When I found old diaries from my childhood and my teens, they were covered in dust.

I'm not just saying that for poetic effect, they were truly dusty with pictures drawn of first day of school outfits and inspirational quotes I used to retrace over and over to get me through doubtful moments. I'd practice my autograph and tape my guitar picks to the pages. In the entries, I daydreamed on paper and mused about who might ask who to the dance or how nervous I was saying the national anthem at the local baseball game. I frequently and drastically changed my opinions on love, friends, confidence and trust. I vented, described memories in detail, jotted down new song ideas and questioned why I would ever try to shoot for a career I had such a small chance of ever attaining.

But what shocked me the most was how often I wrote down the things I loved. Writing a new song, riding in the car with my mom, the purple-pink skies of the soccer field on the walk home, the one night in middle school when none of my friends were fighting, the dazzle of opal necklaces I couldn’t afford gleaming from a department store jewelry case. I wrote about tiny details in my life in these diaries from a bygone age with such... wonderment. Intrigue. Romance. I noticed things and decided they were romantic, and so they were.

In life, we grow up and we encounter the nuanced complexities of trying to figure out who to be, how to act, or how to be happy. Like invisible smoke in the room, we wonder what kind of anxiety pushes you forward and what kind ruins your ability to find joy in your life. We constantly question our choices, our surroundings, and we beat ourselves up for our mistakes. All the while, we crave romance. We long for those rare, enchanting moments when things just fall into place. Above all else, we really, really want our lives to be filled with love.

I've decided that in this life, I want to be defined by the things I love -- not the things I hate, the things I'm afraid of, or the things that haunt me in the middle of the night. Those things may be struggles, but they're not my identity. I wish the same for you. May your struggles become inaudible background noise behind the loud, clergies voices of those who love and appreciate you. Turn those voices up in the mix in your head. May you take notice of the things in your life that are nice and make you feel safe and maybe even find wonderment in them. May you write down your feelings and reflect on the years later, only to learn all the trials and the tribulations you thought might kill you... didn't. I hope that someday you forget the pain ever existed. I hope that if there is a lover in your life, it's someone who deserves you. If that's the case, I hope you treat them with care.

This album is a love letter to love itself -- all the captivating, spellbinding, maddening devastating red, blue, gray, golden aspects of it (that's why there are so many songs).

In honor of fever dreams, bad boys, confessions of love on a drunken night out, Christmas lights still hanging in January, guitar string scars on my hands, false gods and blind faith, memories of dumping into an icy outdoor pool, creaks in floorboards and ultraviolet morning light, finally finding a friend, and opening the curtains to see the clearest, brightest daylight after the darkest night.

We are what we love.

This is Lover.

("Lover" Foreword)

In this album opener for Taylor’s seventh studio album "Lover", Taylor finds peace amidst her pains and struggles, by letting all of it go. “I Forgot You Existed” sees her reminiscing about her past feuds and controversies, and then realizing that none of that mattered to her anymore.

The track was produced by Frank Dukes, Louis Bell and Taylor and written by the latter two. It has an upbeat and light sound, accentuated by the short piano chords and the faded out vocals in the background. This sound choice seems deliberate given the context of the song as it portrays a fun and carefree feeling.

On the piano demo of the song that’s included on the deluxe edition of the album, Taylor said:

"I was writing with two writers I hadn’t ever worked with before, so I wanted to come in with an idea that was pretty much all there, melody and lyrics. So I had this idea called “I Forgot That You Existed,” and I wanted it to be really simple. I thought it might be a really fun way to open the album, like, basically kind of shrugging off a lot of things that you’ve been through that have been causing a lot of struggle and pain. And just, one day you wake up and you realize you’re indifferent to whatever caused you that pain." -- Taylor Swift

“Cruel Summer” narrates the fragility and uncertainty at the beginning of Taylor’s relationship with Joe Alwyn. The two met officially at the MET Gala in May 2016, although she was dating DJ Calvin Harris at the time and started seeing Tom Hiddleston shortly after. The fling between the two likely began soon after, lining up with the summer of 2016. Moreover, Taylor seems to suggest that she secretly fell in love with Joe, who she describes as a “bad boy,” during what was supposed to be a physical relationship. Taylor’s release of "Lover" comes accompanied with a personal journal, where she describes the summer of 2016 as “the apocalypse,” summarizing how painful it was for her.

