There's a reason Swift is a better investigator than the CIA. Taylor Swift is great at leaving Easter eggs in everything she does, from music videos to interviews, offering clues about what's to come, sometimes even years in advance. In a 2019 video for British Vogue that Bustle randomly rediscovered, Swift hinted at lyrics from her single "Lavender Haze," which isn't due out until late 2022 as part of her tenth studio album Midnights " The opening song was released.
In the video, editor-in-chief Edward Enninful asked her what advice she had for young women trying to "make it" in the music industry. Swift responded: "I would say it's important to know that if you do, you're damned, and if you don't, you're damned." This echoes the chorus of the then-unreleased "Lavender Haze" Eerily similar, in which she spins common phrases and sings: "I'll be damned if I really care what people say."
Swift went on to explain her reasoning for the advice, saying that no matter what decisions women make in life, they will always face criticism. "It has a negative connotation or is a ridiculous accusation or a crude stereotype for a woman who has done anything or not done anything," she said. "So stay focused. It’s about your idea of right and wrong, your idea of who you should be, your idea of what’s cool, not other people’s ideas because they will never match.”
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"Lavender Haze" also touches on this emotion, rejecting the stereotypical expectations of women's marriage and family, but adding more specificity. For Swift, rejecting these norms would be a response to her ongoing engagement and marriage rumors to boyfriend Joe Alwyn . “All they keep asking me is if I’ll be your bride,” she sings in the second verse. "The only kind of girls they see are sleepovers or wives."
In announcing "Lavender Haze" to the world ahead of Midnight's release, Swift explained that she was inspired to write the song after hearing the line in "Mad Men" and understanding its meaning Song. "If you're in the mist of lavender, it means you're in the light of all-encompassing love, and I think that's really beautiful," she said. She extends this metaphor to her own relationship, using their "lavender mist" to protect them from society, whether it's nasty rumors or unfair life expectations.
"In theory, when you're in a 'lavender haze,' you do everything you can to stay there and not let people pull you out of that cloud," she said. "Like my six-year relationship, we had to hide from the weird rumors, the tabloids, but we just ignored them. So this song is about ignoring that stuff in order to protect what's real."
