Midnights, Taylor Swift’s 10th album, is nothing if not polarizing. It’s a triumphantly personal pop masterpiece! ! It’s utterly cringey! It’s top-tier Taylor! It’s boring and uneven, split between deeply vulnerable tracks and pithy, forgettable ones!
I refuse to weigh in on that matter, but I will share one opinion I have: Its worst song is “Bejeweled,” track nine. “Bejeweled” is like a forgotten Jack Antonoff production that he passed off to Taylor, so that she could fill out her tracklist. It’s a Lover B-side, something not sufficiently campy enough to fit alongside the insufferable “ME!” or “You Need to Calm Down.” Swift has no business calling anyone “baby love,” as if she’s Diana Ross. The high-pitched refrain of “nice!” is, like the other small vocal effects, an unwelcome distraction.
“Bejeweled” only works for me if I think about it as a song from the perspective of the hugely popular puzzle game Bejeweled. That way, it’s at least kinda funny—not just an extraneous self-affirming kiss-off on an album with other, better ones.
When Swift revealed that “Bejeweled” would be the second song from Midnights to receive a music video, I sighed deeply. There were reasons to believe it could turn out well, sure; she directed it, as she did the quirky video for first single “Anti-Hero,” not to mention the “All Too Well” short film. But doesn’t she realize that “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” or “Question?” would be better picks? What kind of story could something like “Bejeweled” lend itself to? How many shiny beads would Swift decorate her outfits with?
Imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when the music video began not with any tacky, glittery jewelry, but with three of my favorite ladies: Swift’s besties, the Haim sisters of the band Haim. No strangers to excellent music videos themselves, their appearance could only portend good things to come.
In walks Alana, Este, and Danielle Haim, dressed to the nines in garish necklaces, tight corsets, and full skirts. “No, I’m sorry, my dudes, he’s gonna choose me!” Alana tells her sisters of the local prince, whose big bachelor ball is later that night. But Este is wearing nipple tassels, she tells her award-nominated Licorice Pizza actress sister. And then their mother walks in, and it’s Oscar-winning goddess Laura Dern, who plans to poison all the other women in town, so that the prince has no choice but to marry one of them.
Where’s Taylor in all of this? She’s sitting on the ground, scrubbing the dirty floor and enduring her evil stepmother and stepsisters’ cruelty. They forbid her from going to the ball. They call her a harlot! They call her stinky! They even call her—gasp!—a snake! The ladies ditch Taylor to pick out their jewels for the ball, laughing uproariously. On their way out, Alana, Este, and Danielle even break out into their fan-favorite TikTok ditty: “I’m gonna be hungover!/ I’m gonna drink a whole lot of drinks and/ I’m gonna be hungover!”
It’s an incredible, and incredibly rewatchable, opening scene. There’s no one else we would rather hear call Swift a “tired tacky wench” than the iconic Este Haim. Alana’s obsession with how badly Swift smells? Perfection. Even Danielle, the most soft-spoken Haim girl, gets a great moment by telling Swift she’s going to clean her bed pot.
Suck it, Disney: This is the live-action Cinderella remake that we deserve. Call it Cinderella (Taylor’s Version) if you must.
Put-upon Swift may not be totally believable, especially based on how the rest of the story goes: She instantly transforms into a fiery diva decked out in diamonds, heading out to the ball without her family knowing. She’s “polished up real nice,” as she tells us, walking through a glistening hall of pricy rocks. Swift ends up doing a burlesque act in some life-size martini glasses; leading a line of skimpy-dressed dancers in some 1920s-inspired choreography; and, eventually, winning over the queen to earn Prince Jack Antonoff’s hand in marriage—only to take over the throne for herself.
Sadly, the Haim girls and Dern are relegated to yelling at Swift from the background for the rest of the video. Still: The video has a happy ending for Swift, and a happy beginning for us. I still have no desire to ever hear “Bejeweled” again, but I’ll put up with this tacky song if it means getting to see four of my favorite stars yelling at Taylor Swift while wearing some perfectly Victorian dresses.