Taylor said to iHeartRadio:

"This song is one that I wrote about the feeling of a summer romance, and how often times a summer romance can be layered with all these feelings of, like, pining away and sometimes even secrecy. It deals with the idea of being in a relationship where there’s some element of desperation and pain in it, where you’re yearning for something that you don’t quite have yet, it’s just right there, and you just, like, can’t reach it. So, this has some of my favorite lyrics on it, and it was so fun to write this. Jack and Annie [Clark] did the track and a lot of the instrumentation, and I did the topline in whatever language that is. A topline is all the notes and the lyrics you hear. So whatever you would sing, that is what I wrote on this. It was just so fun to write this one and I really love this one. Jack and I like to do ranting bridges. Like in “Out of the Woods” where the bridge is the biggest moment of the song — we revisited that concept." -- Taylor Swift

Rolling Stone ranked “Cruel Summer” as the #4 song of 2019, saying:

"Like so many songs in the Taylor Swift pantheon, ‘Cruel Summer’ sprints on the knife-edge of a crush, reckless, anticipating the wreck, but compelled and consumed by capital-F ‘feeling.’ There’s an acknowledgement that we’ve been here before (‘Angels roll their eyes’), and even Swift seems exasperated, crying out in the bridge, ‘I love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?’ But then the music cuts out, and from the dark comes a sound unlike anything Swift’s ever recorded -- a raw, back-of-the-throat howl. It’s vintage Swift, a burst of mischief and desire, messy drama with a wink, yet it hits at fresh power, the thrill of hearing one of pop’s most underestimated chameleons daring you to wonder what she can’t do."

During the week ending September 7, 2019, “Cruel Summer” peaked at #29 on the Hot 100.

"Lover" is a romantic track dedicated to Taylor's partner of three years, Joe Alwyn. It takes a wedding-like perspective on their relationship and shares information about their romance, revealing how deeply Taylor feels for him.

A Twitter user who attended one of the secret sessions alleged that “Lover" is Taylor’s favorite [original] song of all time”.

Taylor wrote "Lover" late one night at her home in Nashville, Tennessee on the piano, and sent a voice memo of the song to Antonoff. She flew to New York City the next day to work on the song with Antonoff and recording engineer Laura Sisk at Electric Lady Studios. Taylorplayed the song on the piano for them; she and Antonoff produced the final version of the song during a six-hour recording session, using reverberation, a piano and a Mellotron. Sisk and John Rooney recorded the song while Serban Ghenea mixed it with additional engineering from John Hanes. Taylor told Vogue:

"This has one of my favorite bridges. I love a bridge, and I was really able to go to Bridge City." -- Taylor Swift

"Lover" received universal acclaim from critics, who praised its nostalgic quality and Taylor's songwriting. It received a nomination for "Song of the Year" at the 62nd GRAMMY Awards. It was named as one of best songs of 2019 by several publications.

During the week of August 23, 2019, the song debuted at #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. With this placement, Taylor tied Madonna with the most top 20 hits in Hot 100 history (at 20 each). During the week ending September 7, the song peaked at #9 on the Hot 100. “Lover” is her 25th top 10 song on the chart.

The music video for the song was released on August 22, 2019, immediately following Taylor’s "Lover’s Lounge" on YouTube. It features Taylor and her love interest in a house inside a snow globe, illustrating the ups and downs of a relationship in progress. During the livestream, she further revealed that the concept for the music video originated from a lyric in her "1989" song, “You Are In Love”:

And so it goes

You two are dancing in a snow globe, ‘round and 'round

On November 13, 2019, Taylor released a remix featuring Canadian singer Shawn Mendes. On November 26, 2019, she released a second remix with a reworked orchestral arrangement, titled "First Dance Remix". Both remixes received positive reviews from music critics.

“The Man” was confirmed as an official "Lover" track in Taylor’s Vogue interview for the 2019 September issue which was released on August 8, 2019. In the song, Taylor “plays with the idea of perception.” According to Vogue, "she has often wondered how she would be written and spoken about if she were a man.”

Taylor explains:

"It’s a thought experiment of sorts: “If I had made all the same choices, all the same mistakes, all the same accomplishments, how would it read?” -- Taylor Swift

She also told iHeartRadio:

"I’ve always really wanted to write a song about this. I often think about what my career or headlines about my career would have been like if I was a man instead of a woman. Not what I would do differently or anything but if I had the same accomplishments, the same dating history, the same statements, what would it be like if I had been a dude?" -- Taylor Swift

"The Man" received critical acclaim upon release, with praise towards its lyrics about sexism and women empowerment. According to Billboard's Gil Kaufman, "The Man" is a pointed statement about "how much harder women need to work than men to get to the same finish line". Jason Lipshutz of the same magazine described the song as a "biting look at gender dynamics within both the pop industry and celebrity-driven culture", noting that it is sonically composed of a rumbling beat and crackling synths and lyrically provides wry humor and an honest perspective.

