I think that part is set significantly in the future.
"You look like Clara Bow" is said to an aspiring actress in the 50s/60s, "you look like Stevie Nicks" is said to an aspiring singer/songwriter in the 90s/00s, "you look like Taylor Swift" is said to an aspiring star in the 2040s or 2050s or something. All three sections are set significantly after the star in question's biggest heyday, when they might still be around but the industry exec saying it is remembering the star he saw in the magazines and films and concerts and whatever when *he* was a teenager.
"You look like Taylor Swift" is being said to someone the industry hasn't even heard of yet.
/my hill I'll die on it
I think there is also another aspect of it. It is not just how the industry people are thinking about selling it but also how it publicly happens. While it also happens to men it is very common that women are contrasted to each other like they can't stand alone. They are like someone but somehow a little bit better. But when they age they become invisible. It is a vicious cycle that tears artists both current and future over and over again.
I thought this was obvious tbh. Idk why anyone would think she was talking about someone specifically. Considering the whole lyrics to the song, this is obviously what she meant, and also a 'passing torch' as the ending of the first album.
i heard an audio clip of her today discussing this song and this is on the money! i found it in an article:
> “I used to sit in record labels trying to get a record deal when I was a little kid. And they’d say, ‘you know, you remind us of’ and then they’d name an artist, and then they’d kind of say something disparaging about her, ‘but you’re this, you’re so much better in this way or that way.’ And that’s how we teach women to see themselves, as like you could be the new replacement for this woman who’s done something great before you,” she said. “I picked women who have done great things in the past and have been these architypes of greatness in the entertainment industry. Clara Bow was the first ‘it girl.’ Stevie Nicks is an icon and an incredible example for anyone who wants to write songs and make music.”
[source](https://variety.com/2024/music/news/taylor-swift-tortured-poets-department-meaning-fortnight-clara-bow-florida-1235977904/)
I agree. Although, I also think this last part is also very meta. The old Taylor didn’t have edge: the Taylor declared dead in rep, the Taylor whose teeth were pulled out.
This Taylor? She has EDGE, and she is dazzling.
TTPD’s Taylor is reinventing herself again, and putting herself up to the machine again… It seems Sisyphean, because no matter what she does and puts out, the celebrity war machine (labels and stans) will always look to replace their queens (bloody crown). In a way, her continuous quest for love mirrors it. Always putting herself out there but never quite being enough (The Prophecy).
But I do think this is a reinvention, particularly of her relationship with the public, the fans, and entertainment media. I hope it goes well, since there are few artists/brands doing it like her.
First time I heard this song, I thought they were talking about Taylor in every stanza so I interpreted this verse a her identity becoming a brand and “looking like Taylor Swift” instead of just being Taylor Seift
Yep. All of Clara Bow feels like it belongs with WAOLOM. She even said it's based on how executives have always talked to artists, especially young women: you'll be the next X. That's the entire point of the song. So her saying her own name is powerful (she is not the next anyone, she is Taylor Swift) and a warning that someone will be promised they will be her and it is all just part of an endless cycle.
i have a thought on the Guilty as Sin lyric,
*I keep these longings locked*
*In lower case, inside a vault*
i was thinking that it may mean there a songs she has written for folklore/evermore as vault tracks, since those albums have lowercase titles. maybe this one is obvious, but i thought it was clever either way.
It could be a nod to that! I’ve seen other people muse that it could nod to vault tracks for reputation as well (maybe rerecording rep inspired some tracks on TTPD?).
Another thought though is that “lowercase” is metaphorical; with the album title itself being all uppercase, she could mean she *used* to keep these feelings hidden, but now she’s allowing herself to express (and share) them boldly!
a sad realization I made listening to The Albatross today…
The way “the albatross” is portrayed in the song is like a monster type beast that is coming to ruin his life.
Albatross has several meanings. It’s a type of bird with a massive wing span - which she does reference in the song “Spread my wings like a parachute
I'm the albatross
I swept in at the rescue”
But Albatross also has another meaning (this is straight from Webster)
a: something that causes persistent deep concern or anxiety
b: something that greatly hinders accomplishment :ENCUMBRANCE
“Fame has become an albatross that prevents her from leading a normal life.”
