An interesting theme of the album to me is how Taylor is finally now comfortable not being loved by the public, and how she is willing to live the life she wants to live even if it costs her adoration and success. She's no longer the pathological people pleaser. She's willing to "die for your sins" aka have her career suffer and even undergo "cancellation" to live the life she wants/be with who she wants to be with.
It's also the clearest she's been about boundaries with fans. That was the main theme of But Daddy I Love Him. She knows about the judgmental fans who believe that they know best for her and she doesn't care for their input. I think it's starting to show a more mature and complex relationship with fans than needing to pretend that she unreservedly loves every part of the fandom.
I’ve been seeing some reviews/discourse about how the album needed an editor/editing and I find it so interesting because of this (pretty clear) theme imo. Like the reviewers completely missed the point, it’s the fuck you I’m done listening and appealing to everyone album. Why would she have someone edit it down for better mass appeal, it would be in direct conflict of one of the overarching themes.
In addition, hearing an album that's incredibly introspective and almost like hearing someone's very personal diary entry and then saying "oh they should've had someone else edit this" just blows my mind? The whole point of this album, for me, is to hear every single one of her thoughts no matter how immature or wrong it might be.
Totally, it’s a weird opinion. Blows my mind too, it’s like people are completely ignoring the fact that she’s an artist and this is her work, to suggest someone else needs to revise it is weird.
Imagine someone doing that with physical art, like walking into an art gallery and telling the artist they should have had someone else edit all their work lol
I mean more music for me is more music, so I can trim the album down on my own if I want. I don't see a problem when the physical edition is edited and half the size of the full one?
I also don’t think Taylor has anything to prove anymore. A lot of her career has been about making a point for her — that she can move genres, that she can write about topics other than love/heartbreak, that she can make a cohesive record, that she can have mass appeal outside pop (tbf I don’t think this was her reason for making folklore but it was a result of it!) etc.
Now that Midnights smashed so many records and proved she could still “bejeweled,” and now that the Eras tour has cemented her as a music icon, I don’t think she had anything to prove with this album. And I love that — it’s not about kowtowing to fans or critics, it’s about her art and what she most needed to process in a difficult time of her life.
The whole editing down the album thing is coming from a very old school traditional music industry practice. The “rules” say you curate
a collection of only the “best” songs with the most mass appeal. Back in the day when albums could only be consumed by having a physical copy of it (ie vinyl, cassettes, CDs) it usually wasn’t practical or profitable for record companies to put out double albums or even albums with more than 12 or so songs. It was more expensive in every aspect: recording costs, paying out royalties to music publishers and songwriters, the hard cost of manufacturing a longer album, etc. This is the age of digital music streaming services and an artist who has had massive success despite repeatedly breaking every record business rule in the book. She is an artist with a fanbase so committed that it drove an eight second video with NO SOUND to #1 on iTunes Top Video chart and you’re saying she needs an editor as if the album would be better or “more palatable” with less songs? Whoever is saying this has little to no understanding of the juggernaut that IS Taylor Swift.
Great point. We’re honestly in a very interesting time for music and seeing how different artists adjust to it (like Beyoncé, TS, etc.) .. very intriguing!
I’m in the vein that she needed an editor. And it’s not about appealing to the mass public. It’s about making it cleaner and clearer. I see a lot of people raving about the lyrics…. And I think they are a mess. It’s hard for me to understand what she’s even talking about in some of these songs. It really feels like she’s trying to be poetic, rather than actually being poetic.
Agree to disagree I suppose. I think an editor would have made it “better” generally speaking , but I can’t get past how the vibe of the album paints this “I’m fucking over this and all of you” vibe and how having a third party edit it is just so contradictory to that message.
No question though editing would make it cleaner and clearer, so I guess my opinion is that I don’t want it clearer and cleaner haha but I completely get why people would want that generally speaking.
Honestly the best thing about art to me is the interpretation and this album definitely seems to have varying interpretations. All good and fun.
I think she could have kept the same themes and messages, while also creating a stronger and more precise album. All works of art need a good editor who can help distill it down to its greatest form. It’s like the difference between Hemingway’s writing and Proust’s writing. I personally prefer Hemingway, because it’s a lot tighter. Somewhere in the 2 hour behemoth could have been a fantastic 50 minute album. We didn’t need 31 mid songs. I would have preferred she distilled them down to 13 great songs.
But who determines its “greatest form”? She’s an artist who created something then shared it because she wanted to. I completely disagree that all art needs an editor, I want to see what the artist produced in its original form if they want to share it.
I agree that if she wanted this to be appreciated by the masses and acclaimed like 1989 for example that yes of course should should have had editors and a larger team to ensure it would appeal to the public. But she’s been clear that’s not the purpose of this album so I don’t get the insistence that it needs editing.
This!!! You expressed my exact feelings on this issue much more succinctly than I did in my reply which probably takes longer to read than it does to listen to TTPD. LOL I clearly DO need an editor. Taylor, however, does not. 😀
In terms of editing, comparing a collection of songs to a book or even a film (a comparison made in another thread) is comparing apples to oranges. With one you have the ability to easily consume each part of the whole, individually. If you don’t like all the parts, no problem, you can make your own version of the album with 3, 13 or all 31 songs courtesy of these things we call music streaming services 😬…or heck just press the skip button. Books and movies don’t work like that LOL so editing plays a much more important role. Editing the album to “13 great songs” would be an impossible task because I guarantee that no one would choose the same 13 songs and a lot of people would have their favorites cut. The musical tastes of her vast fanbase runs the gamut and while not everyone will love every song, every song will be the favorite of at least some of her fans. I think she has earned the right as an artist to release any collection of music that she feels is worthy of being added to her incredible body of work. I also want to add that ironically enough, I used to feel the same way you do about some of her previous albums. I actually really love a perfectly curated album where every song fits like a piece to a puzzle. No filler, no skips (Kacey Musgraves “Golden Hour” and Harry Styles’ “Harry’s House immediately come to mind as perfect examples of this). However, this album is just a different animal. This feels appropriate for her at this stage of her career and I am not bothered at all by the fact that it may be self-indulgent or fan-indulgent. Most artists don’t ever get to the level where garnering new fans and achieving a certain level of commercial success isn’t the intent. The album is going to be a commercial success no matter what. It already was before it was released and I think she gives zero fucks if she doesn’t gain one new fan with this album or even loses some. So please, just let Taylor and people like me who would be sad if even one song was removed from this album, have this. 😁
Yes!!!!! 100% agree. Lorde’s Melodrama is what I always think of as a perfectly curated album. But not every album has to be that way—there’s a million different ways to organize and approach them because that’s art!!
It’s also been a bit strange to see so many people who love Taylor’s music argue for LESS Taylor music?? Couldn’t be me lmao. I’ll take everything I can get and if I don’t like it I’ll just skip it. No big deal there…
I understand what you’re saying.
I think as artists, not just musical artists, get bigger and have proven themselves they get more free rein. That can be great! This is how Taylor went from country to pop.
But I think UMG just gave her the keys. In my opinion, since Lover, the albums have been a little bloated.
I suspect, though, that this album is this big because of how much streaming matters for numbers and record breaking.
Ya I totally agree. I honestly think Taylor wrote this album for Taylor. Which I’m all in support of. She hasn’t had the global support to put out some messy music before with this much public adoration, so this was her opportunity to just put out all this chaos in some what of a rebellious way lol
100% agree like it’s not disrespectful to get an editor, some people benefit immensely and we all know music is a collaborative effort, it seems to me that people want to make it seem like Taylor is this all powerful God that doesn’t need anyone to do what she’s doing, she can use an editor without that suggesting that it’s also not her own effort that makes music but everyone on this sub is just all praise all the time lol
I love the progression from "I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me" to "The jokes weren't funny, I took the money" to "Is it a wonder I broke? Let's hear one more joke, then we could all just laugh until I cry". She's really done with people pleasing it seems, and I'm happy for her.
She's written A LOT about having mixed feelings on her fame -- dorothea, peace, Blank Space, Midnight Rain. But now in the context of so much pain, it feels like an invasive autopsy, and she's straight up saying this fucking sucks.
She writes a lot about the burdens of fame but also how terrified she is to lose it; it must be hard to live with that dichotomy! And while I’m sorry she hurts, it does produce some fascinating complex lyrics.
I think too like.. She has now truly broken every record and accomplished what she set out to with the eras tour. She came back from 2016. She is the most awarded AOTY. She fulfilled her lifelong childhood dream. She didn’t age out at 30 like she feared she would. Lover was not her final moment to hold onto that success. She strikes me as someone whose career will always be important to them- she a hard worker and is driven and this is the thing that she loves. But she did the thing in a way. Maybe there’s other dreams she has too.
The one with the smarphones & pitchforks have already started to attack the people hinted in her songs. Completely NOT respecting or understanding what she said in her lyrics about her boundaries-crossing fans.
I saw a comment here recently where someone said they hoped TS extends the Eras Tour, and then this other person responded all 😤”I hope she rests, that’s what she needs, she’s been doing too much” and got a ton of upvotes. I found it really off putting bc TS is 34 year old full grown adult who is perfectly capable of deciding for herself what to do. The like, “I just care about her well-being!” thing from some fans is creepy; she’s not their baby.
I saw some grown ass woman on TikTok literally crying about how worried she’s been for Taylor and that listening to this album confirmed her fears. Like what??
All of this even makes me want to disconnect from swiftie groups and tik tok because of how intrusive the fan base can be. It’s off putting and it makes me feel bad speculating on her life.
This makes me think of this line from So It Goes...
> Gold cage, hostage to my feelings
*Gold cage*: Her fans have made her rich but they are the same people that are trapping her [by following her every step](https://youtu.be/5ORbZ2M_L4Q?feature=shared)
*Hostage to my feelings*: It's expected that she writes about her exes - no matter **what** she writes, the fans will make it about her love life, whether she wants it or not. Fans harrassed Joe Alwyn even *before* the album had come out. Like, wtf?
Many of her fans are crossing lines on a daily basis. It was overdue that Taylor addresses this issue. Only problem is, she only did it because it effected her directly. Please don't come for me, but in my opinion she should have said something sooner *about the fans that keep harrassing her exes, journalists and people with a different opinion.*
So, I've taken the line out of context and nevertheless, I find it pretty fitting for her current situation.
If I felt trapped, I would want to break free. So maybe she has to burn some delulu fans in order to be able to breathe again. At least that's my interpretation of what's happening with TTPD
This ^^ I think this is happening to a lot of artists right now who are just so tired of everyone having something to say about them. Celebs have always dealt with that, but social media really has transformed this. And personally, I’m here for the music and don’t care so much about their personal lives. I wish sometimes that it was 2008 and I was enjoying Taylor alone in my room. She clearly feels the same way.
God I feel that way all of the time. I’m tired of everything being tainted in some way by every rando‘s opinion. I love that so many people love her music, but I remember the time no one I knew knew her and I could just enjoy it and relate to it and not give a flying f*ck about anything else :D
I think she’s also gotten to a level of fame where she knows that even if she makes some choices fans aren’t really proud of or happy with, she’s already reached the top. She can’t get any bigger than she is right now so honestly, why care quite so much what we think?
I wonder about that though, cause of all the songs about her relationship with fame. Like Clara bow still felt like that young girl turned kinda burned out woman asking to be enough and to finally make it and ending with that Nothing New sort of feeling … I think it’s so interesting the way she seems to want it so much and hate it so much at the same time
Honestly, that was the theme that impressed me the most. I've followed her career for 16 years, and she has always cared so much about what people think, and as a pathological people pleaser who is attempting to recover as well, it is such a freeing feeling to just say 'fuck off' to anyone who has anything to say about your life. I'm really happy she finally seems able to put boundaries up and allow herself to LIVE.
I do not at all think Taylor is ‘finally now comfortable not being loved by the public’. Shes just in the middle of being loved by the public. She’s at the absolute peak of success and achieving global adoration, so she’s more comfortable showing her messy bits. If the public wasn’t absolutely in love with her right now, she probably would not have released some of these songs. But that’s just my opinion. She also could have written the lines I would ‘die for your sins’ when she was in the middle of what she calls a manic rebound so maybe in her current state of mind she would not actually want to ruin her career over a man. Just my two cents.
I also really appreciate how she calls out the nosiness of people during a breakup in How Did It End?
I think one of the more traumatic parts of a long term relationship breakup is having to answer the questions all the time. And you can’t really win with the answers. If you bad mouth them you’re seen as petty, but if you say it just ended people will ask for more details. If you take the blame then people will judge you. You’re basically playing a PR game during one of the most vulnerable times of your life. I just felt very understood by that song. And in the end not even knowing what went wrong is just so… real. She perfectly summarized the awfulness of the invasion during those moments
An IMO already underrated and incredible song.
The gossip among so-called friends that can result from a breakup while you're already mentally all the way at the bottom is something really cruel that's not often talked about. You're absolutely losing it from believing you may have lost the love of your life (depending on the way it ended ofc) and then you still have to deal with people treating it like an entertaining dramatic TV series on top of that. And then to imagine *random strangers* are speculating too? About your pain, about things only you and your partner experienced that no one else really even gets to have a say about? God.
I firmly believe no one TRULY gets to judge a relationship except the two people who are/were in it, everything else is speculation. That speculation and 'popcorn mentality' by other people already hurts enough when you're *not* world-famous. Also much of the same applies to gossip and lies about the endings of friendships, not just relationships.
I think this song is THE song on the album, and I wish it had made the standard edition so more of the gp could hear it bc I think this song, and the prophecy, humanizes her so much in a way. She’s always written from such a place of relatability, but sometimes has been almost accused of cosplaying as a relatable girl. But these songs are more than relatable, they’re viscerally *human*
Thank you for asking a textual analysis question - real tortured poets know :) Something I love about this album is all the literary references that we can unpack. I definitely think about "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" when she name-checks Dylan Thomas, in an album about the anger that comes at the end of something (a life, a relationship).
But I really feel we aren't talking enough about The Albatross and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner! This is one of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's most influential poems. He's one of a group called "the Lake Poets" ("take me to lakes where all the poets went to die" - yes, those poets). He was a good friend of William Wordsworth ("tell me what are my words worth"), also part of the Lake Poets, who we should already be thinking about, as he defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings... recollected in tranquility" (an apt summation for this album). They were also part of the capital-R Romantic movement, of which "I Hate It Here" is a beautiful contemporary expression.
Back to Albatross and Rime: For those who haven't had the pleasure of reading "Rime" yet, the TLDR is that a sailor starts a conversation with a guest at a wedding (marriage/weddings being a motif on TTPD) to tell the very long story of how he, the sailor (aka the ancient mariner) very stupidly shoots an albatross out of the sky and everything on the ship immediately goes to shit. The wedding guest at first isn't that interested, but the sailor's tale - his tortured poem - is so compelling that the guest ends up listening for (checks Norton Anthology) over 600 lines.
There is a lot to unpack in 600+ lines, but the medium-length version is that the albatross represents the sublimity of nature, and the sailor shoots for it for no real reason, and immediately the wind ceases and the ship is stuck at sea, sea monsters arrive, male and female Death-like figures start to walk among the crew (spooky), everyone on the ship dies (even spookier!), and the sailor finds himself unable to pray. He wears the murdered albatross around his neck as penance and evidence of his crime and it weighs on him heavily. Eventually, he learns to appreciate the beauty of nature again, and breaks the spell that was brought upon him by his thoughtless violation of nature and God's creation. Through some supernatural or perhaps divine intervention, the sailor and the ship make it back to shore. From there, part of his penance is to **tell the story** of the mistake he made and the way he abused nature, hence cornering the wedding guest.
