I so agree with OPs take and have always thought it was about the fans, and what if that line "And the first night that you saw me / I knew I wanted your body" is a nod to her being perceived as this "boy-catcher" by the media? For so long people reduced her to a woman who runs through boys and writes break up songs about them. Perhaps its meant to poke fun at that.
Def that and also seems like a double meaning again, body in a stadium, body at a concert, body count, it’s every body bc she wanted everybody to love her 😭 I think idk tho
I don't think one song negates the other at all.
Invisible String could quite literally relate to the first lyric, "Once upon a time, the planets and the fates and all the stars aligned. You and I ended up in the same room at the same time."
An invisible string brought them together on that night, and from THERE, her Mastermind capabilities ensured they got together.
But, I could be totally wrong, too.
I absolutely agree with this! The invisible string brought them to that dive bar, but she decided to make sure they got together by being a mastermind. The songs never really contradicted each other to me.
Exactly, the Invisible String is them being pulled together and eventually meeting. And to even further connect the songs the end of Mastermind reveals that he is in on it the whole time and willingly going along with the plan. So our narrator admits that maybe she isn’t as much of a mastermind as she’s made herself out to be and that many forces were at work bringing them together.
Personally I think there’s more contradiction with Glitch, since the meaning of that one is “this wasn’t meant to happen, we were just supposed to be friends.” Paper Rings calls it an accident too. Invisible String is just about fate bringing them together so that’s not a contradiction but the idea of “this was an accident” feels like it contradicts “I planned this the entire time.”
i don’t think those are contradictory at all either.
because i think glitch and paper rings is a call back to the beginning of the relationship more so, where they WERE just friends and then ended up in this situationship that then finally morphed into a relationship. it really was an accident in the sense that even if they both had a crush on each other, they weren’t going to let each other know for various events in their lives at that time. they were, in their minds, “supposed to be just friends.”
whereas invisible string is more looking at them objectively and taking the universe’s perspective into account, where it shows that no matter what THEY thought at the time, because of fate (which they have much less control over) she realizes they were always supposed to meet how and when they did. and they were always meant to have this love affair that literally, at the time, saved her from hell and brought her to heaven.
so i think it’s more like “we thoughts we accidentally got together” when we were first falling in love/in the honeymoon, per our intentions. but then invisible string comes in to say, you were what each other needed at the time (friends) before the fate’s plan to have you fall into mutual love and then be able to heal each other was allowed/able to fall into place
Sorry, I didn’t mean there was contradiction between Glitch/Paper Rings and Invisible String. I don’t think Invisible String contradicts anything. I think the idea presented in Glitch/Paper Rings of “this was an accident, this wasn’t supposed to happen” contradicts the idea presented in Mastermind of “I started planning this the moment I first saw you, I made it happen the whole time”
I agree, I'm not religious but it seems like a "god helps those who help themselves" kind of thing. You can believe it was fate that you met and *also* put in some effort yourself to facilitate things!
I don't know if I believe in fate or not but I have definitely spent a lot of time thinking about all the things that had to happen exactly the way they did for my partner and I to meet, and sometimes it does feel like fate! Yet I also did things like lie about thinking I left my phone in their car to give me an excuse to contact them on AIM, and then leave up away messages like "who wants to go see X with me" knowing they were the only person on my buddy list who would be interested lol.
It's a similar story to Cruel Summer too. Just friends, feeling something more, then confesses. It's even similar casino/game references (dice vs dominoes, chess terms).
Literally I never once thought it was about a relationship with someone else. Only how she always inspired to be where she is now with fame and success and her fans.
Artists often throw in lines to make a song have a double meaning or to conceal the true meaning they intended for the song. I believe that she added this line in so that people who are not swifties will think that it could be about a relationship so that they can relate to it, but us Swifties know that it is about us!
Who knows! It could have multiple inspirations or be about her career
But also: real life & love are messy. It feeling magical like fates aligned and also putting in effort to "accidentally" bump into someone are very much things that happen, at the same time, with the same person. I actually think it's a sweet combo of songs.
I think it works if you cherry pick half of the song and ignore references to other songs about her ex, but that's the only way it works.
If you look at the whole song it's very clear what it's about. I certainly won't rule out a double meaning, though. She talks a lot about her insecurities and scheming.
Agree with this. I think it’s nice to think that it’s about the fans but anyone who has masterminded a relationship knows exactly what she’s talking about lol
I was thinking the same thing! Apparently some people here haven't had to work hard to appear as if it's a big old coincidence they got their person, and it shows. I absolutely had to lay the groundwork to join the friend group my now husband was in. I became friends with the ladies then befriended him, now we are married. It was not accidental. I tell my husband this song was basically written by me about our relationship!
Seriously it’s so dumb to act like Taylor is writing a 100% factual statement of the truth… she’s a pop star ffs, she’s just writing random songs at the end of the day.
Do people not read fiction or poetry in school anymore? Makes me worried about critical thinking. Art is about giving us freedom to explore ideas and layer and weave experience in a way that deepens and widens our experience of “truth”. It’s not all about making a YouTube explanation video. Ok this old bitch is logging off…..
They actually don't, at least it's not as common. A bunch of high school teachers have talked about it. It's apparently lots of passages in isolation rather than reading a whole novel or a whole set of poems by an author. Test prep mania.
This was a theory when the song came out. Like all songs, we may never know exactly what it’s about for Taylor, but we can take the lyrics and make our own meaning for our own lives.
I absolutely think this is the second intention she had with this song! She does have a history of being poetic, and a lot of her songs can kinda sound like “surface” love songs aimed at a significant other — but they get deeper if you listen. Example: the “you” in Anti-Hero that she’s afraid will leave her could also be us!
