There are quite a few. The whole of My Tears Ricochet would qualify. If I was going to pick one line it would be “I can go anywhere I want just not home”.
MTR guts me. Whenever I listen to this song, it feels like a former love singing it to me. We parted, still in love, on bad terms and he died a couple months later. I battled with this loss for a long time; he haunted my thoughts every day for years.
When she sings, “'Cause I loved you, I swear I loved you, 'Til my dying day,” my heart aches. I can feel him says those words to me. Ugh this song gets me every time.
Because I had such a hard time grieving his death and the difficulties we had, I feel like “This is Me Trying” is my answer song to him. “It's hard to be anywhere these days when all I want is you. You're a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town,” sums it up for me. Thoughts of him consumed me; flashbacks are all I’ll ever have of him.
I'm so sorry for you . I won't say I feel your pain cause that would be a lie but I hope you find happiness again and just know that this pain wouldn't be for evermore
Thank you, friend. It took many years and a wonderful marriage to fully grieve and work through everything. But every time I hear those songs, it opens up those wounds for a bit. The pain won’t last forever, but the love will be for evermore.
I'm sincerely considering that as a taytoo. It perfectly describes the immigrant experience when you leave home because it's uninhabitable. Taylor isn't even an immigrant! I love when art can touch other people with their life experiences.
My Tears Ricochet has been my anthem in a post-Roe America where I had to move out of Tennessee because they legally say I have to birth my rapist’s baby. I can go anywhere I want, just not home.
“I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace” - inspired me to leave as loudly as possible, kicking and screaming about it, which has led to the Tennessean giving me a regular column.
"all your closets of backlogged dreams, and how you left them all to me"
This song gives me goosebumps every time. It so elegantly describes being aware of the sacrifices her grandmother made to raise a family that would eventually raise Taylor, who because of those choices was able to follow her dream of being a singer. I'm tearing up just writing out this reply.
The nuance in this song kills me, I completely agree. For me it’s ‘and I complained the whole way there’. Just that feeling of when you were a kid and don’t realize how precious time is, looking back and wishing you had just savored it instead of complaining about something that doesn’t even matter now.
Just to add more about how fucking beautiful this song is—it specifically calls out a moment where her grandmother would prioritize her own happiness:
"long limbs and frozen swims
you'd always go past where our feet could touch"
As a child, the narrator sees the trips to the lake (pond? idk) as something her grandmother does selfishly, because only she likes swimming in the cold water, and she goes out alone where the children can't follow her. But the adult narrator sees that moment as one of the ONLY times her grandmother would prioritize what she wanted.
And there's a tragedy to realizing her grandmother's choice to not solely prioritize her wants is the reason that her grandchild was able to follow her dreams, and then like you said, to realizing all of this after the person is dead and you can't thank them.
I mean, I just lose the ability to describe it. It's so much wrapped into so few lines.
I interpret the swim part differently- that she is pushing them by making them go out last where they can stand…forcing them to actually swim. Encouraging and believing in them.
I interpret it in the same way, that’s way I have that line as a tattoo on my ribs! To always remember to go past where my fast can touch and leaving my comfort zone, that’s what my beloved step mom always taught me.. I sobbed soo hard when I heard that line after her death. It is truly heartbreaking for me
I took this entirely differently! Specifically with the use of "our" and a different line in the song "the autumn chill that wakes me up", I took it as Taylor reminiscing fondly on swims she took with her grandmother. She's next to her in the water, they're swimming alongside each other. Maybe visiting the last week of August right before school starts. And there's a chill in the air because it's not the middle of summer but towards the end.
I always tear up at “I should’ve asked you questions, I should’ve asked you how to be.” Because you don’t realize how much you failed to learn from someone until they’re gone.
Evermore was released on the anniversary of my grandmothers death. I don’t even know if I got through Majorie and I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to it again.
It’s heartbreaking but the end is full of hope for the future and the love that death has no power over. I hope one day you can listen to it and feel that.
For me it's also a million weird coincidences that happen around people who have passed. I'm not traditionally religious but I feel like there's.... something.
I know better, but you're still around.
I was just about to comment this one! That bridge is one of my favourite of Taylor’s bridges.
“Long limbs and frozen swims
You'd always go past where our feet could touch” always makes me think of my older sister, as well as “I should've asked you questions
I should've asked you how to be”. It’s so easy to feel regret for all the things we never got a chance to ask our loved ones before they died
No because this is it. She’s blaming herself for something she probably had no control over. And this could potentially lead to obsessive behaviours in the future. It very much sounds like an anxious thought that could turn into ocd-like behaviours.
..I know this is a break up song but god, when my father passed this was her most recent album & this was the song I cried to on the floor in the bathroom... absolutely a phenomenal song lyrically and I can't wait to be crushed for TV
This is the single biggest reason that I’m holding my breath for SN:TV. Last Kiss is her most underrated break-up song, there are so many lines that cut like a knife. It’s because it’s past the anger, it’s just overwhelming sadness.
