I'll Stare Directly At the Sun, But Never In the Mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the Anti-Hero
noun: anti-hero
a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes.
I had big dreams of writing about one of the more obscure songs off of Midnights, especially considering we got seven additional bonus tracks on the 3ams deluxe edition. However, every time I sat down to write about this album, I kept coming back to this song. Therefore, I am breaking my own unspoken rule of never writing about the lead single first to talk about Anti-Hero.
This is perhaps the best lead single choice out of all ten of her albums to date because it acts as the perfect introduction to the album concept as a whole. Usually, Swift opts for a lead single that psychs-out listeners to think that the album as a whole will sound like the lead single when it usually doesn’t. Swift deviates, perhaps for the first time her career, from this tactic, choosing not to release the lead single ahead of the album drop itself. We met Anti-Hero along with the rest of the album, and yet it remains a clear standout.
Midnights digs into those moments late at night where your brain is spiraling over something you said years ago, your fears your afraid to speak into the light, and your fantasies that are wilder than your daytime imagination. Swift plunged back into her memories to bring forward the story of 13 (well, technically 21) midnights in her life. Swift co-wrote the entire album with longtime friend and producer Jack Antonoff. In some ways, the album is a musical return to form towards 1989, but with the satisfyingly dark nature of reputation. Long time fans are treated to references to her previous albums and song subject matter, but the new listener can be quickly endeared to Swift’s human approach to these pieces.
While Lavender Haze serves as an excellent track 1, Anti-Hero was no doubt the best choice to introduce the world-at-large to the album. Heartbreakingly sincere, Anti-Hero dives into Swift’s various insecurities, many of which swirl around how larger-than-life her existence has become. Very few public figures reach the level of universal fame that Taylor Swift has, one can only imagine the impact it has on a person’s psyche.
The musical makeup of the song reminds me a lot of songs off of Gone Now, the 2017 Bleachers album written by Jack Antonoff. The Bleachers band actually performs on many of the tracks off this album, and obviously it’s hard to miss Antonoff’s influence. Antonoff tends to write songs that have heavy, layered musical complexity with overwhelming sound, but with lyrics that make you pause. He attributes this as a “Springsteen Effect,” having a big band moment but with meaning that gets to the deepest nooks and cranny’s of your heart. Anti-Hero might be the epitome of this take, though the meaning is pretty overt in the chorus.
The narrator owns her problematic nature in the chorus - Hi! It’s me. I’m the problem, it’s me. She knows that her own decision making, the very nature of how her mind operates, and the circumstances surrounding her life have led her to this moment. The entire world around her seems to know that she has created her own hell. She makes no excuses for it. She faces it head on but also acknowledges that she wants to turn away from that reality - I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror was an instant favorite lyric of mine from this album.
We have all been “the problem” at some point in our lives. I took a big risk in August that never paid off - just about everyone cautioned me against said decision, but I didn’t really listen. I had a lot of misplaced confidence in myself and too much naivety. Having to watch all of those people get their ‘I told you so’ moment when I called to tell them that I had crashed and burned felt the way “at tea time, everyone agrees” sounds in Anti-Hero. The idea of rooting for the Anti-Hero that she describes in the end of the chorus - it must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero - is reminiscent of both an external and internal influence. The background vocals echoing “tale as old as time” could feel like a friend saying to the narrator, “we have been here before,” or could be taken as an individual feeling exasperated at themselves for failing to break bad habits. It’s hard to look yourself in the mirror and admit that you’ve placed yourself in a situation you never wanted to be in, but we’ve all been there.
There’s a constant question in this song that Swift continues to come back to in other work (Nothing New and The Archer come to mind). When people see me for the fraud that I am, will they leave me? She poses it even more bluntly in Anti-Hero with: one day I’ll watch as your leaving ‘cause you got tired of my scheming (for the last time). We fear that we’ll be found out and all that we have been lucky enough to accumulate in our lives will be lost. But Swift also explores the concept in this album with tracks like Mastermind that often our deepest fears vanish in the light of day.
Despite its upbeat synths and punchy chorus, this song is a leveled playing field for all of us. Swift reminds us all that we are all Anti-Heroes. The concept of a hero was creating in a world where perfection is attainable. We have created central ideas of success to place meaning into our lives, but the reality remains that we are all, at times, "the problem.” We all have versions of ourselves that we’d rather not think too hard about, but that exist regardless. Swift placed her fears out into the world knowing that we would look back and say, “yes, that exists within me, too.” Because frankly, it does. Isn’t that a relaxing thought?
P.S.
Yes, I wrote this at Midnight. Midnight is actually when I’ve written every post for this blog. That wasn’t planned - I’m just an insomniac, but now I feel vindicated because I have an album to justify such behavior.