Taylor Swift’s “Karma” Lyrics Meaning

The way Taylor Swift has described “Karma”, most simply interpreted, is as it being a roundabout ode to her success and longevity. And the ways she goes about expressing that is basically by personifying karma, let’s say as an entity that is present in all of our lives – yin and yang, reaping what you sow or however you want to put it.

The reason why the vocalist is worshipping karma, if you will, is because under her estimation, it has been very kind to her. Or put otherwise, Taylor is attributing her continued come-up to the notion that she ‘keeps her side of the street clean’, which we will take as meaning Swift doesn’t perceive herself as being grimy or anything like that.

By contrast, the second verse focuses on someone she’s familiar with who the songstress describes as being the “king of thieves”. As implied, this is a person who stole from her, and it would further seem on more than one occasion. But what Taylor is telling this individual, fundamentally, is that there’s more to life than money.

So yes, he may have beat her in the head monetarily, but at the end of the day, it’s as if karma has come and exacted its revenge in a different way. And of course, all things considered, it has been reasonably speculated that who Tay Tay may be referring to here is Scooter Braun or, less likely, the ever-embattled Kanye West, both of whom are among her known rivals.

All in All

So this is an interesting track when compared to other songs from Taylor’s “Midnights” album that we have already looked at. For instance, in “Vengeance Sh*t“, Taylor rather depicts herself as someone who is actively engaged in getting her enemies back.

But in this instance, she is taking a passive stance in that regard. And whereas Swift rarely brags, she also uses the opportunity to let the world know that she is aware of the fact that she’s endured while others have fallen off.

But again, the implication being relayed here is that Swift doesn’t consider her talent as being the primary cause of her prosperity. Instead, she has been able to triumph and last as an A lister in the game because she isn’t as sheisty as many of her peers.

Release of “Karma”

This track was officially released on 21 October 2022, being one of the 13 songs found on the standard edition of “Midnights”. “Midnights” is the title of Taylor Swift’s third studio album of the 2020s and 10^th overall. And this song’s title was first made known to her fans a couple of weeks prior, on 5 October.

Credits

This is one of the few instances on “Midnights” where a song was composed by additional musicians besides Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift, as others who are also credited in both a writing and production capacity are:

• Jahaan Sweet
• Sounwave
• Keanu Beats

Interesting to Note

And this track was put out through Republic Records, whom Swift has been a signee of since 2018, shortly thereafter falling out with her original label, Big Machine Records. And the well-publicized beef she got into with Big Machine was in large part due to involvement of Scooter Braun, who proceeded to buy the master recordings of the songs Taylor had released under that label, though she reportedly implored them not to allow him to purchase them beforehand.

Swifties talk about “Karma”

Taylor’s fans have applauded the way she changed their perspective on something thought to be a revenge medium into a positive view. They further express that this means karma can be viewed as finding people who value them, or realizing their worth, which makes them love this track.

Others shared that they are in awe of Taylor’s lyrical maturity and experimental production, and she creatively mixed these with classic radio pop vibes.

Many Swifties were fast to comment that “Karma” sheds light on what happened to Taylor recently over her music rights. They commended her for doing the right thing throughout the said challenge and leaving the rest to karma.

All in all, fans believe that this is what the world needs right now. This, being incredible melodies and soul-touching music.