Just a year ago, singer Taylor Swift released her seventh studio album, Leaver. This marked a turning point in her career – after releasing six albums via Big Machine Records, she went to the Republic Records of Universal Music Group, where she now has her music.
Swift’s first album featuring live music quickly became one of her most beloved by fans. And it includes some of her best songwriting to date, especially when it comes to bridges. Here are the bridges that Swifties have ranked the highest when discussing them on social media.
‘Daylight’
‘Daylight’ was one of the songs Swift played with her City of Lover to be seen in Paris in September 2019. So far, this remains her only concert performance of songs from Leaver, because their planned festival tour was canceled due to the pandemic coronavirus (COVID-19). Therefore, the concert was broadcast on ABC in May 2020.
The songs were then made available on streaming platforms. And fans soon fell in love. ‘Me, play the’ Daylight (Live From Paris) ‘bridge over and over again until 12 o’clock,’ wrote one Twitter user prior to the release of Swift’s eighth album, Folklore. It also refers remarkably to her romance with Joe Alwyn as “golden”, a common motif.
‘Death by a thousand cuts’
Another song that Swift had the chance to perform, at the City of Lover concert and in an NPR Tiny Desk segment, is “Death By a Thousand Cuts.” At the time, this song was unique in that she explained that it was not based on her personal experiences, something with which she explored more Folklore.
Swift said the song, in part, was inspired by the relationship depicted in a movie, Someone great. A line from the bridge, “Now I’m looking for signs in a ghost association,” is among those linking the two works of art. One TikTok user called this “her best bridge,” adding, “I’ve probably said this about 15 of her songs, but the point remains.”
‘The man’
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Swift released “The Man” as the album’s fourth official single in January 2020. It was accompanied by a music video, which marked her directional debut. The song has a feminist message about the double standards of sexism, and how men can regret their achievements while women are ashamed to do the same.
On the bridge, the first line of the bridge, Swift sings, “How does it seem to rage when I get in dollars / And get b * tches and models?” Then she puts it this way: “If I flashed my dollars / I would be a bitch, not a baller.” And it’s catchy, as one Twitter user wrote, “If you hear me sing about b * tches and models, that’s it.”
‘Lover’
The album’s title track was also her third single, released just before the album’s debut. Leaver was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2020 Grammys, and Swift is especially fond of the bridge. “This has one of my favorite bridges,” Swift told Vogue. “I love a bridge, and I could really go to Bridge City,” she added, a message posted by fans Twitter.
Then Swift switches to another cadence, with the lyrics comparing to wedding vows. She begins, “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand? / With every guitar string in my hand / I take this magnetic force from a man to be my lover.” Many assumed this was because she and Alwyn were engaged, or at least on that path.
‘Cruel summer’
Finally, “Cruel Summer” may be the song that fans most wanted Swift released as a single. It shows the beginning of her relationship with Alwyn in 2016. ‘And I snuck through the garden gate / Every night that summer just to seal my fate,’ she sings as she fell for him as she tried to keep it under wraps.
While Swift grows poetic about “Lover,” Swifties think almost unanimously that the “cruel summer” bridge deserves more praise. “Taylor Swift dismissed her Bridge City square check-in on ‘lover’ in her vogue interview as ‘cruel summer’ not the most intoxicating bridge I’ve heard in a minute,” one wrote Twitter. After all, the bridge is so beautiful, she sang it twice.
