Calling all Swifties! Another completely overlooked Easter egg for Midnights has now been discovered, and fans are nothing short of stunned.
As midnight draws closer, Swifties are searching for even more hints that we’ve embarrassingly missed, and it’s safe to say there are quite a few. This particular Easter egg comes to us from Spotify, which has partnered with Taylor to release lyric snippets on billboards across the world. From New York, to London, to São Paulo, to Taylor’s hometown of Nashville, Midnights lyrics have been on display all over the globe, stirring up even more excitement for tonight’s album release (if that’s even possible).
Unsurprisingly, one of these lyric releases is causing more of a frenzy than the others. On Oct. 20 at midnight (duh), a Mexico City billboard read, “Breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out,” adding to the list of lyrics Spotify has announced.
Now, this may sound like just another profound Taylor lyric, but it sounded familiar to many Swifties. Soon after the billboard went up, fans discovered that Taylor said this exact phrase in her NYU commencement speech back in May. “As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out. And I’m a doctor now, so I know how breathing works,” she said in the speech (check the 27:13 mark to hear it).
So, the answer is yes: Taylor Swift definitely spoiled this lyric in her May commencement speech, long before we even knew about Midnights. And Swifties everywhere are impressed by Taylor’s sneaky planning, but also maybe a little frustrated with themselves for not catching this one.
Fans are now busy at work theorizing about which song this lyric comes from, and whether Taylor has referenced this lyric in her previous posts about Midnights. The track “You’re On Your Own, Kid” is a common theory as to where this lyric comes from, but your guess is as good as mine. And if that isn’t enough, the memes about this lyric are already rolling in.
But honestly, with the running joke of Swifties clowning and missing Easter eggs, who could be surprised that fans didn’t look twice at a poetic phrase in Taylor’s commencement speech? Perhaps we should’ve known that Taylor would leave hints in her 30-minute speech. Either way, bravo to Taylor once again for fooling her fans, and congrats to all the fans who quickly pieced this together.
Despite getting the most attention online, the “Breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out” billboard was not the first lyric released — Spotify has also displayed several other lyric snippets on billboards within the past few days. The first Spotify billboard was seen on October 17th in New York and London at — you guessed it — 12 a.m. It read, “I should not be left to my own devices.”
Since then, there have been four other Spotify billboards: “I polish up real nice,” “Just like clockwork, the dominoes cascaded in a line,” “Did you ever have someone kiss you in a crowded room?” and some simply reading, “Meet us at midnight.”
I don’t know about you, but these lyric releases have me theorizing even more than I was before — and I’m sure we can expect Swifties to find a flood of Easter eggs when the album comes out tonight. So, to all the other Swifties counting down: I’ll see you at midnight!