In the US, the song peaked at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 4 on the Rolling Stone Top 100. It also entered the top 40 on charts in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia and the United Kingdom.

On February 7, 2020, an animated lyric video of the song was released on YouTube. On February 18, 2020, a live acoustic version of the song, titled "The Man (Live from Paris)", was released on all music platforms, accompanied by its live video. An official music video for "The Man" was released on February 27, 2020 and was directed by Taylor herself, marking her solo directorial debut.

The music video explores Taylor's life as her theoretical male counterpart, an alter-ego named "Tyler Swift". The video presents numerous prevalent examples of double standards in society, and comments on the objectification and sexualization of women, toxic masculinity, patriarchy, as well as performative allyship. Throughout the video, the male version of Taylor is seen rudely inconveniencing the people around him, leading a luxurious and promiscuous lifestyle, manspreading, receiving praise for the bare minimum, and throwing tantrums without consequences. It contains visual references to "The Wolf of Wall Street", a film involving the lyrically name-checked actor Leonardo DiCaprio and cinematographer Prieto, and tennis player Serena Williams' match controversy with a chair umpire at the 2018 US Open Championships.

"The Archer" is a song written and produced by Taylor and Jack Antonoff. The song was released as the first promotional single from the album, on July 23, 2019.

"The Archer" is a synth-pop and dream pop ballad that features heavy synthesizers, minimalistic sounds and a slow groove. Praised for its artful lyrics, the song documents the highs and lows of Taylor's relationships. It received acclaim from music critics, who compared it to her classic "All Too Well" (2012).

"The Archer" was written by Taylor and Jack Antonoff within two hours, when they were in California. Regarding the song's placement at number five on the track list, Taylor explained that she puts the most "honest, emotional, vulnerable, and personal" track at the position.

"The Archer" is described as "darker and more introspective" than preceding singles, showcases a "more vulnerable and confessional" side of Taylor, as it features her as "both hunter and hunted". "The Archer" received acclaim from music critics. Rolling Stone's Claire Shaffer called the song "a somber, synth-heavy ballad centered around the metaphor of the archer". Rania Aniftos of Billboard opined that it is "sparkling, airy", and that Taylor "tears down the wall she puts up, asking the person she loves to accept all of her as she chants".

"The Archer" debuted at number 100 on the UK Singles Chart. Additionally, the song entered at number 17 in Scotland, number 55 in Australia, number 69 in Ireland, number two on the New Zealand Hot Singles chart, and number 75 on the Canadian Hot 100. "The Archer" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 69, becoming Taylor's 80th song to enter the chart.

"I Think He Knows" is an uptempo love song about the beginning of a potential relationship with Taylor crushing on her potential boyfriend’s every move.

Taylor includes several small details about her lover and his mannerisms, which emphasizes her attention and observation. It’s also worth noting the confidence she exudes in the second verse and pre-chorus -- this song follows “The Archer,” a vulnerable track about her insecurities in a relationship.

During the week ending September 7, 2019, “I Think He Knows” peaked at #51 on the  Billboard Hot 100.

“Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince” is a layered song that can be interpreted as describing a high school romance or Taylor's reasons for becoming politically vocal.

Taylor told Rolling Stone:

"There are so many influences that go into that particular song. I wrote it a couple of months after midterm elections, and I wanted to take the idea of politics and pick a metaphorical place for that to exist. And so I was thinking about a traditional American high school, where there’s all these kinds of social events that could make someone feel completely alienated. And I think a lot of people in our political landscape are just feeling like we need to huddle up under the bleachers and figure out a plan to make things better." -- Taylor Swift

The song’s political tone has linked its subject largely to US President Donald Trump, who Taylor has expressed distaste for. To the Elvis Duran show after the album’s release, she said:

"We’re a democracy – at least, we’re supposed to be – where you’re allowed to disagree, dissent, debate. I really think that (Trump) thinks this is an autocracy." -- Taylor Swift

During the week ending September 7, 2019, “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince” peaked at #49 on the Billboard Hot 100.

On "Paper Rings", Taylor reveals her committment to her lover, recounting the story of their love and declaring that she is so willing to stay with him forever, she would forgo any formalities and marry him with homemade paper rings.

The song is likely about her current boyfriend of three years, Joe Alwyn. Taylor has shared the concept of this song at the secret sessions with some fans:

"The whole song is just basically reminiscing on fun memories. And then in the chorus, it talks about how […], your whole life you talk with your friends about how, like, ‘Oh my God. Do you wanna get married? What do you want your ring to look like? What kind of ring do you want?’ I don’t know, I just feel like if you really love someone, you’d be like, ‘I don’t care.’ And so, it talks about that concept as the hook."

