Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: A Celebration of Taylor Swift's Musical Journey, Cultural Impact, and Reinvention of Pop Music for Swifties by a Swiftie

“Cruel Summer,” was designed to be a summertime hit when Swift released Lover in 2019, but that possibility quickly died when the global pandemic prevented her from going on tour in the summer of 2020. Swift had opted to make “ME!” the lead single for Lover, even though “Cruel Summer” was widely regarded as the better choice for a lead single, and the better song overall. In a strange turn of events, it became a smash hit in 2023, rising in the charts at the height of the Eras Tour, eventually hitting number one in (ironically) January. Sheffield calls it her “ultimate window song,” comparing her treatment of secretive desire to the way John Keats handles the same subject (see poems like The Eve of St. Agnes).

“ME!” is the most notorious in a long line of “bad” lead singles Swift has released. Sheffield insists that this is an intentional choice on Swift’s part, the purpose of which is to mislead fans and critics who are trying to discern the tone of her upcoming album. “The first song Swift debuts from a new album is always an outlier,” he writes, “It’s a big thematic statement addressing her public image; it talks about the celebrity Taylor, rather than the personal one” (147).