This New Song Makes '1989' Her Best Album Ever

I will be the first to admit that I am incredibly biased here. I actually live in New York, after all. However, Taylor Swift's 1989 is one of the most anticipated albums of 2014, as far as I'm concerned, and everything that has been released from the album so far has been amazing. "Shake It Off" and "Out of the Woods" have become my most played songs on iTunes. Swift has released preview lyrics on Instagram that have us all speculating what each song is about. And, even better, she's been releasing preview clips of the songs themselves. On Monday, Swift previewed "Welcome to New York," the first track on 1989, and it is absolutely everything.

Swift explained her entire outlook on the song in an accompanying interview on her YouTube channel:

I wanted to start the album with this song because New York has been an important landscape and location for the story of my life in the last couple of years. I dreamt about moving to New York, I obsessed over moving to New York, and then I did it. The inspiration that I found in that city is hard to describe and hard to compare to any other force of inspiration I've ever experienced in my life. It's an electric city. I approached moving there with such wide-eyed optimism and saw it as a place of endless potential and possibilities and you can kind of hear that reflected in this music and in this first song especially.

If that's what she's trying to deliver here, then I can already tell you that she succeeded. The preview that she released included the lyric that Swift wrote out on her Instagram along with a little extra not just in words but in music. There's the synth pop sound she's been going for on 1989 accompanied by rhythmic clapping that basically ensures you'll be listening to this to either pump you up on your way to work in the city or to inspire you to move to New York yourself. It's like "Empire State of Mind" except, you know, less rap and more pop. So maybe it's instead the New York–based version of "California Gurls"?

The lyrics we have for the song are inspirational and, quite honestly, as a mostly-native New Yorker, they make me a little smug about everything that my city has to offer. It's often been said jokingly that New York considers itself the center of the universe, but how are we supposed to think any differently when we now have this as our theme? California who?

Searching for a sound we hadn't heard before

Welcome to New York

It's been waiting for you

Welcome to New York

Welcome to New York

Welcome to New York

It's been waiting for you

Welcome to New York

Welcome to New York

It's a new soundtrack

I could dance to this beat forevermore

At this point, my only question is, why there is still an entire week separating me from the release of this album? I want it now. On the bright side, "Welcome to New York" will be available on iTunes at midnight on Monday, October 20, so at least we don't have to wait a week to get that. Listen to the preview below.