“Narcotics in all of my songs”: Taylor Swift’s “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?" ("The Tortured Poets Department", 2024)

Here's a line from Taylor Swift's song "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" ("The Tortured Poets Department", 2024): "[I] put narcotics into all of my songs / and that's why you're still singing along ..." Narcotics are painkillers, and in law-enforcement and popular usage, addictive drugs more generally. In medical settings, narcotics can be put into pills or intravenous solutions; in bars, they can be slipped into drinks to take advantage of people. Among other things, the "narcotics" that Swift slips into her songs are the rhetorical, poetic, and literary devices that keep people returning to her lyrics (along with some "Easter eggs"). So here, "narcotics" is a metaphor for metaphors. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 23 October 2024)