The Meaning Behind the Emotional Fifth Tracks in Taylor Swift’s Albums

One thing that is always certain with Taylor Swift is that her most emotionally raw songs tend to be the fifth track on her albums. It’s a pattern that fans have noticed since 2012’s Red. The fifth song on that album, widely regarded as her magnum opus, is “All Too Well.” Even looking at the albums before Red, the pattern was still there. In an Instagram Live she did before the release of Lover, Swift spoke about the phenomenon and admitted she didn’t really notice she was doing it.

“As I was making albums I guess I was just kind of putting a very vulnerable, personal, honest, emotional song as track five,” she said. Because her fans noticed this, she upheld the Swiftian tradition, and it’s the track her fans look out for.

Taylor Swift explains how every track 5 of her albums are the most vulnerable songs

By the time a Swift album gets to the fifth track, prepare for a crushing song that is, more often than not, depressingly gorgeous.

Some of the fifth tracks over the course of Swift’s career include: “Cold As You” from her self-titled debut album, “White Horse,” off of Fearless, “Dear John” on Speak Now, “Delicate” from Reputation, and “tolerate it” from evermore. These songs contain some of the singer-songwriter’s most biting lyrics, and they are sure to twist the emotional knife into anyone’s heart. Swift’s eleventh studio album is no different. Track five on her latest project, called “So Long, London,” hints at the disillusionment of her relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn, who she dated for six years. According to Entertainment Tonight, the two broke up in April last year. “The relationship had just run its course,” an anonymous source told ET.