Let me start off by saying, I'm not a Swiftie really, nor have I ever been. I appreciate her music - a lot - but quite frankly I didn't even listen to her full albums until she started re-releasing her old music.

It's obviously incredible, but I think without the nostalgia of having grown up with any albums - just her major hits - playing through my head, I don't really qualify as anything like a true Swiftie.

Still I have always been into Taylor's incredible knack for spinning the perfect story - from the time "Love Story" itself hit on. And when it's personal and emotional - her songs get hyper relatable whether or not she intends for them to. This is one solid song insofoar as that goes.

I'll share the Anti-Hero Lyrics first as I always do and then jump into the breakdown of how I see the lyrics. Obviously I'm possibly missing some hidden meaning/Easter Eggs that only at true fan would know and that over the next couple months will be revealed over countless Tik-Toks, but hey, she said in the music video there's no hidden meaning... ;)

Taylor Swift's 'Anti-Hero' Lyrics

[Verse 1]
I have this thing where I get older, but just never wiser
Midnights become my afternoons
When my depression works the graveyard shift, all of the people
I've ghosted stand there in the room

[Pre-Chorus]
I should not be left to my own devices
They come with prices and vices
I end up in crisis
(Tale as old as time)
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day, I'll watch as you're leaving
'Cause you got tired of my scheming
(For the last time)

[Chorus]
It's me, hi
I'm the problem, it's me
At teatime, everybody agrees
I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero

[Verse 2]
Sometimes, I feel like everybody is a sexy baby
And I'm a monster on the hill
Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city
Pierced through the heart, but never killed

[Pre-Chorus]
Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism
Like some kind of congressman?
(A tale as old as time)
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day, I'll watch as you're leaving
And life will lose all its meaning
(For the last time)

[Chorus]
It's me, hi
I'm the problem, it's me (I'm the problem, it's me)
At teatime, everybody agrees
I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero

[Bridge]
I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money
She thinks I left them in the will
The family gathers 'round and reads it
And then someone screams out
"She's laughing up at us from hell"

[Breakdown]
It's me, hi
I'm the problem, it's me
It's me, hi
I'm the problem, it's me
It's me, hi
Everybody agrees, everybody agrees

[Chorus]
It's me, hi (Hi)
I'm the problem, it's me (I'm the problem, it's me)
At teatime (Teatime), everybody agrees (Everybody agrees)
I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero

My Interpretation of Taylor Swift's 'Anti-Hero'

I'm going to start off talking about the song's title a little bit, because my first observation when I saw the track title was definitely not that she would consider herself to be the anti-hero.

As I kept listening, I started to remember Taylor's description of why she had a "squad" back in the day:

In my twenties I found myself surrounded by girls who wanted to be my friend. So I shouted it from the rooftops, posted pictures, and celebrated my newfound acceptance into a sisterhood, without realising that other people might still feel the way I did when I felt so alone.

To my knowledge, Taylor always saw herself as the awkward misfit who was essentially the kid who gets chosen last at soccer practice.

She never fit in, and she never grew out of seeing herself as the underdog, the odd one out, even though the rest of the world did because of her crazy success.

To me, this is fair enough. I'm not at all convinced people's day-to-day lives are anything like how they appear to be, and let's not pretend it's a stretch to imagine Taylor Swift being an awkward misfit who's never really found her place in life with people who are like her - it's really easy to imagine actually and that's probably why we misfits love her music so much to begin with.

Is money, fame, wealth, success, beauty (she has it, although she may not always see it herself) enough to make your psychological problems and loneliness go away? Absolutely not and everyone knows that.

So she sort of defaults to thinking of herself as the anti-hero. The protagonist, main character in a plot who's anything but a traditional hero. The relatable person we're supposed to root for that is anything but flawless.

This definitely falls in line with what I think of when I think of how Taylor Swift sees herself - unlikely anyone else sees her as the anti-hero as much as she does, however.

We're often our worst critics, especially when we're smart, independent, high-achieving types. The thing is, if Taylor Swift didn't judge herself so harshly, she probably wouldn't be where she is today. Her challenging herself so stinkin' much through trying to overcome the criticisms she has of herself probably caused the vast majority of her success.

But it comes at a massive cost and is exhausting. It's not a cost I think most people would be willing to pay, yet it's not something she can simply turn off now that she's become successful. Anyway let's get into the song lyrics because they are fantastic (as usual).

I have this thing where I get older, but just never wiser
Midnights become my afternoons
When my depression works the graveyard shift, all of the people
I've ghosted stand there in the room

Taylor starts off talking about how she ages, but essentially states she never matures mentally - which is ridiculous and I don't believe this is true at all. But in moments of self-doubt and how we see ourselves - well it's very difficult to see yourself clearly when you can't get a proper birds eye view.

