We all know the struggle: you take a super cute photo that you want to post on Instagram, but struggle to find the perfect caption to share the moment. This happens to me all the time.

In search of inspiration, I’ve gone through Taylor Swift’s back catalog of music and writing in search of the best lyrics for your Instagram captions. After all, who doesn’t remember 2014, when every #OOTD post was captioned “Darling I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream?”.

If you’re looking for some more recent lyrical inspo, I’ve written an updated post for Folklore and Evermore lyrics that you can find here.

Fearless

• Every time you shine, I’ll shine for you
• There’s something about the way the street looks when it’s just rained, There’s a glow off the pavement
• With you I’d dance in a storm in my best dress
• These walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down

Speak Now

• I go back to December all the time
• Don’t lose the way that you dance around in your p.j.s getting ready for school
• This night is sparkling don’t you let it go
• I said remember this moment, In the back of my mind
• All the kingdom lights shined just for me and you
• So don’t you worry your pretty little mind, People throw rocks at things that shine

Red

• I’m walking fast through traffic lights, Busy streets and busy lives, And all we know is touch and go
• This is the golden age of something good and right and real
• The colours in autumn, so bright just before they lose it all
• The air was cold, But something about it felt like home somehow
• Plaid shirt days
• It feels like the perfect night to dress up like hipsters and make fun of our exes / It feels like the perfect night for breakfast at midnight, to fall in love with strangers
• We’re happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time / We’re happy, free, confused, and lonely in the best way
• Everything will be alright if you keep me next to you
• I was reminiscing just the other day, While having coffee all alone and Lord, it took me away
• Spinning like a girl in a brand new dress
• We had the big wide city all to ourselves
• I don’t wanna dance if I’m not dancing with you
• You’ve got your demons and darling they all look like me
• It was the best night never will forget how we moved
• The whole place was dressed to the nines, And we were dancing like we’re made of starlight
• Look at you worrying too much about things you can’t change, You’ll spend your whole life singing the blues if you keep thinking that way
• Don’t you see the starlight? Don’t you dream impossible things?
• On a Wednesday in a café I watched it begin again

1989

• Kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats under coats
• Everybody here wanted something more, Searching for a sound we hadn’t heard before
• It’s a new soundtrack, I could dance to this beat forevermore
• The lights are so bright but they never blind me
• Took our broken hearts, put them in a drawer
• Nice to meet you, where you been? I could show you incredible things / Cherry lips, crystal skies, I could show you incredible things
• Magic, Madness, Heaven, Sin
• Grab your passport and my hand
• I love the players and you love the game
• We’re young and we’re reckless
• Could end in burning flames or paradise
• I got that red lip, classic thing that you like / I got that good girl faith and a tight little skirt
• The rest of the world was black and white, But we were in screaming colour
• Two paper airplanes flying
• The monsters turned out to be just trees
• People like me are gone forever when you say goodbye
• I wish you knew that I’ll never forget you as long as I live
• We’re a crooked love in a straight line down
• Let’s get out of this town, Drive out of the city, away from the crowds
• Say you’ll remember me standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset, babe
• High tide came and brought you in
• In silent screams and wildest dreams I never dreamed of this
• When you’re young you just run, But you come back to what you need
• They are the hunters, we are the foxes, and we run
• Rain came pouring down when I was drowning, That’s when I could finally breathe
• Haven’t you heard what becomes of curious minds?
• It’s all fun and games until somebody loses their mind
• For once you let go of your fears and your ghosts
• Dancing in a snowglobe round and round
• We show off our different scarlet letters, Trust me mine is better
• We play dumb but we know exactly what we’re doing
• Life is just a classroom
• Heartbreak is the national anthem, we sing it proudly
• The best people in life are free

reputation

• Touch me and you’ll never be alone
• Stealing hearts and and running off and never saying sorry
• Island breeze and lights down low, No one has to know
• I just wanna be drinking on a beach with you all over me
• If a man talks shit then I owe him nothing
• They’re burning all the witches, even if you aren’t one, So light me up
• I once was poison ivy, but now I’m your daisy
• The light of freedom on my face
• Say you fancy me, not fancy stuff
• Deep blue but you painted me golden
• Made your mark on me, a golden tattoo
• Everyone swimming in a champagne sea
• You don’t need to save me, But would you run away with me?

Lover

• Fever dream high in the quiet of the night, you know that I caught it
• Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes
• I don’t wanna keep secrets, just to keep you!
• I love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?
• This is our place, we make the rules
• There’s a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you
• Take me out and take me home
• Can I go where you go?
• It’s all good if you’re bad
• Who could ever leave me, darling? But who could stay?
• Wanna see what’s under that attitude
• We can follow the sparks, I’ll drive
• Lost in a film scene
• I’m lost in the lights
• You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes
• We’re so sad, we paint the town blue
• Voted most likely to run away with you
• I get mystified by how this city screams your name
• I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be alright, they say “I don’t know”
• They say home is where the heart is but that’s not where mine lives
• Babe, don’t threaten me with a good time
• I’m just like “damn, it’s 7am”
• We all got crowns
• Meet me in the afterglow
• I promise that you’ll never find another like me
• I never wanna see you walk away
• It’s nice to have a friend
• I’ll tell you the truth, but never “Goodbye”
• I don’t wanna look at anything else now that I saw you
• Now I see daylight / I only see daylight
• You are what you love

Taylor’s Writing

• You deserve to look back on your life without a chorus of resounding voices saying ‘I could’ve, but it’s too late now”
• Isn’t it wild and intriguing and beautiful to think that every day we are new?
• This is the first generation that will be able to look back on their entire life story documented in pictures on the internet
• Ultimately, we post photos online to curate what strangers think of us
• We are never just good or just bad. We are mosaics of our worst selves and our best selves
• Cracked her bones on the pavement she once decorated as a child with sidewalk chalk
• Her skin was spattered with ink, forming the words of a thousand voices
• She dreamed of … a love that was really something, Not just the idea of something
• Wild ocean up to her neck
• May your heart remain breakable, But never by the same hand twice
• Without your past, you could never have arrived- So wondrously and brutally, By design or some violent, exquisite happenstance … here
• And in the death of her reputation, She felt truly alive