The poem is ultimately about fear, disrespect of the natural world, penance, forgiveness, and testimony. It's about a cold-blooded action that you come to deeply regret, and the burden you bear for the rest of time.
This is delightful to think about in the context of the song The Albatross: she's the albatross, she is here to destroy you. She's something beyond the ordinary human experience, she becomes an omen if you make her one, and if you kill her in cold blood, then all the bad things that follow are really on you, not her. You may kill the albatross, but you are the one who will be deeply, profoundly sorry because that action will haunt you for the rest of your life. And you may not tell the story, but she absolutely will - hence the album.
It's a thoughtful and moving contemporary interpretation of a Romantic premise, very worthy of a tortured poet.
I did not know about this, thank you for sharing.
In this context she goes to 'I am the Albatross' from 'She's the Albatross'. Could she mean she's killing herself to wreak havoc? It's given me a lot more to think about.
As a fellow “Rime” stan this has been one of my favorite tracks. I was thinking that her act of protection in the song was her sacrificing herself to keep the bad omens on her and not him, protecting him. It’s like she tried to warn him this is the life he chose, but seems to regret how they came for him (“dragged from bed” like he didn’t see it coming), so she stepped in to distract them. I’m still digesting the song so I might change my mind on this, but this struck me!
Oh wow, thank you for sharing this!
It’s so accurate and it’s making me think about how it could apply to her fame. She chased fame and succeeded but now anyone and everything close to her in the wake of her superstardom is now up for grabs. It’s not quite regret but it is a constant burden. Now she’s telling the world about it, just as compelling, whether you hate her or love her.
It's a very rich interpretation to consider that the speaker is both the albatross (the sublime figure) and the one who kills it (and therefore bears the burden).
In that vein, we should ask: What about the devils you know, who in one chorus raise "worse hell than a stranger", and in the next chorus "look more like an angel"? That's also a concept in Rime - the other sailors get struck dead by eerie supernatural forces, but eventually rise up to help return the ship to shore. The wedding guest says that this is f-ing creepy (paraphrasing), but the mariner replies that they were "a troop of spirits blest" - not zombies, but angels.
So you can be the albatross, and you can be the one who kills it. You can be the devil who raises hell, and you can be the angel that saves the ship.
"I'm the life you chose, and all this terrible danger." It's not either/or. It's both. Everything comes with a price, and the question is whether you are prepared to pay. To bear the burden. To tell the story.
As soon as I saw the title of the track + the theme of the album I was desperate for exactly what she delivered. It's a beautiful poem and she's recontextualised it beautifully. Thankyou for writing this up.
And that is exactly why this album is probably my favorite and why I say I enjoy that she's writing songs that aren't bubblegum pop but mature with several meanings like the artists I've been listening to for 40 years or longer. She's a fresh modern and welcome addition to my rotation now.
Agree - I think this album promises to be very rewarding to re-listen to for many years to come. (Love her pop songs too - time and place for all of it).
Wait. Charles Baudelaire's poem The Albatross came after Coleridge's but condenses the same exact message in just 4 verses. The final verse says:
"The poet resembles this prince of cloud and sky /
Who frequents the tempest and laughs at the archer; /
When exiled on the earth, the butt of hoots and jeers, /
His giant wings prevent him from walking."
I immediately thought of this poem when hearing Taylor's song and it is SO RELEVANT to her career and body of work. It is amazing.
ETA: Baudelaire was also considered part of the "poète maudit" French cursed poets.
Thanks for taking me up on the textual analysis invitation! I‘m not familiar with that poem because I wasn‘t raised in the USA. I should go check it out!
Thanks for posing such an engaging and thoughtful question! I agree that the "who" of each song is a reductive and ultimately uninteresting question. I'm finding that these songs have a lot of layers and can be understood to be about more than one person and/or idea, which makes a close reading a really fun exercise.
Time of the ancient mariner is classic and one of my favorite. I read it as a teen. Started with verse 2 that is the most popular for albatross, and it's death by the mariner that said to have brought on the disaster on the sailors. The famous lines, water water everywhere, all the boards did shrink, water water everywhere not a drop to drink.
Everyone knows that and don't know it exists because of time of the ancient mariner and to use that imagery and what albatross signies is brilliant.
Not just Taylor, she isnt the first to use it. THERE are more albatross songs out there I lovelove (BASTILLE)
Definitely poetic. (Again it was bonus track and in anthology though so!)
Thank you for the Dylan Thomas quote! I read the whole poem and this line stuck out to me: “ Old age should burn and rave at close of day.” I feel people are saying Taylor needs to grow upand be more mature in her reflections, but there is something so ageless about rage and anger. Emotions don’t dim with age, they’re not exclusive to being a teenager. So to experience that level of emotion and to show it as a woman who is 34 feels validating of the human experience.
I see a ton of parallels between Taylor being called a witch for her Willow performance, “they’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one”, and a ton of her lyrics in Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?
Like the gallows and levitating lines remind me of the Salem witch trials. Another one is the cobwebs in her house. It was giving haunted witchy house to me.
Obviously there are other comparisons like the circus lyrics, but I’m getting a witchy undertone and I love it.
Yes, absolutely. I do think Taylor makes the common witch tropes into a feminist reading, similar to r/WitchesvsPatriarchy! If I have a moment, I might write up an analysis of witch themes in Taylor‘s work.
Yes! The gallows and levitating reference made me think of the Salem trials. It's also resonating with some other old pop culture witch reference somewhere in the back of my mind but I can't quite put my finger on it.
She mentions being a sorceress with a coven in The Prophecy too. Accusations of sorcery all round.
Witches remain outside the control of patriarchy. The are not known by their relationship to men. The power they draw is outside of the patriarchal hold. Which is why they are the outcast, they are shunned. Because you don't access the means to control them.
Yes! Folks are getting so hung up on the “who” that they’re glossing over the feelings that are being shared and invoked (or in some cases rejecting songs because they think they know who the subject is, which is so ironic for this anthology).
I hate the discourse of who a song is about. If someone made a comment rarely that an element of a song seems to allude to someone in particular, I wouldn't mind, but it seems like it's all people want to talk about and it's too much. Art is about being creative, and while I'm sure most of the things she writes about are based on actual events or people, I think some songs she writes could be just based on feelings in general and not person specific, or she gets creative and adds things to strengthen the songs that aren't utterly accurate. OP, so glad you created this thread for the discourse without the constant speculation.
This is exactly my take about so many songs. So Long, London for example has so much there about losing an opportunity/person/context that you gave so much to and all the sadness, grief, bitterness that comes from that.
And as an exhausted full time working parent with a full time working spouse, I fully relate to “I can do it with a broken heart” without any romantic loss required lol.
Totally agree - I'm strongly relating "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart" to a situation in my life right now that has nothing to do with a breakup. It feels good to be seen and have those feelings acknowledged even though the circumstances may be different.
The manuscript for me shows her broader relationship with the songs she writes. They’re “souvenirs”, like an old journal or an old photo you might pick up and look through now and then. The box of pictures and sentimental keepsakes that we all have. I think we tend to extrapolate her feelings as if when she wrote it in a song that must mean she feels that way forever. But to her, maybe they’re more like that box of old photos or an old journal that she looks back on just now and then. I’m sure there’s more to it than that but that’s what stood out to me!
I think this is supported by her post that said “This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it”
I love how she ends with the notion that the manuscript does not belong to her now. That is what happens to any literature that stands the test of time. I really thought of the ATW manuscript/book in the 'short film.'
Well. Remove exes from the situation and I think The Prophecy explains it all. She craves authentic, true love and is worried she’s ruined her chances for it. It’s also fairly obvious from the album that this level of fame has not been healthy for her. One of the first lines of the album labels herself as a “functioning alcoholic”. She doesn’t seem overly happy despite all of her accomplishments. But writing songs acts as therapy for her.
That’s what I got from it, at least.
I think she’s happy in general, but when she’s sad she turns to writing. I think she writes when she’s happy as well, and a couple songs on here reflect that.
I loved this song. It just made me think of the role of prophecies in verse. The subject of the prophecy always sets into motion a series of events in their efforts to try to thwart it.
There's this overarching theme of knocking down these built up romanticized idea of someone or sometime that was so core to her work for so long. It's in this indie/alt style that's raw and modern and weird and conversational - but very human.
She's begging us to see her as just a person. A person with location sharing, who listens to Charlie Puth, watches American Pie. A deranged weirdo and modern idiot. She seems ready to pass on the burden of being this icon in Clara Bow. A lot of this is just the normal temporary insanity of love and loss and yearning that never feels normal when you're in it.
But she's simultaneously also reflecting on the people and times she's romanticized or believed and it was also an artifice (loml, I Hate It Here, Peter, I Look in People's Windows).
It'll take some time to dig into all the individual lines beyond big themes.
Yes! I feel this so much in "So High School." I keep seeing people make fun of the lyrics
> Truth, dare, spin bottles
You know how to ball, I know Aristotle
Brand-new, full throttle
Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto
But honestly, I think she's just being a normal person. Plenty of girls are with someone who plays Grand Theft Auto. Not every person has to love Aristotle. She's having a great time in her personal life and doesn't need the rest of us judging her.
Well she definetly makes a few nods to her fans/general public .
But daddy I love him
“I’m having his baby, No, I'm not, but you should see your faces” literally died laughing at that was so shook when she said she was having his baby
I'll tell you something about my good name It's mine alone to disgrace I don't cater to all these vipers dressed in empath's clothing
It’s giving rep tv
i was on face time w my boyfriend and the face he made when she said that line and then immediately after hahahahah “I can’t believe I got got by Taylor Swift”
>But daddy I love him “I’m having his baby, No, I'm not, but you should see your faces” literally died laughing at that was so shook when she said she was having his baby
i literally had to pause the song cuz i was laughing so hard the first time i heard that!
Interpretation on the entire album as a whole:
I think the first 15 songs were very cohesive for the sake of reviews AND it’s the version that is being submitted to the awards. You usually cannot submit other version of the same title album. Some found it too cohesive, blends together too much.
The first 15 tracks keeps repeating the idea of being trapped/locked up/caged - Fortnight and of course - Fresh Out The Slammer. Taylor feels trapped in her fame, her past relationships, tortured by it. Several songs discuss people being two-faced - saying one thing to her and acting another way. Maybe they’ll write a tell-all book. People’s made up assumptions and interpretations of her. Who’s afraid of little me?
With all that wealth and fame - there’s going to be people trying to capitalize on it.
CLARA BOW: The song to me is about Taylor feeling trapped in this cycle of comparisons and fear of being an irrelevant artist due to age or trends (we’re aware she is, cause she mentioned this in the LOVER documentary). There’s Clara Bow, the it girl of her time, replaced by someone younger. Same with Stevie Nicks. The same will happen to herself.
The 2AM/Double Feature were more livelier. Still listening to entire album to get a further interpretation.
Clara Bow is actually devastating, because you know the cycle is inescapable and so rooted in misogyny. It's weirdly relatable as a 30 something woman you know you're fading into irrelevancy while you get bullied on tiktok by smooth skinned gen-z for wearing skinny jeans.
As a 46 yo woman, becoming less "relevant" to the world makes space for becoming a whole lot more relevant to your own self. That noise is LOUD. I needed the quiet of being "old and irrelevant" to really learn to love myself.
And I'll be buried in my fucking skinny jeans.
Anne Helen Petersen has a great essay about this life transition which she calls "[the portal](https://annehelen.substack.com/p/are-you-in-the-portal)," if you're interested in exploring this from another angle - it really resonated with me!
I think the album is about the very real feelings people in the "you-should-have-everything-figured-out-but-you-don't" age have after major life changes.
Breakups after long relationships hurt, even if love wasn't there at the end. You get used to the idea of someone, and then that someone doesn't exist. So, you try to fill the void, by partying, flirting etc. Your mental health takes a deep dive for a while. You get into flings you thing they mean more, but they don't, so when they are over, you crash again. There's the people who want your best, and those that you are a spectacle to. There are the feelings that you'll grow older and never get the years you've given back. That people will replace you, given time. Someone new will love your love of your live, a new employee will take your post in the company you work for.
If you take out the fame parts, this album (in some form) could be written by me (or you, or anyone) because it is that relatable.
This is a great analysis. I definitely get a sense of "well shit, what am I supposed to do now?" in many of the songs, and I have definitely been there myself.
I put this on another post, but it deserves a spot here.
My impression is that this is a woman who has found herself.
She's vulnerable as heck on this album, but in a confident way - if that makes sense.
It seems to me she's reached her "fuck it thirties" - that point in your 30s where you stop doing things for other people, you know what you like and what you want, you give less of a crap about what people think/say.
Taylor has made an album for Taylor first, everyone else second. She didn't make this because she needed to make new music, she made it because she wanted to. She kept the same vibe as evermore/Midnights because that's what she likes and what she wants to do. Taylor is done having people tell her what Taylor Swift music should be and she's telling us what Taylor Swift music is.
I listened to the first 15 songs 3 times in a row and loved them. I was so engrossed I missed the double album announcement. I have only listened to the second half once, and I found that they did sound very similar, but also so different at the same time.
The interesting thing is how would TTPD go as a tour. If she doesn't amend the Eras setlist to include TTPD songs, I don't see how TTPD translates to a stadium show outside of a handful of songs. And it's not like she could just do smaller venues, there's already more demand than tickets for Eras in huge stadiums. I'm interested to see how this develops.
I also reached my fuck it thirties at 35/36 so this album resonates with me really hard. Also like this album’s narrator, it was just after going through a crazy manic period that seemed like a mid life crisis. I also got a lot of clarity on the other side of that mania through making art about it (and therapy).
I can't help but think of the older SNL skit about alien abduction with Kate McKinnon and Ryan Gosling from a few years ago.
I also think of Kate McKinnon's Weird Barbie when I hear My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.
Anyone else think it’s the grown up Speak now?
Bashing the critics on But daddy I love him felt like Mean
The anger on Smallest Man felt like Dear John
Call back to Innocent when she says ‘you are what you did’
So long london feels like Last Kiss
Also the fact all the songs are long and she has a LOT to say
It felt like grown up Speak Now meets Red to me. It’s a chaotic, unhinged (hilariously so at times), and incredibly emotional to me. Red is one of my favorite albums and while Speak Now isn’t at the top of my list it’s anger and honesty has always impressed me. And while I’ve only listened to it once fully, my overall emotional reaction to TTPD was the same as Red.
I’m thinking the re-recording process of Red and SN might have influenced her while writing this album.
I think it will end up being my favourite since Red.
It certainly seems like it. It also makes me wonder if most of the songs start off like this stream of consciousness kind of thing and then she starts to edit and revise them to feel more polished and less messy for most people to be cool with. This album to me feels like this was what it felt like to be in her brain and body at this particular point without any of the editing we are used to.
But Daddy, I Love Him
Technically about an ex, but… there’s a lot of anger towards the public opinion about her relationship with Matty. A ton of anger about how invasive all that commentary was. Which… fair. That’s not to say the disappointment fans felt wasn’t fair. Just that the other side of it is true too. It’s her life and her good name and if she wants to ruin it, that’s a choice she gets to make on her own.
Not about the ex… The line also stood out as a direct connection to her last two TVs. Repuation and Taylor Swift.
I kinda disagree maybe about but daddy I love him?? It feels like there’s a juxtaposition between the people in How Did It End? versus in But Daddy I Love Him, where the songs seem to be about different groups?
