Every new album by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is pored over by critics and fans. Her seventh surveys the joys, griefs and lessons of relationships and growing up

“Oh, I don’t wanna grow up,”
Taylor Swift lamented in her
2010 song “Never Grow Up”.

Wanted or not, Swift has grown up. Her seventh album, Lover, released last week, is a grown-up album about grown-up love, the hallmark of which is commitment.

Among the album’s offerings are a zippy song about finally beginning to get over those who’ve hurt us, from childhood bullies to adult critics (“I Forgot That You Existed”), and an acknowledgement of the importance of admitting and apologising for one’s own mistakes (“Afterglow”). “The Archer”, in the track 5 spot which Swift typically reserves for her most emotionally raw songs, expresses frustration with the vagaries and stagnations of growth. “I never grew up, it’s getting so old,” she sighs. But in the song, she is ­habituated to past fears so that she cannot recognise that she has grown up and is less vulnerable to threats that overshadowed past relationships. “I search for your dark side,” she sings of her new boyfriend, “But what if I’m all right, right, right, right here?”