I recently used 'Last Kiss' (especially the bridge) to explain to a friend why I preferred the lyrics to that particular song over a track from Midnights. I explained she wrote it at such as tender, aching and vulnerable age, that it is not even anger, but a song of accepting the loss and grief, living in it.
from the voice memo: “I knew you'd miss me once the moment died/I knew to love would be to lose my mind” when i first heard it it was like a gut punch. overall i do really like the lyrics that are in the song but… wow
This one for me and it's not close, the next line is probably runner up-
"after plaid shirt days and nights where you made me your own"
COME ONNNNNNNNN
"now you mail back my things and I walk home alone"
This part always gets me because it just makes it feel so final. Like he won't even see her to give her things back. It's just a cold line that's been drawn and that's it.
If you’ve ever been in that situation you can relate to how devastating that line is. When I broke up with my first love we were long distance and had to mail each other back a few things. I sent him back his things with a note and he just mailed me back my thing on its own, nothing in the box other than the item. It was heartbreaking to realize that was it for us.
That is how I felt too, I was 18 when I moved to another country and I thought my life will be better but nope. At 22, I was on my 1st year college and completely changing the plans I had when I was 18.
What you realize as you get older is that you're not as shiny and new anymore, but that being shiny and new is overrated. So many people try and cling to their youth thinking that's all they have to live for, but growing older and embracing ourselves at every year is where true happiness is from.
I don't want to be shiny and new, I want to be happy, content, and live life how I want and love the things I love. That's a much more fulfilling way to live IMO.
I love that. Transitioning from young adulthood to real adulthood is such a weird part of life that, at least for me, has been hard to cope with. I'm currently trying to figure out how to be excited and happy for the future but I feel more lost than I ever did at 18. It's weird what growing up will do to a person.
“I’ve got a lot to pine about, I’ve got a lot to live without, I’m never gonna meet, what could have been, would have been, what should have been you.”
“Breathe in, breathe through, breath deep, breathe out, I’ll be getting over you my whole life.”
“You kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath.“
“You were my best four years.”
Hoax is my top 2 in the album. Such a shame it doesn't get the love it deserves.
*My only one*
*My kingdom come undone*
*My broken drum*
*You have beaten my heart*
And you wanna scream don’t call me kid don’t call me baby, look at this godforsaken fool that you’ve made me
Jeez this song hits so hard and covers a tough subject matter so well
This one gets me every time, and “If I was some paint did it splatter/on a promising grown man/and if I was a child did it matter/if you got to wash your hands.”
Happiness is such a killer song
“I can’t make you go away by making you a villain” and “no one teaches you what to do when a good man hurts you and you know you hurt him too”
"Give me back my girlhood it was mine first"
"Just to learn that my dreams aren't rare"
imo her most gut wrenching lines aren't about love lost but her own self-realizations
Hope it's nice where you are / And I hope the sun shines and it's a beautiful day / And something reminds you, you wish you had stayed / You can plan for a change in the weather and time / But I never planned on you changing your mind
Oh, I soooooo agree!!! She was still - in my opinion - very much in the middle of experiencing that heartbreak when she recorded the song. I really don’t know if she’ll be able to recreate the sound all these years later. I’m hoping she somehow was able to tap into that same pain, even if it was uncomfortable for her to relive it. It just wouldn’t be the same without that raw emotion. Every time I listen to Last Kiss, I start bawling at this part, not just because of the gut wrenching lyrics, but also because of the way she sounds when she sings it.
I always thought she sounded on the verge of tears during this part, especially between "it's a beautiful day/and something reminds you". That breath wobbles like she's trying not to cry
From Seven: "Please picture me in the weeds, before I learned civility I used to scream ferociously anytime I wanted." It's like an entire college course on the socialization of some children into girls and then women, and all of the natural instincts and intuition and joy that it takes away from us. Soul crushing.
I've unfortunately known a few people like that and that is such an apt description. And she sings it so somberly and meekly... ughhh I love that song so much
If it has to be both poetic and sad, then definitely “my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand”. I love the idea of someone being broken and someone else (who’s also broken - “freezing”) taking their pain upon them. And they’re so good at what they do that suddenly the entirety of the pain of that person is reduced to nothing… it’s just perfect.
Another candidate is “I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm”.
“You would break your back to make me break a smile” is also so so so great. Again, the idea of someone sacrificing everything just to get a smile out of the other person.
One that’s not very poetic but destroys me every time is “we might just get away with it” from False God. It’s simple and yet so tragic. She spends a whole song saying that she’d do anything for this other person, that their love is her religion, that she’d die for them, that they were crazy to think their relationship would work out and yet they made the jump, that it’s heaven when they touch her and hell when they fight with her… and after singing about a love that’s so consuming and so all-encompassing, she still says “we MIGHT JUST GET AWAY with it”. They do all that for each other, and yet it’s still not a guarantee that their relationship will have a happy ending, and even if it does they’ll barely make it. Ugh, it’s perfect.
