Taylor Swift’s newest album, The Tortured Poets Department, has caused quite a stir on social media, with one song on the project ruffling feathers.
As Today.com reports, in “I Hate It Here,” Swift sings about her discontentment and desire to travel back to the 19th century for solace, and many listeners have found her lyricism alarming and deaf to the plight of the Black community at the time.
“My friends used to play a game where/ We would pick a decade/ We wished we could live in instead of this/ I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists/ And getting married off for the highest bid,” she sings on the song.
Swift continues, “Nostalgia is a mind’s trick/ If I’d been there, I’d hate it/ It was freezing in the palace.”
Several listeners were perplexed by the lyrics, pointing out that slavery was very much legal during the 1830s.
“I was liking some of the songs until I learned about that 1830 line. It’s such a cringe and insensitive line that I just can’t. I think about all of the abuses Black people faced back then (and today). There’s so many red flags with this woman.#TaylorSwift,” a listener wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, with many echoing their sentiments.
But not everyone is perturbed by the line. One X user shared they believe the lyrics have a unique intention.
“Taylor’s Swifts 1830 line is actually kinda genius in that simply uncovers the want of suburban yt women. Yt American women, as a group, have only been working for roughly a generation. And they now want out – & a return to when they had it good: hence antebellum USA,” they wrote.