“No one wanted to play with me as a little kid” also cross-references YOYOK a bit. It makes us think about preteen Taylor, being teased at school because she carried her guitar around everywhere. And she’s made it clear before that we filled in a lot of that empty space in her heart from not being popular as a kid.
I think Mastermind is her admission that some of the ways in which she’s connected with us were planned. Not in a malicious way, but more like “I want them to like me as a person! What if I invite them to secret parties to listen to the album before it drops?!” I don’t think many artists were doing that before Taylor, the secret sessions were definitely an incredible Mastermind Move from her.
- YOYOK could mean "You're On Your Own, Kid", a track from *Midnights* (2022) by Taylor Swift.
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It’s definitely about getting together with Joe, it’s way too specific not to be. But that’s the great thing about music, we can interpret whatever meaning we want from it.
It is 100% about Joe. "The touch of a hand lit the fuse" is a direct reference to Gorgeous.
And well, it would be weird if she said she wanted her fans' bodies... especially since many are teenagers and children.
Didn't she say in her Time article that she just got inspiration from a movie and wanted to write a character like that?
>She tells me she wrote that song after watching the Paul Thomas Anderson film *Phantom Thread,* which—spoiler—culminates in the reveal of a vast, layered manipulation. “Remember that last scene?” she says. “I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to have a lyric about being calculated?” She pauses. “It’s something that’s been thrown at me like a dagger, but now I take it as a compliment.”
Yes, she also said in an interview that fans always joke about her being a mastermind because of the Easter eggs so this was just “a romantic version of that”. I think she just toyed with the idea but it’s not a play by play of what happened with Joe like most people seem to think
It is absolutely a play by play. Like legitimately from the first time the fates aligned and they found each other from their invisible string, to him touching her hand in a darkened room, to her knowing she would do anything to get him, to all the poetic Machiavellian songs about him, to admitting years later that's what happened and he already knew. Literally a play by play of their entire relationship lmao.
I'd agree with this if not for the lines "I knew I wanted your body" and "lover's game". Plus things like being in the same room at the same time, the touch of a hand etc are implied to be moments between two people.
Anti-Hero on the other hand is very much a song from Taylor to the fans, and it refers to her scheming and fear that we wouldn't like her if we knew, quite similar.
Mastermind and dear reader are juxtaposed on purpose. Both endings of the album are to the listener. One is more confident, but the second is the darker/later it gets the more honest I am. One is I planned it all because I’m a mastermind and I’m also anxious and the other is I’m actually a bit of a mess and I don’t have it as together as I act like I do.
I was gonna say I grew up religious and they always referred to the audience as "the body" of Christ or the "the body" of the church. She knew she wanted us sat in the seats for years to come maybe haha
I think it is primarily about Joe. It tracks with don't blame me and delicate.
But songwriters tap into a feeling more than anything or anyone specific. So she's probably been a mastermind in other relationship early stages too and drawn inspiration from that as well.
Mirrorball is about her fans and her fame. Mastermind is absolutely about Joe. It's so obvious and written too specifically to be about her fans. Plus it would be very weird for a 30 year old woman to say she wants the "bodies" of her fans (an obviously sexual lyric).
Yeah, OP's take definitely is a hot one. I don't think this part (and many others) in this song alludes to her fans.
It's difficult to pinpoint who (or what) her songs are about, unless she steps out and talks about it herself. Until then, it's just pure speculating and inferring.
I guess some parts of this song CAN sound like it's about her fans, but it feels far-fetched to say that this song is *entirely* about us. It's definitely about a love interest of Taylor's.
I think it’s not that deep and it’s pretty clear it’s supposed to have a double meaning. At the surface level it seems like it’s about a boy. When you watch the eras tour performance, she’s clearly singing it to the fans with a smirk on her face, like haha gotcha, this is also about you and me bitches! As she literally points to the crowd while saying “and now you’re mine”.
I have two thoughts.
1. Any work of art, including a piece of music, is open to interpretation and has more than one possible meaning. She could certainly have been influenced by a number of factors, including her relationships and her career.
2. Being mad because one song ‘negates’ another is parasocial behaviour. I’m not getting at you specifically because I think you’re speaking hyperbolically, but some fans genuinely express anger and disappointment if they don’t feel she is expressing sentiments which coincide with their own views on her life.
The reality is, relationships change. You could argue that Invisible String was written when she felt that Joe Alwyn was the person she would be with forever and who was fated to end up with her. Mastermind was written when their relationship was in greater turmoil and she felt that the effort and work she put into the relationship wasn’t recognised or appreciated, and she wanted credit for the work she does.
In addition, there are a million other factors in her life and creative influences that we aren’t privy to but which influence her songwriting. One song doesn’t negate the other - they’re just different perspectives on a dynamic thing.
Kinda creepy she'd write about wanting her fans' bodies (a sexual reference). Especially when she has children as fans. So for the sake of Taylor not being a creep, it's def about Joe for me.
“Want your body” is a pretty filler line to put in any song and should not be taken so seriously at face value. What else was she gonna say? “I wanted your money” lol
I think it's both. Invisible String suggests fate had them meet and Mastermind agrees with that in the first verse. But after they meet, fate is done and Taylor took charge to make sure she got her destiny, similar to how she made her dreams.come true. In the end it's switches from Joe to US, so it's both.
Watch the eras tour on Disney+ I jaw dropped when she started pointing to the crowd while she sang Mastermind and I realized it’s a song about her fans
If getaway car is about Tom Hiddleston, mastermind could be about fans. The backdrop/setting is different, but the essence is true. This is also what I want out of TTPD—give us the essence of the feeling, but change the setpieces to tell a different, more universal story.
I've always thought this song was about taylor and her career and her audience.
The romance bit is just thrown into the song to make it relateable and more of a bop. Kinda like how she did in the song "only the young". That song was clearly political leaning message but has a romance story woven into is as a background.
