Thank You Aimee

"Thank You Aimee" (stylized as "thanK you aIMee") is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, from the double album edition of her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology (2024). Swift and Aaron Dessner wrote the track, and the two produced it with Jack Antonoff. A country and folk track instrumented by guitar strums, its lyrics are about dealing with a high-school bully.

Due to the lyrical content and the stylization of the title, some media publications interpreted "Thank You Aimee" as a diss track towards Kim Kardashian. It peaked at number 29 on the Billboard Global 200 and reached the national charts of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and the United States. Swift performed the song in a mashup with her track "Mean" (2010) at the London stop of her Eras Tour (2023–24).

Background and release
Taylor Swift released the standard edition of The Tortured Poets Department on April 19, 2024, containing sixteen tracks and four different seventeenth bonus track among different vinyl variant releases. Two hours after release, she surprise-released fifteen more tracks as a double album titled The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, which included the song "Thank You Aimee". On June 22, 2024, Swift performed it as part of a mashup with her track "Mean" (2010) at the London stop of the Eras Tour (2023–24).

Swift has had a longstanding public feud with American rapper Kanye West, which began when West walked onstage and interrupted Swift's acceptance speech for Best Female Video at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. In 2016, West released the single "Famous". Swift considered the lyrics of the song misogynistic, and felt West wrongfully took credit for her success. Several months later, West's then-wife, media personality Kim Kardashian, posted edited excerpts of a video showing a phone call between West and Swift that suggested Swift approved of the offending lyric. The full version of the video was later leaked in 2020, showing that Swift ultimately did not approve of some of West's lyrics. The controversy partially inspired Swift's sixth studio album, Reputation (2017). In her 2023 interview for Time Person of the Year, Swift referred to Kardashian's actions as "a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar."

Composition
"Thank You Aimee" is 24th on the track list of The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. It is a country and folk track with country pop stylings, instrumented by guitar strums. The song is written in the key of G major in common time with a tempo of 96 beats per minute. Swift's lead vocals range from G3 to C5. Its lyrical content is directed towards Aimee, a character described as an old high-school bully. In the third verse, Swift's character thanks Aimee, telling her that even though she "wrote a thousand songs that you find uncool", she "built a legacy which you can't undo", adding that "there wouldn't be this, if there hadn't been you". In the bridge, Swift's character criticizes Aimee's lack of development ("I don't think you've changed much. And so I changed your name, and any real defining clues").

Due to the lyrical content and the title's stylization with the capitalized letters spelling about "Kim", many media publications speculated that "Thank You Aimee" was a diss track directed at Kardashian; some thought that it was unnecessary for Swift to relive a long-gone feud. Kim Kardashian, the alleged target of the song, said that Taylor should "move on".

Commercial performance
Following the release of The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, "Thank You Aimee" opened at its peak of number 23 on the US Billboard Hot 100. In Australia, it reached number 28 on the ARIA Singles Chart and made her the artist with the most entries in a single week with 29. Elsewhere, "Thank You Aimee" debuted and peaked at number 29 on the Billboard Global 200 and charted within the countries of Canada (25), New Zealand (29), and Portugal (97). The song also reached the United Kingdom's streaming and sales charts with respective peaks of number 55 and number 33, Sweden's Heatseeker chart at number two, and Greece's International Top 100 Digital Singles chart at number 77.

Personnel
Technical


 * Taylor Swift – songwriter, producer
 * Jack Antonoff – producer, recording, programming
 * Aaron Dessner – producer, songwriter, programming
 * Serban Ghenea – mixing
 * Bryce Bordone – mix engineer
 * Jonathan Low – recording
 * Bella Blaso – additional engineer
 * Oli Jacobs – recording
 * Laura Sisk – recording
 * Jozef Caldwell – assistant recording engineer
 * Maryam Qudus – recording engineer
 * Thomas Bartlett – recording engineer
 * Jeremy Murphy – recording engineer
 * Laura Beck – assistant recording engineer
 * Randy Merrill – mastering

Musicians


 * Taylor Swift – vocals
 * Jack Antonoff – cello, percussion, drums, electric guitar, background vocals
 * Aaron Dessner – acoustic guitar, banjo, synth bass, drum programming, keyboards, mandolin, percussion, synthesizer
 * Bryce Dessner – arranger
 * Thomas Bartlett – keyboards, piano, synthesizer
 * Glenn Kotche – drums, percussion
 * Galya Bisengalieva – violin
 * Eloisa-Fleur Thom – violin
 * Sophie Mather – violin
 * Marianne Haynes – violin
 * Alicia Berendse – violin
 * Anna de Bruin – violin
 * Akiko Ishikawa – violin
 * Nicole Crespo O'Donoghue – violin
 * Emily Holland – violin
 * Kirsty Mangan – violin
 * Cara Laskaris – violin
 * Ronald Long – violin
 * Dan Oates – violin
 * Iona Allan – violin
 * Nicholas Bootiman – violin
 * Matthew Kettle – viola
 * Elisa Bergersen – viola
 * Morgan Goff – viola
 * Brian O'Kane – cello
 * Reinoud Ford – cello
 * Max Ruisi – cello
 * Abi Hyde-Smith – cello
 * Dave Brown – double bass
 * Chris Kelly – double bass
 * Sophie Roper – double bass
 * David McQueen – French horn
 * Paul Cott – French horn
 * Jonathan Farey – French horn
 * George Barton – percussion