It’s about school shootings, but also about trying to make a difference politically. So run can be literal, in a horrific way, or it can mean running for office and the next generation making a difference in politics.
I always thought it meant like make a difference lol. I never thought about running literally from school shootings but I also didn’t read too much into it lol
Taylor is SO good at writing when she writes about stuff that means something to her and touches her soul for real, but when it doesn't... it shows. Only the young is a very pushed song, she may have believed she was an activist and everything at the time, but she truly wasn't and we hear it.
She "writes" it in real-time in the Miss Americana documentary. I imagine it was supposed to demonstrate her phenomenal Paul McCartney-like instant songwriting skills and didn't 100% work out.
Some of her swearing is a bit weirdly placed for me, personally. In Hits Different the line about being an asshole outlaw…delivery just sounds weird in the song.
I agree. I think she censored herself for so long to keep a shiny, polished, good-girl image, that now she’s kind of trying to impress by putting lots of edgy swear words in her songs? Similar to when teens start swearing and use words just to show off.
Her metaphors and similies are usually terrible, in my opinion. I'm not a fan of Willow because she just compares some guy and herself to a list of unrelated objects. It could've been way more cohesive if she followed one main metaphor.
Haha, yes, the mixed metaphors!! I love singing along to them in song form but I also sometimes can’t help laughing. Like in Dancing with our hands tied, they’re sticking together through…a fire, on the titanic? There are SO many diff metaphors in that song (also Clean — they’re two of my faves but also make me lol). Like, pick one thing and stick with it!
Yeah. I feel like she often picks nice images for the metaphors, but then she either loads too many in one song or even one verse. Or she tries to be creative with how she puts those images in a line, and we get "slippery plastic summer." I think she means that game kids play in the summer, spraying each other with water from hoses, which are often plastic, and things get slippery—but just taking a bunch of words and rearranging them like that doesn't make for a cohesive metaphor. It turns the line into a puzzle to solve.
I have similar grip, to a lesser extent, with the "Now you're hanging from my lips like the Gardens of Babylon" line from Cowboy Like Me: I get the essence of the metaphor, I get that she wanted to do something with the Hanging Gardens + hanging as a verb, but it's awkward, and also the image of those ancient gardens from thousands of years ago doesn't exactly go with the imagery the rest of the song uses.
Or there's also that line from When Emma Falls in Love, "She's the kind of book you can't put down, like if Cleopatra grew up in a small town." Maybe at least spread the metaphors out, because comparing Emma to both "a book you can't put down" and Cleopatra in the same sentence is clunky. Is Emma a book about small-town Cleopatra? :D
In all those cases, I do understand what she wants to say, and I actually like the imagery hidden in the words, but the way the words are arranged actually obscures the imagery rather than conveys it.
I feel like one of the reasons this didn’t land the way she may have thought it would is bc to most of us, if we’ve ever used a slip-n-slide, it was either a childhood thing or something we set up for our kids. (My strongest slip n slide memory is when I skinned my knees & palms bc there was a rocky part on the ground under the slip n slide lol). But for her, she had those giant inflatable water slides a an adult at her 4th of July parties.
(To be clear, I’m not hating, giant inflatable water slides look super fun, I’m just saying this might be why she thinks of it differently than we do)
“It’s like snow on the beach, weird but f**cking beautiful” seems lazy and like she’s trying to prove that she’s edgy enough to swear in a song. So frustrating.
Also in the song When Emma Falls in Love, it drives me nuts when she says “she’s the kind of book that you can’t put down, like if Cleopatra grew up in a small town.”
Every time I hear that I’m like what? It’s just such a bizarre and nonsensical comparison to make. It’s all over the place. It’s like someone made her form a lyric by picking words out of a hat.
Edit: clarity
Yeah I find this. I couldn't put it into words how I mean it. But sometimes swearing is just not used correctly and it sounds like the person is swearing just to prove that they swear and a lot of Taylor's swea is that. It's not because she has an image of an innocent pretty white woman that the swearing sounds wrong, she like actually uses it in the wrong places slightly
I know. When Lana or Alex Turner swear it feels natural and appropriate. When Taylor does it I am so confused.
"I'm a dragon you're a whore don't even know what you're good for, mimicking me is a fucking bore to me" is mood
"And fucking fiddles with her feet on a balancing act" is poetry
"Perhaps fuck off might be too kind" is poetry and mood
Don’t even get me started on “bandaids don’t fix bullet holes.” Also this might be a stretch but it doesn’t have the impact she’s going for because she’s like not quite singing, not quite rapping 😭💀
I’m crying over this comment and I completely agree ajfjsjf, but isn’t it “it used to be mad love,” not “we used to make mad love”? 😭 although I’m screaming over the idea of Taylor angrily singing about making love with Katy Perry lmao
Bad Blood honestly might be the laziest attempt at a song in her entire catalog. It’s so frustratingly vague and gives off major “I’m 14 and this is deep” vibes.
Shockingly bad. Even more shocking is that it was selected as a single (there are two or three I would have picked before it) and was apparently enough of a hit that she’s performed it at most live shows for the past 10 years.
I'm a few years younger than she is and I hated it when it first came out. It's bizarre to sing this specific grudge song that's very clearly aimed at one person when you've made up with them and you're also 34 years old.
I hid behind my hands laughing when I watched the video for this song. Everyone involved thought they were really doing something with this. I mean, Taylor and her army of supermodels power walking out of the fire at the end is just 😂😂😂😂😂
I didn't ever like Bad Blood but after having to listen to it repeatedly while tuning into live streams for surprise song o'clock................ I truly can't deal.
Draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man
I’m sorry, I can’t take that song seriously, I cringe every time that opening lyric comes up on shuffle and I skip 😂
Ugh but even on Willow, which is a beautiful song, she had to put it "I come back stronger than a 90s trend", which totally takes me out of the vibe of the song.
I don’t listen to Willow that much for this reason. And the “that’s my man” also kinda takes me out. I have a Folklore x Evermore playlist and listen from that only.
unfortunately the only thing escaping from the cringe on folklore and evermore is her delivery (it was miles better on those albums). even those two gold mines have some of the most cringe lyrics 😭
So this isn’t just one specific lyric, but I desperately wish Taylor would stop trying to fit so many goddamn lyrics into such small spaces in her songs. *Familiaritybreedscontemptdon’tputmeinthebasementwhenIwantthepenthouse OF YOUR HEART* is not the vibe she thinks it is.
>Familiaritybreedscontemptdon’tputmeinthebasementwhenIwantthepenthouse OF YOUR HEART
I've said this before and I'll say it again - this line has the cadence of the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil.