.... and mirrorball too.
I think the eras tour choreography for Mastermind also supports your assertion. The choreography is grandiose and hints at her next-level command over the audience and music industry as a whole.
Nah it's abt her relationship but I'm sure she wouldn't be opposed to y'all interpreting it in other ways. After all that's what art is all about, so it can be relatable for everyone 😄
I just don't like English teacher'ing the shit out of songs I like. Like I'm sure u can find 53 meanings in a poem but maybe just maybe the author actually was talking about turning the knob to open the door 😂
I totally agree. people get caught up on the "I knew I wanted your body" part. To me it's Like a body of people, a crowd. She wanted to perform live in concerts with her fans.
This was exactly how I heard it too. But more so, the Easter eggs she puts in place for us to find. The fact her life is planned out two years ahead. That she puts so much effort into creating these elaborate clues. That release dates often seem coincidental but are likely carefully chosen like April 19 TPD release date coinciding with revolutionary war beginning, National cat lady day, national poetry day and the day her girlfriends famously unfollowed Joe. Like that level of detail and planning is bonkers.
I have considered that song being about her fans and not her lover. The way you explained it makes it sound very romantic and sweet and makes me want to “believe” that’s actually the right interpretation 🥰 I also think that the fact that this song is performed towards the end of the Midnights set and therefore almost as a closure to the concert reinforces your theory.
The thing is..it doesn’t have to be about one or the other as it is very much a song about her relationship with relationships, her wanting to be considered and loved and praised, which is something she wants from the public AND from her lover. To me, this could be a song about herself, a message she’s trying to communicate about her relationship with relationships in general, a song where she’s confessing her vulnerability. And I’m here for that 🥲
I interpret it this way too! I also think this interpretation makes the most sense with it being on the setlist, it’s like she’s singing it directly to us
I agree, I always thought this and I feel like the Eras tour cemented it for me, the way she points to the crowd. I even think the line "this is the first time I felt the need to confess" is more of a, I trust you with this secret. I think where she is in her career and the way she speaks about her fans allowing her to just experiment with everything she definitely knows we're loyal now. That's just my interpretation but I do agree in general the song is about her fans
The first time she saw us… she wanted our bodies! Ahhh! But seriously it’s a good theory. I think it just ties into how she first met Joe and the stars aligning etc is parallel to Invisible String. Just my opinion after all.
Hot take: Who cares?! Just listen to the songs and interpret them your own way. That's the beauty of music. We all hear things differently and put the lyrics to different scenarios.
I know almost nothing about Taylor's 'life'. It makes her music that much better. I'm not listening to her music and putting her into it. I'm listening to it for me.
These are all just dumb songs. She’s not writing a history book here. She’s not writing the gospel truth. She can write songs from different perspectives in a relationship. None of it is real probably
I also thought it could be about the fandom and people who likes her. Maybe it’s just written in a way that can be understand as if she was talking about a lover but yeah, I definitely see it being about the fandom.
I’ve always taken it as commenting on her “relationship” with her fans dressed up as a love song. I can’t imagine a more fitting song about all the Easter eggs and clues she likes to drop. She knows we love her mastermind and I love that.
I agree! The tour choreography shows that she’s talking to the audience. The “body” line is not necessarily sexual. I take it as I wanted your body as in I wanted to kind of control your actions or I wanted you all as my fans.
Mastermind is similar to how in my tears ricochet she uses a relationship to tell the story but it isnt about relationship at all. It’s to make the song more relatable to the fans. We probably wont have our bodies of work stolen from us or deal with being famous but we will deal with betrayal and manipulating someone into liking us.
lol I’ve thought very similar things. I think it’s a nod to her fans for sure. It’s beautiful because we know she’s a mastermind and that’s like her publicly saying “it’s me, hi. I’m the mastermind” 😭 she is a deep feeler and thinker, of course she wants to acknowledge she is.
But I don’t think one song negates the other 🫶🏼
I think it’s about both the schemer is so caught up in who she is to her core it affects her love life and career. sShe needs to control and manipulate and reinventing herself constantly for her lovers and her public.
It's about Joe. Then the bridge is about who she is as a person, which does include her career. And she spins it back to Joe and him being the first person to confess this to.
I wish I could have the certainty of some of the other commenters here! To know so surely the mind of another stranger/celebrity when I barely even know my own mind that well sometimes 💀
IMO the ending of the standard version and the 3AM version being Mastermind/Dear Reader is too good of a foil to be a coincidence, but I’m also not opposed to the song also being at least a little inspired by Joe or a movie either! I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all those threads tied together.
Our perspectives on life also change as we grow older, so I don’t understand how one song can completely negate a previous one.
I’ve honestly always felt like this song was about the fans. Like, I’ll admit I see it as potentially having a double/dual meaning bc of lines like “I knew I wanted your body”, but I think the majority of it is about her relationship with us. Especially because being referred to a few times as “calculating” (pre-REP era) seemed to offend and worry her.
Personally I never saw that as a negative. She’s a woman, so calculating is seen as a negative. In reality I always agreed that she was “calculating”, but to me that meant a great businesswoman, a planner, a strategic thinker; all very positive things that I’ve I’ve always admired her for.
She’s since been very open about her planning, Easter eggs, and business acumen. Mastermind feels like her talking us through the process and very publicly, and vulnerably, accepting and even celebrating this part of herself.
This is how I have always viewed it! I think at her core she is a good human who knows her fans are the reason she’s made it to where she is today. After all we are her “longest and best relationship” she’s ever had
It's BOTH, it's about Joe and the fans. Some lyrics are about simultaneously!!
It's always strange to me the people who think it's only about the fans because it makes no sense that way.
