Taylor Swift is making a return to her country roots with song ‘New Year’s Day’.
The country-pop mega-star is the closing song on Swift’s brand-new album, Reputation, which focuses on darker pop tracks, including “Look What You Made Me Do” and “… Ready for It?” The pop-influenced piano ballad is every bit as much of a contemporary country track as many of the songs Swift scored big country hits with, and probably more so than a track like “We Are Never, Ever Getting Back Together.”
“Don’t read the last page / But I stay when you’re lost, and I’m scared / And you’re turning away / I want your midnights / But I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day,” are some of the lyrics that Swift sings about on the track.
Swift wrote “New Year’s Day” with Jack Antonoff from ‘Fun’, and in the video, she sings it live at an intimate fan party at one of her homes to launch Reputation. She stunned the audience on the Tonight Show when she made a special appearance on the show to sing the song as a tribute to Jimmy Fallon’s mother, who died earlier in the month.
The song marks Swift’s first release to country radio since she left country and went pop with the 2014 release of 1989, but she hasn’t been entirely absent from country radio. Swift wrote “Better Man” for Little Big Town, and recently took home Song of the Year honors for the song at the 2017 CMA Awards.