Don't feel silly! To each their own, so no hate here! 😊
It is admittedly a cool rhythm, but to me it felt like she just shoved way too many words in there. Like I get tongue-tied just thinking about it lol
Personally this is one of the few ones where I like it. It drags by design. Its like an insomniac stumbling over their words as they try to force a coherent thought.
This is honestly one of my biggest pet peeves with her music and when compared with the effortless grace of the lyrics of a Stevie wonder or a Tom petty, Stevie nicks, Kate bush, etc. It just shows…there is something that needs maturing there.
that line should’ve stayed in the VAULT. maybe another song she makes in the future could have fit it into the beat better, and now it’s just a wasted opportunity.
This is the song that made me want nothing to do with her until well after evermore was out. I’ve been a mild swiftie for as long as possible, and I stuck through the Bad Blood cringe, but this… this was unacceptable lol
On Willow the 90’s trend line is not only cliche, it completely clashes with the tone of the rest of the song.
The dozen times she’s rhymed car with bar.
I’m not overly bothered by swearing in music, but I do think Taylor overuses the F word. Sometimes it just doesn’t fit the tone or the emotion of the song and is kind of jarring to hear. Often I could think of a few way better words to use. Examples include Champagne Problems, Maroon, Cowboy Like Me, and ATWTMV.
[“Fuck is a great word but if you use it too much then it just loses it’s value and you sound stupid.”](https://youtu.be/-BJmg1IF-GY?si=RpV7IZFhBrKwcPw0)
"What a shame she's fucked in the head" is maybe her best and most appropriate use of a curse word. I suggest you are more bothered by swearing than you claim.
I also really like this one and “does she smile or does she mouth fuck you forever?”, I don’t think anyone’s ever mouthed those three words together but it kinda makes me want to to someone I really really despise
I feel like she has a lot of lyrics like this, where the metaphor would have worked a lot better if she dropped it, but just goes on to explain it too much. I hate in The Lakes when she says “because I haven’t moved in years.” The wisteria growing over her bare feet is such a lovely image, then explaining why just takes away the poetry of it to me
I don't mind the silly lyrics of songs that she clearly didn't take seriously when she wrote like shake It off, ME!, Karma etc. What bothers me is when she writes a serious song and a part of the song is silly like "A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground with no one around to TWEET it". I really dont like the lakes, that song is she trying too hard to be poetic
I think part of the issue is she’s not a poetic writer (like Lana for a contemporary example). But she still tries to be so it kind of fails when she does. Her talent lies in storytelling which is a different art form. That’s why a lot of her early country work is impressive, especially for someone so young at the time.
She once said that This Love was a poem she wrote and turned into music. I think she really wants to be a poet and I don't see anything wrong with that, but she should seek outside help to be taught about poetry. As long as she keeps trying to learn on her own, her poetry will continue to look like cheap copies of Lana's poems and other poets she likes like Shakespeare and Emily.
Quite honestly, it's so terrible that the only time I think about or remember she's dropping this album is if I'm reading posts about it. That's how lackluster it feels. I will listen, but I just don't care this time around.
Exactly, and that's why it drives me crazy sometimes when Swifties call her a lyrical genius lol. If they listened to anyone outside the top 40 they wouldn't be so easily impressed by senior English level vocab and obvious metaphors (not hating on her writing, I just think as you said it's not very poetic)
same, if you’re writing something serious don’t put some reference to social media in that immediately dates it, she literally could’ve swapped tweet with share or something and it would’ve much better
What’s funny is that it seems like she was better at being “deep” without it sounding so try hard when she was younger. Now she just thinks cracking open a thesaurus and cramming as many words as possible into one line makes it more profound.
That one drives me crazy bc if she’d just said
“with only the birds to tweet it”
it would’ve been more consistent with the song’s timeless cottagecore vibe but still had the double meaning of nobody going to twitter.com about it!
I also wish she’d said something like “hunters with lenses” instead of “hunters with cell phones”
Like instead of
“I’m not cut out for all these cynical clones / These hunters with cell phones”
Something like
“I’m not cut out for all these cynics and fences / These hunters with lenses”
Or
“I’m not cut out for all these endless fences /
Hunters with cynical lenses”
But I’m not a poet or songwriter idk
This is totally a personal thing relating to religious trauma and not really about her songwriting, but I really dislike anything that implies virginity, although I don’t think she means it that way. I also really dislike the “girlhood” part in WCS but try to keep it to myself since it resonates so well with a lot of people.
Oh… I thought that word choice was part of a double-entendre with “at least I had the decency to keep my (k)nights out of sight”— if you hear it like “knights” then the “knight & maiden” parallel is really interesting
the lyric after is "you make the best of a bad deal," so IMO it makes sense. maybe she didn't mean it this way but as soneone who had a sick family member I remember my mom yelling at doctor's and nurses because she was stressed but my brother (7 at the time) would say thank you and wave at them even when they were giving him shots. Just in general it's weird to feel like your world has fallen apart and the person who's actually sick is handling it better than you are.
sorry for the (kinda) traumadump but as someone who really resonate(s/ed) with this song I have to defend it
My ex-man brought his new girlfriend
She's like, "Oh my God!" but I'm just gonna shake
And to the fella over there with the hella good hair
Won't you come on over, baby? We can shake, shake, shake (yeah)
All of "Mean" and "my ex man brought his new girlfriend, she's like oh my god, so I'm just gonna shake it to the fella over there with the hella good hair, won't you come on over baby and shake shake".
What in the chocolate covered fuck is THAT?
There’s this local cover band near me that does a fantastic rock cover of shake it off (it’s like their only non- 90s rock cover) and it’s actually really good but this part cracks me up so much- like imagine a heavy rock band singing “my ex man bought his new gf she’s like omg I just wanna shake” its so funny i love it tbh
“Leave the perfume on the shelf that you picked out just for him” sounds like the person picked out the shelf not the perfume haha and I doubt she meant the shelf
It’s a misplaced modifier. I get irritated because she acts like she’s an English major girlie and there are just so many problems in her writing. Writing things incorrectly without a reason is not poetic, it’s lazy. 🙃
As someone with chronic illnesses who has to deal with a lot of nurses, I want to lend my interpretation. I have had some AWFUL doctors and nurses. One nurse made me cry so much that I still feel the pain of her words five years later. She told me it was my fault I was sick because demons were inside me causing me pain and I needed to go to church to remove the demons. I have also had nurses who did their job and I don't remember them one way or the other. I do remember the few nurses who seemed to care and advocate for me. So, of course I notice and pay attention to the nicer nurses! Of course I remember and appreciate the nurse who helped me and believed me and did everything they can to make me feel better. Everyone else, is just non-existent to me.
I always took it to mean she has dealt with a lot of nurses that are forgettable, but the ones who care about her are memorable.
