Taylor Swift, of course, didn’t directly identify the subjects of her Midnights songs, but since when has that stopped Swifties from speculating? Swift has confirmed that each of the songs on her new album are inspired by her own life, leading listeners to make a multitude of interpretations, especially when it came to the track “Maroon.”
Some fans believe it’s a revisiting of Swift’s 2010 romance with Jake Gyllenhaal, her past relationship with Harry Styles, or her overall growth since releasing Red a decade ago. (This week marks the 10 year anniversary of the 2012 album, and maroon is a darker shade of red after all.)
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is maroon about???? jake gyllenhaal??? maroon is a shade of red
— jules 🤍 (@cacatheklepto) October 21, 2022
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me tomorrow morning on one hour of sleep explaining to my coworkers that MAROON is a darker & more mature shade of RED which as everyone knows is a key color in taylor swift’s discography & especially in some of her most personal songs so this is a reflection of her growth– pic.twitter.com/n8pM7LxzGp
— keely flaherty (@keelyflaherty) October 21, 2022
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Taylor Swift releasing Maroon on the same weekend as the tenth anniversary of Red???
— Alex Goldschmidt (parody) (@alexandergold) October 21, 2022
Swift covered her relationship with Gyllenhaal extensively on Red. She re-released Red (Taylor’s Version) last year, complete with the extended version of “All Too Well,” her magnum opus about her three-month romance with the actor.
Now around the age Gyllenhaal was when the couple dated (at the time, Swift was 20), Swift seems to invoke darker shades of red on “Maroon,” representing both her feelings for her ex and how those feelings have shifted as time has passed. The song also seems to touch on another theme Swift teased as inspiration for Midnights: “Wondering what might have been.”
The parallels between Swift’s “Maroon” lyrics (“The burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed the wine onto me / And how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet, it was / The mark you saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephones / The lips I used to call home, so scarlet, it was maroon”) echo the colorful imagery in “Red,” also seemingly about Gyllenhaal (“Losing him was blue, like I’d never known / Missing him was dark gray, all alone / Forgetting him was like trying to know / Somebody you never met / But loving him was red / Loving him was red”).
However, those lyrics could be seen as an allusion to Styles, too. A fan pointed out that the line “The burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed the wine onto me” seems like a reference to the song “Olivia” from Styles’ alma mater One Direction, which includes the line “Just thinking how I went about it wrong / This isn’t the stain of a red wine, I’m bleeding love.” The line “The rust that grew between telephones” might also reference their long-distance relationship at the time.
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What do you think “Maroon” is about? Take in the full lyrics and listen to the song below.
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When the morning came we
Were cleaning incense off your vinyl shelf
Cause we lost track of time again
Laughing with my feet in your lap
Like you were my closest friend
How’d we end up on the floor anyway?
You say, “Your roommate’s cheap-ass screw-top rosé,” that’s how
I see you every day nowAnd I chose you
The one I was dancin’ with in New York
No shoes, looked up
At the sky and it wasThe burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed the wine onto me
And how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet, it was
The mark you saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephones
The lips I used to call home, so scarlet, it was maroonWhen the silence came we
Were shaking blind and hazy
How the hell did we lose sight of us again?
Sobbin’ with your head in your hands
Ain’t that the way shit always ends?
You were standing hollow-eyed in the hallway
Carnations you had thought were roses, that’s us
I feel you no matter what, the rubies that I gave upWhen I lost you
The one I was dancin’ with in New York
No shoes, looked up
At the sky and it was maroonThe burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed the wine onto me
And how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet, it was
The mark you saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephones
The lips I used to call home, so scarlet, it was maroonAwake with your memory over me
That’s a real fucking legacy that you see (It was maroon)
Awake with your memory over me
That’s a real fucking legacy to leaveThe burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed the wine onto me
And how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet, it was maroon
The mark you saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephones
The lips I used to call home, so scarlet, it was maroonIt was maroon
It was maroon
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.
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