I Said I Have A New Favorite Taylor Swift Lyric, So

"Do the girls back home touch you like I do?"

Taylor Swift in the music video for “Delicate.” Photo: Screenshot.

I made the mistake of tweeting, about a week ago, about a Taylor Swift lyric. Accountability culture has turned on me: I will actually write about the newest Swift line I cannot stop thinking about. That line from “seven” still reigns supreme for me — but after a certain hour, when I can feel the cold brew running through my veins and I’ve watched The Last Seduction or Cl*ser a little too recently, “Delicate” really just becomes that girl.

I have listened to exactly one other song from Reputation (“Look What You Made Me Do,” unfortunately) and that’s completely fine and appropriate because none of Reputation’s other songs are my business. “Delicate” is really a masterwork, sweetly attuned to the awkwardness of desire, the early days of loving someone, the messy and misshapen ways wanting manifests. The narrator, who is maybe Swift herself, is nervous enough in this new affection second guesses every action: “Is it cool…