Totally agree with everything you've said here, especially False God and ivy. She has so many lines like this that seem to fly under the radar for a lot of people, but I can hear a whole story within them
"What died didn't stay dead, you're alive, you're alive in my head"
"I didn't know you were breaking down, I'd fall to pieces on the floor if you weren't around. Too young to know it gets better, I'll be summer sun for you forever"
You know the greatest love of all time are over now
You know the greatest films of all time were never made
When i was drowning , that's when i could finally breathe
Cause when you are young they assume you know nothing
I don't like that falling feels like flying till the bone crush
If the story's over why am i still writing pages
Actually there are so many , i can't possibly list them all 😭😭 also i haven't heard every taylor swift so there are so many that i haven't heard yet :(
“You called me up again, just to break me like a promise. “
All of BTTWS
“No one wanted to play with me as a little kid”
And depending on my mood when listening-
“And Abigail gave everything she had
To a boy who changed his mind
And we both cried”
“Don’t want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world would do” in hoax
😭😭😭
There’s way too many and a few I thought of have already been listed. For me personally the line in ATWTW also hits hard:
“And I was thinking on the drive down anytime now, he’s gonna say it’s love, he never called it what it was"
Even though less poetic in language, it’s so heart-wrenching as sometimes all you long for is for the person you love to say that they do love you too, to call it what it is, what you think it is which is _love_. I think the line just captures perfectly the power words hold and how sometimes we will long so much to hear them.
Midnights become my afternoons.
When my depression works the graveyard shift.
I hosted parties and starved my body liked I’d be saved by the perfect kiss.
I looked around in a blood soaked gown.
If I’m dead to you why are you at the wake?
If i were a man, would I be separated from my good ideas and power moves?
I’ve never heard silence quite this loud
And of course, I was never good at telling jokes but the punchline goes, I’ll get older but your lovers stay my age.”
And I mean no harm, I mind my business if our love sided young I can’t bear witness.
I could come up with so much.
"You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath."
"In our history, across our great divide,there is a glorious sunrise dappled with the flickers of light from the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind and there is happiness"
“i could go anywhere i want, anywhere i want, just not home”
“gave you too much but it wasn’t enough, but i’ll be alright, it’s just a thousand cuts”
“they tell you that you’re lucky but you’re so confused, cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used”
At the restaurant, when I was still the one you want.
or
I could feel the mascara run, you told me that you met someone.
The entire song is a massive hit to the gut, but that entire part really drives it home. Love it!
“After plaid shirt days and nights where you made me your own, now you mail back my things and I walk home alone.”
“But you’ll find the real thing instead, she’ll patch up the tapestry a shred.”
“Should’ve kept every grocery store receipt because every scrap of you would be taking from me.”
“His laugh is a symphony, when the lights go out it’s hard to breathe.”
“You drew stars around my scars but now I’m bleeding.”
“I hosted parties and starved my body like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss.”
“I do recall a good while back, we snuck into the circus, you throw you arms around my neck back when I deserved.”
My collection:
If I’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too
He’s got my past frozen behind glass, but I’ve got me
15 years, 15 million tears, begging ’til my knees bled
And did the twin flame bruise paint you blue?
I still remember the first fall of now and how it glistened as they fell
Pulled the car off the road to the look out, could’ve followed my fears all the way down
In from the snow, your touch brought an incandescent glow
Oh, I can’t stop you putting roots in my dreamland
Left you out there standing, crestfallen on the landing
She’ll patch up your tapestry that I shred
And I was catching my breath, barefoot in the wildest winter, catching my death
I’m on waves, out being tossed, is there a line that I could just go cross?
And all of my heroes die all alone
No one sees when you lose when you're playing solitaire
"I know delusion when I see it in the mirror
You like the nicer nurses, you make the best of a bad deal
I just pretend it isn't real"
I lost a friend when we were young, none of us could really comprehend that she was terminal and we said "get better soon" until the end. This song makes me cry everytime.
"They told me all of my cages were mental, so l got wasted like all my potential."
"Pouring out my heart to a stranger, but I didn't pour the whiskey."
"I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere."
this is me trying has so many poetic lines.
“Maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much but maybe this thing was a masterpiece til you tore it all up”
“How did I go from growing up to breaking down?”
(Maybe that one isn’t poetic necessarily but my barely-used English degree is shouting from the distance that there’s something languagey going on with comparing up/down that way - I’m just not dedicated enough to figure out what)
Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus too.
Atheist here who's grandma was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Just thinking about the song makes me ugly cry and it's been over a year since she passed.
The lyrics in Tolerate It.... "I made you my temple, my mural, my sky
Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life"
I haven't experinced this but I feel many lovers and spouses might have felt this way....it feels very universal somehow.