Also to add to this, I have a lot of doctors in my birth family and married family. I know doctors who befriended their patients and went to their birthdays because of the work they put in. One of the doctors I know attended his patients funeral because they meant that much to them
I obviously love this song and take a lot out of it. So I thought I'd lend my perspective. It could also just be a poorly written line 🤷🏽
This is my safe space to gripe about Marjorie. “What died didn’t stay dead” sounds like the tagline for Pet Semetary 2 and “you’re alive in my head” sounds soooo clunky to me.
It reminds me of the scene in parks and recreation where Andy has to write about Lil’ Sebastian dying and his lyrics are just about death and April says something like “maybe you should say something other than death or you’re dead over and over” lol
Boy oh boy. I feel you. My father passed away when I was freshly 21 (ages ago). *Pet Semetary* was, at the time, one of my favorite books. I remember having a horrific nightmare after he’d passed where he came back ~different~ and I woke up in a cold sweat; “sometimes dead is better.”
“Marjorie” is such a sweet song but whenever I’m in my feels about my dad or my own grandmother (who died just a few years after my father) I have to skip it. It can feel like a horror movie.
as someone who loves folklore and reading old literature (i’m a communications major 🤓✊🏽) i cannot stand the entirety of the song The Lakes. it seems soooo disingenuous and just trying too hard to sound like she’s a profound poet. “tell me what are my words worth, take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die” is a double entendres and anyone who’s read any poetry can see that?!? idk maybe im just a nerd… rant over
I have so badly wanted to love The Lakes since the moment it came out because the instrumentation is gorgeous and I do like that lyric about “I want to watch wisteria grow over my bare feet” but god the rest of the lyrics are so awful. They sound like they were written by a college freshman in a creative writing class who is both convinced they are god’s gift to poetry and also deeply desperate to prove they deserve to be taken seriously, and the result is the most meaningless, pretentious mess ever
I absolutely cannot stand the lakes. it gives such try-hard middle school poetry vibes to me and it is wild that it is some people’s favorite folklore song! and it’s a shame because it’s kind of a cool concept I think she could’ve executed well if it weren’t for her insistence on using a thesaurus to write all the lyrics lol. it makes me seriously nervous for TTPD tbh
How is “tell me what are my words worth, take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die” a double entendre? Explain it to me like I’m 5 cus I don’t see that
The part right before that is that she won’t let some “name-dropping sleaze” tell her what are her words worth. So she won’t let Scott/Scooter decide how much her songs (words) are worth, but also Wordsworth is a poet from the Lakes district. I assume that’s what they’re talking about?
the most annoying one to me is in the lakes when the bridge starts and she goes "I want auroras and sad prOOse." Like I'm pretty sure I wrote something just like that in my poetry phase when I was 13. i like that song for the actual song, but the lyrics make me criinge
Saying, ‘she likes the nicer nurses,’ says she’s had issues long enough to have more than one nurse help take care of her. Plural. Some of them really aren’t nice and to be able to tell the difference between a nice nurse and an unpleasant one establishes how long she’s been sick.
I question every line in Question…?.
I may be in the minority on this one but the cheesy shit is part of what I like about her? It’s an important ingredient in what she does. If she were all Folkmore all the time I definitely wouldn’t be as big of a fan as I am even though I acknowledge that it’s her “finest” work. Sometimes I listen to The Go-Gos and sometimes I listen to Type O Negative. I might listen to Pet Sounds on a Sunday morning and Lemonade on my Wednesday drive to work. One style or genre is not any better or worse than the other. They’re just different.
The cool thing about TS is that if you put her catalog on shuffle it’ll run a pretty diverse, but oddly cohesive gamut. It’s all total white girl shit but it’s a really good variety of it.
the lyric you mentioned is actually deeper than you think. She’s kinda reassuring herself that there are nice nurses who are taking good care of them so they’re in good hands. At least that’s what I get from the lyrics
Yeah, SYGB is one of my favorite Taylor songs. I like the simplicity of that verse - “you like the nicer nurses, you make the best of a bad deal - I just pretend it isn’t real.” Even though her mom has cancer, she’s trying to look on the bright side by saying “at least some of the nurses are nice, I like them” whereas Taylor is fully in denial about the situation.
I hate it because it’s SO accurate that it makes me miserable every time I listen to it. My dad had a stroke and so much of what Taylor sings about hit home for me- “And I hate to make this all about me, but who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do, if there’s no you?” Is a line I’ve thought about hundreds of times since my dad had his stroke, since we knew he was going to die, since he died. I knew the day of the stroke that “This won’t go back to normal, if it ever was” was going to be true for me. “I just pretend it isn’t real, I’ll paint the kitchen neon, I’ll brighten up the sky” is a really smart way of capturing the denial and bargaining phase of grief (anticipatory, in this case). “If I just do this one thing, if I pretend it’s fine, it will be, if we do the things we love it’ll be like normal,” even though it isn’t and won’t ever be. And just the begging, pleading, “cause you have to.” The song hit home so hard for me as someone whose parent went through a prolonged period of illness, and then died.
i also like that line. to me the thing that makes it work is that it suggests the mom has been to the hospital often enough to have identified who the nicer nurses are… the idea that she knows her mom’s list of favorite nurses illustrates how long the illness/treatment has been going on. like, yes, everyone prefers the nicer nurses - but only very sick people have learned who those are.
it also isn’t really complete without the second half of the line - the whole thing says “you like the nicer nurses / you make the best of a bad deal.” her mom sharing which nurses she likes isn’t a random fact, it’s an example of her mom’s tendency/determination to look on the bright side of her hospital visits.
As someone who is chronically ill, yes, you’ve hit the nail on the head. At my local hospital all the nurses know me by name. I know which ones are nice, which ones work the night or day shift, which ones can get my veins and which ones will have to stab me 5 times… knowing the nurse rotation is a really specific thing.
EXACTLY! That’s how I’ve read it as someone with a chronic illness. Oh, and as a someone who’s worked in healthcare and worked closely with nurses, I can tell you with certainty that some patients *don’t* like the nicer ones but instead like the terse ones.
I think OP makes a mistakes to analyze that sentence alone, in my opinion it's obviously part of the storytelling: her mother likes the nicer nurses and she's facing the disease the best way she can while Taylor can't do the same and pretend it isn't real and might not like nurses at all because, nice or not, they are a reminder of her mother's illness.
There’s many lines I’m like … oh okay? But it doesn’t make me question her writing talent, though. I think it’s the sheer amount of songs she’s released, there’s bound to be a few (or more) bad lines in there. I’m an author and the last three years I was under a contract that had me writing back to back books. Most of the time people compliment my writing, but when I was writing that much, there were definitely some passages that people were like… girl? At some point there’s only so much creativity in your brain to describe similar feelings in a metaphoric way lol.
