UPDATED: Sad songs say so much, as the man said. And in the case of a brand new Taylor Swift song, “You’re Losing Me,” some of her fans believe the lyrics say plenty about her relationship status over the last year or so.
If her material is nothing if not almost always immediately quotable, “You’re Losing Me” has some lulus, starting with: “I wouldn’t marry me either / A pathological people pleaser / Who only wanted you to see her.” The overall tone, though, is less sad than weary, bordering on fatalistic: “Do I throw out everything we built or keep it? / I’m getting tired even for a phoenix / Always rising from the ashes / Mending all her gashes / You might just have dealt the final blow.”
Late Friday, Swift made the track widely available in a digital release at her webstore. Earlier in the day, though, the new track was not widely available, as it was first released exclusively on a CD edition that currently is only available to fans patronizing her merchandise stands at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ. Fans were so eager to get their hands on the disc, because she had advertised it as the only way to get the new song, that lines began forming in earnest at the stadium on Thursday, well in advance of the merch stands opening up for the day at 12:30 p.m. Friday. Inevitably, some of the first attendees to get their hands on it went back to their cars and uploaded the ravenously anticipated new track for the rest of the world to hear… and to scour for perceived personal details.
The song is not a letdown in that regard. It’s being billed as a “Vault Track,” written during the same writing sessions that produced the smash “Midnights” album. It would hardly have fit, stylistically or thematically, on that record, as the album tended toward upbeat, sensual fare, while this is the first song Swift has put out in years that appears to describe a present-day relationship in unhappy terms and is likely to be perceived as personal, not fictional. Naturally, first reactions were that it might describe cracks in a years-long relationship with actor Joe Alwyn, which seemed to be characterized in much happier terms on the rest of “Midnights” as well as four albums preceding it.
The mention of marriage, or the lack of it, will be particularly provocative to fans. Swift had sounded almost dismissive of matrimony in a recent song, “Lavender Haze,” the leadoff song of “Midnights,” which included the verse, “All they keep askin’ me is if I’m gonna be your bride / The only kind of girl they see s a one-night or a wife,” while eschewing the idea of “the 1950s shit they want from me.”
The overall lyric of the song is a play on the “we’re losing him/her” often heard in emergency room situations in medical shows. A kind of deathliness is at play throughout the number, as Swift sings, “I sent you signals and bit my nails down to the quick / My face was gray, but you wouldn’t admit that we were sick.”
The downbeat tone of the song is in contrast to two other new songs that Swift released late Thursday night, both of them more widely available as part of a digital deluxe version of “Midnights” subtitled “The Till Dawn Edition.” Neither was an all-new song, but both were enthusiastically embraced — a remix of “Karma” with rapper Ice Spice and a fresh version of “Snow on the Beach” with new, extensive lead vocals from co-writer and featured artist Lana Del Rey.
The expanded version of the album known as “Midnights (The Late Night Edition)” — the one that includes “You’re Losing Me” as a bonus track — was initially pegged by Swift as being available only at the MetLife Stadium merch booths, in CD form. Later on Friday, her webstore put up a digital version of the album, advertising that it would only be available for 24 hours, ending at 8 p.m. ET Saturday. Between the two slightly different versions of the deluxe edition that went on sale Friday, Swift stands a strong chance of having “Midnights” move back up into the No. 1 position on the Billboard 200, since all the separate editions of the album count as one for charting purposes.
Swift still has not made “You’re Losing Me” available for streaming on DSPs, and fan uploads have been the subject of takedown notices from Universal Music. The other new tracks she released this weekend are all on the usual digital sites — including “Hits Different,” a song that until now was only available on a Target-exclusive CD that was part of the initial rollout for “Midnights” last fall.
Lyrics for the new song, as transcribed by fans — with a rare instance of a Swift bridge being longer than any of the track’s verses or choruses:
VERSE 1You say “I don’t understand” and I say “I know you don’t”
We thought a cure would come through in time, now I fear it won’t
Remember looking at this room, we loved it ’cause of the light
Now, I just sit in the dark and wonder if it’s time
PRE-CHORUSDo I throw out everything we built or keep it?
I’m getting tired even for a phoenix
Always rising from the ashes
Mending all her gashes
You might just have dealt the final blow
CHORUSStop, you’re losing me
Stop, you’re losing me
Stop, you’re losing me
I can’t find a pulse
My heart won’t start anymore, for you
‘Cause you’re losing me
VERSE 2Every morning I glared at you with storms in my eyes
How can you say that you love someone you can’t tell is dying?
I sent you signals and bit my nails down to the quick
My face was gray but you wouldn’t admit that we were sick
PRE-CHORUSAnd the air is thick with lies and indecision
I know my pain is such an imposition
Now you’re running down the hallway
And you know what they all say
“You don’t know what you got until it’s gone”
CHORUSStop, you’re losing me
Stop, you’re losing me
Stop, you’re losing me
I can’t find a pulse
My heart won’t start anymore, for you
‘Cause you’re losing me
‘Cause you’re losing me
Stop, ’cause you’re losing me
POST-CHORUSMy heart won’t start anymore (Stop, ’cause you’re losing me)
My heart won’t start anymore (Stop, ’cause you’re losing me)
BRIDGEHow long could we be a sad song
‘Till we were too far gone to bring back to life?
I gave you all my best me’s, my endless empathy
And all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier
Fighting in only your army, frontlines, don’t you ignore me
I’m the best thing at this party (You’re losing me)
And I wouldn’t marry me either
A pathological people pleaser
Who only wanted you to see her
And I’m fading thinking
“Do something, baby, say something” (Say something)
“Lose something, baby, risk something” (You’re losing me)
“Choose something, baby, I got nothing” (I got nothing)
“To believe, unless you’re choosing me”