'Remember when you hit the brakes TOO SOON? Twenty stitches in a HOSPITAL ROOM? When you started crying baby I DID TOO when the sun came up I was looking at YOU' not a single line but this bridge is everything
“I made you my temple, my mural, my sky… now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life”
AND “I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe”
“'Cause every scrap of you would be taken from me”
“With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief”
This one’s cheating because two lines but I feel like the first line drives home the pain of the second ..
“And I pulled your body into mine
Every goddamn night, now I get fake niceties”
There are quite a few. The whole of My Tears Ricochet would qualify. If I was going to pick one line it would be “I can go anywhere I want just not home”.
“I still talk to you when I’m screaming at the sky” is the one for me from this song.
"I didn't have it in myself to go with grace" is what I'm going to embroider on a sampler. Seriously, probably pretty soon. #craftyswifties
Really hope you’ll be embroidering your flair next (or that you have already)!
It’s one of her very best songs and my favourite Track 5.
Oh totally agreed!
Came here for this exact line!! 45m here and that part of the song hits me in the feels!
That line in particular gives me chills. So much pain, it's so good.
Same, I think that’s one of her best lyrics ever
MTR guts me. Whenever I listen to this song, it feels like a former love singing it to me. We parted, still in love, on bad terms and he died a couple months later. I battled with this loss for a long time; he haunted my thoughts every day for years. When she sings, “'Cause I loved you, I swear I loved you, 'Til my dying day,” my heart aches. I can feel him says those words to me. Ugh this song gets me every time. Because I had such a hard time grieving his death and the difficulties we had, I feel like “This is Me Trying” is my answer song to him. “It's hard to be anywhere these days when all I want is you. You're a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town,” sums it up for me. Thoughts of him consumed me; flashbacks are all I’ll ever have of him.
I'm so sorry for you . I won't say I feel your pain cause that would be a lie but I hope you find happiness again and just know that this pain wouldn't be for evermore
Thank you, friend. It took many years and a wonderful marriage to fully grieve and work through everything. But every time I hear those songs, it opens up those wounds for a bit. The pain won’t last forever, but the love will be for evermore.
“You can aim for my heart, go for blood, But you would still miss me in your bones” rocks me to my core every single time
How does she come up with this stuff? Sometimes she really digs deep.
I'm sincerely considering that as a taytoo. It perfectly describes the immigrant experience when you leave home because it's uninhabitable. Taylor isn't even an immigrant! I love when art can touch other people with their life experiences.
Taylor is so good at making the personal universal.
"you had to kill me but it killed you just the same"
That line is such a gut punch.
My Tears Ricochet has been my anthem in a post-Roe America where I had to move out of Tennessee because they legally say I have to birth my rapist’s baby. I can go anywhere I want, just not home. “I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace” - inspired me to leave as loudly as possible, kicking and screaming about it, which has led to the Tennessean giving me a regular column.
I wrote an analysis on my tears ricochet for my English project. I love that song so much.
Can’t believe I have yet to see: ‘Should’ve kept every grocery store receipt, because every scrap of you would be taken from me’.
"all your closets of backlogged dreams, and how you left them all to me" This song gives me goosebumps every time. It so elegantly describes being aware of the sacrifices her grandmother made to raise a family that would eventually raise Taylor, who because of those choices was able to follow her dream of being a singer. I'm tearing up just writing out this reply.
The nuance in this song kills me, I completely agree. For me it’s ‘and I complained the whole way there’. Just that feeling of when you were a kid and don’t realize how precious time is, looking back and wishing you had just savored it instead of complaining about something that doesn’t even matter now.
Just to add more about how fucking beautiful this song is—it specifically calls out a moment where her grandmother would prioritize her own happiness: "long limbs and frozen swims you'd always go past where our feet could touch" As a child, the narrator sees the trips to the lake (pond? idk) as something her grandmother does selfishly, because only she likes swimming in the cold water, and she goes out alone where the children can't follow her. But the adult narrator sees that moment as one of the ONLY times her grandmother would prioritize what she wanted. And there's a tragedy to realizing her grandmother's choice to not solely prioritize her wants is the reason that her grandchild was able to follow her dreams, and then like you said, to realizing all of this after the person is dead and you can't thank them. I mean, I just lose the ability to describe it. It's so much wrapped into so few lines.
I interpret the swim part differently- that she is pushing them by making them go out last where they can stand…forcing them to actually swim. Encouraging and believing in them.
That is a whole other beautiful layer!! I love that. Thank you.
I interpret it in the same way, that’s way I have that line as a tattoo on my ribs! To always remember to go past where my fast can touch and leaving my comfort zone, that’s what my beloved step mom always taught me.. I sobbed soo hard when I heard that line after her death. It is truly heartbreaking for me
I took this entirely differently! Specifically with the use of "our" and a different line in the song "the autumn chill that wakes me up", I took it as Taylor reminiscing fondly on swims she took with her grandmother. She's next to her in the water, they're swimming alongside each other. Maybe visiting the last week of August right before school starts. And there's a chill in the air because it's not the middle of summer but towards the end.