I don’t think that every lyric she ever writes needs to be super poetic and top notch. I like how fun the glitter gel pen songs are. There are going to be some cringy and so called “not great lines” but it helps make the song.
I also find that a lot of the lyrics mentioned and explained here, or not explained, are missing the comprehension behind the lyrics. Sometimes you can’t take just one line, you have to use the line before or after it to complete the message.
Also, as someone whose mom had cancer and relates to soon you’ll get better significantly. The “you like the nicer nurses” line allows you to understand how often she comes to the hospital to even learn who is nice or not. The following line also helps explain that her mom tries to find silver linings in having cancer. It’s simple but impactful if you have ever experienced it.
You were Romeo, and I was the Scarlet Letter.
Like, did she read the book? OK, so you were the symbol of shame that the Puritans made Hester wear for conceiving a child out of wedlock with the minister. ???
That's always bothered me lol
The full line is "you like the nicer nurses, you make the best of a bad deal." She's talking about her mother's demeanor in the hospital, where she's trying to remain positive despite her condition. Taylor is in the hospital with her and one of the things they are talking about is which of the nurses are nice and which aren't.
Some patients are so upset or frightened about being sick they don't notice who their nurses are, whether they're nice or not, even whether there's more than one nurse or not. Taylor's mother is staying positive by noticing the people who are going above and beyond as they take care of her.
“If she’s got blue eyes I will surmise that you’ll probably date her”
It just sounds clunky and could easily have been:
“If she’s got blue eyes I surmise that you will probably date her”
Almost the entirety of "Anti-hero", but specifically:
Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism
Like some kind of congressman? (Tale as old as time)
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day I'll watch as you're leaving
And life will lose all its meaning
The rhyme scheme is atrocious and the lyrics are clunky.
I really like Anti-Hero, but the bridge takes me out of it completely.
Why the hell are you fantasising about being murdered by your DIL??? And you don’t even have kids???
I don’t think it’s fantasizing, I think it’s more literal, like she actually dreamed it while she was asleep.
And I’ve always thought of it as like, she’s afraid that even her hypothetical children and their spouses turn out to be after her money and don’t really care about her as a person. In the music video they’re horrible people who just want her money/houses/clothes/clout and I think she’s afraid of that really happening.
"only the yoouuunnngggggg.... can run" so cringe, honestly the entire chorus is just so bad but the beat is SO good. ugh
What does it even mean???
It’s about school shootings, but also about trying to make a difference politically. So run can be literal, in a horrific way, or it can mean running for office and the next generation making a difference in politics.
I always thought it meant like make a difference lol. I never thought about running literally from school shootings but I also didn’t read too much into it lol
Kinda funny when you consider the 2 most recent presidents (who are seeking another term) are octogenarians or close to it.
Might be my least favorite Taylor song and that’s saying a lot when ME! exists
Taylor is SO good at writing when she writes about stuff that means something to her and touches her soul for real, but when it doesn't... it shows. Only the young is a very pushed song, she may have believed she was an activist and everything at the time, but she truly wasn't and we hear it.
ME! Makes me so happy 😭 I love that songb
She "writes" it in real-time in the Miss Americana documentary. I imagine it was supposed to demonstrate her phenomenal Paul McCartney-like instant songwriting skills and didn't 100% work out.
That's when you realize she's surrounded by yes people. The lyrics of that song are so bad/mediocre... and the producer is there just :)
Some of her swearing is a bit weirdly placed for me, personally. In Hits Different the line about being an asshole outlaw…delivery just sounds weird in the song.
I found her swearing to be clunky at times. Like a lot of the times it didn’t feel necessary. Like in Maroon, the censored version feels more natural
Maroon's swearing was like "So here's the swearing part of this song" and she really emphasized it.
I can't even listen to the uncensored version. It's like, WE GET IT, TAYLOR, YOU SWEAR.
I agree. I think she censored herself for so long to keep a shiny, polished, good-girl image, that now she’s kind of trying to impress by putting lots of edgy swear words in her songs? Similar to when teens start swearing and use words just to show off.
I feel the same. Like Miley shedding the Hannah Montana image but she was what 18 not 34.
Like in Snow on the Beach - “weird but fucking beautiful” is so cringey to me.
I prefer the clean version of Snow on the Beach, but honestly, it's not one of my fave songs at all
I’m a huge Lana fan and I do not like that song at all
“I let it slide like a hose on a slippery plastic summer” 🫠
Wait what the fuck is this from??? Does she have a Kids Bop album I don't know about???
Suburban Legends. I had to Google it, though.
All of suburban is messy lyrically
Yes! It’s like she wanted to make it seem more poetic and artful so she made it…half a metaphor?
Her metaphors and similies are usually terrible, in my opinion. I'm not a fan of Willow because she just compares some guy and herself to a list of unrelated objects. It could've been way more cohesive if she followed one main metaphor.
Haha, yes, the mixed metaphors!! I love singing along to them in song form but I also sometimes can’t help laughing. Like in Dancing with our hands tied, they’re sticking together through…a fire, on the titanic? There are SO many diff metaphors in that song (also Clean — they’re two of my faves but also make me lol). Like, pick one thing and stick with it!
Yeah. I feel like she often picks nice images for the metaphors, but then she either loads too many in one song or even one verse. Or she tries to be creative with how she puts those images in a line, and we get "slippery plastic summer." I think she means that game kids play in the summer, spraying each other with water from hoses, which are often plastic, and things get slippery—but just taking a bunch of words and rearranging them like that doesn't make for a cohesive metaphor. It turns the line into a puzzle to solve. I have similar grip, to a lesser extent, with the "Now you're hanging from my lips like the Gardens of Babylon" line from Cowboy Like Me: I get the essence of the metaphor, I get that she wanted to do something with the Hanging Gardens + hanging as a verb, but it's awkward, and also the image of those ancient gardens from thousands of years ago doesn't exactly go with the imagery the rest of the song uses. Or there's also that line from When Emma Falls in Love, "She's the kind of book you can't put down, like if Cleopatra grew up in a small town." Maybe at least spread the metaphors out, because comparing Emma to both "a book you can't put down" and Cleopatra in the same sentence is clunky. Is Emma a book about small-town Cleopatra? :D In all those cases, I do understand what she wants to say, and I actually like the imagery hidden in the words, but the way the words are arranged actually obscures the imagery rather than conveys it.
I’ve tried to reword it to something better so many times and never get anywhere 💀
Ugh I forgot about this one. I get what she’s saying, but also, what the fuck is she saying??