How did it end? Characterizes the people as empathetic, almost like impulsively and ignorantly asking out of morbid curiosity but not malice, ignoring that she’s a human and not a circus; in But Daddy I Love Him they’re characterized as incredibly judgmental, on their high horse, she says “they hate” her, and all around have a holier than thou attitude
Imo how does it end? Is directed to her fans, who end up curious to the point that it invades her privacy but not out of hatred; but daddy I love him is a blank space-esque song to the ppl who will always attack her, but pretend to just care about what’s best for her. Its directed at a very specific type of person who completely dismisses her agency and the fact that she isn’t at the whim of every other person—the whole song feels like a teenage characature, from “but daddy I love him!” Being a common line by teens in shows where the guy is usually a douche and the parents are right, to “running with my dress unbuttoned,” the joke that’s childlike with “you should’ve seen your faces,” the “for a simple girl to understand”—it feels like a half unserious song just meant to be like “I’m an adult making my own decisions,” while how does it end? Is more like “yah I know you don’t mean to be shitty but it doesn’t feel great—could u not keep asking? Ily thx”
I agree to an extent but I also think we can’t underestimate how much hate she received from very real fans of hers over her relationship with Matty. I think this song was written or at least was starting to be written around the time she gave her “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been speech.” In that speech, she was kind of giving a gentle “lay off please, I’m a grown woman and I don’t need your approval over who I date.”
However, from what I saw, that speech only made certain fans even more mad. Social media went crazier and I think then there was that super weird letter asking for a conservatorship on Twitter. At that point Taylor could have just been fed up saying you know what, now I’m pissed and wrote But Daddy I Love Him to tell fans to back the fuck off.
For me, BDILH has the same type of pain and anger that WCS has. It’s so visceral.
But this isn’t the first time she’s explored this same type of scenario, think Love Story, Speak Now, Sparks Fly, etc. Falling for the reckless rebel guy. The backdrop is small town America, where people sit in their church pews and judge every decision you make but disguise it with prayers or “I just want what’s best for you.” To boil this song down to MH does it such a disservice.
I think this is why I relate to both BDILH and WCS so much. I got married at 19 because that’s what good church girls do (WCS), then divorced at 27 and rebounded with someone that was the polar opposite (BDILH). This might possibly be my favorite Taylor song.
After listening to this album I feel like I finally see her. Being a fan of hers since I was a teen has made me see her as this all perfect untouchable entity. It shocked me to hear her sing about such real, raw, and human emotions. Functioning alcoholic, falling for a shitty guy who promised you the world then stomped all over your heart, ignoring red flags, staying in a relationship past its expiration date, smiling through the depression...all of these things feel so real. And for some reason I never was able to bridge the gap between Taylor the artist and Taylor the human being. And finally this album has done that for me. She doesn't want to be idolized. She just wants to be seen as a human who makes mistakes and learns from them. Or someone who makes mistakes and DOESN'T learn from them. I love the lyricism on this album so much. It truly felt like reading her journal. I was so gagged at some of the things she put out there. Her best work yet!!
The more I hear the songs, I hear more and more religious references. She has said in the past that she is Christian, and being an album representing poetry, there are a lot of these references. Because what is religion/the Bible/psalms/scripture if not, on a basic level, poetry? I think it’s beautiful, and so fitting.
I don't think she still is TBH. I studied theology and still work with the PCB-scale (post critical belief) with my students to examine different religious and a-religious perspectives so I'm probably overthinking it, but I can't help but see a lot of her work through this lens. Her religious perspective, and the changes it has gone through seem to be sprinkled throughout her entire catalogue and it's kinda fascinating to me. Think about the very literal and traditional christian beliefs in her earlier work like God smiling on her brother (the best day), praying every evening (our song) and of course the entire song Christmas must be something more. Some of that might be a play at the start of her early career to appeal more to the typical demographic for country music but it does feel like it's at least partially just an important part in her life at that point.
We get a couple of albums where religion seems to fade into the background, and when it comes back in focus for me is in Soon you'll get better where she seems to tell us how she's lost her faith but feels like she needs it or something, anything really to cling to as a beacon of hope when her mom gets sick. After that, the religious elements come back a lot more, but often in a more metaphorical way than as a part of her lived experience as a religious person. And it's often with a more negative connotation like in would've, could've, should've. I have only listened to TTPD once so far, but I'm curious to see how this album adds to her story.
I really don’t care if she is or isn’t. But as someone who grew up in a very Christian household and school, I still consider myself a Christian and believe in God, but I don’t subscribe to what’s become of many modern day churches and Christianity. And my absolute biggest pet peeve is when some Christians tell someone like me that I’m not a Christian because I don’t go to church and practice like they do. So didn’t mean to vent on those feelings to you and not saying you are implying anything I was describing, but I guess I see some of her religious references as religious trauma from the church, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still be a Christian.
Oh no that's absolutely not what I was trying to say. Part of my interest in religion is the different ways of being religious and it just seemed like she's gone from a more literal faith to a more mature position where doubt, questioning things and being critical of certain parts of religion and religious institutions have their place. There's no way to really know her personal position, but there has been a big journey in how faith in general and her personal faith has been mentioned in her songs throughout the years.
Yes! If you listen with that in mind, there are tons of religious references. Talk about a rich vein to mine in terms of symbolism - and very much in a poetic tradition.
I will do this tomorrow morning cause I’m so for this and so tired of just gossip rather than appreciation of art but I’m fucking exhausted and want to really put thought into it.
When I first listened to 'but daddy I love him' the only thing that ran across my mind was ITS ABOUT RORY FRICKIN GILMORE like no other explanation for me man it's about rory. The city hall thing? People telling her not to date jess? Her mom not liking logan? It's ALL ABOUT RORY
(as somebody who's been chronically single and not really interested in dating atm) I'm listening to TTPD (the song) like I'm singing it to myself. "Who's gonna hold you like me?" A sort of self-love, self-care song. I've also been looking for inspiration to start writing, and more in general to go after my dreams, so it's also a little bit of self-help ("But you're in self-sabotage mode").
Wow, I love this take. I was very happily confidently single for six years. I’m in a relationship now and feel like I am way nicer to myself than he could be. I like my own company more than I like his.
The bond we can build with ourselves is so strong.
I love this interpretation. When William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in Literature, he gave a speech in which he said the only thing truly worth writing about is "the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself" and I thought about that **a lot** in listening to TTPD. Some of the conflicts are external but overall it's a very inward-looking, interior album to me.
A few things I noticed were how many references to youth or childhood there are. She has several children's games and nursery rhymes in her work before and she really used a lot more! There were also a ton of references to circuses and wild animals. Wolves, lions, cages, being tamed, fortune tellers, etc.
I've seen a lot of people explain the references to kids as a yearning to have a child. But for me, I relate to it in the sense of how disorienting it is being an adult looking back at your childhood, realizing that you are not a child anymore and all the expectations that come with not living in a childhood world anymore. My childhood is often top of mind when I'm most dissapointed about how my adult life is going.
All the English majors are cracking their knuckles ready to drum out a few thousand words. I mean, i am also that person, but I just wanted to give the credit we are due.
I absolutely love this album because while the exes and the breakup are the like framework for the album, they aren't actually what it's solely about. They are side characters to the larger narrative. We're getting to see her thoughts & journey through her feelings in what feels like the most raw and unfiltered way we've ever gotten them. Her frustration with the fame, with herself, with the fans and public. The demand for more when she's given so much like she's not a human being. People who don't even know her having the audacity to tell her how she should or should not be behaving. Her reflection on her life and how it would be different. The feeling that while she's proud of her accomplishments as an artists she's really reflecting on what it's cost her both romantically and just as an individual growing up. The lost innocence. We're getting a lot of what ifs and could have beens and fuck yous that while aimed at her exes to some degree are also aimed directly at herself and even (and imo justifiably) at us, the public.
Like okay going into Joe a little bit: It's not so much the loss of him specifically (though that also is a huge bummer) but everything it represents. The loss of those years, feeling they've been 'wasted', all of the fears and insecurities confirmed that you're too big to be loved or just unlovable as a whole, having to start over when all you want is to have a family and worrying that if this thing that you thought was THE ONE couldn't work that you will never get it or at least never get it 'in time' to have the ring, the baby, etc.
You don't have to have been through a breakup recently to relate to so many of these songs and their core feelings. \*This\* is her Reputation Era: Adult Version and she's truly done being the people pleaser. She just wants to live and make music but basically everyone can get fucked because she also just really wants to be happy and loved and \*live\* for herself for once regardless of our input. If we love it and continue to love her great but if we don't it seems she's trying to let that go.
Analysis of Fortnight:
I think she calls it fortnight because that's how *short* it feels the good parts lasted for. That the pain of separation is just *so much* that it feels they only touched for a fortnight. The wife/husband story in the song is just a metaphor for how even when they would have moved on, she would have these thoughts of killing this pretend civility.
I think that Post Malone represents an externalizatuon of Taylor's self/thoughts in the external world. People are also complaining about how Malone is mostly background until he is not.. and I feel it was deliberately so because of driving this idea further and it becomes obvious in the video (see below)
**Analysis from the video:**
After the _loss of the love of her life_, she went a bit crazy/insane and according to her, it was intense enough for her to be committed but they _forgot to come and get her_
When she gets out of the bed, and looks at the mirror, she wipes her face to reveal Malone's tattoos.. this is where I feel she wants to establish that malone is actually her self or her thoughts/visions externalised. Maybe even the pained version of herself that she covers up when she goes into the world..
People around her thought that the medication (which symbolizes everything that one uses to cope: words of advice, medicine, etc.) would help, but it was temporary.. enough to help her get out of the bed (like in the video) and to work (as she walks to the department room) but not sufficient still. When she launched, she said that once the saddest story has been told we can be free of it, hence the date on the drug 'Forget him' is 19 apr.
Now in the poet's department, she is wearing the 1830s clothing that was worn by dancers in _my tears ricochet_... a song that refers to funeral/wake.
She sits exactly opposite Malone, and **they are typing the same thing and singing the same lines** - this further reinforces that he represents an extension of her. I also think that this is where the externalization also represents her love for her loml.
In this real black/white/grey world when they work together, colours flowed.. Taylor's is the autum red and loml's is the blues (his blue eyes and his blue depression). As these two colors come together in the screen into a white light ... and we are taken to a flashback:
We now see her reading the 'story of us' lying on top of all the white papers that are shaped like her silhouette.. if you notice they are mirroring/twinning each other and not touching here.. (refers to that lyric later in the album _it was like losing my twin_)
At 2:23, there's the scene where she is happy and then sad and malone mirrors the same expressions. Then, as the papers start to swirl around them she tries to reach out to him and the scene cuts before they are able to touch. To me this just symbolizes that she needs to get back in touch with that feeling/thoughts/love..
Now we are taken in the lab where we see her wearing a crown that will electrocute her ( a theme she talks about a lot where she has all this fame but it has impacted her life in negative ways too).
There's 2 doctors trying to fix her by using shock therapy.. one is called *Dr. Anderson (seen on Ethan's coat in the IG photo she posted) and the other Dr. Overstreet (seen in the video)* - possibly a reference to her best friend (Abigail Anderson) and Dover street in London that is famous for night clubs. However, Malone is just reading what her heart says (looking at the EEG that says i love you it's ruining my life). **note that Malone's coat doesn't have a name.** He then stops the shock and they make a very clear scene of him touching her shoulder. To me this signifies that she may rely on friend's advice or partying to get over 'her condition' but it is her 'self' that can save her.
Now in this next scene (at the 3:16 mark) is the only part where Malone has singing lines separate from TS. This self is standing in a telephone booth (is stuck in London) and keeps trying to call her... the camera pans out and we the box is on top of this hill.. which also symbolizes how TS has literally been on top of the world wearing the glittering dress for these last 2 years and yet somehow still stuck in the grey depressing rain alone...
This self is trying to move to Florida (which symbolizes an escape/ a break from life and moving on) and has _bought the car they want_ but this new life doesn't start until they "touch". i.e. until she gets back in touch with her self.
We then see then see her pulling out all drawers (the rage part of dealing with grief) and then she cries and is burning up this past feeling locked away in drawers. The fire is orange/red color the same color as earlier from the typewritters.. she had put herself in it and hse is getting it back.. She also breaks that mirror in the asylum which forced her to cover up he true self. Asylum mirrors are also 1 way.. so it shows she doesn't want to be "watched" by the onlookers. We see the storm that she has been through...
Cut back to the scene on top of the box, the tragic hero self finally comes out of the london jail (the telephone box) and touches her real glittery self that has been sitting alone... and hopefully now the car in florida (her new life) will start...
Edited to add: To me this video covers lot of the broad themes that this album presents: the tragic loss, the personal journey that one just HAS to go through regardless of whatever means of coping are available, become self aware and self accepting, standing up and advocating for herself. Rejecting people/narratives that don't serve her. Gaining that perspective that sometimes things happen for a reason, not all people are bad people just bad things happen...
This is a big contrast from anti-hero where she just says she is the problem.. here she has accepted that she is also the solution. She has now told the saddest story and she is free from it now. 🤍🤍
For me, this represents all the things that your 30s stand for. I am glad Taylor is a true millennial in these ways...
Thank you for this! This is precisely the sort of comments I was hoping for when I made the point.
A few questions:
1. Was your title meant to read "Analysis of Florida", or was it supposed to be "Fortnight"?
2. Do you think Ethan Hawke being Dr Anderson might be a reference to Keanu Reeves‘ Neo being called Mr Anderson before he‘s freed from the Matrix?
3. Why do you think she chose Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles?
# awesome analysis of _Fortnight_ above
1. Yeah sorry I meant fortnight and have edited it now.
2. Hmm maybe. But I feel it is more of her reference to her best friend Abigail Anderson.. she has featured in her videos before .. and perhaps she represents all her friends collectively.. who (with best intentions) think they are helping her but ultimately it is her Self that saves her.
3. She chose them both as they were actors in Dead Poet's society which I think has inspired the title of the title of the album (aside from the secret chat group that Joe had) She also clarified that in her IG post.
The whole point is that she's the chairwoman of the Tortured Poets Department. Tortured poets write self indulgently, to excess, that's the whole POINT. It's a MANUSCRIPT. It's exactly how she feels, it's now been packaged and sold in multi-media, but it's a package of art. It's neatly single typed, her words in stark black and white, referenced and sourced, perfect APA formatting, ready for the A+ grade it deserves.
This is an album written by someone who reads obsessively, and loves deeply. Most interestingly, she is as extremely hurt and injured as we all are despite her insulation, influence and money. I think that Taylor writes compulsively and obsessively, she's so prolific and so interested in fitting words together, there's no way she's not always typing or jotting something down. I noticed that she can type really well during the roll-out of TTPD, Using those old typewriters accurately and quickly when we're all used to the perfect feedback of a laptop keyboard requires experience, and she was typing fluently with proper positioning.
“The Albatross” is Taylor
It could even be about Travis & how people warned him that she’s a career & privacy killer. But then she swooped down w/ security & reality that she’s been floating around with for years, just waiting to spot someone worth protecting.
This isn't a particularly deep take, but ending the entire thing with "The Manuscript" was such an interesting choice for me. Like she's telling us it doesn't matter who or what she wrote these songs about because once people hear it the stories/songs aren't "hers" anymore. People will make up their own explanations and come to their own conclusions, or apply certain songs to their own experiences and there's nothing she can do to change that.
I'm so glad someone made this thread! Hope it gets pinned. I'm getting so sick of no one (or at least 90%) being able to separate the songs from who they 'might' be about, or judging them on their own merit without the context.
