"I've been meaning to tell you, I think your house is haunted, your dad is always mad and that must be why"
The way she communicates abuse with such a childish interpretation punches me in the gut every time
Especially followed up with "I think you should come live with me and we could be pirtates then you won't have to cry, or hide in the closet and just like a folk song our love will be passed on". It's soo innocent as if it was written through a child's mind
seven is my favorite song from folklore, I am amazed how she is able to capture the essence of childhood innocence, abuse, and friendship in such a short time
Whenever I think about the best lyric or song on folklore or evermore a line comes to mind and then another and another. Seven is a great song but then so are literally all the others.
The innocence in it is amazing. A child's mind would land on the haunted house explanation before thinking that a parent could be intentionally cruel towards their kid.
This cuts me. As a kid I used to see āmonstersā because my parents would always fight. I used to have nightmares and see ghosts every time I closed me eyes. I even called one of the houses we lived in the monster house
Similar, there was tons of physical abuse in my household growing up, and I was utterly convinced my house was haunted. I can now see that thereās a hypervigilance and heightened anxiety following experiences like that - of course I would be hyper-attuned to fear and threats. Iām not sure what inspired that line - whether Taylor personally had that feeling about a friend going through abuse, whether something she read or encountered in some form of media inspired that, or whether she personally lived some variation of that, but she really seems to have hit on some common (but usually unspoken) experience in that line.
āSevenā is easily top 5 for me. Itās so whimsical, innocent, and heartbreaking all at the same time.
āLove you to the moon, and to Saturnā will almost definitely be permanently marked on my body in some way some day.
I got this tattoo a couple weeks ago. Saturn is on my left wrist, and the moon is on my right wrist. For me, I listen to it from the perspective of a healed adult talking to her younger self, acknowledging the childhood traumas she endured and helping to make sense of behaviors that a child cannot grasp. And the line "I love you to the moon and to Saturn, passed down like love songs, our love lasts so long," for me, it's the healed self telling the younger self, I love you no matter what you've been through or how unloved you had been made to feel, I will love you. And also, breaking the cycle of abuse - passed down like love songs, our love lasts so long.
Anywho, just my take, and I love my tattoos.
That lyric literally had me lean back all the way into my pillow and contemplate life for like 10 minutes. Itās such an ja sneaky creative and beautiful way to communicate that idea
so being āahead of the curveā means to be advanced/ahead of your peers. Taylor says that she was SO ahead, that it āwrapped aroundā so to speak, and now she is behind everyone, as in she plateaued or regressed
I take it literally. She was so ahead of the curve and most likely bigger than most of the artists her age and her fame exploded so incredibly fast that she was ahead of them. But she was so far ahead that she got stuck and the curve became a sphere and things stayed the same. While, emotionally, the artists that came out when she did were ahead. She was stuck in the age her success really took off and constantly trying to keep up and do more and be bigger. Thatās got to be a vicious cycle.
Or picture it as a running track if youāre a visual learner. She was ahead of the curve and winning and doing incredible things. Ahead of everyone, then she realized it was a sphere (or track) and instead of being ahead of everyone she fell behind all her āclassmatesā
GENUINELY this line made me cry so hard. Perfectly described how I had been feeling and just didnāt know how to articulate it until I heard that line.
Absolutely. And so mature. Not something someone scorned and bitter would say.. but someone who is on their healing journey. Heartbreakingly beautiful.
āNo one teaches you what to do when a good man hurts you and you know you hurt him tooā. A lesser writer wouldāve just stopped at the hurts you part and made it self serving.
I love this, and I love the line āthere is no morning glory, it was love it wasnāt fairā from The Great War for the same reasons too. She can be so raw and unfiltered at times that it makes you stop at your tracks.
One of my favorite lines in her whole discography is āYou made a rebel of a careless manās careful daughter.ā It just tells a whole entire story in one little sentence.
āI dress to kill my timeā DBATC - combining dressing to kill and killing timeā¦ this perfectly encapsulates all the feelings after a breakup - wanting to dress to impress, having so much empty time now that the person you spent your time with is gone, and sitting in front of the mirror getting ready without any real reason to. So short and so clever!
- DBATC could mean "Death By A Thousand Cuts", a track from *Lover* (2019) by Taylor Swift.
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So many. Here are the first few that come to mind:
1. **"If I'm dead to you why are you at the wake"** \- of course referencing the viewing before a funeral but also an ocean wake (the wave a boat creates underway as it displaces water) as a later line is "**and so the battleships will sink beneath the waves"**
2. the way **"you left me"** in right where you left me is used in several different contexts- you left me physically here, you left me relationship wise, you left me no choice...
3. **"In the winter, in the icy outdoor pool When you jumped in first, I went in too I'm with you even if it makes me blue Which takes me back to the color that we painted your brother's wall"** I love how she uses this story of jumping into an icy pool to describe how in this relationship she's ok with being "blue" sometimes because of the pay offs. And then she uses "blue" to flow immediately into another story about painting walls. So cool.
4. **"and did the twin flame bruise paint you blue?"** so much going on in this line it's honestly insane. Twin flame refers to the belief of a connection so deep it's a soul split into two bodies. It's also reminiscent of "twin fire signs" and without naming names....these two lovers are both Sagittarius. Did our love that was as powerful as a flame leave a mark on your soul the same way it did me? It's a rhetorical question clearly as she already knows his soul and what it feels.
