In case you missed it, Taylor Swift has dropped the video for "Delicate," the fifth song to be released from her album Reputation.
View this video on YouTube
And because nothing Taylor Swift does is by accident, here are all the Easter eggs hidden in this video.
1. Taylor hinted at part of the video when she announced its release.
Last week, Taylor took to Instagram to reveal when the video would be dropping by unfolding a piece of paper with her handwriting on it. What then showed up in the video? Yep, another piece of folded-up paper with some important information written on it.
2. Taylor renamed the hotel where the first half of the video is set to "Hotel DeliCAT," because of course.
3. And of course, snakes make an appearance in the video too.
4. The fashion and surroundings in the first half of the video invoke the 1920s and The Great Gatsby – a novel Taylor has focused on a lot this era.
5. Much like the video for "...Ready For It," many of the lyrics to "Delicate" feature as graffiti in this video.
6. And Taylor also passes a sign reading "Joe's Deli."
7. The words "track 5" are also graffitied on one of the pillars in the subway station.
Including a reference to this in-joke is a nice nod to fans, but also an acknowledgement that this is the first time any fifth track from a Swift album has been given its own video.
8. The fact that Taylor's dress is blue is significant.
Reputation features a track called "Dancing With Our Hands Tied" in which Taylor uses the lyric: "My love was frozen / Deep blue but you painted me golden."
9. And just look what the name of the bar is.
The video ends with Taylor entering the Golden Gopher bar and seeing the person she's about to fall in love with. In other words, she arrives in a deep-blue dress before entering the golden bar where she spots her ~true love~.
10. What's more, Golden Gopher is actually a real dive bar in Downtown LA, in keeping with the reference to a dive bar in the opening verse of "Delicate."
11. The scene in which Taylor dances in the rain is a very cute callback to earlier in her career.
Needless to say, fans are finding the reference emotional.
she is literally dancing in a storm in her best dress FEARLESS 💙 my heart!! 😭😭 https://t.co/dwaSqXphSJ
12. Oh, and if you remember the "Look What You Made Me Do" lineup theory, the Fearless callback in this video makes even more sense.
Well, we know that "Delicate" was the fifth track on Reputation, meaning that it was represented by the Fearless-era Taylor in the lineup. The callback to the lyrics of "Fearless" in the video for "Delicate" has, therefore, made fans lose their minds.
• Delicate is Track 5 • The Fearless Taylor is Number 5 in the last scene of Look What You Made Me Do MV • Taylor danced in the storm in her best dress, being fearless in Delicate MV. 💖 #KCA #DelicateMusicVideo #FavFemaleArtistTaylorSwift https://t.co/xPHu61ruSE
13. Taylor often returns to the subject of rain and water as metaphors for finding inner strength, and it's no different here.
During her 1989 world tour, Taylor gave a speech each night before performing "Clean" – a song which uses water, storms, and floods as metaphors for cleansing oneself and moving on from a traumatic breakup. During the speech, Taylor said:
You are not damaged goods or money from your failed explorations. You are not the opinion of someone who doesn’t know you. You are a product of the lessons you have learned. You are wiser because you went through something terrible. And you are the person who survived a bunch of rainstorms and kept walking. I now believe that pain makes you stronger. I now believe that walking through a lot of rainstorms gets you clean.
The use of the rainstorm in this video, then, could represent Taylor finally cleansing herself of her ~reputation~ and starting afresh – clean and new.
14. And, finally, Taylor takes a bow in front of the graffiti spelling out "Reputation."
Which, as this Tumblr user points out, is significant because it's almost as if she's saying "thank you and goodbye" to her old reputation, perhaps symbolising that the "show" she's put on so far in her career is now over.