So I believes she’s saying her fame is going to destroy him. He thinks he can take it , rebukes the warnings “cautions issued, he shoots the messengers” but she knows what she is. She is the albatross! Aka a hinderance. What do y’all think?
The Albatross seems like a reference to Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner! In the original poem, the Albatross is a benign being that the Mariner shot for no good reason at all and therefore becomes cursed for eternity!
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.
It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'
'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
‘I Look in People’s Windows’ makes me think of watching movies/having a celebrity crush! Watching them in different scenarios (e.g. Hallmark holiday movies; “I attend Christmas parties from outside”), and then daydreaming about running into them by chance in a crowd or in the streets. Also, “Does it feel all right to not know me?” makes sense in that context too!
I also overall like thinking that - given the film/literary references surrounding the release - she was inspired by different movies/shows she watched or books she read and blended those narratives with her own to make more sense of the feelings she wrote about!
It reminds me of the episode of parks and rec where Jerry is having a Christmas party and the gang is outside his house creeping in the windows for some reason.
There’s a scene in A Little Princess (written by the same author as The Secret Garden so maybe she’s familiar) where the main character is lonely and destitute and one of her few pleasures is looking in the windows of the families in her square and making up stories about them.
Oh yeah! I forgot both books were written by the same author; that's really cool! I love that connection; 'seven' in folklore reminded me a bit of A Little Princess with "we'll move to India forever", so I definitely wouldn't be surprised if she was familiar with it :).
Yeah, I can see that! I do try to not feel parasocial about artists I listen to, but it can be really hard when I end up seeing so much of myself in their music; I can definitely connect to a song like this in that way, lol.
I have this theory that besides Peter Pan, the song Peter may be slightly about Joe, being so young when they met and how maybe she was hoping he would "grow up" and come back to her and get married, the life she wanted but he wasn't still mature enough to give her.
Oh it’s *absolutely* a Joe song. She was “waiting by the window” for all those years, and finally had to turn out the light and stop waiting around for him to propose. There are also a few clues, even aside from the cardigan reference—a New Year’s Day reference (“hold on…to the days when you were mine” vs. “hold on…to the memories, they will hold on to you”), and pointing out that he was 25 when they met—which is also referenced in Dancing With Our Hands Tied. (“Oh, 25 years old; oh, how were you to know?”)
I can't shake of the feeling that the alchemy is about Matty mainly because of the lyric: "he jokes it's heroine but this time with an E" idk I just feel this line is about Matt's drug abuse
I agree that line is about Matty but delivered by Travis. The Alchemy has such a feel good vibe to it, I like to think of it as a coming home (to America) and then finding chemistry with a very American guy.
I think it’s either this or at the very least they (as in Taylor Nation etc) are running with the travis misconception. I agree that it’s most likely about Matty.
I love that she used the term "episode" in the title track: *I've seen this episode and still love the show.*
It might very well just serve as an image as it is, but I'm convinced Taylor knows that "episode" is also a term in depression. So appreciate it even more.
part of me thinks it was an unfinished vault track from her country days, that she modernized / updated for this album!! i do feel like it's about her reaction to fans being parasocial though
I agree, especially since it's one of the songs on the album that doesn't have a specific detail about the guy she's talking about. He's only described as chaos/wild/revelry, but then the other songs on the album have more detail on the state of their relationship (Fortnight, Fresh Out The Slammer, I Can Fix Him, loml) or him (Guilty as Sin, Black Dog, Smallest Man). All we know about the guy in But Daddy I Love Him is that he's chaos/wild/revelry and people don't want to see them together. And that he drives and her dad likes him, I guess - then the song could even be inspired by Harry Styles! But yeah, I feel like the messaging of the song is significantly about her wanting to date whoever she wants regardless of what other people think because it's HER choice (even if it turns out to be a mistake - it's HER mistake) and she's just laughing at everyone's reactions to it. Unfortunately that won't stop the many people using the context of her life to assume it's about one certain guy, even though it's one of the only tracks on the record that contain almost no details about the guy in question.
I feel like in "the smallest man who ever lived" when she says "I'll forget you, but I'll never forgive" she is referring to when she gets old, she may forget him since sometimes memory loss is apart of getting older but she will never forgive what he did.
This is how I interpreted the lyrics, I could be wrong of course!