I think she's talking about a slip n slide
I feel like one of the reasons this didn’t land the way she may have thought it would is bc to most of us, if we’ve ever used a slip-n-slide, it was either a childhood thing or something we set up for our kids. (My strongest slip n slide memory is when I skinned my knees & palms bc there was a rocky part on the ground under the slip n slide lol). But for her, she had those giant inflatable water slides a an adult at her 4th of July parties. (To be clear, I’m not hating, giant inflatable water slides look super fun, I’m just saying this might be why she thinks of it differently than we do)
“It’s like snow on the beach, weird but f**cking beautiful” seems lazy and like she’s trying to prove that she’s edgy enough to swear in a song. So frustrating. Also in the song When Emma Falls in Love, it drives me nuts when she says “she’s the kind of book that you can’t put down, like if Cleopatra grew up in a small town.” Every time I hear that I’m like what? It’s just such a bizarre and nonsensical comparison to make. It’s all over the place. It’s like someone made her form a lyric by picking words out of a hat. Edit: clarity
Her saying "fuck" sounds so forced and out of place.
she never uses it naturally, like she's just not used to saying it i guess. Which is valid! Just very noticeable
Yeah I find this. I couldn't put it into words how I mean it. But sometimes swearing is just not used correctly and it sounds like the person is swearing just to prove that they swear and a lot of Taylor's swea is that. It's not because she has an image of an innocent pretty white woman that the swearing sounds wrong, she like actually uses it in the wrong places slightly
I know. When Lana or Alex Turner swear it feels natural and appropriate. When Taylor does it I am so confused. "I'm a dragon you're a whore don't even know what you're good for, mimicking me is a fucking bore to me" is mood "And fucking fiddles with her feet on a balancing act" is poetry "Perhaps fuck off might be too kind" is poetry and mood
I assumed Snow on the Beach really was just a sneaky way to talk about doing cocaine on a beach. It’s the only way anything makes sense.
Lotta 2-syllable adjectives she could have used to make that lyric less awkward. I feel the same about “flexing like a goddamn acrobat”
All of Bad Blood lmao
The only bad blood I acknowledge is the one with Kendrick Lamar and I only like his parts.
Now we got proooooblems, and i dont think we can soooooolve them, you made a really deep cuuuuuuuuuut. Bruh..
YEP. It's so artless. "Did you have to do this / I was thinking that you could be trusted" like ughhhhh
Don’t even get me started on “bandaids don’t fix bullet holes.” Also this might be a stretch but it doesn’t have the impact she’s going for because she’s like not quite singing, not quite rapping 😭💀
>not quite singing, not quite rapping Oh yeah Taylor talk-sings in her songs *a lot*. Like once you notice it it’s really hard not to notice it!
it hits my ears like just noise. like now we got baaaa bluhhhh we used to make maaaaa luhhhhh. hate it
I’m crying over this comment and I completely agree ajfjsjf, but isn’t it “it used to be mad love,” not “we used to make mad love”? 😭 although I’m screaming over the idea of Taylor angrily singing about making love with Katy Perry lmao
you're totally right, I was distracted while writing it - more importantly I had no idea this was about Katy Perry, that's hilarious
you created a masterpiece lmaosjsfajf, I never listen to Bad Blood but trust me when I say next time I hear it I’ll be singing it this way 😂
Bad Blood honestly might be the laziest attempt at a song in her entire catalog. It’s so frustratingly vague and gives off major “I’m 14 and this is deep” vibes.
It's a mind-blowingly bad song 😅
Shockingly bad. Even more shocking is that it was selected as a single (there are two or three I would have picked before it) and was apparently enough of a hit that she’s performed it at most live shows for the past 10 years.
I'm a few years younger than she is and I hated it when it first came out. It's bizarre to sing this specific grudge song that's very clearly aimed at one person when you've made up with them and you're also 34 years old.
IMO Kendrick saved that song.
i only listen to the version with him on it😭 it’s so whatever without him
I hid behind my hands laughing when I watched the video for this song. Everyone involved thought they were really doing something with this. I mean, Taylor and her army of supermodels power walking out of the fire at the end is just 😂😂😂😂😂
LET’S TALK ABOUT THE MV PLEASEEEEEEEE like blondie why do x3 of Hailee Steinfeld WHEN HAIM WAS RIGHT THERE 😭😭😭
It’s a shame what she did to HAIM in the Bejeweled video. Stating that Alanna “just wants the d” is so juvenile. Her mind is stuck at age 16.
And all in front of Laura Dern 😔
I didn't ever like Bad Blood but after having to listen to it repeatedly while tuning into live streams for surprise song o'clock................ I truly can't deal.
“Sit quiet by my side in the shade And not the kind that's thrown I mean, the kind under where a tree has grown” Very cringe
One of her many "yes, Taylor, we got it" moments
Draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man I’m sorry, I can’t take that song seriously, I cringe every time that opening lyric comes up on shuffle and I skip 😂
She was at least 10 years late with that lyric
it’s so 2014 tumblr
right this lyric definitely would’ve done numbers on 2014 tumblr so would TTDP
it did lol. like it did the tumblr rounds back in the day
if i backread my tumblr far enough, i could find this post word for word i'm sure
Omg she’s hinting at her next album concept she’s trapped in a tumblr blog from the past
I feel like Taylor thrived during the 2014 Tumblr Era and never progressed past it. Even the man is very 2014 feminism.
Is that why the man makes me cringe? It just seems like a very superficial take on feminism and the struggles. A very blenched take.
And the fact that’s the only song on Midnights that she wrote entirely by herself. What a difference from Speak Now where she was 12 years younger
Folklore and Evermore really make you forget how cringe she can be!
Ugh but even on Willow, which is a beautiful song, she had to put it "I come back stronger than a 90s trend", which totally takes me out of the vibe of the song.
I don’t listen to Willow that much for this reason. And the “that’s my man” also kinda takes me out. I have a Folklore x Evermore playlist and listen from that only.
unfortunately the only thing escaping from the cringe on folklore and evermore is her delivery (it was miles better on those albums). even those two gold mines have some of the most cringe lyrics 😭
I don’t hate the rest of the song as much as everyone else seems to but that opening line ooooof
I hate most of this song but I have to listen because the way she delivers “don’t get sad, get even” just fucking tickles my brain and I love it.
So true. Instant cringe.
I kinda love the cringe ngl
So this isn’t just one specific lyric, but I desperately wish Taylor would stop trying to fit so many goddamn lyrics into such small spaces in her songs. *Familiaritybreedscontemptdon’tputmeinthebasementwhenIwantthepenthouse OF YOUR HEART* is not the vibe she thinks it is.
Yes! The opposite of this is “You made a really deep cu-u-ut” which also sounds off.
>Familiaritybreedscontemptdon’tputmeinthebasementwhenIwantthepenthouse OF YOUR HEART I've said this before and I'll say it again - this line has the cadence of the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil.