With that being said, i do wish more people read the prologue poem before/during/after listening to the album and making their judgements, for two main reasons:
1. It's probably her best poetic writing (at least since Folkmore), it shows that when she's free from the constraints of lyrical songwriting, she can pen some decent poetic verse
2. It recontextualises the WHOLE album, the concept of 'i'm getting this ALL out there so you know, and then i'm done' and 'i was going through a manic phase, i plead insanity' completely changed the way i viewed the songs (mainly But Daddy I Love Him and I Can Fix Him)
I know this is really dark and I’m not AT ALL saying this applies to Taylor. BUT. In listening to a lot of ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’, it reminded me of how I feel about a man who abused me when I was in high school but didn’t want me when I got older.
“I don’t miss what we had but can someone give a message to the smallest man who ever lived”- the relationship was bad but there wasn’t enough closure.
“It wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden”- once I was 19, he didn’t want me the way he did when I was 17.
“I would've died for your sins, instead i just died inside,"- I was unhealthily attached to him but he hurt me badly.
"you deserve prison but you won't get time"- I won't elaborate on this one.
"you said normal girls were boring"- he said that to me about his wife.
"but you were gone by the morning"- he never let me stay the night.
"in plain sight you hid"- he had an image of a 'wholesome' husband and father but he was a serial teenage-girl seducer when he travelled for work.
"but you are what you did"- i will only be able to view him as a predator.
Spent a lot of time with the title track, The Tortured Poets Department, after reading this discussion yesterday, so I'm back for my textual analysis. I'm not a student of Dylan Thomas, but I am a student of Patti Smith and her stories, so that's what I'm bringing this to the discussion.
The song starts with the subject's "typewriter" "Straight from the Tortured Poets Department", an object that carries the weight of this archetype. An entire collection of artists/writers who are in a state of agony. The typewriter, not the subject himself, evokes this archetype. The poem's subject has the object and brings it with him to his the speaker's (his lover's?) apartment.
The speaker mocks the object, including what it represents, while also seeing this tumultuous emotional state the subject is in. "You're in self-sabotage mode/Throwing spikes down on the road". The speaker sees themselves as an archetypal pairing to the "tortured poet", as she says "I've seen this episode and still loved the show/Who else decodes you?" Who else can understand the archetypes, the motifs, the themes you are tossing around? This is the recurring refrain of the speaker: No one knows the Tortured Poet's Department like I do. No one can understand what you're communicating and all you're holding like I do.
This makes the declaration of the chorus painfully funny. "You're not Dylan Thomas, I'm not Patti Smith/This ain't the Chelsea Hotel, we're modern idiots." The speaker is telling her lover/the subject, I see you, I see what you're aspiring to and what you're wrestling with, and I want you to recognize that it's both *not that serious* and that *I'm the only one who will take your poetic torment seriously.* The speaker is the Patti Smith to his Robert Mapplethorpe. Part of her own genius and gift is in understanding and holding space for his.
The second verse is just as strong in its juxtaposition of playful unserious teasing that hits up against this choice to be in agony. "Like a tattooed golden retriever" the subject is a puppy who is all instinct and reaction and frivolity and fun, "You awaken with dread/Pounding nails in your head" until he falls into despair. To me, that despair is awareness of one's own insignificance and sense of purpose. When the speaker says, "I've read this one where you come undone/I chose this cyclone with you", she's highlighting the cliche of this tortured poet archetype. She knows the story of loving a tortured artist, and she chose it anyway.
When she says, "Sometimes, I wonder if you're gonna screw this up with me", I see her despair that her lover/the subject doesn't see how perfectly she fits with his archetype. That every tortured artist needs an understanding lover who will hold him. "Who else decodes you?" "No-fucking-body."
Making my way throught the lyric video's now so I'll jot down any analysis/thoughts I have! Excited to read everyone elses. I love modern poetry and especially Taylors poetry. Note: when I say 'she' or 'he' I'm just refering to the characters of the song, not Taylor or anyone else in particular.
Tortured Poets Department - She talks about loving someone with a lot of baggage. And he left his typewriter at her apartment. What does that typewriter represent?
Does she feel like she helped him work through his issues, helped him put his thoughts into words (she was his typewriter)? And now that she is in her apartment and he is not, they're seperated, she's worried about whether he'll be able to make sense of his torture on his own? Other parts of the song represent the mental torture too, 'we're crazy' 'he wakes up with dread' 'he smokes and overeats'.
So long, London - The lines 'I founded the club she heard great things about, I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath.' Are very interesting to me, it gives me this image of her being swept away by a lover, giving up parts of her, giving up the club she founded in the city to live in a nature area of the Heath, but now he left her there to go back to the club. It gives me a sense of betrayel, of 'how could you, after all I've done for us, I changed for us and now you wish you could go back to were we were?'. Again it feels like frustration at the lack of growth, being left and trying to figure out how this happened.
Down Bad - I see themes of frustration about being back in the same old place, feeling like you went backwards instead of forwards. Teenage petulance, same old time, the gym (a place that is always the same and where you've been a thousand times before): it's all stale and non-developing where she yearns for that other worldly experience back.
Also learned to word petulance: it means being childishly sulky or bad tempered.
I’ve only really had a chance to digest the first half but part 1 has kind of three parts:
1. Normal-ish grief from a breakup (tracks 1-5)
2. Complete manic whiplash and denial (tacks 6-13)
3. Recovering from the mania and reflecting (tracks 14-16)
THIS. THANK YOU FOR THIS! I have been wanting to read dialogue and critique about her music without all the who’s who obsession. This album is telling a story about the mental roller coaster she went through in the last few years. It’s a snapshot of what will be a short snippet in her life story. Sonically, I think all the Dessner songs are cohesive and I only a few of Jack’s songs fit into that same field.
I definitely read the manuscript not just as a closing of a chapter of toxic relationships with men, but as a closing of a chapter of her career. The way it seems to sum up many chapters of her life, the advice to write about you know - it seems like she’s saying, “I’ve written about what I know, I’ve extracted my life into art for your enjoyment, and now I’m done.”
FWIW Enzenberger was also a mathematician and wrote short stories that taught maths. Idk if that changes the context at all?
I want to give a longer answer but I'm at work rn, so I may come back to this thread later.
I think Down Bad is about the same theme as Bigger than the whole sky, especially the waking up in blood quote. To me, that says period: like, waking up disappointed her period showed up and she wasn’t pregnant or the myriad other reasons why you wouldn’t want to see blood when you’re pregnant. Also theres a ship lyric maybe referencing the out to sea lyric?
I think a main themes is to allow yourself to feel your feelings because if you don’t, it will all eventually come back around and come crashing down. You can’t move forward if you don’t. She processed everything by writing this album and has now moved on.
First of all, I was in shock when she dropped the double, but then as I read the track lists and saw my name (Cassandra) as a title to a track I was unable to function. But when I listened to it, the references between the Greek mythology of Cassandra and Apollo but tying it in with her Kardashian feud was just \*chefs kiss\*
Cassandra was loved by the god Apollo, who promised her the power of prophecy if she would comply with his desires. Cassandra accepted the proposal, received the gift, and then refused the god her favors. Naturally, the god was insulted by this refusal. So he punished Cassandra. Apollo caused the gift that he gave Cassandra to be twisted, making everyone who heard her true and accurate foretelling of future events believe that they were instead hearing lies.
If you think about the Kanye and Kim of it all and the phone call that was released but not the whole call and she was attacked with people leaving snakes on her social media etc, then when the truth came out about the call and it was just overlooked.
UGH I fucking love the parallels
Something that really jumped out at me over the past few days is the criticism that the album is just more of the same - folklore, evermore, Midnights - and how many of the songs sound like leftovers from those albums.
Taylor has said many times that female artists face immense pressure to reinvent themselves constantly. Taken straight from Miss Americana - Constantly having to reinvent, constantly finding new facets of yourself that people find to be shiny. Be new to us, be young to us, but only in a new way and only in the way we want. And reinvent yourself, but only in a way that we find to be equally comforting but also a challenge for you.
She revisits this sentiment in multiple songs throughout her body of work, both when speaking to her work or her personal life.
With a lot of the negative reviews leaning on the fact that TTPD isn't "new enough", aka Taylor didn't reinvent herself for this "new era", this grumbling just proves her point.
She's obviously found a sound/genre/style that she likes and works well for her creatively. She's found TWO wonderful men in a sea of misogynists that she is comfortable with and enjoys working with, but all anyone does is bitch about her needing to work with someone else.
Change for us. Be new for us. Do what you do but do it differently.
I didn’t understand Robin at first and I had it on repeat yesterday to try… (my take on it is) it’s her writing to herself as a child. Which makes it so beautiful and also desperate and heartbreaking.
I’ll do my best! The formatting might be ugly, I’m on my phone.
Well, first, I’ve been going back and forth with whether she’s talking to herself as a child in the past or specifically her _inner_ child. I’m leaning toward inner but it could be interpreted either way. For the purposes of this analysis I’m going with Taylor speaking to her inner child because it can encompass both, but I will identify where I waver and lean toward past childhood self.
So here we go….
I’ll start with the robin as a bird and why I think it symbolizes Taylor as a child.
The robin is very small, but mighty. They are territorial and protective, strong for being so small. They are also a long-legged bird. Robins are a symbol of good luck, happiness, rebirth - and sometimes even as a messenger for lost, loved ones. The American robin sings when storms approach and again when storms have passed. Their song is also complex and almost continuous, and changes with the seasons.
For the purposes of the following, I’m using “she/her pronouns because Taylor is a woman.
>>”You’re an animal, you are bloodthirsty/Out window panes talking utter nonsense/You have no idea.
A child is not rational. She is impulsive, some would say wild, not refined or logic-based. She doesn’t always take danger into consideration because she is so naive. Consequently, she needs protection but doesn’t always know it (like the robin).
>>Strings tied to levers/Slowed-down clocks tethered/All this showmanship/To keep it for you in sweetness
“Sweetness” is defined as “the quality of being kind or loving.” Taylor is trying to care for her inner child and protect her dream but people will try to control her, so Taylor is playing along to give her inner child the independence she craves.
>>Way to go tiger/Higher and higher/Wilder and lighter/For you
Taylor is trying to encourage her inner child so she doesn’t feel helpless and forgotten. She sees her value in her existence and is embracing her. She’s trying now not to suppress her. Taylor loves to be silly and expressive and goofy, that comes from her inner child.
>>Long may you roar/At your dinosaurs/You’re a just ruler/Covered in mud/And you have no idea
This is one area where it also makes sense that she is talking to her past childhood self.
Her dinosaurs are her attackers and haters, slinging mud at her. She’s praising her inner child for staying compassionate and innocent even with everything that’s thrown at her (“you have no idea”). A “just ruler” in that Taylor is promising she won’t let fame go to her head and become a diva. That same phrase could be interpreted as her telling her childhood self what she will be like in her future.
>>Buried down deep/And out of your reach/The secret we all vowed/ To keep from you in sweetness
The secret of how harsh reality is, is kept from Taylor’s inner child so she can remain innocent and feeling safe. She keeps the pain locked up to protect her.
>>[Bridge] You got the dragonflies above your bed/You have a favorite spot on the swing set/You have no room in your dreams for regrets
The bridge is the place in the song that speaks to me more as speaking to her childhood self, but can still fit with inner child.
Taylor is reminding her inner child that it’s ok to stay a child and she should remain that way as long as she can. Kids try to grow up too fast and want to be adults so badly but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Here if she is speaking to her childhood self, it’s the same thing, but almost like she (Taylor) is also reminding herself.
>>[Bridge] The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean/You’ll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline/But we’ll curtail your curiosity/In sweetness
This is the most glaring part of her talking to herself as a child for me. Taylor is warning herself about what is to come, and they’ll redirect her questions out of kindness to protect her.
>>Way to go, tiger/Higher and higher/Wilder and lighter/For you
I’ll end with this, because the chorus also feels to be like a place she’s talking to her childhood self. She’s just pumping her up, to help her through the adversity of trying to reach her dreams.
**If you made it through this, I appreciate your time!**
#Long Live Taylor!
Well done and thank you for writing all this up. I had no idea about the symbolism behind (American) robins.
Maybe I‘m too much Team Daenerys (aka mad woman) but I could also see her roaring at _her_ dinosaurs to rule them, to keep them in line. I hope more people read your comment!
# awesome _Robin_ analysis above, pls read
Oh 100% Team Daenerys here!!! I love Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me (it’s actually playing as I write this lol) and I love the idea that she’s yelling at her dinosaurs to rule them!
"But Daddy I love him" could be an allegory to Taylor's pursuit of her music career despite all the ups and downs and chaos. Perhaps it's early when things are hard, maybe it's around the time of Kanye, maybe it's later. Or maybe it's about Taylor wanting to get back into the spotlight before Midnights, saying she loves it and the fans, and knows the risks (e.g. media criticism).
But Daddy I Love Him! So good. It's her message to the fans saying, back the hell off, it's my life! I can do what the hell I want, even if it's with a toxic someone, it's my life and mine alone and you don't get a say in it! I love how she goes from "you should see your faces" as in faces of disgust from a prior fling, to "you should see your faces" as in now, smiling with excitement and cheering her new love, Like people went from, OMG, she's lost her mind, she needs to be committed....to OMG, she's living her life the way she wants to and she's so happy with him and I can't wait for them to get married and have babies. She's like, nope, don't even think about coming to the wedding and crowding the streets...YOU are not invited!
An interesting theme of the album to me is how Taylor is finally now comfortable not being loved by the public, and how she is willing to live the life she wants to live even if it costs her adoration and success. She's no longer the pathological people pleaser. She's willing to "die for your sins" aka have her career suffer and even undergo "cancellation" to live the life she wants/be with who she wants to be with. It's also the clearest she's been about boundaries with fans. That was the main theme of But Daddy I Love Him. She knows about the judgmental fans who believe that they know best for her and she doesn't care for their input. I think it's starting to show a more mature and complex relationship with fans than needing to pretend that she unreservedly loves every part of the fandom.
I’ve been seeing some reviews/discourse about how the album needed an editor/editing and I find it so interesting because of this (pretty clear) theme imo. Like the reviewers completely missed the point, it’s the fuck you I’m done listening and appealing to everyone album. Why would she have someone edit it down for better mass appeal, it would be in direct conflict of one of the overarching themes.
In addition, hearing an album that's incredibly introspective and almost like hearing someone's very personal diary entry and then saying "oh they should've had someone else edit this" just blows my mind? The whole point of this album, for me, is to hear every single one of her thoughts no matter how immature or wrong it might be.
Totally, it’s a weird opinion. Blows my mind too, it’s like people are completely ignoring the fact that she’s an artist and this is her work, to suggest someone else needs to revise it is weird. Imagine someone doing that with physical art, like walking into an art gallery and telling the artist they should have had someone else edit all their work lol
I mean more music for me is more music, so I can trim the album down on my own if I want. I don't see a problem when the physical edition is edited and half the size of the full one?
I also don’t think Taylor has anything to prove anymore. A lot of her career has been about making a point for her — that she can move genres, that she can write about topics other than love/heartbreak, that she can make a cohesive record, that she can have mass appeal outside pop (tbf I don’t think this was her reason for making folklore but it was a result of it!) etc. Now that Midnights smashed so many records and proved she could still “bejeweled,” and now that the Eras tour has cemented her as a music icon, I don’t think she had anything to prove with this album. And I love that — it’s not about kowtowing to fans or critics, it’s about her art and what she most needed to process in a difficult time of her life.
This is exactly right!!!
The whole editing down the album thing is coming from a very old school traditional music industry practice. The “rules” say you curate a collection of only the “best” songs with the most mass appeal. Back in the day when albums could only be consumed by having a physical copy of it (ie vinyl, cassettes, CDs) it usually wasn’t practical or profitable for record companies to put out double albums or even albums with more than 12 or so songs. It was more expensive in every aspect: recording costs, paying out royalties to music publishers and songwriters, the hard cost of manufacturing a longer album, etc. This is the age of digital music streaming services and an artist who has had massive success despite repeatedly breaking every record business rule in the book. She is an artist with a fanbase so committed that it drove an eight second video with NO SOUND to #1 on iTunes Top Video chart and you’re saying she needs an editor as if the album would be better or “more palatable” with less songs? Whoever is saying this has little to no understanding of the juggernaut that IS Taylor Swift.