-- Taylor Swift

During the week ending September 7, 2019, “Paper Rings” peaked at #45 on the Hot 100.

“Cornelia Street” is a song written by Taylor that focuses on the central role the Manhattan street played in Taylor’s memories of an early relationship. It's one of her favorite tracks on "Lover". She really did rent an apartment on the street in 2016 and 2017 while she was renovating her Tribeca apartment.

Taylor told the Elvis Duran show:

"It’s about the things that took place, the memories that were made on that street. I rented an apartment there, and just wanted to write a song about all the nostalgia of, you know, sometimes in our lives we asign, you know, we kind of bond our memories to those places where those memories happened, it’s just something we do if we romantisize life, which I tend to do. And so, I wrote this song about going back over the memories of things that happened in this particular place, and it ended up being one of my favorite songs. I wrote this one alone." -- Taylor Swift

The end of the song features the sound of a windshield wiper, to bring the scene in “the backseat” of a car to life.

During the week ending September 7, 2019, “Cornelia Street” peaked at #57 on the Hot 100. 

“Death by a Thousand Cuts” compares the possible break-up of a relationship to a slow, painful death. It was inspired by the Netflix film "Someone Great", rather than an aspect of Taylor’s personal relationship. Funnily enough, while working on the treatment for the movie, its writer was inspired by Taylor's "1989" song "Clean".

Taylor told the Elvis Duran show:

"Basically, often times I’ll write songs about my own life, but there’s always flickers of other peoples work that influenced me in some way, like, I think when people make art, other people make art, and I think that, you know, especially women who make art, I find it highly inspiring, just based on how well they told a story, and there’s just something you get from watching a good story take place. I watched this movie on Netflix called “Someone Great”. It’s this amazing like well-done romantic comedy with a heart and just like depth to it, because it’s about this relationship that ends after like eight or nine years, and you know […]. And so I cried watching the movie, and so, for like a week I start waking up from dreams that I’m living out that scenario, that that’s happening to me. And I just would wake up and I’m like: “Oh my God, I’m writing a break-up song”, like I have these lyrics in my head based on the dynamics of these characters. And I went into the studio with Jack and I was like: “I got these lyrics for a song I’ve written for this song called Death by a thousand cuts”. So I write this song, we do this song in the studio, and fast forward a couple months later and I’m doing the Ellen show which I love doing. […]". -- Taylor Swift

“London Boy” is most likely an ode to Taylor's boyfriend as of the song’s release, British actor Joe Alwyn. It incorporates a voice sample of Idris Elba and James Corden.

Having mostly escaped the public eye during her relationship with Alwyn, Taylor finally shares some of the most memorable experiences she’s enjoyed.

This track is notable for using an interpolation of the rhythm on Cautious Clay’s “Cold War,” making Clay only the second artist ever to be interpolated on one of Taylor’s songs (after Right Said Fred on “Look What You Made Me Do”).

During the week ending September 7, 2019, “London Boy” peaked at #62 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Taylor dedicates the heartbreaking tune “Soon You’ll Get Better” to her mother, Andrea, who was diagnosed with cancer in April 2015 and then re-diagnosed again, which Taylor revealed in an interview in March 2019. Since the song is so personal, she said putting it on the album was "a family decision".

In a piece for ELLE Magazine, Taylor wrote:

"My mom’s cancer has taught me that there are real problems and then there’s everything else. My mom’s cancer is a real problem. I used to be so anxious about daily ups and downs. I give all of my worry, stress, and prayers to real problems now."

-- Taylor Swift

In her "Lover’s Lounge" on YouTube the night before the release of "Lover", Taylor also admitted that this song was the most difficult song on the entire album for her to write:

"There’s a song called 'Soon You’ll Get Better' on 'Lover' that was really really hard to write, and it was also a family decision whether to even put it on the album. And I think songs like that that are really hard for you to write emotionally, maybe they are really hard to write and hard to sing because they are really true."

-- Taylor Swift

Knowing how close Taylor is with her mother, it’s no surprise she decided to devote a track for one of her closest companions in her life.

During the week ending September 7, 2019, “Soon You’ll Get Better” peaked at #63 on the Billboard Hot 100.

”False God” uses heavy religious imagery to compare Taylor’s relationship with current boyfriend Joe Alwyn to something all-powerful and greater than themselves.

During the week ending September 7, 2019, “False God” peaked at #77 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“You Need to Calm Down” sees Taylor addressing various detractors who post hurtful comments online, following themes of self-love and being true to one’s identity that previously appeared on the album's lead single, “ME!”. Her second collaboration with producer Joel Little, it is also the second single from her seventh studio album, "Lover".