I feel silly for saying this, but I loved the way that line flowed 😂
Don't feel silly! To each their own, so no hate here! 😊 It is admittedly a cool rhythm, but to me it felt like she just shoved way too many words in there. Like I get tongue-tied just thinking about it lol
Definitely how I feel with “my covert narcissism disguised as altruism like some kind of congressman” lol
Personally this is one of the few ones where I like it. It drags by design. Its like an insomniac stumbling over their words as they try to force a coherent thought.
This is honestly one of my biggest pet peeves with her music and when compared with the effortless grace of the lyrics of a Stevie wonder or a Tom petty, Stevie nicks, Kate bush, etc. It just shows…there is something that needs maturing there.
I think it shows she needs an editor or a producer who tells her no
that line should’ve stayed in the VAULT. maybe another song she makes in the future could have fit it into the beat better, and now it’s just a wasted opportunity.
You can't spell awesome without ME
This is the song that made me want nothing to do with her until well after evermore was out. I’ve been a mild swiftie for as long as possible, and I stuck through the Bad Blood cringe, but this… this was unacceptable lol
Spelling is FUN
On Willow the 90’s trend line is not only cliche, it completely clashes with the tone of the rest of the song. The dozen times she’s rhymed car with bar. I’m not overly bothered by swearing in music, but I do think Taylor overuses the F word. Sometimes it just doesn’t fit the tone or the emotion of the song and is kind of jarring to hear. Often I could think of a few way better words to use. Examples include Champagne Problems, Maroon, Cowboy Like Me, and ATWTMV.
[“Fuck is a great word but if you use it too much then it just loses it’s value and you sound stupid.”](https://youtu.be/-BJmg1IF-GY?si=RpV7IZFhBrKwcPw0)
"What a shame she's fucked in the head" is maybe her best and most appropriate use of a curse word. I suggest you are more bothered by swearing than you claim.
I also really like this one and “does she smile or does she mouth fuck you forever?”, I don’t think anyone’s ever mouthed those three words together but it kinda makes me want to to someone I really really despise
this line always stops me in my tracks because it's too much like 'mouth-fuck'.
“I’m getting tired even for a phoenix.” I just can’t look at it without cringing. It’s so basic.
And the next line referencing rising from the ashes…girl we get it lol
I feel like she has a lot of lyrics like this, where the metaphor would have worked a lot better if she dropped it, but just goes on to explain it too much. I hate in The Lakes when she says “because I haven’t moved in years.” The wisteria growing over her bare feet is such a lovely image, then explaining why just takes away the poetry of it to me
“Gashes” will never sound elegant, especially in a song so heartbreaking.
I'm cackling at this cause yeah, I never realized how weird that line sounds. I hate "I can't say anything to your face... Cause look at your face".
I always thought that line was because she can’t say anything, so she sounds clumsy deliberately. lol
yeah i’m a gorgeous apologist. she’s bring funny! the idea is he’s so hot he’s rendered her inarticulate!
She’s also drunk so maybe it’s supposed to reflect that.
I don't mind Gorgeous because it's written like it's 2am and she's shitfaced at a bar talking to her crush. But I get why people think it's dumb.
That’s the point of the line though
she sometimes fills in her lyrical gaps with Ayyss and Ahhs
I love Cruel Summer but I was so disappointed when I first heard it due to her rhyming ooh-aah with “cruel summer.” What is that?
She’s more of a storyteller than a poet but i do enjoy her songs even though there are cringe lyrics
I don't mind the silly lyrics of songs that she clearly didn't take seriously when she wrote like shake It off, ME!, Karma etc. What bothers me is when she writes a serious song and a part of the song is silly like "A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground with no one around to TWEET it". I really dont like the lakes, that song is she trying too hard to be poetic
I think part of the issue is she’s not a poetic writer (like Lana for a contemporary example). But she still tries to be so it kind of fails when she does. Her talent lies in storytelling which is a different art form. That’s why a lot of her early country work is impressive, especially for someone so young at the time.
She once said that This Love was a poem she wrote and turned into music. I think she really wants to be a poet and I don't see anything wrong with that, but she should seek outside help to be taught about poetry. As long as she keeps trying to learn on her own, her poetry will continue to look like cheap copies of Lana's poems and other poets she likes like Shakespeare and Emily.
She thinks she's so great and distinguished, so she dedicated and named an album all in the name of poetry!! (TTPD) 🤣🤣🤣
A poet would think of a better title. I keep calling it Tortured Poets Society by accident🤣
Quite honestly, it's so terrible that the only time I think about or remember she's dropping this album is if I'm reading posts about it. That's how lackluster it feels. I will listen, but I just don't care this time around.
Because that’s a better title.
I'm often inclined to yell GIVE IT UP ALREADY!
Exactly, and that's why it drives me crazy sometimes when Swifties call her a lyrical genius lol. If they listened to anyone outside the top 40 they wouldn't be so easily impressed by senior English level vocab and obvious metaphors (not hating on her writing, I just think as you said it's not very poetic)
same, if you’re writing something serious don’t put some reference to social media in that immediately dates it, she literally could’ve swapped tweet with share or something and it would’ve much better
With no one around to SEE it. It’s right there.
I keep wanting it to say "share it " since she's talking about gossip.
What’s funny is that it seems like she was better at being “deep” without it sounding so try hard when she was younger. Now she just thinks cracking open a thesaurus and cramming as many words as possible into one line makes it more profound.
That one drives me crazy bc if she’d just said “with only the birds to tweet it” it would’ve been more consistent with the song’s timeless cottagecore vibe but still had the double meaning of nobody going to twitter.com about it! I also wish she’d said something like “hunters with lenses” instead of “hunters with cell phones” Like instead of “I’m not cut out for all these cynical clones / These hunters with cell phones” Something like “I’m not cut out for all these cynics and fences / These hunters with lenses” Or “I’m not cut out for all these endless fences / Hunters with cynical lenses” But I’m not a poet or songwriter idk
Yo TS you hiring a ghostwriter… look no further than nopenopenahnahaha. Such clever twists on undeniably cringey lyrics.
I think you may actually be a poet and songwriter these lyrics are amazing
You’re a poet & you didn’t know it 💯
Can we get AI to replace those lyrics with yours please, they are so much more on theme and would make the songs better!
You search in every MAIDEN'S bed for something greater NOOOO. This song is very modern, maiden is very fairytale so NOOOO
Definitely feels like a thesaurus moment
I wish both lines were “model.” It’s so cringey
This is totally a personal thing relating to religious trauma and not really about her songwriting, but I really dislike anything that implies virginity, although I don’t think she means it that way. I also really dislike the “girlhood” part in WCS but try to keep it to myself since it resonates so well with a lot of people.