Even just looking at how she handles relationships - privately now, protecting what's sacred and important to her from the prying eyes of millions upon millions of people - she obviously has gotten wiser.

That's just one example, and there are many others that reflect just how much she's grown. Defensiveness in interviews, for example, in my opinion only pops up every so often now, rarely in comparison to before, because she doesn't seem to internalize stupid interviewers' questions anymore. They almost roll off her back nowadays.

She's the perfect example of a celebrity who's adapted, changed over the years not just in terms of how she presents herself to the world aesthetically, but in terms of developing strength as a person, keeping parts of her that were incredible and unique and good, and literally abandoning other parts that she felt needed work. I actually think she should be admired for this, but she obviously doesn't see it.

Anyway, she talks about how midnights become her afternoons, meaning she's up until (likely) wee hours of the morning thinking about her problems. She says her depression works the graveyard shift. Obviously it's not positive things keeping her up at night.

She's haunted by her past, by those that were once in her life that she's cut out - honestly mostly for good reason based on what we've publicly been able to see in her life. Yet she can't stop ruminating over them.

I should not be left to my own devices
They come with prices and vices
I end up in crisis
(Tale as old as time)
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day, I'll watch as you're leaving
'Cause you got tired of my scheming
(For the last time)

Here we get a snapshot of her rumination and self-awareness of how she spirals. She doesn't think she should be left to herself, to think for too long in her mind, because it negatively impacts her. The negative thoughts carry a heavy weight in the form of prices and vices and she spirals, likely catastrophically and throwing herself into a panic.

Tale as old as time indeed, as this is absolutely not unique to her and she knows it. But she seems stuck, can't get out of the loop, and even when she falls asleep, she's still dreaming about the things that haunt her, taking up brain space, in wake.

Then she says someone (not sure who, but I think this is likely "us" - her fans, Swiftie's, the people who like her, are on her side as a human, not 100% sure though) will leave her, exhausted by her "scheming" as she calls it, her planning out (my guess) revenge plots, because let's be honest, as her track record shows, this girl doesn't go after anyone who doesn't snub her first.

It's me, hi
I'm the problem, it's me
At teatime, everybody agrees
I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero

And then in true self-aware fashion, Taylor says it all, just what the public thinks of her, just what she thinks of herself sometimes, just what her worst nightmare likely is: that she's the problem.

All in a light-hearted sort of joke-like tone that makes for the most ridiculously catchy chorus, and a relatable message we literally all have felt at one point in our lives or another.

"At teatime" for those who are American and don't know, is the British way of saying, "dinnertime" because they use the words "tea" and "teatime" to describe "dinnertime." Supposedly everyone around the dinner table is agreeing that she's the problem.

This could have been a literal thing that was said (maybe something offhand) or imagined in her head. It doesn't matter because she thinks other people think this of her.

She says she'll stare directly at the sun, but never the mirror. I think this is ironic because the entire song is a self-reflection so yes, she doesn't dare to look in the mirror even though the sun is a more dangerous thing to look at.

This give Icarus vibes, the Greek mythological character who was so full of pride and hubris who flew too close to the sun, albeit being warned, having his wax wings melt and falling to his death in the sea.

She'll look at the sun, but not the mirror, because she avoids looking at herself in the mirror. I'm guessing this is a literal thing here because (based on my own personal experience with negative thoughts, rumination, and depression) if I feel ashamed of myself and a lot of self-loathing, even a touch of body dysmorphia - I refuse to look at myself in the mirror, and likely so does she.

But the irony in all this is that even when you're not looking in the mirror you're obsessing about yourself - negatively - criticising every element even though your own reflection is something you refuse to see.

Then she turns around and says it must be exhausting to root for someone like her, which makes me think she's talking directly to us, her fans, in this particular part, and thus meaning it's more likely she was talking about us prior when she was talking about someone leaving her.

Sometimes, I feel like everybody is a sexy baby
And I'm a monster on the hill
Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city
Pierced through the heart, but never killed

More relatable sentiments. I often think of myself - not as the monster in the hill - but as an ogre while everyone else is a normal human or attractive. Surely being surrounded by such attractive famous people all the time is not healthy, but even if she was surrounded by more 'ordinary' folk, in this day and age it's almost impossible to escape comparison with others online.

This entire verse is a very good description of what I think body dysmorphia feels like a lot of times, like you're a monster, not human. Like you're gross and horrifying. On very bad days, like you, being the monster you are, should be slayed.

She starts reflecting on what others must be saying about her, and brings out a more sinister meaning of "anti-hero" that implies to me that she may actually mean a different take on the word after all:

Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism
Like some kind of congressman?
(A tale as old as time)
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day, I'll watch as you're leaving
And life will lose all its meaning
(For the last time)

Not all anti-heros, but some, are actually immoral. Those anti-heros that are immoral do heroic things, not out of a sense of right or wrong, but out of selfishness or for some other not-so-moral reason.