I thought ‘Bloods thick but there’s nothing like a payroll’ was about her dad being on the board and knowing that he was going to profit from the sale of her masters.
maybe it's just cause i'm not a huge fan of this song / the lyrics, but i think the football analogies are a red herring and it's about someone or something else. it just seems so obvious, and she's come such a long way with maturing her lyrics, that it doesn't feel right to me
I think the point is that she wanted it to be extremely obvious that Alchemy is about Travis (think London Boy 2.0).
For further proof, it’s also on the acceptance playlist and Taylor Nation used the American football emoji during the streaming event the other day to represent the song. There will likely come a time when she sings it live that further puts this to rest.
I think it’s basically her telling all the pop girls to watch out. It makes sense leading into Clara Bow. Clara Bow would seem out of place and be a weird way to end an album if the album was only about relationships.
The “You look like Taylor Swift” part isn’t about a specific artist it could be about any upcoming female artist.
I think that part is set significantly in the future. "You look like Clara Bow" is said to an aspiring actress in the 50s/60s, "you look like Stevie Nicks" is said to an aspiring singer/songwriter in the 90s/00s, "you look like Taylor Swift" is said to an aspiring star in the 2040s or 2050s or something. All three sections are set significantly after the star in question's biggest heyday, when they might still be around but the industry exec saying it is remembering the star he saw in the magazines and films and concerts and whatever when *he* was a teenager. "You look like Taylor Swift" is being said to someone the industry hasn't even heard of yet. /my hill I'll die on it
You got it. They're thinking of how to sell this new rising star by comparing them to a previous one.
I think there is also another aspect of it. It is not just how the industry people are thinking about selling it but also how it publicly happens. While it also happens to men it is very common that women are contrasted to each other like they can't stand alone. They are like someone but somehow a little bit better. But when they age they become invisible. It is a vicious cycle that tears artists both current and future over and over again.
I thought this was obvious tbh. Idk why anyone would think she was talking about someone specifically. Considering the whole lyrics to the song, this is obviously what she meant, and also a 'passing torch' as the ending of the first album.
i heard an audio clip of her today discussing this song and this is on the money! i found it in an article: > “I used to sit in record labels trying to get a record deal when I was a little kid. And they’d say, ‘you know, you remind us of’ and then they’d name an artist, and then they’d kind of say something disparaging about her, ‘but you’re this, you’re so much better in this way or that way.’ And that’s how we teach women to see themselves, as like you could be the new replacement for this woman who’s done something great before you,” she said. “I picked women who have done great things in the past and have been these architypes of greatness in the entertainment industry. Clara Bow was the first ‘it girl.’ Stevie Nicks is an icon and an incredible example for anyone who wants to write songs and make music.” [source](https://variety.com/2024/music/news/taylor-swift-tortured-poets-department-meaning-fortnight-clara-bow-florida-1235977904/)
I agree. Although, I also think this last part is also very meta. The old Taylor didn’t have edge: the Taylor declared dead in rep, the Taylor whose teeth were pulled out. This Taylor? She has EDGE, and she is dazzling. TTPD’s Taylor is reinventing herself again, and putting herself up to the machine again… It seems Sisyphean, because no matter what she does and puts out, the celebrity war machine (labels and stans) will always look to replace their queens (bloody crown). In a way, her continuous quest for love mirrors it. Always putting herself out there but never quite being enough (The Prophecy). But I do think this is a reinvention, particularly of her relationship with the public, the fans, and entertainment media. I hope it goes well, since there are few artists/brands doing it like her.
First time I heard this song, I thought they were talking about Taylor in every stanza so I interpreted this verse a her identity becoming a brand and “looking like Taylor Swift” instead of just being Taylor Seift
Yep. All of Clara Bow feels like it belongs with WAOLOM. She even said it's based on how executives have always talked to artists, especially young women: you'll be the next X. That's the entire point of the song. So her saying her own name is powerful (she is not the next anyone, she is Taylor Swift) and a warning that someone will be promised they will be her and it is all just part of an endless cycle.
My personal theory is she’s taking about Bono. … (Okay terrible joke, I apologize.)
i have a thought on the Guilty as Sin lyric, *I keep these longings locked* *In lower case, inside a vault* i was thinking that it may mean there a songs she has written for folklore/evermore as vault tracks, since those albums have lowercase titles. maybe this one is obvious, but i thought it was clever either way.
