Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?

"Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?"Song by Taylor Swift
General information
Artist	Taylor Swift
Released	April 19, 2024
Recorded	December 2022
Genre	Chamber pop, indie pop, alt-pop, synth-pop, pop rock
Length	5:34 5:36 (First Draft Phone Memo)
Album	The Tortured Poets Department
Label	Republic Records
Writer(s)	Swift
Producer(s)	Swift Jack Antonoff
The Tortured Poets Department track list
"Guilty as Sin?"
"Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?"
"I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)"
Official videos

"Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" is the tenth track from American singer and songwriter Taylor Swift's eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, released on April 19, 2024, through Republic Records.

Background

The song was leaked on April 17, 2024, two days prior to the scheduled release along with the rest of the album. It was the first song to leak.

In an introduction of the song on IHeartRadio, Swift said of the song:

“	So being in the public eye since I was a young teenager, there's alot that that does to your perception of the world, you preception of yourself; the idea that the world has this sense of ownership and not just a right, but they feel they have a responsibility to judge you, and to critique you, and to weigh in. You know, that can really toy with you. Who's Afraid of Little Old Me was a song i wrote, just alone sitting in the piano, in one of those moments when i felt sort of bitter about..just all the things we do to our artists as a society and as a culture. There's alot about this particular concept on The Tortured Poets Department. What do we do to our writers and our artists and our creatives? We put them through hell, we watch what they create, then we judge it. We love to watch artists in pain, often to a point where I think sometimes as a society we provoke that pain, we just watch what happens. So there's lines about feeling like I've been in the circus, or I'm feeling like I'm sort of like a witch in a haunted house. Those are some ways I feel sometimes when I'm not able to kind of write the shit and cope with my normal coping mechanism, so this song was just a very, very true way that i feel sometimes, and it's always good when you can be honest about those things.	”
—Taylor Swift, IHeartRadio

Lyrics

• Album version
• First Draft Phone Memo

[Verse 1]
The who's who of who's that is poised for the attack
But my bare hands paved their paths
You don't get to tell me about sad
If you wanted me dead you should've just said
Nothing makes me feel more alive

[Chorus]
So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
"Who's afraid of little old me?"
You should be

[Verse 2]
Her scandal was contained
The bullet had just grazed
At all costs keep your good name
You don't get to tell me you feel bad
Is it a wonder I broke?
Let's hear one morе joke
Then we could all just laugh until I cry

[Chorus]
So I lеap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
"Who's afraid of little old me?"

[Post-Chorus]
I was tame, I was gentle till the circus life made me mean
Don't you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth
Who's afraid of little old me?
Well you should be
You should be, you should be
You should be, you should be
You should be

[Bridge]
So tell me everything is not about me, but what if it is?
Then say they didn't do it to hurt me, but what if they did?
I wanna snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me
You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me
So all you kids can sneak into my house with all the cobwebs
I'm always drunk on my own tears, isn't that what they all said?
That I'll sue you if you step on my lawn
That I'm fearsome and I'm wretched and I'm wrong
Put narcotics into all of my songs
And that's why you're still singing along

[Chorus]
So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
"Who's afraid of little old me?"
I was tame, I was gentle till the circus life made me mean
Don't you worry folks we took out all her teeth
Who's afraid of little old me?
Well you should be
You should be, you should be

[Outro]
'Cause you lured me and you hurt me and you taught me
You caged me and then you called me crazy
I am what I am, 'cause you trained me
So who's afraid of me?
Who's afraid of little old me?
Who's afraid of little old me?

Note: Lyrical changes between versions have been italicized.

[Spoken Intro]
Okay, I'm gonna try to play this in one go
Umm, this is called "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?"

[Verse 1]
The who's who of who's that is poised for the attack
But my bare hands paved their paths
You don't get to tell me about sad
If you wanted me dead, you should've just said
Nothing makes me feel more alive

[Chorus]
So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
"Who's afraid of little old me?"
You should be

[Verse 2]
The scandal was contained
The bullet had just grazed
At all costs keep your good name
You don't get to tell me that I'm bad
Is it a wonder I brokе?
Let's hear one morе joke
Then we could all just laugh until I cry

[Chorus]
So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
"Who's afraid of little old me?"

[Post-Chorus]
I was tame, I was gentle till the circus life made me mean
Don't you worry folks, we took out all her teeth
Who's afraid of little old me?
You should be, you should be
You should be, you should be
You should be, you should be

[Bridge]
So tell me everything is not about me, but what if it is?
And say they didn't do it to hurt me, but what if they did?
I wanna snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me
He wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me
So all you kids can sneak into my house with all the cobwebs
I'm always drunk on my own tears, isn't that what they all said?
That I'll sue you if you step on my lawn
That I'm fearsome and I'm wretched and I'm wrong
Put narcotics into all of my songs
And that's why you're still singing along

[Chorus]
So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
"Who's afraid of little old me?"
I was tame, I was gentle till your circus life made me mean
Don't you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth
Who's afraid of little old me?
Well, you should be
You should be, you should be

[Outro]
'Cause you lured me and you hurt me and you taught me
You caged me and you called me crazy
I am what I am, well, 'cause you trained me
So who's afraid of me?
Who's afraid of little old me?
Who's afraid of little old me?

[Spoken Outro]
For the most part, that was almost, sort of, what it should be
I'm gonna work on the melodies and the bridge so they don't become repetitive like that
But that's just the like framework and I might take some things out, but
Yeah, just a song about being crazy

Live performances

A shortened version of the song was added to The Eras Tour setlist as the third song of the The Tortured Poets Department set and the thirty-third song of the setlist.