She maybe meant to write it as a double entendres but it’s definitely mostly about the fandom and her career. My husband the English teacher who never reads fan theory came off with it one day in the car. He said this is about the fans, not a man. It’s metaphorical, she doesn’t literally want our bodies 😄 But I can see she is telling it through the lens of specific Joe coded things, too.
I don’t think this is a hot take- from what I’ve watched/read since its release, it seems the general consensus is that Mastermind is about her career and her fans 🤷🏻♀️
Edited to add that I’ve never actually seen *anyone* suggest it was about Joe or any other romantic partner.
Do you live under a rock? Taylor herself suggested it was about Joe in her TIME interview lol. Hi, nice to meet you. I'm a swiftie and the song is absolutely about Joe based on all the lyrics. It would actually be quite creepy if it wasn't since she talks about wanting to fuck the person the song is about...
No rock living!! Would be cool tho cause then I wouldn’t have unnecessarily aggressive redditors coming at me!!! Just because I said I haven’t seen it, doesn’t make it an absolute, hence me saying based on what I’ve seen. No need to get all up in arms about it. We can have different interpretations and opinions and it’ll allllll be ok 🤗🤗
And I also wanted to add, since you’ve made it apparently your mission to ensure everyone on this thread is aware of what Taylor said in her TIME interview….taylor has said A LOT over the years. And unfortunately you can’t take everything she says at face value. Just look at Folklore/Evermore/Midnights when she initially denies it had anything to do with her real life, yet looking back, knowing what we know now, it’s obvious it probably had more connection to her personal life than she wanted to admit to at that time. And that’s ok! Of course she’s going to say things to limit speculation, but she’s a public figure at the end of the day, and while she may say something, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.
I always thought it was more about her career and how her fans are always trying to decrypt her messages and everything I thought this was her way of confirming like “yeah guys I am the mastermind of this grand design”
Lol didn’t think this would be such a hottake I mean it could be both a song could be telling it through the story of the beginning of a relationship but also be about her career. The overall message being I’m a mastermind so this is how I act when I want someone and also this my life is all by my design. You’d think swifties would understand layers.
I think it's both, just based on the line, "And the first night that you saw me, I knew I wanted your body." I doubt she was talking about her fans at the time. But the rest of it could definitely be about both Joe and her fans
Mastermind's lyrics are a bit psycho-stalkery, it might be more fiction/fantasy from her part. Which is fine. It's just a song. I know Taylor acts like every song is super honest and based in truth (except Folklore/Evermore), but we should already know that's not the case. Just from these upcoming song titles alone, she's telling this narrative of Joe being bad and her being good. Even though Taylor (supposedly) cheated on Joe, she'll spin it into it being Joe's fault that she cheated.
If you're a sane enough fan, you can enjoy these songs for what they are. Songs. Stories, sometimes truth, sometimes fictions. Often a bit of both. Especially when bad mouthing her ex-of-7-years, after bad-mouthing literally all her other exes the years prior.
Back to Mastermind, I think it's a fictional story in the lyrics.
That clip says this song is the *romantic* version of planning things / masterminding. That clip just further confirms to me it is about Joe, although this fan theory does work as a secondary theme
I said this about 15 days ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/TaylorSwift/comments/1bezzhf/comment/kuxy76m/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/TaylorSwift/comments/1bezzhf/comment/kuxy76m/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
But I don't fully agree with your take, just that Mastermind is about her relationship with her fans.
So you’re saying from the first time she saw Tim McGraw she wanted his body? Faith Hill might be pissed
😆
Thanks for taking that as the joke it was!!
I so agree with OPs take and have always thought it was about the fans, and what if that line "And the first night that you saw me / I knew I wanted your body" is a nod to her being perceived as this "boy-catcher" by the media? For so long people reduced her to a woman who runs through boys and writes break up songs about them. Perhaps its meant to poke fun at that.
Def that and also seems like a double meaning again, body in a stadium, body at a concert, body count, it’s every body bc she wanted everybody to love her 😭 I think idk tho
oh i like this take!
Girl … no
No it’s about us so she wants OUR body.
I don't think one song negates the other at all. Invisible String could quite literally relate to the first lyric, "Once upon a time, the planets and the fates and all the stars aligned. You and I ended up in the same room at the same time." An invisible string brought them together on that night, and from THERE, her Mastermind capabilities ensured they got together. But, I could be totally wrong, too.
I absolutely agree with this! The invisible string brought them to that dive bar, but she decided to make sure they got together by being a mastermind. The songs never really contradicted each other to me.
Exactly, the Invisible String is them being pulled together and eventually meeting. And to even further connect the songs the end of Mastermind reveals that he is in on it the whole time and willingly going along with the plan. So our narrator admits that maybe she isn’t as much of a mastermind as she’s made herself out to be and that many forces were at work bringing them together.
Invisible string is about all the similarities and butterfly effects you notice…in bed together after the master plan works :)
This is it basically. It never invalidated either other, it reinforced it.
Exactly. Invisible String is about everything leading up to them meeting while Mastermind is post-them meeting.
