The lyrics see a narrator affirming her self-worth upon being unappreciated by her partner; Swift said they were also a metaphorical statement of her return to pop music with Midnights after the 2020 folk-oriented albums Folklore and Evermore.

The song peaked at number eight on the Billboard Global 200 and within the top 10 on charts in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, the Philippines, and the United States.

Taylor Swift announced her tenth original studio album, Midnights, at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards on August 28;[1] its title and cover artwork were released shortly after the same day via social media.

[2] She conceived Midnights as a collection of songs about her nocturnal ruminations, detailing a wide range of emotions such as regret, lust, nostalgia, contentment, and self-loathing.

The standard album was produced by Swift and Jack Antonoff, as a result of the two experimenting with music while their partners were both shooting for a film in Panama.

[5] Republic Records released Midnights on October 21, 2022;[6] its synth-based electropop production was a departure from the indie folk sounds of its immediate predecessors, Folklore and Evermore (2020).

Antonoff also programmed the track and played percussion, kalimba, acoustic guitars, bass, and a variety of synths including Juno 6, DX7, OB1, and Moog.

[36] Its production consists of synth arpeggios, mostly generated with the Juno 6,[37] that make up the hooks with a sound that critics described as "glimmering",[33] "plinking",[38] and "shimmery".

[37] Annie Zaleski found the synth production to resemble 1980s new wave,[42] and Craig Jenkins of Vulture thought that the song has a maximalist quality similar to the music of Swift's 2019 album Lover.

PopMatters's Rick Quinn likened the theme of asserting a woman's autonomy to that of Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me" (1963),[47] and Zaleski summed up the song's mantra as "Fake it 'til you make it" as the narrator stands up for themselves in a relationship and regains confidence.

[38] Helen Brown of The Independent wrote, Swift "warns a guy that she has the capacity to light up rooms (and all the boys in the band) if he doesn't pay more attention".

[59] Besides Swift, the cast of the "Bejeweled" music video—Antonoff, the actress Laura Dern, the female pop-rock band Haim (Este, Danielle, and Alana), the burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese, and the makeup artist Pat McGrath—also appeared in the trailer.

Joseph Cassell, a stylist of Swift, studied Von Teese's collection and subsequently made recreations of Catherine D'lish original costumes for the video.

[64][66] Taylor then passes through an environment filled with falling gemstones before taking her cloak off, revealing a black American burlesque-inspired dance outfit.

Exiting the elevator on a higher floor, Taylor meets her "fairy goddess" (Von Teese), both wearing silver burlesque-style outfits.

[66] Finally, Taylor reaches the thirteenth floor and takes the stage at the ball in a clockwork-inspired setting surrounded by showgirls, wearing a black jewelled two-piece outfit and silver heels.

The music video ends with the Prince shrugging off and accepting Taylor's rejection while she enjoys the view from her newly acquired castle as three dragons fly around it.