Throwback Thursday ‘You Need to Calm Down’ by Taylor Swift (2019)

I asked for some input on my social media for Throwback Thursday's songs in June. I wanted them all to be Pride-themed, but there are only four Thursdays in June so it was hard to whittle it down. Also, please note that I have already done "Born This Way" and "Same Love" for previous Pride Throwbacks so stop yelling at me.

Ok, now that that is out of the way.

Get our free mobile app

Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down" was the second single off of her album, Lover. 

I could have sworn this song was older than that, but I think I lost all sense of time in 2020.

Anyway, "You Need to Calm Down" quickly became a Pride anthem. According to Wikipedia, "A lyric video for the song was released together with the song on YouTube. The video contained several easter eggs, including changing the word "glad" to GLAAD, and highlighting "EA" letters as a reference to the Equality Act.^[8] The references followed Swift's donation to GLAAD in support of Pride Month,^[9] and Swift's Change.org petition for the United States Senate to pass the Equality Act... Following the release of the song, GLAAD reported an "influx" of donations in the amount of $13, a reference to Swift's favorite number."

The music video featured many celebrity cameos, most of whom are part of the LGBTQIA+ community. The cameos include, but are not limited to Laverne Cox, Todrick Hall, Hayley Kiyoko, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Justin Mikita, Ciara, Queer Eye's Fab Five (Tan France, Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown, Antoni Porowski, Jonathan Van Ness),  Adam Rippon,  Adam Lambert, Ellen DeGeneres, Ryan Reynolds, Billy Porter, and RuPaul.

This was also the music video that squashed the beef between Taylor Swift and Katy Perry! Katy was the hamburger to Taylor's french fries! 

The music video was nominated for nine awards at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, including the category Video of the Year. "You Need to Calm Down" was the most nominated video that night. It won Video of the Year and Video for Good.

"You Need to Calm Down" was nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards.

"You Need to Calm Down" went all the way to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, #3 on the Adult Top 40 chart, and #9 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart.