Taylor Swift has not only been the most listened to artist of 2023 on Spotify, but she has achieved the biggest year of streaming for any artist in the history of the platform. And, as a token of gratitude to all of her listeners, she has taken “from the trunk” of ‘Midnights’ the unreleased (or not so unreleased) ‘You’re Losing Me’.
The truth is that this song had already been floating around the Internet since its physical release in May, when he released it as part of an exclusive edition of ‘Midnights’ that could only be obtained in the merchandise stores of his tour The Eras Tour. Her publication at that time was no coincidence either, as it was a few weeks after her breakup with actor Joe Alwyn, with whom she had a six-year relationship.
After its unexpected release a few months ago, in which it seemed that he was trying to communicate with his fans about it, this could be classified as the first official song about his breakup with Joe Alwyn. However, it would place us in the moment prior to that event, hence its gerund title: ‘You Are Losing Me’.
The theme, by his frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff, encompasses the desperation caused by a couple who does nothing to fix a relationship in ruins. “Every morning I looked at you with storms in my eyes / How can you say you love someone when you can’t realize she’s dying?” Swift sings in one of the verses. The bridge is much more heartbreaking: “And I wouldn’t marry myself either / A pathological people pleaser / That she only wanted you to see.”
As if the artist was clinging to life, the instrumental of ‘You’re Losing Me’ draws on her own heart just as it does on her old single ‘Wildest Dreams’. And, despite the narrative of the song, Taylor Swift has not stopped winning in 2023. Perhaps this is one more demonstration of her power to turn her defeats into victories.
