Song of the Week: “The Man” by Taylor Swift

Welcome to Song of the Week, Metro.Style Culture’s new series where we bring you one song every week—complete with history, the best scenarios to play them in, and what to listen to next if you liked it.

For almost her entire life in the music industry (which is more than half of it), Taylor Swift has been a highly divisive figure. Save perhaps for the year 2014—the year she released 1989, which included hits like “Blank Space” and “Shake It Off”—the general public is generally not a fan of the pop star. 

After her fall from grace in 2016 following Kim Kardashian’s ‘exposé’ in which she released a video of Swift supposedly agreeing, via phone call, to the “b*tch” lyric in Kanye West’s song “Famous,” she retreated deep into London, released reputation, and then returned to the spotlight in 2019 with the release of Lover. 

On that record, sitting at Track #4 is “The Man,” a bop that (1) name-checks Leonardo DiCaprio and (2) talks about sexist double standards. Swift co-wrote the song with Joel Little and last Wednesday, she released a music video for the song, in which she dresses as a man, “Tyler Swift.”

Swift has said that “The Man” is an “experiment of sorts”: “If I had made all the same choices, all the same mistakes, all the same accomplishments,” she said in Vogue, “how would it read?”

For Women’s Month, we’ve decided to kick it off with this song, no commentary needed. 

Lead photos via Taylor Swift/YouTube