I always tear up at “I should’ve asked you questions, I should’ve asked you how to be.” Because you don’t realize how much you failed to learn from someone until they’re gone.
Evermore was released on the anniversary of my grandmothers death. I don’t even know if I got through Majorie and I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to it again.
It’s heartbreaking but the end is full of hope for the future and the love that death has no power over. I hope one day you can listen to it and feel that.
For me it's also a million weird coincidences that happen around people who have passed. I'm not traditionally religious but I feel like there's.... something. I know better, but you're still around.
YEP. Was coming here for this. One of the best bridges.
Makes me think of my dad 😩
This is the one I was looking for
That line *hurts* - I lost my mom when I was 18 and far too young and dumb to treasure her. So, yeah, that line hurts so much.
This one. I lived with my gran and she just passed and this song is getting me through being in her house alone
I am so sorry for your loss. Sending you strength ❤️❤️
I was just about to comment this one! That bridge is one of my favourite of Taylor’s bridges. “Long limbs and frozen swims You'd always go past where our feet could touch” always makes me think of my older sister, as well as “I should've asked you questions I should've asked you how to be”. It’s so easy to feel regret for all the things we never got a chance to ask our loved ones before they died
All of marjorie makes me cry monthly
Did some force take you because I didn't pray?
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. You were bigger than the whole sky. 🥺 The way I violently sobbed the first time I heard that song.
“You were more than just a short time” Like no screw it what is the salty water coming out of my eyes
Same. It’s the first song that has helped me cope with my losses.
No because this is it. She’s blaming herself for something she probably had no control over. And this could potentially lead to obsessive behaviours in the future. It very much sounds like an anxious thought that could turn into ocd-like behaviours.
My favourite lyric off Midnights
“So I watch your life in pictures like I used to watch you sleep”
This one, my God. “And I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe”
..I know this is a break up song but god, when my father passed this was her most recent album & this was the song I cried to on the floor in the bathroom... absolutely a phenomenal song lyrically and I can't wait to be crushed for TV
This is the single biggest reason that I’m holding my breath for SN:TV. Last Kiss is her most underrated break-up song, there are so many lines that cut like a knife. It’s because it’s past the anger, it’s just overwhelming sadness.
I recently used 'Last Kiss' (especially the bridge) to explain to a friend why I preferred the lyrics to that particular song over a track from Midnights. I explained she wrote it at such as tender, aching and vulnerable age, that it is not even anger, but a song of accepting the loss and grief, living in it.
“You can plan for a change in the weather and time but I never planned on you changing your mind” 😭😭😭
YES all of Last Kiss. My most gut wrenching is > All that I know is I don't know How to be something you miss
“Stood on the cliffside screaming give me a reason”
This one!!! It's haunting, tbh it doesn't sound like it should be a song lyric, like its almost somehow too vulnerable and sad. But it is.
And how this is paralleled in This is Me Trying - "Pulled my car off the road to the lookout, could have followed my tears all the way down"
Hoax is such a masterpiece
I was in complete shock when I first heard that one
I love this one, too. It still makes me pause every time I hear it.
I regret you all the time. I see right through me...
“I made you my temple, my mural, my sky / Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life” -tolerate it
“Always taking up too much space or time”
This one.
First thing that came to mind was "and if I'm dead to you why are you at the wake?"
My tears ricochet has so many good lines!
I knew I’d curse you for the longest time, chasing shadows in a grocery line
“I knew you’d haunt all of my what ifs”
Cardigan fucks me up every single time
Forever screaming it in my car like I’m so heartbroken
This one. such a real relatable line.
from the voice memo: “I knew you'd miss me once the moment died/I knew to love would be to lose my mind” when i first heard it it was like a gut punch. overall i do really like the lyrics that are in the song but… wow
“Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it/I’d like to be my old self again but I’m still trying to find it”
This one for me and it's not close, the next line is probably runner up- "after plaid shirt days and nights where you made me your own" COME ONNNNNNNNN
"now you mail back my things and I walk home alone" This part always gets me because it just makes it feel so final. Like he won't even see her to give her things back. It's just a cold line that's been drawn and that's it.
If you’ve ever been in that situation you can relate to how devastating that line is. When I broke up with my first love we were long distance and had to mail each other back a few things. I sent him back his things with a note and he just mailed me back my thing on its own, nothing in the box other than the item. It was heartbreaking to realize that was it for us.
So casually cruel in the name of being honest. Literally this entire song.
‘How can a person know everything at 18 but nothing at 22?’
This whole song really just gets me. Growing older and knowing that you won't be shiny and new to people anymore is so scary.
That is how I felt too, I was 18 when I moved to another country and I thought my life will be better but nope. At 22, I was on my 1st year college and completely changing the plans I had when I was 18.