In the second verse, Taylor continues to show her support for the LGBTQ+ community, following a June 2019 letter to Senator Lamar Alexander, as well as a petition she created to fight for legal equality among all people, regardless of sexuality or gender. Taylor told Beats 1:

"It’s about how I’ve observed a lot of different people in our society who just put so much energy and effort into negativity, and it just made me feel like, “You need to just calm down, like you’re stressing yourself out. This seems like it’s more about you than what you’re going off about. Like, just calm down.” -- Taylor Swift

The video was nominated in nine categories at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, winning two awards, including "Video of the Year", which is Taylor's second award in the category, following "Bad Blood" (2015). The song received a nomination at the 62nd GRAMMY Awards for "Best Pop Solo Performance".

During the week ending June 22, 2019, “You Need To Calm Down” debuted and peaked at #2 on the Hot 100. With this chart placement, Taylor tied Madonna for the most #2 hits in Hot 100 history with six each.

On "Afterglow", Taylor sings about self-sabotaging a relationship, overreacting about a misunderstanding.

Taylor takes blame for the fight and asks for forgiveness from her partner in order to save the relationship.

During the week ending September 7, 2019, “Afterglow” peaked at #75 on the Billboard Hot 100.

"ME!" is a song by Taylor featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco, released by Republic Records on April 26, 2019, as the lead single from her upcoming seventh studio album.

"ME!" is a bubblegum pop song written by Taylor, Brendon and Joel Little, and produced by Joel and Taylor. In an interview with Robin Roberts, Taylor described the song as about "embracing your individuality and really owning it", saying that "with a pop song, we have an ability to get a melody stuck in people's heads, and I just want it to be one that makes them feel better about themselves, not worse".

The music video for "ME!" premiered on YouTube on April 26, 2019 in a live premiere format, prefaced by a Q&A chat in the live chat text with Taylor. It was directed by Dave Meyers and Taylor. The video broke the YouTube record for most views in the first 24 hours for a lead female video, and the second most viewed overall earning of 57.1 million views.

Infused with steel drums, "It’s Nice to Have A Friend" is a dreamy ballad about two friends meeting in school and ending up getting married. It recalls the similar love story of children growing up together and falling in love of Taylor's 2006 song "Mary’s Song (Oh My My My)" from her debut album.

When asked about which song on "Lover" hits her heart the most at the Tokyo Q&A/M&G event on November 6, 2019, Taylor responded with:

"There’s a song on 'Lover' about flashback and childhood, it compares childhood friendships to when you find someone to fall in love with when you’re older, called 'It’s Nice To Have A Friend.' It’s very nostalgic." -- Taylor Swift

She also told Billboard:

"It was fun to write a song that was just verses, because my whole body and soul wants to make a chorus -- every time I sit down to write a song, I’m like, ‘Okay, chorus time, let’s get the chorus done.’ But with that song, it was more of like a poem, and a story and a vibe and a feeling of… I love metaphors that kind of have more than one meaning, and I think I loved the idea that, on an album called Lover, we all want love, we all want to find somebody to see our sights with and hear things with and experience things with. But at the end of the day we’ve been searching for that since we were kids! When you had a friend when you were nine years old, and that friend was all you talked about, and you wanted to have sleepovers and you wanted to walk down the street together and sit there drawing pictures together or be silent together, or be talking all night. We’re just looking for that, but endless sparks, as adults." -- Taylor Swift

During the week ending September 7, 2019, “It’s Nice To Have a Friend” peaked at #92 on the Billboard Hot 100.

On "Daylight", the final song on "Lover", Taylor sings about struggling through previous relationships, beginning to doubt her ability to find true love, until she meets someone who brightens her life in a new way.

She refers to being unlucky in love in the past, but when she meets her new partner, she only wants to focus on them and their happiness together. Taylor closed a 2019 piece for ELLE Magazine with the following:

"I’ve come to a realization that I need to be able to forgive myself for making the wrong choice, trusting the wrong person, or figuratively falling on my face in front of everyone. Step into the daylight and let it go." -- Taylor Swift

At the iHeartRadio Lover Secret Session, she further explained:

"I discovered an insight, letting it go is a really important step even if you never fully get there. Realizing that you can find love or can find friendships in literally the worst times in your life, that you’ll have forever, found in temporary, awful times that will pass." -- Taylor Swift

In the "Lover's  Lounge", Taylor revealed that the original album title for "Lover" was "Daylight".

During the week ending September 7, 2019, “Daylight” peaked at #89 on the Billboard Hot 100.