Castles Crumbling

"Castles Crumbling" has a length of five minutes and six seconds.[33] Swift wrote the track and produced it with Jack Antonoff, who also provided programming and played instruments including acoustic, bass, electric guitar, drums, piano, and synthesizer. Others musicians on the song were Bobby Hawk (violin), Eric Byers (cello), Evan Smith (flute, saxophone), Mikey Freedom Hart (synthesizer), and Sean Hutchinson (drums, percussion). Antonoff, Smith, David Hart, and Laura Sisk engineered the track, with assistance from John Rooney, Jon Sher, and Megan Searl. Christopher Rowe and Taylor York engineered the song's vocals. It was mixed by Serban Ghenea with mix engineering from Bryce Bordone, and was mastered by Randy Merrill.[1] Music commentary labeled "Castles Crumbling" as an emo song[19][34] with indie folk influence.[32] The song is built off a prominent piano line.[34] The first verse is performed by Swift, while Williams sings the second.[35] Two singers are performing the chorus together, while during the song's outro they harmonize with each other.[36]

During the development of Speak Now, Swift was under public scrutinity, with her love life being the subject of mainstream media gossip, and the singer's transition from country music to pop music receiving skeptical opinions—sentiment she carries over the first verse of "Castles Crumbling".[35] Various critics and fans drew a connection between it and Kanye West's interruption of Swift's acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.[16][37][38][39] The singer explained in her 2020 documentary Miss Americana that she assumed that she was booed at.[20] Due to that, the track received comparisons to "Innocent", another song addressing the incident.[40]

The chorus sees Swift ensuring someone to not get involved in a relationship with her.[16] Uproxx' writer Flisadam Pointer opined that it might be a nod to the singer's fans, and that the performer thinks that their support can be very fragile.[41] It is followed by a verse with guest vocals provided by Williams. Its lyrics focus on the pressure put on Swift, due to her influence over younger generation, introducing them to country music.[35] The second verse also illustrates how small missteps might have a catastrophic influence over someone's career.[19] The pre-chorus sees the artists sing: "Power went to my head and I couldn't stop / Ones I loved tried to help, so I ran them off".[19]

"Castles Crumbling" was widely compared to "Nothing New" (2021), another vault track featuring Phoebe Bridgers (pictured).

Various publications pointed out how the lyrics of "Castles Crumbling" parallel with those from Swift's sixth studio album, Reputation, due to "fall from grace" theme.[43][22][44] Additionally, the 2017 album features similar lyrics, most notably "Call It What You Want" which features lines "My castles crumbled overnight" and "Bridges burn, I never did learn".[45] The song was widely compared to "Nothing New", a vault track included on Red (Taylor's Version) (2021) featuring Phoebe Bridgers, since it is a self-written piece with a guest vocals from female friend, "grappl[ing] with a particular kind of self-doubt, caused by the glare of a spotlight in her eyes" as put by Callie Alhgrim from Business Insider.[34][20] The self-loathing themes in the bridge were likened to "The Archer" from Lover (2019), "Mirrorball" from Folklore (2020) and "Anti-Hero" from Midnights (2022).[35][16][20][43] Another connection to Swift's future projects was made by Mikael Wood from Los Angeles Times, who compared the song's sonicscape to indie folk sound of Folklore and Evermore (both 2020).[32] In The Daily Telegraph and The Line of Best Fit, authors thought that listeners expecting the collaboration to sound similar to work of Paramore could be disappointed, due to its "somewhat saccharine tone" and resembling Williams' solo projects.[46][47] Additionally, Parade's Jessica Sager noted that the title might be a nod to Paramore's "Brick By Boring Brick" (2009), within which Williams sings "bury the castle".[22]

Poppie Platt of The Daily Telegraph opined that "Castles Crumbling" is a neat addition to other Speak Now ballads, such as "Enchanted" and "Last Kiss".[46] Maura Johnston of Rolling Stone described it as a "gauzy surveying of a ruined personal landscape".[40] Laura Snapes from The Guardian said it is a "crestfallen, delicate song" and a "prescient song for Swift to have written at the outset of her imperial phase".[48] Labeling the track as "a duet for the ages", British Rolling Stone critic Mark Sutherland praise how the singers' voices "gorgeously intertwin[e] as they wrestle with the fear that the cheers may one day turn to jeers".[49] Consequence's Mary Siroky named "Castles Crumbling" the song of the week, writing that it is "a soft — but poignant — reclamation of the narrative".[36] In the article published on Spin, Bobby Olivier opined that it is a "stronger" duet offered in Speak Now (Taylor's Version) than "Electric Touch", a collaboration with the band Fall Out Boy, calling it a "deliciously emo piano burner".[34] Despite placing the song last on his ranking of the album's "From the Vault" tracks, Jason Lipshutz of Billboard wrote that the production is "brimming with ethereal voices and Swift and Williams maintaining mournful attitudes as they examine their personal wreckage".[50]