It’s been less than a week since Taylor Swift dropped her latest single, Me!, marking the beginning of a new era in her music career.
The upbeat pop tune features Panic! At the Disco‘s Brendon Urie and will be performed by the pair on Wednesday at the Billboard Music Awards.
Ahead of the performance, Swift, 29, called into the Zach Sang show to detail the song, her seventh studio album and, ultimately, how the album has helped her deal with her own happiness and general mental health.
“Happiness is always going to be a struggle and a challenge we have to try and meet,” said the Shake It Off singer during the interview. “Self-worth is always going to be something, it’s just a process of trying to get there.”
WATCH: Taylor Swift’s Me! video featuring Panic! At the Disco’s Brendan Urie
Swift added that feeling self-worth and happiness are things that we realistically, as people, “feel only sometimes.”
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“This song is a glimpse into the moment when we do feel like that … when we’re having the best day,” she said. “‘You know what? The sun is shining, it’s gonna be an OK day. Everything’s gonna be good, and I’m alright with myself.'”
“One thing to always keep tabs on is the fact that we have to know that there is no happily ever after where we’re just happy forever,” Swift continued. “That’s not naturally how we’re gonna feel all the time … I definitely don’t feel good all the time and I don’t think anybody does.”
“So when I do feel good or I do feel happy or I feel excited about new music, I’m like, ‘Yes! Thank God. OK, awesome. We’re doing good today,'” she said.
Me! has already earned the singer the biggest 24-hour debut on YouTube as not only a female artist but as a solo artist. It pulled in more than 65.2 million views on April 26, its first day on the platform.
When asked if she had to get into the spirit of feeling self-worth and self-importance, Swift admitted that feeling good about herself and her music hasn’t always been the case and that this time around, the desire to help other people find those feelings, too, is keeping things fresh.
“Even in the moment when I’m feeling really, really low, I think it will be helpful when I get to go on stage and play this song and see other people singing it back to me,” said the singer. “It’s not just a song that’s for, ‘Oh, put this song (on) when you feel good about yourself.’ Put this song when you don’t feel good about yourself, and maybe that will help you get back to a point (where you do).”
On the process of making her upcoming and untitled record, Swift revealed it’s been an entirely new experience, much like the rest of her discography.
“There have been times where I needed to take years off because I just felt exhausted or I felt like, really low or really bad… so you never really have the same process making an album,” she said.
“Right now, thankfully, I feel really energized — which I’m feeling really grateful for. It’s not something that I take for granted. I’m very very conscious of how I do feel about this new music and how there’s this excitement surrounding it.”
Swift added: “I try to take a mental snapshot of that every day and just remember that I’m really lucky I get to feel this way.”
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Me! is now available through all major streaming platforms.
As of this writing, Swift has revealed no definite details on her upcoming seventh studio album, only that the album’s name is hidden somewhere in the Me! video, and many of her fans have already guessed it.
Currently, Swift has no scheduled tour dates.