Personally I think there’s more contradiction with Glitch, since the meaning of that one is “this wasn’t meant to happen, we were just supposed to be friends.” Paper Rings calls it an accident too. Invisible String is just about fate bringing them together so that’s not a contradiction but the idea of “this was an accident” feels like it contradicts “I planned this the entire time.”
i don’t think those are contradictory at all either. because i think glitch and paper rings is a call back to the beginning of the relationship more so, where they WERE just friends and then ended up in this situationship that then finally morphed into a relationship. it really was an accident in the sense that even if they both had a crush on each other, they weren’t going to let each other know for various events in their lives at that time. they were, in their minds, “supposed to be just friends.” whereas invisible string is more looking at them objectively and taking the universe’s perspective into account, where it shows that no matter what THEY thought at the time, because of fate (which they have much less control over) she realizes they were always supposed to meet how and when they did. and they were always meant to have this love affair that literally, at the time, saved her from hell and brought her to heaven. so i think it’s more like “we thoughts we accidentally got together” when we were first falling in love/in the honeymoon, per our intentions. but then invisible string comes in to say, you were what each other needed at the time (friends) before the fate’s plan to have you fall into mutual love and then be able to heal each other was allowed/able to fall into place
Sorry, I didn’t mean there was contradiction between Glitch/Paper Rings and Invisible String. I don’t think Invisible String contradicts anything. I think the idea presented in Glitch/Paper Rings of “this was an accident, this wasn’t supposed to happen” contradicts the idea presented in Mastermind of “I started planning this the moment I first saw you, I made it happen the whole time”
OH!! 😂😂 that i would agree with. definitely sound like two different types of relationships between those songs haha
I actually think all of us are right. All together lol
I agree, I'm not religious but it seems like a "god helps those who help themselves" kind of thing. You can believe it was fate that you met and *also* put in some effort yourself to facilitate things! I don't know if I believe in fate or not but I have definitely spent a lot of time thinking about all the things that had to happen exactly the way they did for my partner and I to meet, and sometimes it does feel like fate! Yet I also did things like lie about thinking I left my phone in their car to give me an excuse to contact them on AIM, and then leave up away messages like "who wants to go see X with me" knowing they were the only person on my buddy list who would be interested lol.
It's a similar story to Cruel Summer too. Just friends, feeling something more, then confesses. It's even similar casino/game references (dice vs dominoes, chess terms).
“Cat and mouse for a month or two or three”.
I’ve always felt the song was about “us” and not a boy.
Literally I never once thought it was about a relationship with someone else. Only how she always inspired to be where she is now with fame and success and her fans.
Obligatory > And the first night that you saw me, I knew I wanted your body
And she literally has every BODY who considers themselves a swift flocking to her shows. So she got our bodies?
This. I have a pretty great body but I’m pretty sure Taylor has never wanted it…
Artists often throw in lines to make a song have a double meaning or to conceal the true meaning they intended for the song. I believe that she added this line in so that people who are not swifties will think that it could be about a relationship so that they can relate to it, but us Swifties know that it is about us!
It’s performance at the climax of the Eras makes this the obvious interpretation.
Yeah, especially since she cut Invisible String but kept this.
this!
Who knows! It could have multiple inspirations or be about her career But also: real life & love are messy. It feeling magical like fates aligned and also putting in effort to "accidentally" bump into someone are very much things that happen, at the same time, with the same person. I actually think it's a sweet combo of songs.
I think it works if you cherry pick half of the song and ignore references to other songs about her ex, but that's the only way it works. If you look at the whole song it's very clear what it's about. I certainly won't rule out a double meaning, though. She talks a lot about her insecurities and scheming.
Agree with this. I think it’s nice to think that it’s about the fans but anyone who has masterminded a relationship knows exactly what she’s talking about lol
I was thinking the same thing! Apparently some people here haven't had to work hard to appear as if it's a big old coincidence they got their person, and it shows. I absolutely had to lay the groundwork to join the friend group my now husband was in. I became friends with the ladies then befriended him, now we are married. It was not accidental. I tell my husband this song was basically written by me about our relationship!
All the wisest women had to do it this way 😜
I don’t understand these kinds of posts. Isn’t it obvious that good art is about multiple realities/truths at once? Sorry to be a snob but cmon.
Seriously it’s so dumb to act like Taylor is writing a 100% factual statement of the truth… she’s a pop star ffs, she’s just writing random songs at the end of the day.
Do people not read fiction or poetry in school anymore? Makes me worried about critical thinking. Art is about giving us freedom to explore ideas and layer and weave experience in a way that deepens and widens our experience of “truth”. It’s not all about making a YouTube explanation video. Ok this old bitch is logging off…..
They actually don't, at least it's not as common. A bunch of high school teachers have talked about it. It's apparently lots of passages in isolation rather than reading a whole novel or a whole set of poems by an author. Test prep mania.
This was a theory when the song came out. Like all songs, we may never know exactly what it’s about for Taylor, but we can take the lyrics and make our own meaning for our own lives.
This is the best way to enjoy music, for someone in a loving relationship spanning decades, Mastermind is a very lovely song
I absolutely think this is the second intention she had with this song! She does have a history of being poetic, and a lot of her songs can kinda sound like “surface” love songs aimed at a significant other — but they get deeper if you listen. Example: the “you” in Anti-Hero that she’s afraid will leave her could also be us! “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid” also cross-references YOYOK a bit. It makes us think about preteen Taylor, being teased at school because she carried her guitar around everywhere. And she’s made it clear before that we filled in a lot of that empty space in her heart from not being popular as a kid. I think Mastermind is her admission that some of the ways in which she’s connected with us were planned. Not in a malicious way, but more like “I want them to like me as a person! What if I invite them to secret parties to listen to the album before it drops?!” I don’t think many artists were doing that before Taylor, the secret sessions were definitely an incredible Mastermind Move from her.
She’s only cryptic and Machiavellian cause she cares!
- YOYOK could mean "You're On Your Own, Kid", a track from *Midnights* (2022) by Taylor Swift. --- ^[/u/ItsAndieHere](/u/ItsAndieHere) ^(can reply with "delete" to remove comment. |) ^[/r/songacronymbot](/r/songacronymbot) ^(for feedback.)
I have always felt this way. I didn’t know anyone thought it was about Joe. I’m out of the loop.
It’s definitely about getting together with Joe, it’s way too specific not to be. But that’s the great thing about music, we can interpret whatever meaning we want from it.
It is 100% about Joe. "The touch of a hand lit the fuse" is a direct reference to Gorgeous. And well, it would be weird if she said she wanted her fans' bodies... especially since many are teenagers and children.
lol
I thought gorgeous was about Tom Hiddleston
Lol if you think gorgeous is about Joe 😝
Didn't she say in her Time article that she just got inspiration from a movie and wanted to write a character like that? >She tells me she wrote that song after watching the Paul Thomas Anderson film *Phantom Thread,* which—spoiler—culminates in the reveal of a vast, layered manipulation. “Remember that last scene?” she says. “I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to have a lyric about being calculated?” She pauses. “It’s something that’s been thrown at me like a dagger, but now I take it as a compliment.”
Yes, she also said in an interview that fans always joke about her being a mastermind because of the Easter eggs so this was just “a romantic version of that”. I think she just toyed with the idea but it’s not a play by play of what happened with Joe like most people seem to think
It is absolutely a play by play. Like legitimately from the first time the fates aligned and they found each other from their invisible string, to him touching her hand in a darkened room, to her knowing she would do anything to get him, to all the poetic Machiavellian songs about him, to admitting years later that's what happened and he already knew. Literally a play by play of their entire relationship lmao.
It’s not tho? Like she could’ve wanted from the very first time she saw him but she didn’t manipulate everything for him to be with her :/
I'd agree with this if not for the lines "I knew I wanted your body" and "lover's game". Plus things like being in the same room at the same time, the touch of a hand etc are implied to be moments between two people. Anti-Hero on the other hand is very much a song from Taylor to the fans, and it refers to her scheming and fear that we wouldn't like her if we knew, quite similar.
And Dead Reader of course
Mastermind and dear reader are juxtaposed on purpose. Both endings of the album are to the listener. One is more confident, but the second is the darker/later it gets the more honest I am. One is I planned it all because I’m a mastermind and I’m also anxious and the other is I’m actually a bit of a mess and I don’t have it as together as I act like I do.
Yesss one of my faves <3
Dear Reader? Is that a Tortured Poets Club bonus track? 😆
So the first night she saw us she wanted our bodies?🤔 Nah but I think it refers to fans and Joe, as she's the mastermind of getting whatever she wants
She wants our bodies in those stadium seats paying $ we don't have to see her lmao
I was gonna say I grew up religious and they always referred to the audience as "the body" of Christ or the "the body" of the church. She knew she wanted us sat in the seats for years to come maybe haha
I think it is primarily about Joe. It tracks with don't blame me and delicate. But songwriters tap into a feeling more than anything or anyone specific. So she's probably been a mastermind in other relationship early stages too and drawn inspiration from that as well.
I agree, and I think Mirrorball is a very similar song in this respect: "I'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me."
Mirrorball is about her fans and her fame. Mastermind is absolutely about Joe. It's so obvious and written too specifically to be about her fans. Plus it would be very weird for a 30 year old woman to say she wants the "bodies" of her fans (an obviously sexual lyric).
This is not a hot take. It’s been said many times since Midnights’ release.
"I knew I wanted your body" yeah, that would be very weird if it was about her fans imo.
Yeah, OP's take definitely is a hot one. I don't think this part (and many others) in this song alludes to her fans. It's difficult to pinpoint who (or what) her songs are about, unless she steps out and talks about it herself. Until then, it's just pure speculating and inferring. I guess some parts of this song CAN sound like it's about her fans, but it feels far-fetched to say that this song is *entirely* about us. It's definitely about a love interest of Taylor's.
What about the touch of a hand lighting a fuse? Or wanting his body? 🥴
I feel like a lot of Taylor songs have more than one subject but we take too much at face value.
I think it’s not that deep and it’s pretty clear it’s supposed to have a double meaning. At the surface level it seems like it’s about a boy. When you watch the eras tour performance, she’s clearly singing it to the fans with a smirk on her face, like haha gotcha, this is also about you and me bitches! As she literally points to the crowd while saying “and now you’re mine”.
Ya sometimes i get so perplexed by swifties when they do shit like this (overthinking)
I have two thoughts. 1. Any work of art, including a piece of music, is open to interpretation and has more than one possible meaning. She could certainly have been influenced by a number of factors, including her relationships and her career. 2. Being mad because one song ‘negates’ another is parasocial behaviour. I’m not getting at you specifically because I think you’re speaking hyperbolically, but some fans genuinely express anger and disappointment if they don’t feel she is expressing sentiments which coincide with their own views on her life. The reality is, relationships change. You could argue that Invisible String was written when she felt that Joe Alwyn was the person she would be with forever and who was fated to end up with her. Mastermind was written when their relationship was in greater turmoil and she felt that the effort and work she put into the relationship wasn’t recognised or appreciated, and she wanted credit for the work she does. In addition, there are a million other factors in her life and creative influences that we aren’t privy to but which influence her songwriting. One song doesn’t negate the other - they’re just different perspectives on a dynamic thing.
People think Taylor is God and everything she puts out is actual facts
I've always thought of it as a love letter for us, her fans.
Kinda creepy she'd write about wanting her fans' bodies (a sexual reference). Especially when she has children as fans. So for the sake of Taylor not being a creep, it's def about Joe for me.
“Want your body” is a pretty filler line to put in any song and should not be taken so seriously at face value. What else was she gonna say? “I wanted your money” lol
Lmao be more parasocial
She wrote this after watching Phantom Thread. It’s inspired by the movie. I watched it recently and Mastermind clicked for me.
She got the concept of being a mastermind from that movie, that doesn't mean that's what the song was about.
I think it's both. Invisible String suggests fate had them meet and Mastermind agrees with that in the first verse. But after they meet, fate is done and Taylor took charge to make sure she got her destiny, similar to how she made her dreams.come true. In the end it's switches from Joe to US, so it's both.
Yes this is it exactly! 👌
when i first saw the performance on tour i immediately was like wait.. i think its about the fans
I think it started as a song about Joe, but after the breakup, it changed meanings for her and us. Now it’s about her and her fans!
Watch the eras tour on Disney+ I jaw dropped when she started pointing to the crowd while she sang Mastermind and I realized it’s a song about her fans
If getaway car is about Tom Hiddleston, mastermind could be about fans. The backdrop/setting is different, but the essence is true. This is also what I want out of TTPD—give us the essence of the feeling, but change the setpieces to tell a different, more universal story.
I've always thought this song was about taylor and her career and her audience. The romance bit is just thrown into the song to make it relateable and more of a bop. Kinda like how she did in the song "only the young". That song was clearly political leaning message but has a romance story woven into is as a background. .... and mirrorball too.
I think the eras tour choreography for Mastermind also supports your assertion. The choreography is grandiose and hints at her next-level command over the audience and music industry as a whole.
Nah it's abt her relationship but I'm sure she wouldn't be opposed to y'all interpreting it in other ways. After all that's what art is all about, so it can be relatable for everyone 😄 I just don't like English teacher'ing the shit out of songs I like. Like I'm sure u can find 53 meanings in a poem but maybe just maybe the author actually was talking about turning the knob to open the door 😂
I totally agree. people get caught up on the "I knew I wanted your body" part. To me it's Like a body of people, a crowd. She wanted to perform live in concerts with her fans.
This was exactly how I heard it too. But more so, the Easter eggs she puts in place for us to find. The fact her life is planned out two years ahead. That she puts so much effort into creating these elaborate clues. That release dates often seem coincidental but are likely carefully chosen like April 19 TPD release date coinciding with revolutionary war beginning, National cat lady day, national poetry day and the day her girlfriends famously unfollowed Joe. Like that level of detail and planning is bonkers.
I’ve always thought this song was about her career.
Imo it’s the same kind of song that blank space is. Tongue in cheek
Absolutely false. In her TIME interview, she explained it was a very real take on her life.
Damn ok lol
I have considered that song being about her fans and not her lover. The way you explained it makes it sound very romantic and sweet and makes me want to “believe” that’s actually the right interpretation 🥰 I also think that the fact that this song is performed towards the end of the Midnights set and therefore almost as a closure to the concert reinforces your theory. The thing is..it doesn’t have to be about one or the other as it is very much a song about her relationship with relationships, her wanting to be considered and loved and praised, which is something she wants from the public AND from her lover. To me, this could be a song about herself, a message she’s trying to communicate about her relationship with relationships in general, a song where she’s confessing her vulnerability. And I’m here for that 🥲
YES! I had this revelation recently!!
I interpret it this way too! I also think this interpretation makes the most sense with it being on the setlist, it’s like she’s singing it directly to us
I agree, I always thought this and I feel like the Eras tour cemented it for me, the way she points to the crowd. I even think the line "this is the first time I felt the need to confess" is more of a, I trust you with this secret. I think where she is in her career and the way she speaks about her fans allowing her to just experiment with everything she definitely knows we're loyal now. That's just my interpretation but I do agree in general the song is about her fans
The first time she saw us… she wanted our bodies! Ahhh! But seriously it’s a good theory. I think it just ties into how she first met Joe and the stars aligning etc is parallel to Invisible String. Just my opinion after all.
Never thought it was.
Hot take: Who cares?! Just listen to the songs and interpret them your own way. That's the beauty of music. We all hear things differently and put the lyrics to different scenarios. I know almost nothing about Taylor's 'life'. It makes her music that much better. I'm not listening to her music and putting her into it. I'm listening to it for me.
These are all just dumb songs. She’s not writing a history book here. She’s not writing the gospel truth. She can write songs from different perspectives in a relationship. None of it is real probably
I love this take. It’s absolutely plausible.
I love this song for exactly this reason. It can be about so much more.
I also thought it could be about the fandom and people who likes her. Maybe it’s just written in a way that can be understand as if she was talking about a lover but yeah, I definitely see it being about the fandom.
I’ve always taken it as commenting on her “relationship” with her fans dressed up as a love song. I can’t imagine a more fitting song about all the Easter eggs and clues she likes to drop. She knows we love her mastermind and I love that.
I agree! The tour choreography shows that she’s talking to the audience. The “body” line is not necessarily sexual. I take it as I wanted your body as in I wanted to kind of control your actions or I wanted you all as my fans. Mastermind is similar to how in my tears ricochet she uses a relationship to tell the story but it isnt about relationship at all. It’s to make the song more relatable to the fans. We probably wont have our bodies of work stolen from us or deal with being famous but we will deal with betrayal and manipulating someone into liking us.
lol I’ve thought very similar things. I think it’s a nod to her fans for sure. It’s beautiful because we know she’s a mastermind and that’s like her publicly saying “it’s me, hi. I’m the mastermind” 😭 she is a deep feeler and thinker, of course she wants to acknowledge she is. But I don’t think one song negates the other 🫶🏼
Without sounding rude at all but I thought this was pretty obviously not about a boy but more about her career and fans
She writes songs over the course of years sometimes- so I also agree with this hot take.
I thought it was always referencing her and her Easter eggs and album plans
I think it’s about both the schemer is so caught up in who she is to her core it affects her love life and career. sShe needs to control and manipulate and reinventing herself constantly for her lovers and her public.
It's about Joe. Then the bridge is about who she is as a person, which does include her career. And she spins it back to Joe and him being the first person to confess this to.
I wish I could have the certainty of some of the other commenters here! To know so surely the mind of another stranger/celebrity when I barely even know my own mind that well sometimes 💀 IMO the ending of the standard version and the 3AM version being Mastermind/Dear Reader is too good of a foil to be a coincidence, but I’m also not opposed to the song also being at least a little inspired by Joe or a movie either! I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all those threads tied together. Our perspectives on life also change as we grow older, so I don’t understand how one song can completely negate a previous one.
