyfriend, and that’s it’.”
It was a rare public mention from Swift about her actor boyfriend Joe Alwyn, 31, who she has been dating since 2006.
Swift made “Midnights” on a break from currently re-recording her early records due to a dispute with music mogul Scooter Braun, 41, and is her first original record in two years.
It comes after she said she has secretly based the genres of her songs on what type of pen she is using to write.
The singer admitted it is “dorky” that she has three different types of tunes – which have been written using a quill, fountain pen or glitter gel pen.
She recently said about her creative process: “I’ve never talked about this publicly before because, well, it’s dorky. But I have secretly established genre categories for the lyrics I write.
“They are affectionately titled Quill Lyrics, Fountain Pen Lyrics and Glitter Gel Pen Lyrics.
“This sounds confusing, but I came up with these categories based on what writing tool I imagined having in my hand when I scribbled it down. I don't have a quill. Anymore. I broke it when I was mad.”