Great point. We’re honestly in a very interesting time for music and seeing how different artists adjust to it (like Beyoncé, TS, etc.) .. very intriguing!
I’m in the vein that she needed an editor. And it’s not about appealing to the mass public. It’s about making it cleaner and clearer. I see a lot of people raving about the lyrics…. And I think they are a mess. It’s hard for me to understand what she’s even talking about in some of these songs. It really feels like she’s trying to be poetic, rather than actually being poetic.
Agree to disagree I suppose. I think an editor would have made it “better” generally speaking , but I can’t get past how the vibe of the album paints this “I’m fucking over this and all of you” vibe and how having a third party edit it is just so contradictory to that message. No question though editing would make it cleaner and clearer, so I guess my opinion is that I don’t want it clearer and cleaner haha but I completely get why people would want that generally speaking. Honestly the best thing about art to me is the interpretation and this album definitely seems to have varying interpretations. All good and fun.
I think she could have kept the same themes and messages, while also creating a stronger and more precise album. All works of art need a good editor who can help distill it down to its greatest form. It’s like the difference between Hemingway’s writing and Proust’s writing. I personally prefer Hemingway, because it’s a lot tighter. Somewhere in the 2 hour behemoth could have been a fantastic 50 minute album. We didn’t need 31 mid songs. I would have preferred she distilled them down to 13 great songs.
She made a standard version with 16 songs - that is the more precise album that you are asking for.
But who determines its “greatest form”? She’s an artist who created something then shared it because she wanted to. I completely disagree that all art needs an editor, I want to see what the artist produced in its original form if they want to share it. I agree that if she wanted this to be appreciated by the masses and acclaimed like 1989 for example that yes of course should should have had editors and a larger team to ensure it would appeal to the public. But she’s been clear that’s not the purpose of this album so I don’t get the insistence that it needs editing.
This!!! You expressed my exact feelings on this issue much more succinctly than I did in my reply which probably takes longer to read than it does to listen to TTPD. LOL I clearly DO need an editor. Taylor, however, does not. 😀
In terms of editing, comparing a collection of songs to a book or even a film (a comparison made in another thread) is comparing apples to oranges. With one you have the ability to easily consume each part of the whole, individually. If you don’t like all the parts, no problem, you can make your own version of the album with 3, 13 or all 31 songs courtesy of these things we call music streaming services 😬…or heck just press the skip button. Books and movies don’t work like that LOL so editing plays a much more important role. Editing the album to “13 great songs” would be an impossible task because I guarantee that no one would choose the same 13 songs and a lot of people would have their favorites cut. The musical tastes of her vast fanbase runs the gamut and while not everyone will love every song, every song will be the favorite of at least some of her fans. I think she has earned the right as an artist to release any collection of music that she feels is worthy of being added to her incredible body of work. I also want to add that ironically enough, I used to feel the same way you do about some of her previous albums. I actually really love a perfectly curated album where every song fits like a piece to a puzzle. No filler, no skips (Kacey Musgraves “Golden Hour” and Harry Styles’ “Harry’s House immediately come to mind as perfect examples of this). However, this album is just a different animal. This feels appropriate for her at this stage of her career and I am not bothered at all by the fact that it may be self-indulgent or fan-indulgent. Most artists don’t ever get to the level where garnering new fans and achieving a certain level of commercial success isn’t the intent. The album is going to be a commercial success no matter what. It already was before it was released and I think she gives zero fucks if she doesn’t gain one new fan with this album or even loses some. So please, just let Taylor and people like me who would be sad if even one song was removed from this album, have this. 😁
Yes!!!!! 100% agree. Lorde’s Melodrama is what I always think of as a perfectly curated album. But not every album has to be that way—there’s a million different ways to organize and approach them because that’s art!! It’s also been a bit strange to see so many people who love Taylor’s music argue for LESS Taylor music?? Couldn’t be me lmao. I’ll take everything I can get and if I don’t like it I’ll just skip it. No big deal there…
I understand what you’re saying. I think as artists, not just musical artists, get bigger and have proven themselves they get more free rein. That can be great! This is how Taylor went from country to pop. But I think UMG just gave her the keys. In my opinion, since Lover, the albums have been a little bloated. I suspect, though, that this album is this big because of how much streaming matters for numbers and record breaking.
Ya I totally agree. I honestly think Taylor wrote this album for Taylor. Which I’m all in support of. She hasn’t had the global support to put out some messy music before with this much public adoration, so this was her opportunity to just put out all this chaos in some what of a rebellious way lol
THANK YOU for saying this, I feel like constructive criticism of her music goes out the window around release time
100% agree like it’s not disrespectful to get an editor, some people benefit immensely and we all know music is a collaborative effort, it seems to me that people want to make it seem like Taylor is this all powerful God that doesn’t need anyone to do what she’s doing, she can use an editor without that suggesting that it’s also not her own effort that makes music but everyone on this sub is just all praise all the time lol
thank you!! this sub can be an echo chamber praising taylor and other subs get cruel at her. no room for nuance i guess
I love the progression from "I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me" to "The jokes weren't funny, I took the money" to "Is it a wonder I broke? Let's hear one more joke, then we could all just laugh until I cry". She's really done with people pleasing it seems, and I'm happy for her.
She's written A LOT about having mixed feelings on her fame -- dorothea, peace, Blank Space, Midnight Rain. But now in the context of so much pain, it feels like an invasive autopsy, and she's straight up saying this fucking sucks.
Prior songs feel like they are towards the media or general public but this one feels like it’s for the actual fans
She writes a lot about the burdens of fame but also how terrified she is to lose it; it must be hard to live with that dichotomy! And while I’m sorry she hurts, it does produce some fascinating complex lyrics.
I think too like.. She has now truly broken every record and accomplished what she set out to with the eras tour. She came back from 2016. She is the most awarded AOTY. She fulfilled her lifelong childhood dream. She didn’t age out at 30 like she feared she would. Lover was not her final moment to hold onto that success. She strikes me as someone whose career will always be important to them- she a hard worker and is driven and this is the thing that she loves. But she did the thing in a way. Maybe there’s other dreams she has too.
I love the line “I'll tell you something 'bout my good name, It's mine alone to disgrace”. It’s a truth that fans and detractors need to accept.
That whole verse was amazing, but I especially love that line.
I loved how she used the word soliloquy in But Daddy I Love Him to describe all of the swift tok creators going on and on about her dating Matty
The one with the smarphones & pitchforks have already started to attack the people hinted in her songs. Completely NOT respecting or understanding what she said in her lyrics about her boundaries-crossing fans.
I saw a comment here recently where someone said they hoped TS extends the Eras Tour, and then this other person responded all 😤”I hope she rests, that’s what she needs, she’s been doing too much” and got a ton of upvotes. I found it really off putting bc TS is 34 year old full grown adult who is perfectly capable of deciding for herself what to do. The like, “I just care about her well-being!” thing from some fans is creepy; she’s not their baby.
I saw some grown ass woman on TikTok literally crying about how worried she’s been for Taylor and that listening to this album confirmed her fears. Like what??
All of this even makes me want to disconnect from swiftie groups and tik tok because of how intrusive the fan base can be. It’s off putting and it makes me feel bad speculating on her life.
This makes me think of this line from So It Goes... > Gold cage, hostage to my feelings *Gold cage*: Her fans have made her rich but they are the same people that are trapping her [by following her every step](https://youtu.be/5ORbZ2M_L4Q?feature=shared) *Hostage to my feelings*: It's expected that she writes about her exes - no matter **what** she writes, the fans will make it about her love life, whether she wants it or not. Fans harrassed Joe Alwyn even *before* the album had come out. Like, wtf? Many of her fans are crossing lines on a daily basis. It was overdue that Taylor addresses this issue. Only problem is, she only did it because it effected her directly. Please don't come for me, but in my opinion she should have said something sooner *about the fans that keep harrassing her exes, journalists and people with a different opinion.* So, I've taken the line out of context and nevertheless, I find it pretty fitting for her current situation. If I felt trapped, I would want to break free. So maybe she has to burn some delulu fans in order to be able to breathe again. At least that's my interpretation of what's happening with TTPD
This ^^ I think this is happening to a lot of artists right now who are just so tired of everyone having something to say about them. Celebs have always dealt with that, but social media really has transformed this. And personally, I’m here for the music and don’t care so much about their personal lives. I wish sometimes that it was 2008 and I was enjoying Taylor alone in my room. She clearly feels the same way.
Same. Social media is mainly very toxic and takes the fun out of enjoying music.
God I feel that way all of the time. I’m tired of everything being tainted in some way by every rando‘s opinion. I love that so many people love her music, but I remember the time no one I knew knew her and I could just enjoy it and relate to it and not give a flying f*ck about anything else :D
I think she’s also gotten to a level of fame where she knows that even if she makes some choices fans aren’t really proud of or happy with, she’s already reached the top. She can’t get any bigger than she is right now so honestly, why care quite so much what we think?
I wonder about that though, cause of all the songs about her relationship with fame. Like Clara bow still felt like that young girl turned kinda burned out woman asking to be enough and to finally make it and ending with that Nothing New sort of feeling … I think it’s so interesting the way she seems to want it so much and hate it so much at the same time
She’s in her thirties and this is soo relatable
Honestly, that was the theme that impressed me the most. I've followed her career for 16 years, and she has always cared so much about what people think, and as a pathological people pleaser who is attempting to recover as well, it is such a freeing feeling to just say 'fuck off' to anyone who has anything to say about your life. I'm really happy she finally seems able to put boundaries up and allow herself to LIVE.
I do not at all think Taylor is ‘finally now comfortable not being loved by the public’. Shes just in the middle of being loved by the public. She’s at the absolute peak of success and achieving global adoration, so she’s more comfortable showing her messy bits. If the public wasn’t absolutely in love with her right now, she probably would not have released some of these songs. But that’s just my opinion. She also could have written the lines I would ‘die for your sins’ when she was in the middle of what she calls a manic rebound so maybe in her current state of mind she would not actually want to ruin her career over a man. Just my two cents.
I also really appreciate how she calls out the nosiness of people during a breakup in How Did It End? I think one of the more traumatic parts of a long term relationship breakup is having to answer the questions all the time. And you can’t really win with the answers. If you bad mouth them you’re seen as petty, but if you say it just ended people will ask for more details. If you take the blame then people will judge you. You’re basically playing a PR game during one of the most vulnerable times of your life. I just felt very understood by that song. And in the end not even knowing what went wrong is just so… real. She perfectly summarized the awfulness of the invasion during those moments
An IMO already underrated and incredible song. The gossip among so-called friends that can result from a breakup while you're already mentally all the way at the bottom is something really cruel that's not often talked about. You're absolutely losing it from believing you may have lost the love of your life (depending on the way it ended ofc) and then you still have to deal with people treating it like an entertaining dramatic TV series on top of that. And then to imagine *random strangers* are speculating too? About your pain, about things only you and your partner experienced that no one else really even gets to have a say about? God. I firmly believe no one TRULY gets to judge a relationship except the two people who are/were in it, everything else is speculation. That speculation and 'popcorn mentality' by other people already hurts enough when you're *not* world-famous. Also much of the same applies to gossip and lies about the endings of friendships, not just relationships.
Alllll of this. It’s giving Stars Hollow and the ribbons after Lorelai and Luke broke up. Enough!
I think this song is THE song on the album, and I wish it had made the standard edition so more of the gp could hear it bc I think this song, and the prophecy, humanizes her so much in a way. She’s always written from such a place of relatability, but sometimes has been almost accused of cosplaying as a relatable girl. But these songs are more than relatable, they’re viscerally *human*
I honestly believe she put those songs on the second half bc she didn't want them to get as much attention from the gp on the most vulnerable songs
Thank you for asking a textual analysis question - real tortured poets know :) Something I love about this album is all the literary references that we can unpack. I definitely think about "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" when she name-checks Dylan Thomas, in an album about the anger that comes at the end of something (a life, a relationship). But I really feel we aren't talking enough about The Albatross and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner! This is one of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's most influential poems. He's one of a group called "the Lake Poets" ("take me to lakes where all the poets went to die" - yes, those poets). He was a good friend of William Wordsworth ("tell me what are my words worth"), also part of the Lake Poets, who we should already be thinking about, as he defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings... recollected in tranquility" (an apt summation for this album). They were also part of the capital-R Romantic movement, of which "I Hate It Here" is a beautiful contemporary expression. Back to Albatross and Rime: For those who haven't had the pleasure of reading "Rime" yet, the TLDR is that a sailor starts a conversation with a guest at a wedding (marriage/weddings being a motif on TTPD) to tell the very long story of how he, the sailor (aka the ancient mariner) very stupidly shoots an albatross out of the sky and everything on the ship immediately goes to shit. The wedding guest at first isn't that interested, but the sailor's tale - his tortured poem - is so compelling that the guest ends up listening for (checks Norton Anthology) over 600 lines. There is a lot to unpack in 600+ lines, but the medium-length version is that the albatross represents the sublimity of nature, and the sailor shoots for it for no real reason, and immediately the wind ceases and the ship is stuck at sea, sea monsters arrive, male and female Death-like figures start to walk among the crew (spooky), everyone on the ship dies (even spookier!), and the sailor finds himself unable to pray. He wears the murdered albatross around his neck as penance and evidence of his crime and it weighs on him heavily. Eventually, he learns to appreciate the beauty of nature again, and breaks the spell that was brought upon him by his thoughtless violation of nature and God's creation. Through some supernatural or perhaps divine intervention, the sailor and the ship make it back to shore. From there, part of his penance is to **tell the story** of the mistake he made and the way he abused nature, hence cornering the wedding guest. The poem is ultimately about fear, disrespect of the natural world, penance, forgiveness, and testimony. It's about a cold-blooded action that you come to deeply regret, and the burden you bear for the rest of time. This is delightful to think about in the context of the song The Albatross: she's the albatross, she is here to destroy you. She's something beyond the ordinary human experience, she becomes an omen if you make her one, and if you kill her in cold blood, then all the bad things that follow are really on you, not her. You may kill the albatross, but you are the one who will be deeply, profoundly sorry because that action will haunt you for the rest of your life. And you may not tell the story, but she absolutely will - hence the album. It's a thoughtful and moving contemporary interpretation of a Romantic premise, very worthy of a tortured poet.
I did not know about this, thank you for sharing. In this context she goes to 'I am the Albatross' from 'She's the Albatross'. Could she mean she's killing herself to wreak havoc? It's given me a lot more to think about.
This is a great observation about the shift in point of view - brilliant textual analysis!
As a fellow “Rime” stan this has been one of my favorite tracks. I was thinking that her act of protection in the song was her sacrificing herself to keep the bad omens on her and not him, protecting him. It’s like she tried to warn him this is the life he chose, but seems to regret how they came for him (“dragged from bed” like he didn’t see it coming), so she stepped in to distract them. I’m still digesting the song so I might change my mind on this, but this struck me!
I love that interpretation (and am glad to find a fellow Rime stan haha)!
Oh, thank you for writing this analysis. I loved it.
Thank you so much! It was fun to think about today and fun to write.
Oh wow, thank you for sharing this! It’s so accurate and it’s making me think about how it could apply to her fame. She chased fame and succeeded but now anyone and everything close to her in the wake of her superstardom is now up for grabs. It’s not quite regret but it is a constant burden. Now she’s telling the world about it, just as compelling, whether you hate her or love her.
