Taylor Swift might have an honorary degree from NYU, but these tracks are so Columbia.

• “Lavender Haze” – The secondhand smoke outside of Butler
  • There’s nothing quite like the mixture of tobacco smoke and Juul vapor above the benches outside of Butler. Especially on foggy days, it all combines to make a suffocating cloud that Taylor was definitely talking about in this lead track.
• “Maroon” – Rotting apples in Chef Mike’s Sub Shop
  • Who knows how long these apples have been here? I certainly have never taken one! At this point, they’re all the shades of red Taylor describes in this track: burgundy, scarlet, rust, and the especially rotten ones, maroon.
• “Anti-Hero” – Lee C. Bollinger
  • It’s Lee, hi, I’m the problem it’s Lee. This track could have been written by PrezBo himself; from the covert narcissism disguised as altruism to getting older but never wiser, he is totally Columbia’s anti-hero.
• “Snow on the Beach” (featuring Lana Del Rey) – Lerner Hall
  • Just like snow on the beach, Lerner is “weird but fucking beautiful.” With its five floors of ramps and wall of windows, we’re pretty sure this is what Taylor and Lana were singing about.
• “You’re on Your Own, Kid” – Columbia Psychological Services
  • CPS is great and all, but is one zoom therapy session every three weeks really doing that much for anyone? Trying to make an appointment and being told the next opening is in a month really makes you feel like “you’re on you’re own kid, you always have been.”
• “Midnight Rain” – Crying in Butler
  • We’ve all been there! It’s midnight, you have your orgo/Shakespeare/macroeconomics exam in ten hours, and you realize that you are completely fucked. Sometimes you just gotta let it all out, and sometimes you gotta do it in Butler.
• “Question…?” – “Is the final cumulative?”
  • Now that we’re all (hopefully) through midterms, this is the question on the tip of everyone’s tongue, especially that British guy in your 100-person lecture who has not once looked at the syllabus. Unfortunately, the answer is probably yes.
• “Vigilante Shit” – Stealing a carton of oat milk from Ferris
  • Listen, for what we pay in tuition, it’s only right that we don’t have to pay for our own oat milk. It is basically retributive justice to slip one of those cartons in your tote bag, as well as enough bananas and salt and vinegar chips to last you a week.
• “Bejeweled” – Mary C. Boyce as depicted in the 2022 Varsity Show
  • She slayed. In all her Effie Trinket grandeur, she walked into the room and “made the whole place shimmer.” Enough said.
• “Labyrinth” – Schermerhorn Hall
  • One time I was trying to find a bathroom in Schermerhorn and ended up in the lobby of Mudd. I swear the stairs and hallways of this building rearrange when you aren’t looking, Harry Potter style, especially the extension. Who designed this place? Will I ever find a bathroom? Or see the outside world again?
• “Karma” – Roar-ee
  • Taylor said it herself: “karma is a cat.” As Columbia’s coolest cat on campus, we can only assume this song is about Roar-ee himself.
• “Sweet Nothing” – John Jay dessert section
  • When the John Jay desserts are stocked, they’re pretty good! However, half the time there is nothing there but some stale scones that were definitely put out at least six hours ago. All John Jay ever gave us was sweet nothin’.
• “Mastermind” – Dr. Michael Thaddeus
  • The it girl of the mathematics department, Dr. Thaddeus’ analysis on Columbia’s US News ranking is what dropped us from #2 to #18. What if I told you he’s a mastermind?

Honorary Columbia Alum Taylor via Wikimedia Commons