Taylor Swift Is an Old Soul Living in the Comment Section. She Needs To Log Off.

Taylor Swift has found the love of her life, and apparently the comment section came with her. On “Cleveland!,” one of four new songs added to The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore , she sings about Travis Kelce taking her to his hometown. It should be a charmingly specific detail in a giddy love song. Instead, Swift keeps interrupting the romance to quote the people who think she is fake or will be traded in for someone younger, singing about being a four. It is, admittedly, a chronically online way to write about being in love. The song’s punch line is that she has found a man who doesn’t find her “completely insufferable,” which plays on the trope that women want to be loved for their flaws. Fair and honest, portrayed in films like The Notebook . Some listeners will hear that as self-deprecating humor; others may wonder why one of the most successful women alive is still giving strangers a verse in her marriage. I miss the Taylor who gives us a world bigger than the people commenting on it. The frustrating part is that Swift has always seemed like an old soul. She loves stories, keepsakes, small towns, romance. While she has her cheesy moments like “Me!” and “Shake It Off,” she also goes in depth in songs like “Cardigan” and “This Love.” Her best songs can make an ordinary detail feel like something handed down through generations. I miss the Taylor who gives us a world bigger than the people commenting on it. That tendency isn’t confined to this release. On the original Showgirl , “CANCELLED!” turns public condemnation into a joke shared with friends, while “Eldest Daughter” borrows the language of an internet that never stops assessing her. Before that, The Tortured Poets Department gave us “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” Swift has been writing songs about fame for years; lately, the vocabulary and emotional rhythm of being discussed online have become harder to separate from her love stories. She obviously didn’t invent this problem. Consider Selena Gomez: a change in her appearance at the Emmys became a mass conversation about her face before she had even left the carpet. Gomez has spoken publicly about the criticism and about weight changes related to medication for lupus. You don’t have to be a Swiftie to see how constant exposure might alter what a woman thinks about when she looks in the mirror or when she sits down to write. Instead of worrying about the mean girls in school, she hears the opinions of millions on the internet. Famous women have always faced scrutiny. What is new is the scale and speed of it: Normal women live with a smaller version of the same apparatus, especially since everyone is on social media now. It seems too easy to ridicule Swift for sounding online without asking what it would take to remain entirely untouched by that level of attention. “Patient Zero” addresses an old relationship from a place of recovery. “Pink Clouding” admits the possibility that Swift hurt someone else, a welcome turn away from the idea that a breakup song always needs a villain and reminiscent of her earlier work like “Back to December.” Between those two songs is a woman trying to enjoy her present while hearing the noise outside it. Early reviews have been divided over “Cleveland!”: Variety finds it goofy but sweet and calls “Pink Clouding” an immediate standout. My favorite is “Babylon.” It feels nostalgic for a bygone era. Its acoustic opening and wistful imagery give the song room to breathe. When Swift sings of “never being where you are,” it is about the ache of looking back so persistently that you miss the home you actually have. This is the old soul I recognize. Variety calls it the most elusive of the four, and that elusiveness is part of its appeal. That is where The Encore is strongest. “Cleveland!” offers an almost defiantly uncomplicated wish: to be loved by one person even if the whole world is against you. “Babylon” understands that the past can remain beautiful without becoming a place to live. Between those two songs is a woman trying to enjoy her present while hearing the noise outside it. I hope she keeps writing past that noise. The internet will always have an opinion about Taylor Swift.