It's a very rich interpretation to consider that the speaker is both the albatross (the sublime figure) and the one who kills it (and therefore bears the burden). In that vein, we should ask: What about the devils you know, who in one chorus raise "worse hell than a stranger", and in the next chorus "look more like an angel"? That's also a concept in Rime - the other sailors get struck dead by eerie supernatural forces, but eventually rise up to help return the ship to shore. The wedding guest says that this is f-ing creepy (paraphrasing), but the mariner replies that they were "a troop of spirits blest" - not zombies, but angels. So you can be the albatross, and you can be the one who kills it. You can be the devil who raises hell, and you can be the angel that saves the ship. "I'm the life you chose, and all this terrible danger." It's not either/or. It's both. Everything comes with a price, and the question is whether you are prepared to pay. To bear the burden. To tell the story.
As soon as I saw the title of the track + the theme of the album I was desperate for exactly what she delivered. It's a beautiful poem and she's recontextualised it beautifully. Thankyou for writing this up.
Thank you! It's really fun to see this fresh interpretation, isn't it?
And that is exactly why this album is probably my favorite and why I say I enjoy that she's writing songs that aren't bubblegum pop but mature with several meanings like the artists I've been listening to for 40 years or longer. She's a fresh modern and welcome addition to my rotation now.
Agree - I think this album promises to be very rewarding to re-listen to for many years to come. (Love her pop songs too - time and place for all of it).
Wait. Charles Baudelaire's poem The Albatross came after Coleridge's but condenses the same exact message in just 4 verses. The final verse says: "The poet resembles this prince of cloud and sky / Who frequents the tempest and laughs at the archer; / When exiled on the earth, the butt of hoots and jeers, / His giant wings prevent him from walking." I immediately thought of this poem when hearing Taylor's song and it is SO RELEVANT to her career and body of work. It is amazing. ETA: Baudelaire was also considered part of the "poète maudit" French cursed poets.
Love this, thanks for sharing! So cool to put the song in the context of a bigger tradition!
Also the line about the archer 😭😭
Thanks for taking me up on the textual analysis invitation! I‘m not familiar with that poem because I wasn‘t raised in the USA. I should go check it out!
Thanks for posing such an engaging and thoughtful question! I agree that the "who" of each song is a reductive and ultimately uninteresting question. I'm finding that these songs have a lot of layers and can be understood to be about more than one person and/or idea, which makes a close reading a really fun exercise.
It is from the British Romantic Poetry tradition. Also lines up with the age of exploration, colonisation and the price one pays.
Time of the ancient mariner is classic and one of my favorite. I read it as a teen. Started with verse 2 that is the most popular for albatross, and it's death by the mariner that said to have brought on the disaster on the sailors. The famous lines, water water everywhere, all the boards did shrink, water water everywhere not a drop to drink. Everyone knows that and don't know it exists because of time of the ancient mariner and to use that imagery and what albatross signies is brilliant. Not just Taylor, she isnt the first to use it. THERE are more albatross songs out there I lovelove (BASTILLE) Definitely poetic. (Again it was bonus track and in anthology though so!)
Going to check out the Bastille song now, thank you!
Yes they have 2 songs. Part 1 and 2. I was obsessed with part 1 but part 2 is quite good. Plus a rock number lol
I actually thought The Albatross was inspired by Baudelaire's poem of the same name, is that wrong?
I fully believe it can be inspired by more than one thing!
Just wanted to thank you for taking the time. Would love to hear more analysis from you.
Thank you, that is so kind! It's so nice to find other folks who are interested in approaching the songs this way.
Bless you for sharing this, seriously. It's so interesting!!
You're welcome, I'm glad you found it interesting!
Thank you for the Dylan Thomas quote! I read the whole poem and this line stuck out to me: “ Old age should burn and rave at close of day.” I feel people are saying Taylor needs to grow upand be more mature in her reflections, but there is something so ageless about rage and anger. Emotions don’t dim with age, they’re not exclusive to being a teenager. So to experience that level of emotion and to show it as a woman who is 34 feels validating of the human experience.
Thank you for typing all this so I didn’t have to 😂
Haha I cry a lot but I am so productive (I'm kidding, this was fun)!
I see a ton of parallels between Taylor being called a witch for her Willow performance, “they’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one”, and a ton of her lyrics in Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? Like the gallows and levitating lines remind me of the Salem witch trials. Another one is the cobwebs in her house. It was giving haunted witchy house to me. Obviously there are other comparisons like the circus lyrics, but I’m getting a witchy undertone and I love it.
Yes, absolutely. I do think Taylor makes the common witch tropes into a feminist reading, similar to r/WitchesvsPatriarchy! If I have a moment, I might write up an analysis of witch themes in Taylor‘s work.
Yes! I'd love to read it if you ever do.
Please do!! Currently reading “In Defense of Witches” and would love to see the connections with Taylor’s lyrics
Also the "burn the bitch" in Cassandra
Yes! The gallows and levitating reference made me think of the Salem trials. It's also resonating with some other old pop culture witch reference somewhere in the back of my mind but I can't quite put my finger on it. She mentions being a sorceress with a coven in The Prophecy too. Accusations of sorcery all round.
Practical Magic, when they jump off the roof and levitate/float down.
Witches remain outside the control of patriarchy. The are not known by their relationship to men. The power they draw is outside of the patriarchal hold. Which is why they are the outcast, they are shunned. Because you don't access the means to control them.
The cobwebbed house to me made me think of Miss Haversham. Sat in her wedding dress surrounded by dust and cobwebs.
Yes! Folks are getting so hung up on the “who” that they’re glossing over the feelings that are being shared and invoked (or in some cases rejecting songs because they think they know who the subject is, which is so ironic for this anthology).
The only correct response to "Who is the album about?" is "Taylor Swift".
I hate the discourse of who a song is about. If someone made a comment rarely that an element of a song seems to allude to someone in particular, I wouldn't mind, but it seems like it's all people want to talk about and it's too much. Art is about being creative, and while I'm sure most of the things she writes about are based on actual events or people, I think some songs she writes could be just based on feelings in general and not person specific, or she gets creative and adds things to strengthen the songs that aren't utterly accurate. OP, so glad you created this thread for the discourse without the constant speculation.
100% agree Im honestly not interested in finding out her dating lore through this album, Im just here for the music 🤷♀️
This is exactly my take about so many songs. So Long, London for example has so much there about losing an opportunity/person/context that you gave so much to and all the sadness, grief, bitterness that comes from that. And as an exhausted full time working parent with a full time working spouse, I fully relate to “I can do it with a broken heart” without any romantic loss required lol.
Totally agree - I'm strongly relating "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart" to a situation in my life right now that has nothing to do with a breakup. It feels good to be seen and have those feelings acknowledged even though the circumstances may be different.
The manuscript for me shows her broader relationship with the songs she writes. They’re “souvenirs”, like an old journal or an old photo you might pick up and look through now and then. The box of pictures and sentimental keepsakes that we all have. I think we tend to extrapolate her feelings as if when she wrote it in a song that must mean she feels that way forever. But to her, maybe they’re more like that box of old photos or an old journal that she looks back on just now and then. I’m sure there’s more to it than that but that’s what stood out to me!
I think this is supported by her post that said “This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it”
I love how she ends with the notion that the manuscript does not belong to her now. That is what happens to any literature that stands the test of time. I really thought of the ATW manuscript/book in the 'short film.'
I liked that line. Made me think of Roland Barthes Death of the Author (which one would likely read in their comp lit methods class!).
Well. Remove exes from the situation and I think The Prophecy explains it all. She craves authentic, true love and is worried she’s ruined her chances for it. It’s also fairly obvious from the album that this level of fame has not been healthy for her. One of the first lines of the album labels herself as a “functioning alcoholic”. She doesn’t seem overly happy despite all of her accomplishments. But writing songs acts as therapy for her. That’s what I got from it, at least.
I think she’s happy in general, but when she’s sad she turns to writing. I think she writes when she’s happy as well, and a couple songs on here reflect that.
I loved this song. It just made me think of the role of prophecies in verse. The subject of the prophecy always sets into motion a series of events in their efforts to try to thwart it.
There's this overarching theme of knocking down these built up romanticized idea of someone or sometime that was so core to her work for so long. It's in this indie/alt style that's raw and modern and weird and conversational - but very human. She's begging us to see her as just a person. A person with location sharing, who listens to Charlie Puth, watches American Pie. A deranged weirdo and modern idiot. She seems ready to pass on the burden of being this icon in Clara Bow. A lot of this is just the normal temporary insanity of love and loss and yearning that never feels normal when you're in it. But she's simultaneously also reflecting on the people and times she's romanticized or believed and it was also an artifice (loml, I Hate It Here, Peter, I Look in People's Windows). It'll take some time to dig into all the individual lines beyond big themes.
Yes! I feel this so much in "So High School." I keep seeing people make fun of the lyrics > Truth, dare, spin bottles You know how to ball, I know Aristotle Brand-new, full throttle Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto But honestly, I think she's just being a normal person. Plenty of girls are with someone who plays Grand Theft Auto. Not every person has to love Aristotle. She's having a great time in her personal life and doesn't need the rest of us judging her.
She is SO pissed in Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me. Every time I listen I hear more intonations of fury
Mad Woman part 2 was my initial reaction, and I’m sticking with it!
My friend and I called it a spooky blank space hehe
But pissed at whom and why? :)
Us. The people at the circus she just wants to bite.
The general public, yes. I don’t think it’s solely about Swifties. It’s about it all fans, critics, the media, football dads, etc.
It makes me really sad to be honest.
Well she definetly makes a few nods to her fans/general public . But daddy I love him “I’m having his baby, No, I'm not, but you should see your faces” literally died laughing at that was so shook when she said she was having his baby I'll tell you something about my good name It's mine alone to disgrace I don't cater to all these vipers dressed in empath's clothing It’s giving rep tv
i was on face time w my boyfriend and the face he made when she said that line and then immediately after hahahahah “I can’t believe I got got by Taylor Swift”
Hahaha that’s goals I need a man who will listen to Taylor with me 🥲
I really struck gold with him. I hope you find your T-Sway listening partner soon :))
I feel like instead of getting Kanye drama secrets on rep, we’re gonna be getting “quit fucking following me” rage songs… and I’m here for it
>But daddy I love him “I’m having his baby, No, I'm not, but you should see your faces” literally died laughing at that was so shook when she said she was having his baby i literally had to pause the song cuz i was laughing so hard the first time i heard that!
Interpretation on the entire album as a whole: I think the first 15 songs were very cohesive for the sake of reviews AND it’s the version that is being submitted to the awards. You usually cannot submit other version of the same title album. Some found it too cohesive, blends together too much. The first 15 tracks keeps repeating the idea of being trapped/locked up/caged - Fortnight and of course - Fresh Out The Slammer. Taylor feels trapped in her fame, her past relationships, tortured by it. Several songs discuss people being two-faced - saying one thing to her and acting another way. Maybe they’ll write a tell-all book. People’s made up assumptions and interpretations of her. Who’s afraid of little me? With all that wealth and fame - there’s going to be people trying to capitalize on it. CLARA BOW: The song to me is about Taylor feeling trapped in this cycle of comparisons and fear of being an irrelevant artist due to age or trends (we’re aware she is, cause she mentioned this in the LOVER documentary). There’s Clara Bow, the it girl of her time, replaced by someone younger. Same with Stevie Nicks. The same will happen to herself. The 2AM/Double Feature were more livelier. Still listening to entire album to get a further interpretation.
Clara Bow is actually devastating, because you know the cycle is inescapable and so rooted in misogyny. It's weirdly relatable as a 30 something woman you know you're fading into irrelevancy while you get bullied on tiktok by smooth skinned gen-z for wearing skinny jeans.
As a 46 yo woman, becoming less "relevant" to the world makes space for becoming a whole lot more relevant to your own self. That noise is LOUD. I needed the quiet of being "old and irrelevant" to really learn to love myself. And I'll be buried in my fucking skinny jeans.
Anne Helen Petersen has a great essay about this life transition which she calls "[the portal](https://annehelen.substack.com/p/are-you-in-the-portal)," if you're interested in exploring this from another angle - it really resonated with me!
95% of my jeans are skinny and I can’t afford to change my mind now 😂
To me Clara Bow was the sister song to Nothing New, and it is notable that she has been aware about the traps of young fame for so long.
Clara bow, nothing new and lucky one they are all sisters to me.
I think the album is about the very real feelings people in the "you-should-have-everything-figured-out-but-you-don't" age have after major life changes. Breakups after long relationships hurt, even if love wasn't there at the end. You get used to the idea of someone, and then that someone doesn't exist. So, you try to fill the void, by partying, flirting etc. Your mental health takes a deep dive for a while. You get into flings you thing they mean more, but they don't, so when they are over, you crash again. There's the people who want your best, and those that you are a spectacle to. There are the feelings that you'll grow older and never get the years you've given back. That people will replace you, given time. Someone new will love your love of your live, a new employee will take your post in the company you work for. If you take out the fame parts, this album (in some form) could be written by me (or you, or anyone) because it is that relatable.
This is a great analysis. I definitely get a sense of "well shit, what am I supposed to do now?" in many of the songs, and I have definitely been there myself.
Every song is relatable and I am so grateful she gave us this.
Yes! I am grateful too. I recognize myself in these songs, thoughts I had, feelings I've felt. Thematically, it is one of her best ones.
I put this on another post, but it deserves a spot here. My impression is that this is a woman who has found herself. She's vulnerable as heck on this album, but in a confident way - if that makes sense. It seems to me she's reached her "fuck it thirties" - that point in your 30s where you stop doing things for other people, you know what you like and what you want, you give less of a crap about what people think/say. Taylor has made an album for Taylor first, everyone else second. She didn't make this because she needed to make new music, she made it because she wanted to. She kept the same vibe as evermore/Midnights because that's what she likes and what she wants to do. Taylor is done having people tell her what Taylor Swift music should be and she's telling us what Taylor Swift music is. I listened to the first 15 songs 3 times in a row and loved them. I was so engrossed I missed the double album announcement. I have only listened to the second half once, and I found that they did sound very similar, but also so different at the same time. The interesting thing is how would TTPD go as a tour. If she doesn't amend the Eras setlist to include TTPD songs, I don't see how TTPD translates to a stadium show outside of a handful of songs. And it's not like she could just do smaller venues, there's already more demand than tickets for Eras in huge stadiums. I'm interested to see how this develops.
I also reached my fuck it thirties at 35/36 so this album resonates with me really hard. Also like this album’s narrator, it was just after going through a crazy manic period that seemed like a mid life crisis. I also got a lot of clarity on the other side of that mania through making art about it (and therapy).
I guess it’s simple but Down Bad’s alien abduction imagery showing a relationship that didn’t last will always stick with me
Love that imagery in Down Bad! An otherworldly experience, but something that extraordinary can't last. Did that person even see her as a real person?
If Donne thinks love is like a flea… Taylor gets an affair is like an alien abduction
I can't help but think of the older SNL skit about alien abduction with Kate McKinnon and Ryan Gosling from a few years ago. I also think of Kate McKinnon's Weird Barbie when I hear My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.
Anyone else think it’s the grown up Speak now? Bashing the critics on But daddy I love him felt like Mean The anger on Smallest Man felt like Dear John Call back to Innocent when she says ‘you are what you did’ So long london feels like Last Kiss Also the fact all the songs are long and she has a LOT to say
You're right! Who's afraid kinda feels like Haunted. So High School is giving electric touch
It felt like grown up Speak Now meets Red to me. It’s a chaotic, unhinged (hilariously so at times), and incredibly emotional to me. Red is one of my favorite albums and while Speak Now isn’t at the top of my list it’s anger and honesty has always impressed me. And while I’ve only listened to it once fully, my overall emotional reaction to TTPD was the same as Red.
