One of the five stages of grief in a breakup, which Taylor Swift addresses in her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, is anger. However, she isn’t just angry at exes who scorned her. In “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” the singer directs her attention to the public sphere, addressing the many narratives and reputations (pun intended) that the media has created about her.
In the new song, Swift addresses her critics head-on, twisting their hateful thoughts and turning them into sources of motivation. “If you wanted me dead, you should’ve just said,” she says in a mocking voice. “Nothing makes me feel more alive.”
Swift also alludes to someone, metaphorical or otherwise, who concealed their own issues and made deprecating jokes at her expense, fueling her rightful fury. “The scandal was contained, the bullet had just grazed / At all costs, keep your good name,” she sings. “Is it a wonder I broke? Let’s hear one more joke, then we could all just laugh until I cry.”
Toward the end, she bluntly places the blame on fans and listeners for the insults and falsities hurled at her. “’Cause you lured me and you hurt me and you taunt me,” she says as the song reaches a crescendo. “You caged me and then you called me crazy / I am what I am ’cause you trained me.”
However, Swift clarifies that no matter how she’s being treated, she’s always going to win thanks to her music. “Putting narcotics into all of my songs, and that’s why you’re still singing along,” she says.
She’s used her songs to respond to criticism before, like on “Mad Woman” from 2020’s Folklore, in which she addressed double standards when it comes to female anger. “Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy, what about that?” she sings, before concluding, “No one likes a mad woman / You made her like that.”
“Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?” Lyrics
Read the song’s full lyrics below.
The “who’s who” of “who’s that?” is poised for the attack
But my bare hands paved their paths
You don’t get to tell me about sad
If you wanted me dead, you should’ve just said
Nothing makes me feel more alive
So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream, “Who’s afraid of little old me?”
You should be
The scandal was contained, the bullet had just grazed
At all costs, keep your good name
You don’t get to tell me you feel bad
Is it a wonder I broke? Let’s hear one more joke
Then we could all just laugh until I cry
So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream, “Who’s afraid of little old me?”
I was tame, I was gentle ’til the circus life made me mean
Don’t you worry folks, we took out all her teeth
Who’s afraid of little old me?
Well you should be, you should be, you should be
You should be, you should be, you should be
So tell me everything is not about me, but what if it is?
Then say they didn’t do it to hurt me, but what if they did?
I wanna snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me
You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me
So all you kids can sneak into my house with all the cobwebs
I’m always drunk on my own tears, isn’t that what they all said?
That I’ll sue you if you step on my lawn
That I’m fearsome, and I’m wretched and I’m wrong
Put narcotics into all of my songs
And that’s why you’re still singing along
So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream, “Who’s afraid of little old me?”
I was tame, I was gentle ’til the circus life made me mean
Don’t you worry folks, we took out all her teeth
Who’s afraid of little old me?
Well you should be, you should be, you should be
’Cause you lured me and you hurt me and you taunt me
You caged me and then you called me crazy
I am what I am ’cause you trained me
So who’s afraid of me?
Who’s afraid of little old me?
Who’s afraid of little old me?
