Of course, Taylor Swift is famously coy when it comes to ever confirming exactly what her songs are about, but it seems like she’s left more than a few clues in “Castles Crumbling.” The song’s lyrics tell a story of a once-great dynasty that now appears to be, you guessed it, crumbling to the ground. “Once, I had an empire in a golden age / I was held up so high, I used to be great / They used to cheer when they saw my face / Now, I fear I have fallen from grace,” she sings. In another part of the song, Swift croons, “Once, I was the great hope for a dynasty / Crowds would hang on my words and they trusted me / Their faith was strong, but I pushed it too far / I held that grudge ’til it tore me apart.”
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While a lot of Swift’s songs can be connected to a romance, in this case, we think the star is singing about the rocky time she was having in the months that preceded “Speak Now”‘s release in 2010. The star released the album in the wake of her notorious 2009 MTV VMAs incident with Kanye West, a time in which she was crossing over from a successful country star to a full-blown pop star featured on every magazine cover. As she became more visible in the public eye, she became more open to criticism.