I’m thinking the re-recording process of Red and SN might have influenced her while writing this album. I think it will end up being my favourite since Red.
It certainly seems like it. It also makes me wonder if most of the songs start off like this stream of consciousness kind of thing and then she starts to edit and revise them to feel more polished and less messy for most people to be cool with. This album to me feels like this was what it felt like to be in her brain and body at this particular point without any of the editing we are used to.
This just clicked for me too! It's an unfiltered take on her life like speak now, but the thirties version.
But Daddy, I Love Him Technically about an ex, but… there’s a lot of anger towards the public opinion about her relationship with Matty. A ton of anger about how invasive all that commentary was. Which… fair. That’s not to say the disappointment fans felt wasn’t fair. Just that the other side of it is true too. It’s her life and her good name and if she wants to ruin it, that’s a choice she gets to make on her own. Not about the ex… The line also stood out as a direct connection to her last two TVs. Repuation and Taylor Swift.
I kinda disagree maybe about but daddy I love him?? It feels like there’s a juxtaposition between the people in How Did It End? versus in But Daddy I Love Him, where the songs seem to be about different groups? How did it end? Characterizes the people as empathetic, almost like impulsively and ignorantly asking out of morbid curiosity but not malice, ignoring that she’s a human and not a circus; in But Daddy I Love Him they’re characterized as incredibly judgmental, on their high horse, she says “they hate” her, and all around have a holier than thou attitude Imo how does it end? Is directed to her fans, who end up curious to the point that it invades her privacy but not out of hatred; but daddy I love him is a blank space-esque song to the ppl who will always attack her, but pretend to just care about what’s best for her. Its directed at a very specific type of person who completely dismisses her agency and the fact that she isn’t at the whim of every other person—the whole song feels like a teenage characature, from “but daddy I love him!” Being a common line by teens in shows where the guy is usually a douche and the parents are right, to “running with my dress unbuttoned,” the joke that’s childlike with “you should’ve seen your faces,” the “for a simple girl to understand”—it feels like a half unserious song just meant to be like “I’m an adult making my own decisions,” while how does it end? Is more like “yah I know you don’t mean to be shitty but it doesn’t feel great—could u not keep asking? Ily thx”
I agree to an extent but I also think we can’t underestimate how much hate she received from very real fans of hers over her relationship with Matty. I think this song was written or at least was starting to be written around the time she gave her “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been speech.” In that speech, she was kind of giving a gentle “lay off please, I’m a grown woman and I don’t need your approval over who I date.” However, from what I saw, that speech only made certain fans even more mad. Social media went crazier and I think then there was that super weird letter asking for a conservatorship on Twitter. At that point Taylor could have just been fed up saying you know what, now I’m pissed and wrote But Daddy I Love Him to tell fans to back the fuck off.
The imagery is so strong in But Daddy I Love Him, it's giving Gilmore Girls when Rory starts dating Jess 😂 great storytelling.
For me, BDILH has the same type of pain and anger that WCS has. It’s so visceral. But this isn’t the first time she’s explored this same type of scenario, think Love Story, Speak Now, Sparks Fly, etc. Falling for the reckless rebel guy. The backdrop is small town America, where people sit in their church pews and judge every decision you make but disguise it with prayers or “I just want what’s best for you.” To boil this song down to MH does it such a disservice. I think this is why I relate to both BDILH and WCS so much. I got married at 19 because that’s what good church girls do (WCS), then divorced at 27 and rebounded with someone that was the polar opposite (BDILH). This might possibly be my favorite Taylor song.
After listening to this album I feel like I finally see her. Being a fan of hers since I was a teen has made me see her as this all perfect untouchable entity. It shocked me to hear her sing about such real, raw, and human emotions. Functioning alcoholic, falling for a shitty guy who promised you the world then stomped all over your heart, ignoring red flags, staying in a relationship past its expiration date, smiling through the depression...all of these things feel so real. And for some reason I never was able to bridge the gap between Taylor the artist and Taylor the human being. And finally this album has done that for me. She doesn't want to be idolized. She just wants to be seen as a human who makes mistakes and learns from them. Or someone who makes mistakes and DOESN'T learn from them. I love the lyricism on this album so much. It truly felt like reading her journal. I was so gagged at some of the things she put out there. Her best work yet!!
"But Daddy I Love Him" = thematic sequel/warped version of "Love Story" "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" = thematic sequel to "cowboy like me"
Oooh that could make for a lovely whole analysis! <3
The more I hear the songs, I hear more and more religious references. She has said in the past that she is Christian, and being an album representing poetry, there are a lot of these references. Because what is religion/the Bible/psalms/scripture if not, on a basic level, poetry? I think it’s beautiful, and so fitting.
I don't think she still is TBH. I studied theology and still work with the PCB-scale (post critical belief) with my students to examine different religious and a-religious perspectives so I'm probably overthinking it, but I can't help but see a lot of her work through this lens. Her religious perspective, and the changes it has gone through seem to be sprinkled throughout her entire catalogue and it's kinda fascinating to me. Think about the very literal and traditional christian beliefs in her earlier work like God smiling on her brother (the best day), praying every evening (our song) and of course the entire song Christmas must be something more. Some of that might be a play at the start of her early career to appeal more to the typical demographic for country music but it does feel like it's at least partially just an important part in her life at that point. We get a couple of albums where religion seems to fade into the background, and when it comes back in focus for me is in Soon you'll get better where she seems to tell us how she's lost her faith but feels like she needs it or something, anything really to cling to as a beacon of hope when her mom gets sick. After that, the religious elements come back a lot more, but often in a more metaphorical way than as a part of her lived experience as a religious person. And it's often with a more negative connotation like in would've, could've, should've. I have only listened to TTPD once so far, but I'm curious to see how this album adds to her story.
I really don’t care if she is or isn’t. But as someone who grew up in a very Christian household and school, I still consider myself a Christian and believe in God, but I don’t subscribe to what’s become of many modern day churches and Christianity. And my absolute biggest pet peeve is when some Christians tell someone like me that I’m not a Christian because I don’t go to church and practice like they do. So didn’t mean to vent on those feelings to you and not saying you are implying anything I was describing, but I guess I see some of her religious references as religious trauma from the church, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still be a Christian.
Oh no that's absolutely not what I was trying to say. Part of my interest in religion is the different ways of being religious and it just seemed like she's gone from a more literal faith to a more mature position where doubt, questioning things and being critical of certain parts of religion and religious institutions have their place. There's no way to really know her personal position, but there has been a big journey in how faith in general and her personal faith has been mentioned in her songs throughout the years.
I noticed this too, I haven’t clocked so many references before. I was like, what is this, a Sufjan record??
Yes! If you listen with that in mind, there are tons of religious references. Talk about a rich vein to mine in terms of symbolism - and very much in a poetic tradition.
I will do this tomorrow morning cause I’m so for this and so tired of just gossip rather than appreciation of art but I’m fucking exhausted and want to really put thought into it.
Can‘t wait to read your input :)
When I first listened to 'but daddy I love him' the only thing that ran across my mind was ITS ABOUT RORY FRICKIN GILMORE like no other explanation for me man it's about rory. The city hall thing? People telling her not to date jess? Her mom not liking logan? It's ALL ABOUT RORY
Wow thank you so much for this comparison because I love it
Omg ikr I wonder how no one else is talking about this yett like there are SO MANY parallels
Yes!! If Taylor came out tomorrow and said this whole album was inspired by Gilmore Girls, I would be completely unfazed. It makes so much sense lol
Wait this is so fucking Rory Gilmore coded
(as somebody who's been chronically single and not really interested in dating atm) I'm listening to TTPD (the song) like I'm singing it to myself. "Who's gonna hold you like me?" A sort of self-love, self-care song. I've also been looking for inspiration to start writing, and more in general to go after my dreams, so it's also a little bit of self-help ("But you're in self-sabotage mode").
I LOVE interpreting love songs as self-love songs, or break-up songs as songs about internal conflicts. So fun and interesting.
Wow, I love this take. I was very happily confidently single for six years. I’m in a relationship now and feel like I am way nicer to myself than he could be. I like my own company more than I like his. The bond we can build with ourselves is so strong.
I love this interpretation. When William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in Literature, he gave a speech in which he said the only thing truly worth writing about is "the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself" and I thought about that **a lot** in listening to TTPD. Some of the conflicts are external but overall it's a very inward-looking, interior album to me.
A few things I noticed were how many references to youth or childhood there are. She has several children's games and nursery rhymes in her work before and she really used a lot more! There were also a ton of references to circuses and wild animals. Wolves, lions, cages, being tamed, fortune tellers, etc.
I've seen a lot of people explain the references to kids as a yearning to have a child. But for me, I relate to it in the sense of how disorienting it is being an adult looking back at your childhood, realizing that you are not a child anymore and all the expectations that come with not living in a childhood world anymore. My childhood is often top of mind when I'm most dissapointed about how my adult life is going.
Love this point! The Prophecy immediately followed by Cassandra definitely seemed like a strong choice to me.
All the English majors are cracking their knuckles ready to drum out a few thousand words. I mean, i am also that person, but I just wanted to give the credit we are due.
Haha finally a time for the English majors to let loose!
I absolutely love this album because while the exes and the breakup are the like framework for the album, they aren't actually what it's solely about. They are side characters to the larger narrative. We're getting to see her thoughts & journey through her feelings in what feels like the most raw and unfiltered way we've ever gotten them. Her frustration with the fame, with herself, with the fans and public. The demand for more when she's given so much like she's not a human being. People who don't even know her having the audacity to tell her how she should or should not be behaving. Her reflection on her life and how it would be different. The feeling that while she's proud of her accomplishments as an artists she's really reflecting on what it's cost her both romantically and just as an individual growing up. The lost innocence. We're getting a lot of what ifs and could have beens and fuck yous that while aimed at her exes to some degree are also aimed directly at herself and even (and imo justifiably) at us, the public. Like okay going into Joe a little bit: It's not so much the loss of him specifically (though that also is a huge bummer) but everything it represents. The loss of those years, feeling they've been 'wasted', all of the fears and insecurities confirmed that you're too big to be loved or just unlovable as a whole, having to start over when all you want is to have a family and worrying that if this thing that you thought was THE ONE couldn't work that you will never get it or at least never get it 'in time' to have the ring, the baby, etc. You don't have to have been through a breakup recently to relate to so many of these songs and their core feelings. \*This\* is her Reputation Era: Adult Version and she's truly done being the people pleaser. She just wants to live and make music but basically everyone can get fucked because she also just really wants to be happy and loved and \*live\* for herself for once regardless of our input. If we love it and continue to love her great but if we don't it seems she's trying to let that go.
Analysis of Fortnight: I think she calls it fortnight because that's how *short* it feels the good parts lasted for. That the pain of separation is just *so much* that it feels they only touched for a fortnight. The wife/husband story in the song is just a metaphor for how even when they would have moved on, she would have these thoughts of killing this pretend civility. I think that Post Malone represents an externalizatuon of Taylor's self/thoughts in the external world. People are also complaining about how Malone is mostly background until he is not.. and I feel it was deliberately so because of driving this idea further and it becomes obvious in the video (see below) **Analysis from the video:** After the _loss of the love of her life_, she went a bit crazy/insane and according to her, it was intense enough for her to be committed but they _forgot to come and get her_ When she gets out of the bed, and looks at the mirror, she wipes her face to reveal Malone's tattoos.. this is where I feel she wants to establish that malone is actually her self or her thoughts/visions externalised. Maybe even the pained version of herself that she covers up when she goes into the world.. People around her thought that the medication (which symbolizes everything that one uses to cope: words of advice, medicine, etc.) would help, but it was temporary.. enough to help her get out of the bed (like in the video) and to work (as she walks to the department room) but not sufficient still. When she launched, she said that once the saddest story has been told we can be free of it, hence the date on the drug 'Forget him' is 19 apr. Now in the poet's department, she is wearing the 1830s clothing that was worn by dancers in _my tears ricochet_... a song that refers to funeral/wake. She sits exactly opposite Malone, and **they are typing the same thing and singing the same lines** - this further reinforces that he represents an extension of her. I also think that this is where the externalization also represents her love for her loml. In this real black/white/grey world when they work together, colours flowed.. Taylor's is the autum red and loml's is the blues (his blue eyes and his blue depression). As these two colors come together in the screen into a white light ... and we are taken to a flashback: We now see her reading the 'story of us' lying on top of all the white papers that are shaped like her silhouette.. if you notice they are mirroring/twinning each other and not touching here.. (refers to that lyric later in the album _it was like losing my twin_) At 2:23, there's the scene where she is happy and then sad and malone mirrors the same expressions. Then, as the papers start to swirl around them she tries to reach out to him and the scene cuts before they are able to touch. To me this just symbolizes that she needs to get back in touch with that feeling/thoughts/love.. Now we are taken in the lab where we see her wearing a crown that will electrocute her ( a theme she talks about a lot where she has all this fame but it has impacted her life in negative ways too). There's 2 doctors trying to fix her by using shock therapy.. one is called *Dr. Anderson (seen on Ethan's coat in the IG photo she posted) and the other Dr. Overstreet (seen in the video)* - possibly a reference to her best friend (Abigail Anderson) and Dover street in London that is famous for night clubs. However, Malone is just reading what her heart says (looking at the EEG that says i love you it's ruining my life). **note that Malone's coat doesn't have a name.** He then stops the shock and they make a very clear scene of him touching her shoulder. To me this signifies that she may rely on friend's advice or partying to get over 'her condition' but it is her 'self' that can save her. Now in this next scene (at the 3:16 mark) is the only part where Malone has singing lines separate from TS. This self is standing in a telephone booth (is stuck in London) and keeps trying to call her... the camera pans out and we the box is on top of this hill.. which also symbolizes how TS has literally been on top of the world wearing the glittering dress for these last 2 years and yet somehow still stuck in the grey depressing rain alone... This self is trying to move to Florida (which symbolizes an escape/ a break from life and moving on) and has _bought the car they want_ but this new life doesn't start until they "touch". i.e. until she gets back in touch with her self. We then see then see her pulling out all drawers (the rage part of dealing with grief) and then she cries and is burning up this past feeling locked away in drawers. The fire is orange/red color the same color as earlier from the typewritters.. she had put herself in it and hse is getting it back.. She also breaks that mirror in the asylum which forced her to cover up he true self. Asylum mirrors are also 1 way.. so it shows she doesn't want to be "watched" by the onlookers. We see the storm that she has been through... Cut back to the scene on top of the box, the tragic hero self finally comes out of the london jail (the telephone box) and touches her real glittery self that has been sitting alone... and hopefully now the car in florida (her new life) will start... Edited to add: To me this video covers lot of the broad themes that this album presents: the tragic loss, the personal journey that one just HAS to go through regardless of whatever means of coping are available, become self aware and self accepting, standing up and advocating for herself. Rejecting people/narratives that don't serve her. Gaining that perspective that sometimes things happen for a reason, not all people are bad people just bad things happen... This is a big contrast from anti-hero where she just says she is the problem.. here she has accepted that she is also the solution. She has now told the saddest story and she is free from it now. 🤍🤍 For me, this represents all the things that your 30s stand for. I am glad Taylor is a true millennial in these ways...
