It’s here! On Friday Taylor Swift released her album Midnights. The highly anticipated album left the world in Midnights mayhem, literally breaking Spotify, as fans processed every track and tried to decipher their deeper meaning. In her series Instagram “behind the song,” Taylor elaborates on the meaning of some tracks, which she initially described on the whole as “written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams,” including “Anti-Hero,” “Snow on the Beach,” and “Lavender Haze.” However this still left many of the tracks completely up to fans to figure out, and people were quick to point to “Vigilante Shit” as the next strike in Taylor’s battle for the masters to her first six albums.
Background
For those who are unfamiliar with the drama surrounding Taylor Swift and her fight to own the masters to her songs here’s a very brief rundown. Essentially for the first twelve years of Taylor’s career she worked and released her music under Big Machine Records, which was owned by Scott Borchetta. It was also during this time that Taylor began her feud with Kanye West after he interrupted her VMA speech saying she didn’t deserve to win.
Years later, Kanye infamously released his song “Famous” with the lyrics “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous.” Taylor released a statement; Kim Kardashian released a (now known to be edited) video of Kanye telling her the lyrics; Taylor released another statement; and chaos ensued with many celebrities, including Justin Bieber and his manager Scooter Braun, vocally taking Kanye’s side. Then before the release of Lover, Taylor moved recording companies to Republic Records citing her main motive as being able to own the masters to her songs.
Then in 2020, Scott Borchetta sold the masters to Taylor’s first six albums, without offering Taylor the opportunity to own her work, to Scooter Braun, a man who had consistently bullied Taylor throughout her career. Taylor then decided to re-record her first six albums, two of which have already been released. This has left Taylor feuding with Scooter and Scott, as her decision has significantly devalued Scooter’s $300 million dollar purchase of Taylor’s work.
In her music, Taylor first addresses the Kanye drama with her album reputation, which followed her two-year disappearance from the public. The album as a whole tackles the amount of bad press Taylor had received in previous years and how it affected her, with songs including as “I Did Something Bad,” “Look What You Made Me Do,” and “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” addressing the Kanye feud. The feud goes unmentioned in Lover, however resurfaces in folklore with “my tears ricochet.” The heartbreaking song shows Taylor at her rawest as she describes the loss of her masters through a metaphorical funeral for her “stolen lullabies.”
Vigilante Shit
“Vigilante Shit” stands out on Midnights as both as the only track with an entirely dark-pop sound and the only self-written track. Both of these allude to the message of the song. The dark-pop sound is reminiscent of reputation, where Taylor first alludes to her public feud, while being self-written is consistent with “my tears ricochet.” The fact that both songs are self-written likely ties to the personal nature of the message, given very few people will truly understand the intense pain and emotion that couples with having work stolen and sold. “Vigilante Shit” is the next chapter of “my tears ricochet.” No longer is Taylor grieving the loss of her songs, now she is seeking revenge against their metaphorical killers.
The first line of the song, “draw the cat eye, sharp enough to kill a man,” immediately establishes both Taylor’s goal, “to kill,” and her target, “a man.” While “a man” may initially seem vague, the fact that she’s addressing Scooter Braun clearly comes into focus in subsequent lines. The most telling of these lines are “picture me thick as thieves with your ex-wife” and “someone told his white collar crimes to the FBI,” which refer to recent events in Braun’s life. In July it was announced that him and his wife were getting a divorce, while in June it was revealed he was being sued for $200 million by a private-equity firm.
While, yes, the song clearly addresses the Scooter Braun drama, it is just as clearly about the fact that Taylor is refusing to be defined by the situation. Instead of laying complicit with the fact that Scooter bought her masters, she is rerecording her first six albums— serving as her form as revenge. Taylor uses the line: “don’t get sad, get even” to illustrate her action-oriented approach to the situation.
Arguably most telling of Taylor’s mindset about the situation is the hook of the song: “lately I’ve been dressin’ for revenge.” This idea of “dressin’ for revenge” ties to the fact that as she has been rerecording her albums, she has also been imitating the style that accompanied the original era. The fact that the hook is prefaced by lines such as “I don’t dress for women / I don’t dress for men” and “I don’t dress for friends” highlights the fact that she is rerecording the albums for herself, because she wants to own her work, rather than for the attention. Taylor is doing what she feels is right for herself and her art.
This sentiment culminates in the title line of the song: “I’m on my vigilante shit again.” Unlike most songs, the title of the song only occurs once in the lyrics. By choosing “vigilante shit” as the title of the song, Taylor is placing emphasis on it and drawing listeners to it. By definition a “vigilante” is “a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the process of law are viewed as inadequate)”; therefore, because Taylor is unable to take legal action against Braun, she has been left to her own devices on how to right his wrongs. Taylor becomes a vigilante in this situation because the way she has handled the loss of her masters has not only served as a lesson for younger artists to ensure that they can own their own songs, but has also inspired other already established artists to re-record their songs in order to own the masters. In this way, Taylor is able to “punish crime,” as her actions have resulted in artists being able to own their work from the start, or reclaim it.
Ultimately, while “Vigilante Shit” may seem like a sharp dig from Taylor in order to stir drama and generate press for the album, its message is just the opposite. “Vigilante Shit” is about doing what you feel is right regardless of what others say or think, and for Taylor Swift this means dressin’ for revenge and re-recording her music.