People analysing her behaviours and actions toward others in the public sphere have definitely called Taylor many of these things before - a covert narcissist, that she does her good deeds out of a desire to be seen as good and not because she's altruistic.

That she's essentially manipulative and calculated and corrupt and attention seeking, like a corrupt politician.

Essentially, an immoral type of anti-hero rather than just a relatable "not your average overpowered" anti-hero.

It's maybe not her impression that she is actually this terrible person others paint her to be, but that she feels like the anti-hero in a movie, painted this way and perceived this way by so many.

She repeats the horror of watching someone (she says "you" but again I think this is a general you and not a single person, and I think it's us, her fans, though it may be literally everyone else in her life as well, we don't know for certain who she's talking to, can just guess).

She imagines if this happens that life will lose all it's meaning, and that's essentially how the story ends.

The last bit of her music video and the original parts of her lyrics decay into a nightmare scenario where she's killed for her money:

I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money
She thinks I left them in the will
The family gathers 'round and reads it
And then someone screams out
"She's laughing up at us from hell"

The horror here? It's not that she was killed for the money, it's that last line.

That they killed her for the money, thinking they were in the will and that everyone in the end actually thinks she's sneaky, conniving, essentially evil enough to be laughing at everyone from a spot in hell because she left them out of her will.

What do I think this song is about? I think it's about being misunderstood, to be honest, at the end of the day. Because I think Taylor doesn't believe she's this monster, this evil being, who others seem to think she is and talk about her as.

But she thinks everyone else sees her this way. That she's seen as the problem, and as the non-narcissist that she is (they are not capable of self-reflection or self-criticism), she actually is heartbroken by this negative talk about her because it's altered her image of herself and she now sees herself as the problem, too, in her worst, most depressive moments.

She takes to heart their unfair criticism, and it haunts her. Again, just proving that she isn't a narcissist, but she's too far drowning to be able to see, again, the irony of the reality of her thoughts: that she could be no narcissist.

Think about it: she cuts family out of her will (as proved by the music video and because it's obvious since everything she's ever done negatively has been a reaction to some negative thing that's happened to her), and her family is disgusted and says that she's laughing at them while in hell...

And she's having nightmares about it. No narcissist would even care. They would think they were owed the vengeance. They wouldn't have regret or remorse or be haunted by getting revenge. That's crazy talk.

So the irony of the situation is that - what Taylor does to even the scales, create some sort of justice, where people she feels took liberties in the worst possible ways and took advantage - the things she does to not be walked all over are interpreted as proof of her being a terrible person.

Essentially, she is a people-pleaser (because she so desperately cares what other people think as is obvious by the fact that she's fixated on the words of family members who were cut out of her will for a reason) who believes in upholding her values and what she believes of as justice and fairness, and because upholding what she thinks is right hurts people in the process (that's what punishment for wrongdoing does), she's hurt by the misinterpretation of her actions even by those she punishes.

Damned if she does (seek justice) damned if she doesn't (acts too nice and doesn't seek recourse after being wronged). There's no winning for her.

It's a sad song with an upbeat, happy tune and yet it's meaning is so logically circular and pretty well near hopeless that it's almost the essence of Taylor Swift's struggles with self-image. Sugar coating her pain so the world can swallow an otherwise tough pill of meaning.

The sad thing isn't that she's older, but not wiser. The sad thing is that she was wise to begin with, and she can't see herself for what she really is.

Instead of looking in the mirror and seeing her true self, she imagines all the negative stories are true, ironically proving through self-reflection and taking on more blame than she is responsible for that she cannot possibly be the monster they all think she is, the monster she feels like sometimes.

But feelings aren't logical, and unless the emotions click into place, she won't feel like who she actually is: a person who has ideals about standing up for what's right, with a big heart who cares too much, yet hates seeing others suffer, even when they deserved their sentence.

It's okay, Taylor. A lot of us do see it for you - you're not the anti-hero, not in the immoral, corrupt-politician, evil mastermind way you think so many see you. These people will not leave you. Will not jump ship.

As terrible as it sounds (because no one can control he mass media, cancel culture, or anything on the internet) - even if huge swathes of people see you as that terrible anti-hero who is essentially a villain in disguise - you will always have those who see you completely differently.

Those who see you as not even capable of being evil. Because you care too much. As  someone who's just standing up for what you believe in. Who ruminates and is imperfect and good, but human. As you really are.

To them, even with the world trying to pierce you through the heart, calling you a monster, they will never switch sides. To them, you aren't the villain, the antihero, but in those moments...

...the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt [her]. Because [she] can take it. Because [she]'s not our hero. [She]'s a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight.