On Monday, Taylor Swift announced she would be decoding a clue from the “You Need to Calm Down” music video, where an arrow hits a target with the number five on it. On Tuesday (July 23), Swift unveiled the third song from Lover and the fifth song from the track list, “The Archer.”
“I’ve been the archer/ I’ve been the prey/ Screaming, ‘Who could ever leave me, darling’/ But who could stay?” she croons in the chorus of the sparkling, airy Jack Antonoff-produced track.
She further tears down the wall she puts up, asking the person she loves to accept all of her as she chants, “They see right through me,” before delving into the heartwrenching lyrics “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men/ Couldn’t put me together again/ ‘Cause all of my enemies started out friends/ Let me hold on to you.”
“There’s a lot that’s covered emotionally [on this album] and I really wanted to give you track five before the album came out,” she explained via Instagram Live just minutes before the song came out. “Track 5 is kind of a tradition that really started with you guys because, I didn’t realize that I was doing this, but as I was making albums, I was instinctively putting very vulnerable, personal, honest, emotional songs as track 5.”
She then reminisced about personal track 5s of the past: her debut record’s “Cold as You,” Fearless‘ “White Horse,” Speak Now‘s “Dear John,” Red‘s “All Too Well,” 1989‘s “All You Had to Do Was Stay” and Reputation‘s “Delicate.”
Swift’s seventh studio album, Lover, is out Aug. 23. Watch “The Archer” lyric video below.