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After announcing the release date and title of her upcoming album Lover, Taylor Swift dropped her second single, “You Need to Calm Down,” at midnight on Friday.
The song simultaneously calls out mean keyboard warriors and acts as a Pride anthem — just in time for Pride Month.
“Say it in the street that’s a knock out/But you say it in a tweet that’s a cop out,” she says, calling out internet trolls. “Snakes and stones never broke my bones,” she continues, before launching into the song’s chorus.
“You need to calm down/You’re being too loud/And I’m just like oh oh/You need to just stop/Like can you just not step on my gown/You need to calm down,” the lyrics continue.
The song takes shots at anti-Pride protestors, calling anti-LGTBQ groups stuck in the “dark ages.”
“You are somebody that we don’t know/But you’re coming at my friends like a missile/Why are you mad?/When you could be GLAAD?” Swift sings on the track, referencing the LGBTQ media organization. The song continues: “Sunshine on the street at the parade/But you would rather be in the dark ages/Making that sign/Must have taken all night.”
“Cause shade never made anybody less gay,” Swift sings.
After much anticipation, the superstar, 29, revealed on Thursday during an Instagram Live that her seventh studio album will feature 18 tracks.
“So a lot of people, I saw, had a theory regarding the idea of ‘Calm etc. etc.’ I can confirm that I have a new single coming out tonight at midnight. It’s called ‘You Need to Calm Down.’ I’m so excited for you to hear it,” said Swift, adding that the music video will premiere June 17 on Good Morning America. “The video is very worth the wait. There’s a lot going on in the video; I wanted that to be a separate discovery.”
Swift went on to discuss the album itself, revealing that the release date — Aug. 23 — adds up to the star’s lucky number, 13: August (the eighth month of the year), plus two and three.
“This album in tone, it’s very romantic — and not just thematically, like it’s all love songs,” Swift said. “I think the idea of something being romantic, it doesn’t have to be a happy song. You can find romance in loneliness or sadness or going through a conflict or dealing with things in your life … It looks at things with a very romantic gaze.”
RELATED: Taylor Swift to Release ‘You Need to Calm Down’ — and Announces Release Date for New Album Lover
In late April, Swift released her first single off Lover, a duet with Brendon Urie titled “ME!”
One of the many Easter eggs hidden in the track’s music video included a nod to her new album title and also a reference to “You Need to Calm Down.”
“[The fans] make it so fun to make a music video,” Swift shared in May. “Like, when we’re planning a music video and I know that it’ll be really fun for them if we create a scavenger hunt throughout the video. For me, that’s more fun than when I used to make videos and I didn’t try to plant clues. I love this!”
By Brianne Tracy
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