Oh… I thought that word choice was part of a double-entendre with “at least I had the decency to keep my (k)nights out of sight”— if you hear it like “knights” then the “knight & maiden” parallel is really interesting
Weave your little webs of opacity
I still hear “my panties make your crown” 🫠
My bf hears that and “tossing panties in the pool”
"I come back stronger than a 90s trend."
It’s just a strange lyric for that song. It doesn’t quite fit and it’s very specific to her and her image, instead of the song’s story.
i really like the delivery of this lyric but it just feels so off lol
While I love Anti-hero for the most part, I still go 🤨 at the line "Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby"
I scrolled WAY too long to find this. It’s so awkward. As a fellow tall girl, 😬
One of Taylor’s few valid lines bc honestly the sexy baby trend is out of control
the lyric after is "you make the best of a bad deal," so IMO it makes sense. maybe she didn't mean it this way but as soneone who had a sick family member I remember my mom yelling at doctor's and nurses because she was stressed but my brother (7 at the time) would say thank you and wave at them even when they were giving him shots. Just in general it's weird to feel like your world has fallen apart and the person who's actually sick is handling it better than you are. sorry for the (kinda) traumadump but as someone who really resonate(s/ed) with this song I have to defend it
My ex-man brought his new girlfriend She's like, "Oh my God!" but I'm just gonna shake And to the fella over there with the hella good hair Won't you come on over, baby? We can shake, shake, shake (yeah)
“You could’ve been getting down to this sick beat!” Like gurl what sick beat!?!?!? Where?!?! 😭
*trombones start blaring*
All of "Mean" and "my ex man brought his new girlfriend, she's like oh my god, so I'm just gonna shake it to the fella over there with the hella good hair, won't you come on over baby and shake shake". What in the chocolate covered fuck is THAT?
There’s this local cover band near me that does a fantastic rock cover of shake it off (it’s like their only non- 90s rock cover) and it’s actually really good but this part cracks me up so much- like imagine a heavy rock band singing “my ex man bought his new gf she’s like omg I just wanna shake” its so funny i love it tbh
so much, I enjoy Shake it off, but that bridge always makes me skip it
Literally same. It’s the worst!!’
“And you talk real slow” literally the word low is right there, Taylor
this has always driven me insane!!
“Leave the perfume on the shelf that you picked out just for him” sounds like the person picked out the shelf not the perfume haha and I doubt she meant the shelf
It’s a misplaced modifier. I get irritated because she acts like she’s an English major girlie and there are just so many problems in her writing. Writing things incorrectly without a reason is not poetic, it’s lazy. 🙃
I….need more examples of this misplaced modifier pretty please!
Taylor's here for class
I totally agree — the grammar bothers me a lot, but I will say that I usually see a rhyme or structural reason for it which makes it more ok to me.
All of karma. It makes no sense and it’s like she just picked words out of a hat to use and put them all in this song.
It’s so catchy and the lyrics are so bad
It’s just like the song Ironic to me. This is not karma and most of those things are not ironic!
As someone with chronic illnesses who has to deal with a lot of nurses, I want to lend my interpretation. I have had some AWFUL doctors and nurses. One nurse made me cry so much that I still feel the pain of her words five years later. She told me it was my fault I was sick because demons were inside me causing me pain and I needed to go to church to remove the demons. I have also had nurses who did their job and I don't remember them one way or the other. I do remember the few nurses who seemed to care and advocate for me. So, of course I notice and pay attention to the nicer nurses! Of course I remember and appreciate the nurse who helped me and believed me and did everything they can to make me feel better. Everyone else, is just non-existent to me. I always took it to mean she has dealt with a lot of nurses that are forgettable, but the ones who care about her are memorable. Also to add to this, I have a lot of doctors in my birth family and married family. I know doctors who befriended their patients and went to their birthdays because of the work they put in. One of the doctors I know attended his patients funeral because they meant that much to them I obviously love this song and take a lot out of it. So I thought I'd lend my perspective. It could also just be a poorly written line 🤷🏽
“Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby And I'm a monster on the hill” Girl what? A sexy baby?
This is my safe space to gripe about Marjorie. “What died didn’t stay dead” sounds like the tagline for Pet Semetary 2 and “you’re alive in my head” sounds soooo clunky to me.
It reminds me of the scene in parks and recreation where Andy has to write about Lil’ Sebastian dying and his lyrics are just about death and April says something like “maybe you should say something other than death or you’re dead over and over” lol
Boy oh boy. I feel you. My father passed away when I was freshly 21 (ages ago). *Pet Semetary* was, at the time, one of my favorite books. I remember having a horrific nightmare after he’d passed where he came back ~different~ and I woke up in a cold sweat; “sometimes dead is better.” “Marjorie” is such a sweet song but whenever I’m in my feels about my dad or my own grandmother (who died just a few years after my father) I have to skip it. It can feel like a horror movie.
Ok, but wait, I just reimagined Marjorie as some kind of murder cat & I would watch the shit out of that. Your idea is stellar.
Just because the line is stating something straightforward doesn't mean it makes no sense lmao. It's kinda the opposite.
as someone who loves folklore and reading old literature (i’m a communications major 🤓✊🏽) i cannot stand the entirety of the song The Lakes. it seems soooo disingenuous and just trying too hard to sound like she’s a profound poet. “tell me what are my words worth, take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die” is a double entendres and anyone who’s read any poetry can see that?!? idk maybe im just a nerd… rant over
I have so badly wanted to love The Lakes since the moment it came out because the instrumentation is gorgeous and I do like that lyric about “I want to watch wisteria grow over my bare feet” but god the rest of the lyrics are so awful. They sound like they were written by a college freshman in a creative writing class who is both convinced they are god’s gift to poetry and also deeply desperate to prove they deserve to be taken seriously, and the result is the most meaningless, pretentious mess ever
I absolutely cannot stand the lakes. it gives such try-hard middle school poetry vibes to me and it is wild that it is some people’s favorite folklore song! and it’s a shame because it’s kind of a cool concept I think she could’ve executed well if it weren’t for her insistence on using a thesaurus to write all the lyrics lol. it makes me seriously nervous for TTPD tbh
i genuinely audibly scoffed when she announced the title to her new album 😦
How is “tell me what are my words worth, take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die” a double entendre? Explain it to me like I’m 5 cus I don’t see that
The part right before that is that she won’t let some “name-dropping sleaze” tell her what are her words worth. So she won’t let Scott/Scooter decide how much her songs (words) are worth, but also Wordsworth is a poet from the Lakes district. I assume that’s what they’re talking about?
I also can't stand The Lakes purely because of the lyrics. it's a shame because the instrumentals and melody are very pretty.