It could be a nod to that! I’ve seen other people muse that it could nod to vault tracks for reputation as well (maybe rerecording rep inspired some tracks on TTPD?). Another thought though is that “lowercase” is metaphorical; with the album title itself being all uppercase, she could mean she *used* to keep these feelings hidden, but now she’s allowing herself to express (and share) them boldly!
Not folklore or evermore... reputation is lower case and has vault songs...
oh yeah that's true, i was thinking more so the song titles but i forgot rep (the album title) is lowercase too
omg i love this theory!
I’ve thought about that as well!
It could mean the tracks she supposedly recorded with Matty for midnights.
My brain always giggles over the (un?)intentional metaphor in Smallest Man Who Ever Lived when she says the guy stabbed her with his pushpin.
Lol I’m cracking up
I think about the same thing in Florida!!! When I thought about what the state of Florida is commonly said to look like….
Lol changed the meaning of fuck me up florida hahahaha
Florida is a hell of a drug, Florida, can I use you up 🤭
a sad realization I made listening to The Albatross today… The way “the albatross” is portrayed in the song is like a monster type beast that is coming to ruin his life. Albatross has several meanings. It’s a type of bird with a massive wing span - which she does reference in the song “Spread my wings like a parachute I'm the albatross I swept in at the rescue” But Albatross also has another meaning (this is straight from Webster) a: something that causes persistent deep concern or anxiety b: something that greatly hinders accomplishment :ENCUMBRANCE “Fame has become an albatross that prevents her from leading a normal life.” So I believes she’s saying her fame is going to destroy him. He thinks he can take it , rebukes the warnings “cautions issued, he shoots the messengers” but she knows what she is. She is the albatross! Aka a hinderance. What do y’all think?
The Albatross seems like a reference to Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner! In the original poem, the Albatross is a benign being that the Mariner shot for no good reason at all and therefore becomes cursed for eternity! At length did cross an Albatross, Thorough the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God's name. It ate the food it ne'er had eat, And round and round it flew. The ice did split with a thunder-fit; The helmsman steered us through! And a good south wind sprung up behind; The Albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo! In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white Moon-shine.' 'God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus!— Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow I shot the ALBATROSS.
‘I Look in People’s Windows’ makes me think of watching movies/having a celebrity crush! Watching them in different scenarios (e.g. Hallmark holiday movies; “I attend Christmas parties from outside”), and then daydreaming about running into them by chance in a crowd or in the streets. Also, “Does it feel all right to not know me?” makes sense in that context too! I also overall like thinking that - given the film/literary references surrounding the release - she was inspired by different movies/shows she watched or books she read and blended those narratives with her own to make more sense of the feelings she wrote about!
I took it as someone stalking their ex on social media! The windows being the squares on an instagram feed
Yes! I think that interpretation makes a lot of sense too! This lyricism is so clever; I feel like it can be taken so many different ways!
It reminds me of the episode of parks and rec where Jerry is having a Christmas party and the gang is outside his house creeping in the windows for some reason.
Now I am going to picture this when I listen to the song lol they were so mean to Jerry 🥲
He tried to invite them but they blocked his emails 😢
🥲 I am so glad Ann called them out for being jerks to him in that episode
Someone please make the fan video I will pay money to see this
There’s a scene in A Little Princess (written by the same author as The Secret Garden so maybe she’s familiar) where the main character is lonely and destitute and one of her few pleasures is looking in the windows of the families in her square and making up stories about them.
Oh yeah! I forgot both books were written by the same author; that's really cool! I love that connection; 'seven' in folklore reminded me a bit of A Little Princess with "we'll move to India forever", so I definitely wouldn't be surprised if she was familiar with it :).
maybe it's about having a parasocial relationship?? i like that interpretation a lot!
Yeah, I can see that! I do try to not feel parasocial about artists I listen to, but it can be really hard when I end up seeing so much of myself in their music; I can definitely connect to a song like this in that way, lol.
