5. Eldest Daughter

1. Musical Style: Pop-country Ballad

2. Literary References: "Lamb to the Slaughter," a 1953 short story by Roald Dahl; "Smooth Operators" links up with the '80s classic single by Sade. Oh, and she uses another line that you might recognize: "Never gonna let you down."

3. Key Lyric: "When I said I don't believe in marriage, that was a lie."

4. Favorite Lyric: "I have been afflicted by a terminal uniqueness / I've been dying just from trying to seem cool"

5. Taylor's Callback: The brilliant chorus of "Mine," and the line, "You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter" is foreshadowed with the new lyric in the bridge, "Pretty soon I learned cautious discretion / When your first crush crushes something kind."

6. TL/DR: Travis makes me feel young, innocent, and hopeful.

7. Previous Track 5s: Cold as You, White Horse, Dear John, All Too Well, All You Had to Do Was Stay, Delicate, The Archer, My Tears Ricochet, Tolerate It, You're on Your Own, Kid, So Long London.

In Swiftie lore, every track five is the emotionally devastating breakup song, and the list above bears out that belief. The only songs not directly negative are Delicate (Reputation), in which the singer is suspicious of her new love and unsure if it's real, and The Archer (Lover), ambiguous in its lyrics, doubtful of the future of the romance, and definitely not a love song.

Ironically, Travis Kelce's trademark celebration move is "the archer," miming shooting a bow-and-arrow, and Taylor mimicked his move on stage during the Eras Tour, particularly when Travis was in attendance. Sometimes the universe just aligns itself.

"Eldest Daughter" has the same tone of fear and doubt about herself and the possibility of love, but instead of putting the blame on the faithless lover, she indicts her own insecurities about love and overcomes them with a pledge of devotion and faithfulness.

It's an amazing departure from what track five has always meant for Taylor, and it's the clearest indication of how her songwriting has changed as a result of a relationship nearing the apex of its fulfillment. This is her way of completing The Beatles' declaration of "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!" in her own unique way.

The opening verse is an indictment of Internet culture, that digital monster that has both celebrated and reviled her since its inception. The concluding lines, "I have been afflicted by a terminal uniqueness, I've been dying just from trying to seem cool" resonates as the deepest truth. We all wear masks online, we all want to go viral and get all those likes, but it's all an act.

She goes on in the chorus to disavow the expected trends; she's not a "bad bitch," her words aren't "savage." In fact, they're as vanilla and trite as you might expect from a lovesick girl to write: "I'm never gonna let you down / I'm never gonna leave you out."

Did Taylor just fucking Rickroll us?

At the heart of Taylor's lyrics is always that insecure, needy teenage girl who just wants to find love and a feeling of belonging. It resonates through the lyrics of all her track five songs. People who have found her lyrics "cringe" in this album have missed the point of it all.

Love and acceptance, in its purest form, feels this simple. "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!" She doesn't need to ornament it with poetry this time because it's the real thing. 

This song compares the feelings of an adult woman in love to moments of sadness and joy in childhood. The second verse includes a marvelous callback to the "careful daughter" of "Mine" when she sings, "Pretty soon I learned cautious discretion." The physical injury of the broken arm aligns with "When your first crush crushes something kind." 

The lyrics of the verses and bridge are complicated in juxtaposition to the simplicity of her lovestruck vows in the chorus. Again, Taylor doesn't do anything unintentionally in her writing. None of this is an accident for the "Mastermind."

The bridge is one of the most gorgeous bits of writing and singing she's ever done, bringing the past and the present together with the lines, "'Cause I thought that I'd never find that beautiful, beautiful life that / Shimmers that innocent light back / Like when we were young."

The final pre-chorus tells us the rest of the story: "Every youngest child felt / They were raised up in the wild / But now you're home."

Travis is the youngest child, both literally in his family and musically for this lyric. In the past, Taylor's track fives exposed the pain that resulted from her vulnerable insecurities; this closes the book on all that heartache for her to make the honest declaration that had always been a lie told to her in the past: "I'm never gonna leave you now."

It's also significant that the music for this song is nothing more than a piano and acoustic guitar. All the rhythmic mastery that informs the rest of the album is stripped away, going back to Taylor's own musical beginnings, playing piano and guitar on her own. 

"Eldest Daughter" stands out as unique on this album as well as in the Swiftie pantheon of track fives by upending all our expectations about what this song was going to be and what she had imagined true love would be like.