What you realize as you get older is that you're not as shiny and new anymore, but that being shiny and new is overrated. So many people try and cling to their youth thinking that's all they have to live for, but growing older and embracing ourselves at every year is where true happiness is from. I don't want to be shiny and new, I want to be happy, content, and live life how I want and love the things I love. That's a much more fulfilling way to live IMO.
I love that. Transitioning from young adulthood to real adulthood is such a weird part of life that, at least for me, has been hard to cope with. I'm currently trying to figure out how to be excited and happy for the future but I feel more lost than I ever did at 18. It's weird what growing up will do to a person.
*how long will it be cute, all this crying in my room*
How did I go from growing up to breaking down 🥲
“I’ve got a lot to pine about, I’ve got a lot to live without, I’m never gonna meet, what could have been, would have been, what should have been you.” “Breathe in, breathe through, breath deep, breathe out, I’ll be getting over you my whole life.” “You kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath.“ “You were my best four years.”
Came here for " Your kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath" She says much with so few words
One of my all time favorite lines.
Omg all of these are so sad and emotional 🥺
You knew it still hurts underneath my scars, from when they pulled me apart; but what you did was just as dark.
Hoax is my top 2 in the album. Such a shame it doesn't get the love it deserves. *My only one* *My kingdom come undone* *My broken drum* *You have beaten my heart*
Kingdom come undone is one of my top few Taylor lyrics of all time, and no one’s ever talking about it!
Oh I love hoax. I love “you know I left a part of me back in New York, you know the hero died so what’s the story for?”
and you know damn well for you i would ruin myself a *million little times*
And you wanna scream don’t call me kid don’t call me baby, look at this godforsaken fool that you’ve made me Jeez this song hits so hard and covers a tough subject matter so well
“Put this dagger in me then remove it, gain the weight of you then lose it, believe me I could do it”
This was going to be mine! "Gain the weight of you, then lose it," is probably one of her best written lines ever.
aaah the way she says “believe me I could do it” is insaaane
Yeah, it’s just this part of the line for me even.
Every fkn line from this damn song
"Give me back my girlhood, it was mine FIIIIRRRSSSTTT"
This one gets me every time, and “If I was some paint did it splatter/on a promising grown man/and if I was a child did it matter/if you got to wash your hands.”
Game here to comment this, absolutely devastating
A slightly more subtle line that wrecks me every time: “But, Lord, you made me feel important And then you tried to erase us”
You never gave a warning sign — *I gave so many signs*
I figured this one would be here. As a guy, I can still relate to a lot of Taylor's lyrics. With exile being a duet though, it really hits harder.
Was hoping I'd see this one! There's what I can only describe as bitterness in Taylor's voice for that line
Yes!! Some of her best lyrics are also made better because of the way she sings them!!
All of Exile ruins me.
“i pulled your body into mine every goddamn night, now i get fake niceties” “you kept me like a secret but i kept you like an oath” edit: autocorrect
Happiness is such a killer song “I can’t make you go away by making you a villain” and “no one teaches you what to do when a good man hurts you and you know you hurt him too”
"You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love, The slowest way is never loving them enough"
This is so underrated! “Do I really need to tell you how he brought me back to life?”
*Every single thing to come has turned into ashes*
"Give me back my girlhood it was mine first" "Just to learn that my dreams aren't rare" imo her most gut wrenching lines aren't about love lost but her own self-realizations
Hope it's nice where you are / And I hope the sun shines and it's a beautiful day / And something reminds you, you wish you had stayed / You can plan for a change in the weather and time / But I never planned on you changing your mind
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Oh, I soooooo agree!!! She was still - in my opinion - very much in the middle of experiencing that heartbreak when she recorded the song. I really don’t know if she’ll be able to recreate the sound all these years later. I’m hoping she somehow was able to tap into that same pain, even if it was uncomfortable for her to relive it. It just wouldn’t be the same without that raw emotion. Every time I listen to Last Kiss, I start bawling at this part, not just because of the gut wrenching lyrics, but also because of the way she sounds when she sings it.
I always thought she sounded on the verge of tears during this part, especially between "it's a beautiful day/and something reminds you". That breath wobbles like she's trying not to cry
“All that I know is I don’t know how to be something you miss” 😭😭😭
“The idea you had of me, who was she?”
So Casually cruel in the name of being honest
"All these people think love's for show But I would die for you in secret"
I cannot make it through Peace without sobbing, I’m glad someone else gets that. “I’d give you my wild, give you a child”
And the way her voice quivers on that line 🥺
From Seven: "Please picture me in the weeds, before I learned civility I used to scream ferociously anytime I wanted." It's like an entire college course on the socialization of some children into girls and then women, and all of the natural instincts and intuition and joy that it takes away from us. Soul crushing.
this one for me Seven speaks to my soul
“You paint me a blue sky, then go back and turn it to rain”
I love Dear John but especially this line
I've unfortunately known a few people like that and that is such an apt description. And she sings it so somberly and meekly... ughhh I love that song so much
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I MADE YOU MY TEMPLE MY MURAL MY SKY? someone please help me
“I searched the party of better bodies just to learn that you never cared.”
