Taylor Swift is seeing the world through lavender-colored glasses. Shortly after kicking off the final sprint of her “Midnights Mayhem With Me” TikTok series by announcing that the first track on her upcoming album Midnights will be titled “Lavender Haze,” the pop star posted a video sharing details about how the song was written about her love for boyfriend Joe Alwyn remains unbreakable by rumors and social media commentary.
“I happened upon the phrase ‘lavender haze’ when I was watching Mad Men,” she explained in the video posted to Instagram. “I looked it up because I thought it sounded cool, and it turns out that it’s a common phrase used in the ’50s where they would describe being in love.”
“I guess theoretically, when you’re in the lavender haze, you’ll do anything to stay there and not let people bring you down off of that cloud,” she continued. “I think a lot of people have to deal with this now, not just ‘public figures,’ because we live in the era of social media. If the world finds out that you’re in love with somebody, they’re going to weigh in on it.”
“Like, my relationship for six years, we’ve had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff — and we just ignore it,” she added. “This song is sort of about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff.”
Swift’s latest revelations came roughly an hour after she initially announced the title of “Lavender Haze” in the ninth episode of “Midnights Mayhem With Me,” a delightfully chaotic series on the singer’s TikTok account in which she randomly reveals the names of songs on Midnights one by one. She began the series late last month shortly after surprise announcing Midnights, out Oct. 21, in her VMAs video of the year acceptance speech.
But while the first eight “Mayhem” videos were posted on different days, the final five titles — starting with “Lavender Haze” — were all revealed early Friday morning. The last four Midnights songs to be announced were track five, “You’re on Your Own, Kid”; track 10, “Labyrinth”; track 12, “Sweet Nothing”; and track four, “Snow On the Beach” featuring Lana Del Rey.
Watch Taylor Swift explain the romantic meaning behind her upcoming song “Lavender Haze” below:
