Just before the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, Taylor Swift released a video for her newest single, Out of the Woods.

The music video was shot in South Island, New Zealand and was directed by the talented director Joseph Khan. Khan directed Swift’s videos for Blank Space, Bad Blood and Wildest Dreams.

The video for “Out of the Woods” represented the message behind her album 1989. The message was “she lost him but found herself and somehow that was everything.” Unlike her other videos, this video does not contain a love interest. When you listen to the song, you would think it is about a relationship, but the way she portrays the video told a different story.

It told the story of someone who loses herself and gets knocked down and finds a way to pick herself back up, and in the end finds herself. The setting of the video told the message of the story perfectly. The first and last scene were shot on an open beach and the in between scenes were shot in the woods, this accompanied the message very well. The beach represented her finding herself and the woods represented the struggles it took to do that.

Symbolism played a large role in this video, from the setting, costume to the graphics, all of them had a symbolic meaning. Each time you watch it you find something new. Unlike other artists, Swift wasn’t just standing there singing.

The video tells a story of something she went through in a symbolic way. She once again found a way to not only deliver her music, but also her story to her fans.