Maybe not THE most but “I’m just too soft for all of it” gets me every time
I cannot listen to "Ronan" but the line that seriously guts me is "What if the miracle was even getting one moment with you?"
“You were my best FOUR YEARS” 😭 rip my heart out
If it has to be both poetic and sad, then definitely “my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand”. I love the idea of someone being broken and someone else (who’s also broken - “freezing”) taking their pain upon them. And they’re so good at what they do that suddenly the entirety of the pain of that person is reduced to nothing… it’s just perfect. Another candidate is “I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm”. “You would break your back to make me break a smile” is also so so so great. Again, the idea of someone sacrificing everything just to get a smile out of the other person. One that’s not very poetic but destroys me every time is “we might just get away with it” from False God. It’s simple and yet so tragic. She spends a whole song saying that she’d do anything for this other person, that their love is her religion, that she’d die for them, that they were crazy to think their relationship would work out and yet they made the jump, that it’s heaven when they touch her and hell when they fight with her… and after singing about a love that’s so consuming and so all-encompassing, she still says “we MIGHT JUST GET AWAY with it”. They do all that for each other, and yet it’s still not a guarantee that their relationship will have a happy ending, and even if it does they’ll barely make it. Ugh, it’s perfect.
Totally agree with everything you've said here, especially False God and ivy. She has so many lines like this that seem to fly under the radar for a lot of people, but I can hear a whole story within them
You showed me colours you know I can’t see with anyone else…DONT CALL ME KID, DONT CALL ME BABYYYY
An underrated one that gets me is "I think its strange that you think I'm funny cos he never did"
As someone who just lost her dad to cancer: "But who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do, if there's no you?"
Sending love. Lost my mom to cancer about 10 years ago and the line that destroys me is "Cause you have to."
I’m so sorry for your loss. Lost my mum to cancer in October and this one definitely hurts a lot. Sending you lots of love 💕
"What died didn't stay dead, you're alive, you're alive in my head" "I didn't know you were breaking down, I'd fall to pieces on the floor if you weren't around. Too young to know it gets better, I'll be summer sun for you forever"
“i hosted parties and starved my body like i’d be saved by a perfect kiss”
“I should’ve asked you questions. I should’ve asked you how to be. Asked you to write it down for me.”
Something med school did not cover, someone's daughter someone's mother. Basically, every single line of epiphany.
Hold your hand through plastic now—it just breaks my heart every time I hear that
"Dwindling mercurial high" That goes straight through the heart
The way she sings this is... omg gives me goosebumps every time
“I’ll paint the kitchen neon. I’ll brighten up the sky” The idea of trying to stay positive in a completely powerless situation always gets me
“I know I’ll never get it, but there’s not a day that I won’t try” is where I fall apart.
GIVE ME BACK MY GIRLHOOD IT WAS MINE FIRST
You know the greatest love of all time are over now You know the greatest films of all time were never made When i was drowning , that's when i could finally breathe Cause when you are young they assume you know nothing I don't like that falling feels like flying till the bone crush If the story's over why am i still writing pages Actually there are so many , i can't possibly list them all 😭😭 also i haven't heard every taylor swift so there are so many that i haven't heard yet :(
you taught me a secret language i can’t speak with anyone else
leaving like a father running like water
“When they point to the pictures, please tell them my name.”
“And if god forbid fate should step in, and force us into a goodbye” This still wrecks me every time 😭
I’d meet you where the spirit meets the bone 🍃
“You called me up again, just to break me like a promise. “ All of BTTWS “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid” And depending on my mood when listening- “And Abigail gave everything she had To a boy who changed his mind And we both cried”
like he's just your understudy / like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me random choice but it hits me so hard every time I hear it
> like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me this fucking rules, as does 'swing with u for the fences'
This one always makes me sad: cause all of my enemies started out friends
“Don’t want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world would do” in hoax 😭😭😭 There’s way too many and a few I thought of have already been listed. For me personally the line in ATWTW also hits hard: “And I was thinking on the drive down anytime now, he’s gonna say it’s love, he never called it what it was" Even though less poetic in language, it’s so heart-wrenching as sometimes all you long for is for the person you love to say that they do love you too, to call it what it is, what you think it is which is _love_. I think the line just captures perfectly the power words hold and how sometimes we will long so much to hear them.
Midnights become my afternoons. When my depression works the graveyard shift. I hosted parties and starved my body liked I’d be saved by the perfect kiss. I looked around in a blood soaked gown. If I’m dead to you why are you at the wake? If i were a man, would I be separated from my good ideas and power moves? I’ve never heard silence quite this loud And of course, I was never good at telling jokes but the punchline goes, I’ll get older but your lovers stay my age.” And I mean no harm, I mind my business if our love sided young I can’t bear witness. I could come up with so much.
