Taylor Swift rocked a retro game-show vibe — a kitschy, mellow one — late Tuesday night as she revealed the name of one song off her upcoming “Midnights” album.
Uno. One. A lone track name.
“Hi. It’s me,” she said in a TikTok video where she sat perfectly perched, legs folded mermaid-style, on a tiny ottoman in front of a crushed-velvet curtain. “I know that I have a habit of dropping cryptic clues and Easter eggs when giving you information about new music and I am not here to deny that. But I am here to defy that. Welcome to a new series I’m calling ‘Midnights Mayhem With Me.’”
Cue the ‘70s-style graphics on a title card reading, appropriately enough, “Midnights Mayhem With Me.”
“I am going to be using this technologically advanced device,” Swift said, gesturing toward a small, gold-tone, manually operated bingo cage to her right, “to help me allow fate to decide exactly what track titles I’m going to be announcing and in what order.”
In the cage were 13 pingpong balls, which she said were labeled 1 through 13, each representing a track on the juggernaut’s upcoming 13-song album.
“So let’s leave it up to fate,” said the 32-year-old, who Tuesday night was named songwriter-artist of the decade by the Nashville Songwriters Assn. International.
She spun the cage.
“The first track I’m going to tell you about,” she said as a ball dropped down the chute, “Track 13!” Then Twitter’s @taylorswift13 showed the ball to the camera and intoned, “Because of course.”
(“i’m not convinced they didn’t all say 13,” one person wrote in comments on the post. “Def did,” said another. “she’s too funny I can’t hahahahaja.” Meanwhile, a third groused, “My question is where are the REST lmao I didn’t set an alarm for 1 song.” Oh yes you did, sir. Yes. You. Did.)
The name of the song? It is “Mastermind,” which Swift announced into a bright-red phone handset she grabbed from off-camera. Ooh the mystery. We’re getting a spy vibe? Or a “Red” vibe? A put-down-your-smartphones-already vibe?
“Midnights” is said to feature the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout Swift’s life. It’s coming out Oct. 21. Now the question is, what does “Mastermind” refer to?
Time to start interpreting those Easter eggs.