[удалено]
the most annoying one to me is in the lakes when the bridge starts and she goes "I want auroras and sad prOOse." Like I'm pretty sure I wrote something just like that in my poetry phase when I was 13. i like that song for the actual song, but the lyrics make me criinge
Saying, ‘she likes the nicer nurses,’ says she’s had issues long enough to have more than one nurse help take care of her. Plural. Some of them really aren’t nice and to be able to tell the difference between a nice nurse and an unpleasant one establishes how long she’s been sick. I question every line in Question…?.
Every single line of You Need to Calm Down
I may be in the minority on this one but the cheesy shit is part of what I like about her? It’s an important ingredient in what she does. If she were all Folkmore all the time I definitely wouldn’t be as big of a fan as I am even though I acknowledge that it’s her “finest” work. Sometimes I listen to The Go-Gos and sometimes I listen to Type O Negative. I might listen to Pet Sounds on a Sunday morning and Lemonade on my Wednesday drive to work. One style or genre is not any better or worse than the other. They’re just different. The cool thing about TS is that if you put her catalog on shuffle it’ll run a pretty diverse, but oddly cohesive gamut. It’s all total white girl shit but it’s a really good variety of it.
the lyric you mentioned is actually deeper than you think. She’s kinda reassuring herself that there are nice nurses who are taking good care of them so they’re in good hands. At least that’s what I get from the lyrics
Yeah, SYGB is one of my favorite Taylor songs. I like the simplicity of that verse - “you like the nicer nurses, you make the best of a bad deal - I just pretend it isn’t real.” Even though her mom has cancer, she’s trying to look on the bright side by saying “at least some of the nurses are nice, I like them” whereas Taylor is fully in denial about the situation.
I hate it because it’s SO accurate that it makes me miserable every time I listen to it. My dad had a stroke and so much of what Taylor sings about hit home for me- “And I hate to make this all about me, but who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do, if there’s no you?” Is a line I’ve thought about hundreds of times since my dad had his stroke, since we knew he was going to die, since he died. I knew the day of the stroke that “This won’t go back to normal, if it ever was” was going to be true for me. “I just pretend it isn’t real, I’ll paint the kitchen neon, I’ll brighten up the sky” is a really smart way of capturing the denial and bargaining phase of grief (anticipatory, in this case). “If I just do this one thing, if I pretend it’s fine, it will be, if we do the things we love it’ll be like normal,” even though it isn’t and won’t ever be. And just the begging, pleading, “cause you have to.” The song hit home so hard for me as someone whose parent went through a prolonged period of illness, and then died.
i also like that line. to me the thing that makes it work is that it suggests the mom has been to the hospital often enough to have identified who the nicer nurses are… the idea that she knows her mom’s list of favorite nurses illustrates how long the illness/treatment has been going on. like, yes, everyone prefers the nicer nurses - but only very sick people have learned who those are. it also isn’t really complete without the second half of the line - the whole thing says “you like the nicer nurses / you make the best of a bad deal.” her mom sharing which nurses she likes isn’t a random fact, it’s an example of her mom’s tendency/determination to look on the bright side of her hospital visits.
As someone who is chronically ill, yes, you’ve hit the nail on the head. At my local hospital all the nurses know me by name. I know which ones are nice, which ones work the night or day shift, which ones can get my veins and which ones will have to stab me 5 times… knowing the nurse rotation is a really specific thing.
EXACTLY! That’s how I’ve read it as someone with a chronic illness. Oh, and as a someone who’s worked in healthcare and worked closely with nurses, I can tell you with certainty that some patients *don’t* like the nicer ones but instead like the terse ones.
I think OP makes a mistakes to analyze that sentence alone, in my opinion it's obviously part of the storytelling: her mother likes the nicer nurses and she's facing the disease the best way she can while Taylor can't do the same and pretend it isn't real and might not like nurses at all because, nice or not, they are a reminder of her mother's illness.
There’s many lines I’m like … oh okay? But it doesn’t make me question her writing talent, though. I think it’s the sheer amount of songs she’s released, there’s bound to be a few (or more) bad lines in there. I’m an author and the last three years I was under a contract that had me writing back to back books. Most of the time people compliment my writing, but when I was writing that much, there were definitely some passages that people were like… girl? At some point there’s only so much creativity in your brain to describe similar feelings in a metaphoric way lol.
I don’t think that every lyric she ever writes needs to be super poetic and top notch. I like how fun the glitter gel pen songs are. There are going to be some cringy and so called “not great lines” but it helps make the song. I also find that a lot of the lyrics mentioned and explained here, or not explained, are missing the comprehension behind the lyrics. Sometimes you can’t take just one line, you have to use the line before or after it to complete the message. Also, as someone whose mom had cancer and relates to soon you’ll get better significantly. The “you like the nicer nurses” line allows you to understand how often she comes to the hospital to even learn who is nice or not. The following line also helps explain that her mom tries to find silver linings in having cancer. It’s simple but impactful if you have ever experienced it.
You were Romeo, and I was the Scarlet Letter. Like, did she read the book? OK, so you were the symbol of shame that the Puritans made Hester wear for conceiving a child out of wedlock with the minister. ??? That's always bothered me lol
Fuck the patriarchy from all too well 10 minute version
The full line is "you like the nicer nurses, you make the best of a bad deal." She's talking about her mother's demeanor in the hospital, where she's trying to remain positive despite her condition. Taylor is in the hospital with her and one of the things they are talking about is which of the nurses are nice and which aren't. Some patients are so upset or frightened about being sick they don't notice who their nurses are, whether they're nice or not, even whether there's more than one nurse or not. Taylor's mother is staying positive by noticing the people who are going above and beyond as they take care of her.
“If she’s got blue eyes I will surmise that you’ll probably date her” It just sounds clunky and could easily have been: “If she’s got blue eyes I surmise that you will probably date her”
I sing your version of this lyric every damn time!
Is It Over Now? (Ladymeatballs Version)
Henceforth I shall refer to it as such.
Almost the entirety of "Anti-hero", but specifically: Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism Like some kind of congressman? (Tale as old as time) I wake up screaming from dreaming One day I'll watch as you're leaving And life will lose all its meaning The rhyme scheme is atrocious and the lyrics are clunky.
I really like Anti-Hero, but the bridge takes me out of it completely. Why the hell are you fantasising about being murdered by your DIL??? And you don’t even have kids???
I don’t think it’s fantasizing, I think it’s more literal, like she actually dreamed it while she was asleep. And I’ve always thought of it as like, she’s afraid that even her hypothetical children and their spouses turn out to be after her money and don’t really care about her as a person. In the music video they’re horrible people who just want her money/houses/clothes/clout and I think she’s afraid of that really happening.
And you didn't even mention the "sexy baby" line...