Taylor Swift is the master of breakup songs, but perhaps none of her tracks have married heartbreaking lyrics and a very danceable beat like “Hits Different.” When “Midnights” was released in October 2022, “Hits Different” was exclusive to the deluxe edition of the album sold at Target. While some enthusiastic fans ripped the song from her CD and uploaded it online, Swift waited a few months to make the song universally accessible. On May 26, Swift will release a “Till Dawn” version of “Midnights” featuring “Hits Different”, plus a “Karma” remix with Ice Spice and a new version of “Snow on the Beach” featuring “More” from collaborator is included. Lana Del Rey.
Like all of her breakup songs, many fans have wondered what Swift’s “Hits Different” means and who it’s about. The song describes how a typical breakup feels that’s different from Swift’s before: It hits differently. However, the answer to which relationship inspired it is not entirely clear. Swift and boyfriend Joe Alwyn recently split, but only reported their split in April, several months after the release of “Midnights”. Nevertheless, many fans believe that the songs on the album are about the end of their romance, although they seemed to still be together at the time.
But there are parts of the song that hint at Swift’s other ex. “I washed my hands in the club,” she sings at the beginning of the track. This could point to Swift’s ex-DJ Calvin Harris, though there aren’t too many clues about him.
A big part of “Hits Different” is about how Swift can usually move on from a breakup quickly, and at the beginning of the second verse, she sings, “I used to switch these canes / I’d just ghost ” As Ryan Gosling (who plays Ken in the upcoming “Barbie” movie) has said repeatedly, the whole point of the Ken doll is to be an accessory to Barbie, a support. In fact, as the film’s director Greta Gerwig noted in a Vogue article published May 24, Ken came into being after Barbie because people wrote Mattel letters begging for Barbie to get a boyfriend. Swift highlights that history with the line that she has a history of being “Kens”.
Some of the song’s lyrics also refer to her song “Cornelia Street”, which most fans believe is about the start of her romance with Alwyn. In that song, she sings that a split “will never be a time for heartbreak.” In “Hits Different”, she cries over the “artifacts” of their relationship and the memories they had together. She specifically calls out “your hair”, which is probably telling since she also references Alwyn’s hair in “Gorgeous” and “Gold Rush”. She also calls herself an “argumentatively contradictory dream girl”, adding to the debate she sings about in the “Gold Rush”.
But, of course, the song could be about a relationship that Swift has never been public about. Now that the song has officially been released on streaming, we’ll have to wait and see if Swifty sheds more light on the track, which she certainly could if she makes it a surprise song during her Eras Tour. Presents as.