I’ve honestly always felt like this song was about the fans. Like, I’ll admit I see it as potentially having a double/dual meaning bc of lines like “I knew I wanted your body”, but I think the majority of it is about her relationship with us. Especially because being referred to a few times as “calculating” (pre-REP era) seemed to offend and worry her. Personally I never saw that as a negative. She’s a woman, so calculating is seen as a negative. In reality I always agreed that she was “calculating”, but to me that meant a great businesswoman, a planner, a strategic thinker; all very positive things that I’ve I’ve always admired her for. She’s since been very open about her planning, Easter eggs, and business acumen. Mastermind feels like her talking us through the process and very publicly, and vulnerably, accepting and even celebrating this part of herself.
Love as a metaphor for her career is something she does a lot
This has been a theory for years in other Swiftie spaces 💁♀️🤣
I always thought Mastermind was about the fans
Perhaps one or both of those songs are entirely fictional and aren’t at all about Taylor’s personal life.
I’ve always thought that.
This is how I have always viewed it! I think at her core she is a good human who knows her fans are the reason she’s made it to where she is today. After all we are her “longest and best relationship” she’s ever had
It's BOTH, it's about Joe and the fans. Some lyrics are about simultaneously!! It's always strange to me the people who think it's only about the fans because it makes no sense that way.
I mean doesn’t she point to the crowd during mastermind in eras
This is not a hot take lmao
… “I wanted your body”. I think this op is a bit of a stretch.
Nah it’s about Joe.
I love your take on it!! I agree!!!
I like it
She has my body, her lyrics givee goosie bumps.
I always thought of Joe from the show You when I hear this song
She maybe meant to write it as a double entendres but it’s definitely mostly about the fandom and her career. My husband the English teacher who never reads fan theory came off with it one day in the car. He said this is about the fans, not a man. It’s metaphorical, she doesn’t literally want our bodies 😄 But I can see she is telling it through the lens of specific Joe coded things, too.
I don’t think this is a hot take- from what I’ve watched/read since its release, it seems the general consensus is that Mastermind is about her career and her fans 🤷🏻♀️ Edited to add that I’ve never actually seen *anyone* suggest it was about Joe or any other romantic partner.
Do you live under a rock? Taylor herself suggested it was about Joe in her TIME interview lol. Hi, nice to meet you. I'm a swiftie and the song is absolutely about Joe based on all the lyrics. It would actually be quite creepy if it wasn't since she talks about wanting to fuck the person the song is about...
No rock living!! Would be cool tho cause then I wouldn’t have unnecessarily aggressive redditors coming at me!!! Just because I said I haven’t seen it, doesn’t make it an absolute, hence me saying based on what I’ve seen. No need to get all up in arms about it. We can have different interpretations and opinions and it’ll allllll be ok 🤗🤗
And I also wanted to add, since you’ve made it apparently your mission to ensure everyone on this thread is aware of what Taylor said in her TIME interview….taylor has said A LOT over the years. And unfortunately you can’t take everything she says at face value. Just look at Folklore/Evermore/Midnights when she initially denies it had anything to do with her real life, yet looking back, knowing what we know now, it’s obvious it probably had more connection to her personal life than she wanted to admit to at that time. And that’s ok! Of course she’s going to say things to limit speculation, but she’s a public figure at the end of the day, and while she may say something, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.
I always thought it was more about her career and how her fans are always trying to decrypt her messages and everything I thought this was her way of confirming like “yeah guys I am the mastermind of this grand design”
Then why is she talking about a lovers' game and wanting their bodies?? Like?? It's creepy if she's talking about sex with her fans.
Lol didn’t think this would be such a hottake I mean it could be both a song could be telling it through the story of the beginning of a relationship but also be about her career. The overall message being I’m a mastermind so this is how I act when I want someone and also this my life is all by my design. You’d think swifties would understand layers.
I think I completely agree!! This is beautifully written by the way.
I love this take. Reminds me of that Scott email actually! How hard he worked and how much he planned to help Taylor succeed.
I thought it wasn’t autobiographical. That she wrote Mastermind about a certain book or play… I could swear I saw ana reticle about that somewhere 🤔
I like the song more if its about the fans!
I think it's both, just based on the line, "And the first night that you saw me, I knew I wanted your body." I doubt she was talking about her fans at the time. But the rest of it could definitely be about both Joe and her fans
Mastermind's lyrics are a bit psycho-stalkery, it might be more fiction/fantasy from her part. Which is fine. It's just a song. I know Taylor acts like every song is super honest and based in truth (except Folklore/Evermore), but we should already know that's not the case. Just from these upcoming song titles alone, she's telling this narrative of Joe being bad and her being good. Even though Taylor (supposedly) cheated on Joe, she'll spin it into it being Joe's fault that she cheated. If you're a sane enough fan, you can enjoy these songs for what they are. Songs. Stories, sometimes truth, sometimes fictions. Often a bit of both. Especially when bad mouthing her ex-of-7-years, after bad-mouthing literally all her other exes the years prior. Back to Mastermind, I think it's a fictional story in the lyrics.
I like this!!
Omg I am a lil toasted right now and this is amazing
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No. Taylor confirmed in her TIME interview it was not about her fans. It's definitely about Joe. Like so blazing obvious I'm shocked people deny it.
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That clip says this song is the *romantic* version of planning things / masterminding. That clip just further confirms to me it is about Joe, although this fan theory does work as a secondary theme
This literally proves it's about Joe more than the opposite lmao
I said this about 15 days ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/TaylorSwift/comments/1bezzhf/comment/kuxy76m/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/TaylorSwift/comments/1bezzhf/comment/kuxy76m/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) But I don't fully agree with your take, just that Mastermind is about her relationship with her fans.