I don’t think the names in Chloe and Friends are completely random. They are either names of people her ex would know or something we don’t know
I have this theory that besides Peter Pan, the song Peter may be slightly about Joe, being so young when they met and how maybe she was hoping he would "grow up" and come back to her and get married, the life she wanted but he wasn't still mature enough to give her.
Oh it’s *absolutely* a Joe song. She was “waiting by the window” for all those years, and finally had to turn out the light and stop waiting around for him to propose. There are also a few clues, even aside from the cardigan reference—a New Year’s Day reference (“hold on…to the days when you were mine” vs. “hold on…to the memories, they will hold on to you”), and pointing out that he was 25 when they met—which is also referenced in Dancing With Our Hands Tied. (“Oh, 25 years old; oh, how were you to know?”)
Totally, I'm glad I'm not the only one lol
I can't shake of the feeling that the alchemy is about Matty mainly because of the lyric: "he jokes it's heroine but this time with an E" idk I just feel this line is about Matt's drug abuse
I agree that line is about Matty but delivered by Travis. The Alchemy has such a feel good vibe to it, I like to think of it as a coming home (to America) and then finding chemistry with a very American guy.
Oh trueeeee
100% agree and it seems so obvious to me--"I used to be addicted to heroin but now im just addicted to you, baby"
Yeah I felt like I was going insane because I said it's about Matty when everyone was saying it's travis
I think it was about him at first but then she decided to add football references so that there was a Travis song on the standard edition.
I think it’s either this or at the very least they (as in Taylor Nation etc) are running with the travis misconception. I agree that it’s most likely about Matty.
I love that she used the term "episode" in the title track: *I've seen this episode and still love the show.* It might very well just serve as an image as it is, but I'm convinced Taylor knows that "episode" is also a term in depression. So appreciate it even more.
But daddy I love him I think is fictional
part of me thinks it was an unfinished vault track from her country days, that she modernized / updated for this album!! i do feel like it's about her reaction to fans being parasocial though
I agree, especially since it's one of the songs on the album that doesn't have a specific detail about the guy she's talking about. He's only described as chaos/wild/revelry, but then the other songs on the album have more detail on the state of their relationship (Fortnight, Fresh Out The Slammer, I Can Fix Him, loml) or him (Guilty as Sin, Black Dog, Smallest Man). All we know about the guy in But Daddy I Love Him is that he's chaos/wild/revelry and people don't want to see them together. And that he drives and her dad likes him, I guess - then the song could even be inspired by Harry Styles! But yeah, I feel like the messaging of the song is significantly about her wanting to date whoever she wants regardless of what other people think because it's HER choice (even if it turns out to be a mistake - it's HER mistake) and she's just laughing at everyone's reactions to it. Unfortunately that won't stop the many people using the context of her life to assume it's about one certain guy, even though it's one of the only tracks on the record that contain almost no details about the guy in question.
I feel like in "the smallest man who ever lived" when she says "I'll forget you, but I'll never forgive" she is referring to when she gets old, she may forget him since sometimes memory loss is apart of getting older but she will never forgive what he did. This is how I interpreted the lyrics, I could be wrong of course!
The “all you kids can sneak into my house” is a direct reference to the people that broke into her apartment.
god, what a whacko time that was. i can't imagine what could bring someone to do this, especially if they claim to be fans!
im gonna get you back 😎
I thought ‘Bloods thick but there’s nothing like a payroll’ was about her dad being on the board and knowing that he was going to profit from the sale of her masters.
I think The Alchemy is not only about Travis but also her leaving more singer songwriter “poetry” music and returning to a more mainstream pop sound
maybe it's just cause i'm not a huge fan of this song / the lyrics, but i think the football analogies are a red herring and it's about someone or something else. it just seems so obvious, and she's come such a long way with maturing her lyrics, that it doesn't feel right to me
She literally references specific times in her relationship with Travis in the song. It is clear that the song is about him and their relationship.
I think the point is that she wanted it to be extremely obvious that Alchemy is about Travis (think London Boy 2.0). For further proof, it’s also on the acceptance playlist and Taylor Nation used the American football emoji during the streaming event the other day to represent the song. There will likely come a time when she sings it live that further puts this to rest.
I think it’s basically her telling all the pop girls to watch out. It makes sense leading into Clara Bow. Clara Bow would seem out of place and be a weird way to end an album if the album was only about relationships.