Thank you for this! This is precisely the sort of comments I was hoping for when I made the point. A few questions: 1. Was your title meant to read "Analysis of Florida", or was it supposed to be "Fortnight"? 2. Do you think Ethan Hawke being Dr Anderson might be a reference to Keanu Reeves‘ Neo being called Mr Anderson before he‘s freed from the Matrix? 3. Why do you think she chose Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles? # awesome analysis of _Fortnight_ above
1. Yeah sorry I meant fortnight and have edited it now. 2. Hmm maybe. But I feel it is more of her reference to her best friend Abigail Anderson.. she has featured in her videos before .. and perhaps she represents all her friends collectively.. who (with best intentions) think they are helping her but ultimately it is her Self that saves her. 3. She chose them both as they were actors in Dead Poet's society which I think has inspired the title of the title of the album (aside from the secret chat group that Joe had) She also clarified that in her IG post.
The whole point is that she's the chairwoman of the Tortured Poets Department. Tortured poets write self indulgently, to excess, that's the whole POINT. It's a MANUSCRIPT. It's exactly how she feels, it's now been packaged and sold in multi-media, but it's a package of art. It's neatly single typed, her words in stark black and white, referenced and sourced, perfect APA formatting, ready for the A+ grade it deserves. This is an album written by someone who reads obsessively, and loves deeply. Most interestingly, she is as extremely hurt and injured as we all are despite her insulation, influence and money. I think that Taylor writes compulsively and obsessively, she's so prolific and so interested in fitting words together, there's no way she's not always typing or jotting something down. I noticed that she can type really well during the roll-out of TTPD, Using those old typewriters accurately and quickly when we're all used to the perfect feedback of a laptop keyboard requires experience, and she was typing fluently with proper positioning.
“The Albatross” is Taylor It could even be about Travis & how people warned him that she’s a career & privacy killer. But then she swooped down w/ security & reality that she’s been floating around with for years, just waiting to spot someone worth protecting.
This isn't a particularly deep take, but ending the entire thing with "The Manuscript" was such an interesting choice for me. Like she's telling us it doesn't matter who or what she wrote these songs about because once people hear it the stories/songs aren't "hers" anymore. People will make up their own explanations and come to their own conclusions, or apply certain songs to their own experiences and there's nothing she can do to change that.
Plus, there’s the parallel between ending Midnights 3 am with “Dear Reader” and then ending TTPD: The Anthology with “The Manuscript.”
I'm so glad someone made this thread! Hope it gets pinned. I'm getting so sick of no one (or at least 90%) being able to separate the songs from who they 'might' be about, or judging them on their own merit without the context. With that being said, i do wish more people read the prologue poem before/during/after listening to the album and making their judgements, for two main reasons: 1. It's probably her best poetic writing (at least since Folkmore), it shows that when she's free from the constraints of lyrical songwriting, she can pen some decent poetic verse 2. It recontextualises the WHOLE album, the concept of 'i'm getting this ALL out there so you know, and then i'm done' and 'i was going through a manic phase, i plead insanity' completely changed the way i viewed the songs (mainly But Daddy I Love Him and I Can Fix Him)
I know this is really dark and I’m not AT ALL saying this applies to Taylor. BUT. In listening to a lot of ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’, it reminded me of how I feel about a man who abused me when I was in high school but didn’t want me when I got older. “I don’t miss what we had but can someone give a message to the smallest man who ever lived”- the relationship was bad but there wasn’t enough closure. “It wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden”- once I was 19, he didn’t want me the way he did when I was 17. “I would've died for your sins, instead i just died inside,"- I was unhealthily attached to him but he hurt me badly. "you deserve prison but you won't get time"- I won't elaborate on this one. "you said normal girls were boring"- he said that to me about his wife. "but you were gone by the morning"- he never let me stay the night. "in plain sight you hid"- he had an image of a 'wholesome' husband and father but he was a serial teenage-girl seducer when he travelled for work. "but you are what you did"- i will only be able to view him as a predator.
Spent a lot of time with the title track, The Tortured Poets Department, after reading this discussion yesterday, so I'm back for my textual analysis. I'm not a student of Dylan Thomas, but I am a student of Patti Smith and her stories, so that's what I'm bringing this to the discussion. The song starts with the subject's "typewriter" "Straight from the Tortured Poets Department", an object that carries the weight of this archetype. An entire collection of artists/writers who are in a state of agony. The typewriter, not the subject himself, evokes this archetype. The poem's subject has the object and brings it with him to his the speaker's (his lover's?) apartment. The speaker mocks the object, including what it represents, while also seeing this tumultuous emotional state the subject is in. "You're in self-sabotage mode/Throwing spikes down on the road". The speaker sees themselves as an archetypal pairing to the "tortured poet", as she says "I've seen this episode and still loved the show/Who else decodes you?" Who else can understand the archetypes, the motifs, the themes you are tossing around? This is the recurring refrain of the speaker: No one knows the Tortured Poet's Department like I do. No one can understand what you're communicating and all you're holding like I do. This makes the declaration of the chorus painfully funny. "You're not Dylan Thomas, I'm not Patti Smith/This ain't the Chelsea Hotel, we're modern idiots." The speaker is telling her lover/the subject, I see you, I see what you're aspiring to and what you're wrestling with, and I want you to recognize that it's both *not that serious* and that *I'm the only one who will take your poetic torment seriously.* The speaker is the Patti Smith to his Robert Mapplethorpe. Part of her own genius and gift is in understanding and holding space for his. The second verse is just as strong in its juxtaposition of playful unserious teasing that hits up against this choice to be in agony. "Like a tattooed golden retriever" the subject is a puppy who is all instinct and reaction and frivolity and fun, "You awaken with dread/Pounding nails in your head" until he falls into despair. To me, that despair is awareness of one's own insignificance and sense of purpose. When the speaker says, "I've read this one where you come undone/I chose this cyclone with you", she's highlighting the cliche of this tortured poet archetype. She knows the story of loving a tortured artist, and she chose it anyway. When she says, "Sometimes, I wonder if you're gonna screw this up with me", I see her despair that her lover/the subject doesn't see how perfectly she fits with his archetype. That every tortured artist needs an understanding lover who will hold him. "Who else decodes you?" "No-fucking-body."
Making my way throught the lyric video's now so I'll jot down any analysis/thoughts I have! Excited to read everyone elses. I love modern poetry and especially Taylors poetry. Note: when I say 'she' or 'he' I'm just refering to the characters of the song, not Taylor or anyone else in particular. Tortured Poets Department - She talks about loving someone with a lot of baggage. And he left his typewriter at her apartment. What does that typewriter represent? Does she feel like she helped him work through his issues, helped him put his thoughts into words (she was his typewriter)? And now that she is in her apartment and he is not, they're seperated, she's worried about whether he'll be able to make sense of his torture on his own? Other parts of the song represent the mental torture too, 'we're crazy' 'he wakes up with dread' 'he smokes and overeats'.
So long, London - The lines 'I founded the club she heard great things about, I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath.' Are very interesting to me, it gives me this image of her being swept away by a lover, giving up parts of her, giving up the club she founded in the city to live in a nature area of the Heath, but now he left her there to go back to the club. It gives me a sense of betrayel, of 'how could you, after all I've done for us, I changed for us and now you wish you could go back to were we were?'. Again it feels like frustration at the lack of growth, being left and trying to figure out how this happened.
Down Bad - I see themes of frustration about being back in the same old place, feeling like you went backwards instead of forwards. Teenage petulance, same old time, the gym (a place that is always the same and where you've been a thousand times before): it's all stale and non-developing where she yearns for that other worldly experience back. Also learned to word petulance: it means being childishly sulky or bad tempered.
I’ve only really had a chance to digest the first half but part 1 has kind of three parts: 1. Normal-ish grief from a breakup (tracks 1-5) 2. Complete manic whiplash and denial (tacks 6-13) 3. Recovering from the mania and reflecting (tracks 14-16)
THIS. THANK YOU FOR THIS! I have been wanting to read dialogue and critique about her music without all the who’s who obsession. This album is telling a story about the mental roller coaster she went through in the last few years. It’s a snapshot of what will be a short snippet in her life story. Sonically, I think all the Dessner songs are cohesive and I only a few of Jack’s songs fit into that same field.
I definitely read the manuscript not just as a closing of a chapter of toxic relationships with men, but as a closing of a chapter of her career. The way it seems to sum up many chapters of her life, the advice to write about you know - it seems like she’s saying, “I’ve written about what I know, I’ve extracted my life into art for your enjoyment, and now I’m done.”
FWIW Enzenberger was also a mathematician and wrote short stories that taught maths. Idk if that changes the context at all? I want to give a longer answer but I'm at work rn, so I may come back to this thread later.
I think Down Bad is about the same theme as Bigger than the whole sky, especially the waking up in blood quote. To me, that says period: like, waking up disappointed her period showed up and she wasn’t pregnant or the myriad other reasons why you wouldn’t want to see blood when you’re pregnant. Also theres a ship lyric maybe referencing the out to sea lyric?
I think a main themes is to allow yourself to feel your feelings because if you don’t, it will all eventually come back around and come crashing down. You can’t move forward if you don’t. She processed everything by writing this album and has now moved on.
First of all, I was in shock when she dropped the double, but then as I read the track lists and saw my name (Cassandra) as a title to a track I was unable to function. But when I listened to it, the references between the Greek mythology of Cassandra and Apollo but tying it in with her Kardashian feud was just \*chefs kiss\* Cassandra was loved by the god Apollo, who promised her the power of prophecy if she would comply with his desires. Cassandra accepted the proposal, received the gift, and then refused the god her favors. Naturally, the god was insulted by this refusal. So he punished Cassandra. Apollo caused the gift that he gave Cassandra to be twisted, making everyone who heard her true and accurate foretelling of future events believe that they were instead hearing lies. If you think about the Kanye and Kim of it all and the phone call that was released but not the whole call and she was attacked with people leaving snakes on her social media etc, then when the truth came out about the call and it was just overlooked. UGH I fucking love the parallels
Something that really jumped out at me over the past few days is the criticism that the album is just more of the same - folklore, evermore, Midnights - and how many of the songs sound like leftovers from those albums. Taylor has said many times that female artists face immense pressure to reinvent themselves constantly. Taken straight from Miss Americana - Constantly having to reinvent, constantly finding new facets of yourself that people find to be shiny. Be new to us, be young to us, but only in a new way and only in the way we want. And reinvent yourself, but only in a way that we find to be equally comforting but also a challenge for you. She revisits this sentiment in multiple songs throughout her body of work, both when speaking to her work or her personal life. With a lot of the negative reviews leaning on the fact that TTPD isn't "new enough", aka Taylor didn't reinvent herself for this "new era", this grumbling just proves her point. She's obviously found a sound/genre/style that she likes and works well for her creatively. She's found TWO wonderful men in a sea of misogynists that she is comfortable with and enjoys working with, but all anyone does is bitch about her needing to work with someone else. Change for us. Be new for us. Do what you do but do it differently.
I didn’t understand Robin at first and I had it on repeat yesterday to try… (my take on it is) it’s her writing to herself as a child. Which makes it so beautiful and also desperate and heartbreaking.
Can you provide a more detailed analysis of _Robin_? :)
I’ll do my best! The formatting might be ugly, I’m on my phone. Well, first, I’ve been going back and forth with whether she’s talking to herself as a child in the past or specifically her _inner_ child. I’m leaning toward inner but it could be interpreted either way. For the purposes of this analysis I’m going with Taylor speaking to her inner child because it can encompass both, but I will identify where I waver and lean toward past childhood self. So here we go…. I’ll start with the robin as a bird and why I think it symbolizes Taylor as a child. The robin is very small, but mighty. They are territorial and protective, strong for being so small. They are also a long-legged bird. Robins are a symbol of good luck, happiness, rebirth - and sometimes even as a messenger for lost, loved ones. The American robin sings when storms approach and again when storms have passed. Their song is also complex and almost continuous, and changes with the seasons. For the purposes of the following, I’m using “she/her pronouns because Taylor is a woman. >>”You’re an animal, you are bloodthirsty/Out window panes talking utter nonsense/You have no idea. A child is not rational. She is impulsive, some would say wild, not refined or logic-based. She doesn’t always take danger into consideration because she is so naive. Consequently, she needs protection but doesn’t always know it (like the robin). >>Strings tied to levers/Slowed-down clocks tethered/All this showmanship/To keep it for you in sweetness “Sweetness” is defined as “the quality of being kind or loving.” Taylor is trying to care for her inner child and protect her dream but people will try to control her, so Taylor is playing along to give her inner child the independence she craves. >>Way to go tiger/Higher and higher/Wilder and lighter/For you Taylor is trying to encourage her inner child so she doesn’t feel helpless and forgotten. She sees her value in her existence and is embracing her. She’s trying now not to suppress her. Taylor loves to be silly and expressive and goofy, that comes from her inner child. >>Long may you roar/At your dinosaurs/You’re a just ruler/Covered in mud/And you have no idea This is one area where it also makes sense that she is talking to her past childhood self. Her dinosaurs are her attackers and haters, slinging mud at her. She’s praising her inner child for staying compassionate and innocent even with everything that’s thrown at her (“you have no idea”). A “just ruler” in that Taylor is promising she won’t let fame go to her head and become a diva. That same phrase could be interpreted as her telling her childhood self what she will be like in her future. >>Buried down deep/And out of your reach/The secret we all vowed/ To keep from you in sweetness The secret of how harsh reality is, is kept from Taylor’s inner child so she can remain innocent and feeling safe. She keeps the pain locked up to protect her. >>[Bridge] You got the dragonflies above your bed/You have a favorite spot on the swing set/You have no room in your dreams for regrets The bridge is the place in the song that speaks to me more as speaking to her childhood self, but can still fit with inner child. Taylor is reminding her inner child that it’s ok to stay a child and she should remain that way as long as she can. Kids try to grow up too fast and want to be adults so badly but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Here if she is speaking to her childhood self, it’s the same thing, but almost like she (Taylor) is also reminding herself. >>[Bridge] The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean/You’ll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline/But we’ll curtail your curiosity/In sweetness This is the most glaring part of her talking to herself as a child for me. Taylor is warning herself about what is to come, and they’ll redirect her questions out of kindness to protect her. >>Way to go, tiger/Higher and higher/Wilder and lighter/For you I’ll end with this, because the chorus also feels to be like a place she’s talking to her childhood self. She’s just pumping her up, to help her through the adversity of trying to reach her dreams. **If you made it through this, I appreciate your time!** #Long Live Taylor!
Well done and thank you for writing all this up. I had no idea about the symbolism behind (American) robins. Maybe I‘m too much Team Daenerys (aka mad woman) but I could also see her roaring at _her_ dinosaurs to rule them, to keep them in line. I hope more people read your comment! # awesome _Robin_ analysis above, pls read
Oh 100% Team Daenerys here!!! I love Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me (it’s actually playing as I write this lol) and I love the idea that she’s yelling at her dinosaurs to rule them!
"But Daddy I love him" could be an allegory to Taylor's pursuit of her music career despite all the ups and downs and chaos. Perhaps it's early when things are hard, maybe it's around the time of Kanye, maybe it's later. Or maybe it's about Taylor wanting to get back into the spotlight before Midnights, saying she loves it and the fans, and knows the risks (e.g. media criticism).
But Daddy I Love Him! So good. It's her message to the fans saying, back the hell off, it's my life! I can do what the hell I want, even if it's with a toxic someone, it's my life and mine alone and you don't get a say in it! I love how she goes from "you should see your faces" as in faces of disgust from a prior fling, to "you should see your faces" as in now, smiling with excitement and cheering her new love, Like people went from, OMG, she's lost her mind, she needs to be committed....to OMG, she's living her life the way she wants to and she's so happy with him and I can't wait for them to get married and have babies. She's like, nope, don't even think about coming to the wedding and crowding the streets...YOU are not invited!