Taylor Swift [1] let her music do the talking during her Reputation era, but now she's slowly opening up for her next album [2]. After teasing what's to come during a handful of radio interviews, the singer talked with Entertainment Weekly for her first sit-down magazine interview [3] in three years, which hits newsstands on May 10! And let's just say, it was well worth the wait. In addition to looking absolutely fabulous on the cover (pink hair and all), Swift also talks about her seventh album (which will include more songs than any of her previous albums, FYI), the cryptic palm tree photo [4] that started it all, and how she's trained her dedicated Swifties to look for hidden Easter eggs [5]. Spoiler: she actually teased this new era a whole year ago. See some of her best quotes ahead!

• On that infamous palm trees photo: "I posted that the day that I finished the seventh album. I couldn't expect [my fans] to know that. I figured they'd figure it out later, but a lot of their theories were actually correct. Those Easter eggs were just trying to establish that tone, which I foreshadowed ages ago in a Spotify vertical video for 'Delicate' [6] by painting my nails those [pastel] colors."
• On her fans being trained detectives: "I've trained them to be that way. I love that they like the cryptic hint-dropping. Because as long as they like it, I'll keep doing it. It's fun. It feels mischievous and playful."
• On the true meaning behind her Reputation album: "It's definitely the fans that made that tonal shift in the way I was feeling. Songwriters need to communicate, and part of communicating correctly is when you put out a message that is understood the way you meant it. Reputation was interesting because I'd never before had an album that wasn't fully understood until it was seen live. When it first came out everyone thought it was just going to be angry; upon listening to the whole thing they realized it's actually about love and friendship, and finding out what your priorities are."
• On the emotional tone of the new album: "There's a lot of a lot on this album. I'm trying to convey an emotional spectrum. I definitely don't wanna have too much of one thing . . . You get some joyful songs and you get the bops, as they say. [There are some] really, really, really, really sad songs [but] not enough to where you need to worry about me."
• On how her seventh album will be different from Reputation: "This time around I feel more comfortable being brave enough to be vulnerable, because my fans are brave enough to be vulnerable with me. Once people delve into the album, it'll become pretty clear that that's more of the fingerprint of this — that it's much more of a singer-songwriter, personal journey than the last one."