Taylor Swift is facing backlash over a controversial line about wanting to live in the 1830s on her new album The Tortured Poets Department, RadarOnline.com has learned.
"My friends used to play a game where / We would pick a decade / We wished we could live in instead of this / I'd say the 1830s but without all the racists / And getting married off for the highest bid," she sings the track "I Hate It Here."
The pop star does go on to temper her nostalgia for a bygone era.
"Everyone would look down 'cause it wasn't fun now / Seems like it was never even fun back then," the song's lyrics continue. "Nostalgia is a mind's trick / If I'd been there, I'd hate it / It was freezing in the palace."
Still, many listeners have taken to social media to criticize the sentiment as tone-deaf, pointing out that slavery was still legal and active in the American South in the 1830s.
President Andrew Jackson also signed the Indian Removal Act into law in 1830, leading to the forced displacement of over 60,000 Native Americans known as the Trail of Tears.
"Y'all.. there are so many wrong things about this," one user wrote on X alongside a screenshot of the song's lyrics from Genius.
"There is no way Taylor Swift said she’d like to live in an era where Chattel Slavery was the law of the land and say ‘but without the racists.’ Like it was some casual microaggressions or something. Is this what we’re doing??” another tweeted.
"Pretty astonishing to stipulate that she wants to live in the 1830s, ‘except without the racists,’ and not mention slavery, so slavery still exists but everyone’s chill about it,” someone else added.
"The 1830's without racism is like a book with no pages," someone joked.
"It’s just the fact that not everyone can imagine living in 1830. She knew that sounded bad and that’s why she added 'without the racists' part. This isn’t the first time she’s romanticized non progressive eras in time," one listener wrote.
"To a certain extent I get it like things were extremely simple but 1830's AMERICA WHERE SLAVERY WAS STILL VERY LEGAL WHATS GREAT ABOUT THAT???? That worries me as a black listener and that's why I stepped away."
"Taylor Swift wanting to go back to the 1830s surprised no Black person anywhere,” another added.
“I know I can’t stfu abt Taylor Swift but of all time periods WHY THE 1830s??? The most notable event from the time period is the trail of tears like I cannot wrap my head around it? Is this another one of her dumba-- codes?” a different tweet reads.
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Other fans, however, defended Swift's lyrics. "It's an interesting commentary on how we sometimes idealize certain eras without fully considering the realities of living in them," one commenter said.
Swift's new album, The Tortured Poets Department, also addresses her past relationships with ex-boyfriends Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy and reignited her longstanding feud with Kim Kardashian.
