"It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.” This week, we (finally) go line-by-line through what might be Taylor Swift's most psychologically dense song: “Anti-Hero” from Midnights (2022). From the Hamlet-coded antihero definition, to the “Beauty and the Beast” reference lurking in "tale as old as time," to ghosts and Freud, this song keeps delivering new angles. We each came to the song with our own anxieties, and we leave with three potentially different purposes of this high-anxiety, deeply revealing song.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Hamlet, William Shakespeare
• Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
• Beauty and the Beast (Disney)
• Dexter (Showtime)
• Younger (Paramount+)
• 30 Rock, "Seinfeldvision" — the "sexy baby" episode
• "Blank Space," 1989 (2014)
• The Miss Americana Documentary (Netflix)
• Lena Dunham's Substack

🔎 In this episode:

Episode Highlights:

[01:34] “Antihero” defined

[05:45] “I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser”

[11:06] "All of the people I've ghosted stand there in the room"

[19:06] "Tale as old as time"

[28:00] “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me”

[38:00] "Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby and I'm a monster on the hill"

[45:00] “Pierced through the heart but never killed”

[55:06] The bridge!

[1:03:00] Purpose of the song “Anti-Hero”

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This podcast is neither related to nor endorsed by Taylor Swift, her companies, or record labels. All opinions are our own. Intro music produced by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z.