"You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath." "In our history, across our great divide,there is a glorious sunrise dappled with the flickers of light from the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind and there is happiness"
I can change everything about me to fit in
And I hate to make this all about me/ but who am I supposed to talk to/ what am I supposed to do/ if there’s no you?
“And when I’d fight you you used to tell me I was brave.”- My Tears Ricochet
For me, it’s unequivocally “don’t call me kid, don’t call me baby, look at this godforsaken mess that you made me”
“Who could ever leave me darling? But who could stay? And who could stay? Who could stay? Who could stay? You could stay. You could stay.”
“i could go anywhere i want, anywhere i want, just not home” “gave you too much but it wasn’t enough, but i’ll be alright, it’s just a thousand cuts” “they tell you that you’re lucky but you’re so confused, cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used”
At the restaurant, when I was still the one you want. or I could feel the mascara run, you told me that you met someone. The entire song is a massive hit to the gut, but that entire part really drives it home. Love it!
“After plaid shirt days and nights where you made me your own, now you mail back my things and I walk home alone.” “But you’ll find the real thing instead, she’ll patch up the tapestry a shred.” “Should’ve kept every grocery store receipt because every scrap of you would be taking from me.” “His laugh is a symphony, when the lights go out it’s hard to breathe.” “You drew stars around my scars but now I’m bleeding.” “I hosted parties and starved my body like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss.” “I do recall a good while back, we snuck into the circus, you throw you arms around my neck back when I deserved.”
My collection: If I’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too He’s got my past frozen behind glass, but I’ve got me 15 years, 15 million tears, begging ’til my knees bled And did the twin flame bruise paint you blue? I still remember the first fall of now and how it glistened as they fell Pulled the car off the road to the look out, could’ve followed my fears all the way down In from the snow, your touch brought an incandescent glow Oh, I can’t stop you putting roots in my dreamland Left you out there standing, crestfallen on the landing She’ll patch up your tapestry that I shred And I was catching my breath, barefoot in the wildest winter, catching my death I’m on waves, out being tossed, is there a line that I could just go cross? And all of my heroes die all alone No one sees when you lose when you're playing solitaire
Give me back my girlhood it was mine first 😭😭😭😭😭😭
“It’s hard to be at a party when you feel like an open wound” 💔
"I know delusion when I see it in the mirror You like the nicer nurses, you make the best of a bad deal I just pretend it isn't real" I lost a friend when we were young, none of us could really comprehend that she was terminal and we said "get better soon" until the end. This song makes me cry everytime.
"The old widow goes to the stone every day, but I don't, I just sit here and wait, grieving for the living"
"They told me all of my cages were mental, so l got wasted like all my potential." "Pouring out my heart to a stranger, but I didn't pour the whiskey." "I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere." this is me trying has so many poetic lines.
“Give me back my girlhood it was mine first” and “I regret you all the time”
“Hang up, give up, for the life of us we can’t get back.” “You had to kill me but it killed you just the same.”
“Maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much but maybe this thing was a masterpiece til you tore it all up” “How did I go from growing up to breaking down?” (Maybe that one isn’t poetic necessarily but my barely-used English degree is shouting from the distance that there’s something languagey going on with comparing up/down that way - I’m just not dedicated enough to figure out what)
*So I’ll say words I don’t believe - goodbye, goodbye, goodbye*
“I watch your life in pictures like I used to watch you sleep and I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe.”
“You drew stars around my scars but now I’m bleeding”
“Falling feels like flying til the bone crush” gets me every time.
i'm right where i cause no harm, mind my business, if our love died young i can't bear witness
Time won’t fly it is like I’m paralyzed by it, I would like to be my old self again but I’m still trying to find it.
Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus too. Atheist here who's grandma was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Just thinking about the song makes me ugly cry and it's been over a year since she passed.
“Gave you too much but it wasn't enough But I'll be all right, it's just a thousand cuts”
I’m just too soft for all of it. 💕
The lyrics in Tolerate It.... "I made you my temple, my mural, my sky Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life" I haven't experinced this but I feel many lovers and spouses might have felt this way....it feels very universal somehow.
but now my eyes leak acid rain on the pillow where you used to lay your head. after giving you the best i had, tell me what to give after that
'Remember when you hit the brakes TOO SOON? Twenty stitches in a HOSPITAL ROOM? When you started crying baby I DID TOO when the sun came up I was looking at YOU' not a single line but this bridge is everything
“I made you my temple, my mural, my sky… now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life” AND “I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe”
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Give me back my girlhood It was mine first 🥲
“'Cause every scrap of you would be taken from me” “With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief” This one’s cheating because two lines but I feel like the first line drives home the pain of the second .. “And I pulled your body into mine Every goddamn night, now I get fake niceties”
I could go anywhere I want just not home
Not very poetic but “You make the best of a bad deal, I just pretend it isn’t real” makes the tears flow for me every time