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Taylor Swift packs ‘Me’ with Easter eggs

- Maeve McDermott

Eagle-eyed fans will pick up clues to star’s new era and fresh start

Taylor Swift’s new music video, “Me,” is a pastel-colored, Brendon Urie-featuring bonanza. And, in going with the color scheme, it has plenty of Easter eggs as well, hiding in the video for fans to find.

Released Friday at midnight, “Me” is Swift’s first new single since her 2017 album “Reputation,” and it contains all sorts of clues about her new era and fresh start.

Snakes, Sesame Street and a certain legendary country-music trio are a few of the many gems that Swift included in the video for fans watching closely. Read on for all the hidden clues in the video that eagle-eyed Swifties picked up on.

The snake

The most telling moment in “Me,” as it relates to Swift’s new era, comes when a slithering snake dissolves into a cloud of butterflie­s.

Swift frequently invokes snakes in the imagery of her “Reputation” album, from snake-shaped rings she sold as her official tour merchandis­e to the massive reptile she carries around in the “Look What You Made Me Do” video.

The snake’s transforma­tion into butterflie­s suggests that Swift has rebirth on her mind – considerin­g how butterflie­s transform from humble caterpilla­rs – and is trying to pivot from some of the more vindictive messaging of her previous era, hence the snake, toward a more peaceful, rosier state of mind.

The chrysalis

Fans point out that the entire music video takes place inside a chrysalis, which as insect-minded viewers

know, is the membrane that a butterfly emerges from once it has completed its evolution from a caterpilla­r.

An obvious metaphor for rebirth, the chrysalis that houses the world of Swift’s “Me” video is a suitable setting for the first release of the next era of her career, a time of new beginnings for the star.

The video also shares a visual with the mural Swift commission­ed – and then visited – in Nashville, of a rainbow breaking through a chrysalis or barrier,

The Dixie Chicks

The part in “Me” where Swift sings about some “real cool chicks?” On the wall behind Urie is a portrait of the three women of the Dixie Chicks, inspiring hope in fans’ hearts that the group will have a feature on Swift’s new album.

Coincident­ally, the group also shared last year that they were in the studio recording with Jack Antonoff, the Bleachers frontman who has worked as a producer on Swift’s previous albums.

Sesame Street

“One of these things is not like the other / Like a rainbow with all of the colors,” Swift sings in “Me.”

The line comes straight from the classic children’s TV program “Sesame Street.”

Swift borrows the phrase to brag about herself to her romantic companion, going on to sing, “Babydoll, when it comes to a lover / I promise that you’ll never find another like me.”

The miniature London

Swift’s boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, is British, and in a scene in the video, she references the capital of his hometown while nodding to her American roots. As Swift sits on a ledge in a flowing pink dress surveying the kingdom below her, viewers can spot some familiar landmarks below her, including both Big Ben and Capitol Hill.

Lover?

Fans also latched onto the pink neon “Lover” sign in the background as the potential title for either one of her new singles, or her entire forthcomin­g album.

The numbers 8 and 30

If Swift is going to include a clock in a music video, fans know by now to pay attention to the time it’s showing.

In one scene, Urie stands in front of a clock at 8:30, which has some fans convinced that her album will arrive on Aug. 30, which is a Friday, the day of the week when artists who adhere to a traditiona­l album cycle most commonly release their albums.

 ?? ALAN POIZNER/USA TODAY NETWORK ??
ALAN POIZNER/USA TODAY NETWORK
 ?? USA TODAY ?? Taylor Swift dropped her latest single, “Me,” at midnight Friday.
USA TODAY Taylor Swift dropped her latest single, “Me,” at midnight Friday.
 ?? JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES ?? British landmarks such as Big Ben appear in the video for “Me.”
JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES British landmarks such as Big Ben appear in the video for “Me.”
 ?? KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES ?? A portrait of the Dixie Chicks features prominentl­y in Taylor Swift’s latest video.
KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES A portrait of the Dixie Chicks features prominentl­y in Taylor Swift’s latest video.

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