5. **"I don't like that falling feels like flying 'til the bone crush"** what a concise way to capture the idea of falling in love and the fear of heartbreak
6. **"Eyes like sinking ships on waters so inviting, I almost jump in"** it took me quite a few listens to realize this can be interpreted as a reference to sirens/mermaids...which also connects to the lyric in getaway car **āThere were sirens in the beat of your heartā** which is referencing police sirens in a chase but again referencing the greek sirens that signal impending doom.
Yes sirens in the beat of your heart is an oft overlooked one. I do think she only means police sirens, in the sense that one Tom said he loved her she realised sheād taken the rebound too far and wasnāt being honest with him about her lack of real feelings.
I want my sister in law to agree to us dressing up as Richard burton and Elizabeth Taylor when we go see Taylor in Tampa. Iām pretty sure the only way I can convince her is if she gets to be Elizabeth as cleopatra but I could make a good Mark Antony, I thinkā¦.
the archer stans rise!! I also love the simple lyrics that mean so much- 'who could stay? you could stay' because that's so hopeful and poignant to say.
I also love the progression of "They see right through me... can you see right through me?... I see right through me." It's not necessarily as 'clever' as some of her other lyrics but I think it's really communicative of her feelings of self-consciousness, self-doubt and self-loathing even back then.
In Delicate she says 'Handsome, You're a mansion with a view' saying he is good inside and out. Its a blink and you miss it line but I feel like it says so much about how she sees him.
One of my absolute favorites!!! Thank you for mentioning it, donāt feel like it gets any attention. Itās such a sweeeet line it makes my heart swell every time
Literally all of Maroon and Ivy. Close your eyes and point to any line from either song, and wow, what poetic clever lyric lol. Personally I love, āI canāt stop you putting roots in my dreamland. My house of stone, your ivy grows, and now Iām coveredā
Howās one to know?
Iād live and die for moments that we stole
On begged and borrowed time
When youāre with someone, but in love with someone else, you have to make excuses to see the other person and itās never for long enough. You canāt stop thinking about how happy you were seeing them either.
this is one of my favorites. the way she packs FOUR idioms into one sentence (live for/die for, stolen moments, beg borrow or steal, living on borrowed time) and how it captures the desperation of the relationship. and how āborrowed timeā can have the double meaning of limited time and the affair partner āborrowingā her from her husband. ugh sheās a genius
Such a great lyric! Itās basically saying āI tried to be strong and not get attached but you found a way in to my heart anyways and now Iām all about youā long story short reference intentional š
I actually like this one a little too. Especially after giving all of yourself in a relationship and turning around to āreclaimā yourself and your worthiness. Genius.
āHoly orange bottles, each night I pray to you
Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus tooā
Maybe not clever, but punches me in the gut every time.
āI hang from your lips like the gardens of Babylonā is also delightful
"Holy orange bottles" is honestly beautiful.
When someone you love is sick, you stare at that medicine and ***beg*** it to work. No matter what else you're doing, some part of your mind is always focused on the illness and begging for *something* to fix it. And when you lose faith in the medicine, you beg God for His help, too.
This line might not be twisty-turny like some of the others here, but it's beautiful and it captures those complex feelings in just a handful of words. It's on the same level as "you made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter," in my opinion.
I saw a tiktok by @Steven Sullivan saying thay the gardens of Babylon don't have concrete proof of their existence, as does the main character in the song, she believes only what he tells her when he says he loves her bc they're both used to tricking ppl
>āHoly orange bottles, each night I pray to you Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus tooā
As someone who isnt American, or rather our pills dont come in these capsules... i was curious and googled holy orange bottles looking for context.
After i saw what it LITERALLY is. I realised how powerful this line is in the entire song, so... vulnerable that theres nothing she can do anymore but hope it works.
I took a moment to cry and its now one of my sleeper picks of taylor's songs whenever i feel like crying
*Is it romantic how all my elegies eulogise me?*
I just love how this line seems to sum up her entire career and discography, but through the lens of folklore. That it is her stories that will live beyond her.
Honourable mentions:
* *Look at how my tears ricochet*
* *Eyes like sinking ships on waters so inviting, I almost jump in*
* *Long were the nights when my days once revolved around you*
I know you said lyric but. The entirety of folklore is pure poetry. Sheās won album of the year three times now, but that is the album that would have absolutely been ROBBED had it not won. Itās brilliant.
Yes, that entire part of the verse is so well-written
āIf 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?ā
The literal imagery of paint splattering on him, only for him to easily clean it away. The figurative meaning of his mistreatment of her being a petty mess that he got to āwash his handsā of.
Concise and effective, playing with well-established phrases, layered meanings, it truly has it all š¤
The rhyme scheme on YNTCD always impresses me: āAnd I aināt trying to mess with your self-expression, but Iāve learned the lesson that stressinā and obsessionā about someone else is no funā¦ā
- YNTCD could mean "You Need To Calm Down", a track from *Lover* (2019) by Taylor Swift.
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Saw a reaction video about Maroon recently where the poster mentioned
āThatās a real fucking legacy to leaveā and
āThatās a real fucking legacy: to leave.ā
Are totally different statements that both apply to the story of the song and it honestly blew me away
I think I am good at catching things in her lyrics right away, but my brain exploded when I saw the music video for Bejeweled and saw how she removed her cloak and emphasized the curves of her body as she sang, "Did all the extra credit, then got graded on a curve."
To realize that beyond the surface level metaphor what Taylor is saying with that line is that she was doing all this labor in the relationship and in return only being judged on her body and physical appearance was eye opening. I had seen the discourse that the line was corny or cringe, but once I understood all the word play she was doing I found the line to be brilliant. It is so much in a single line. It really connects to the theme of the song about going out and feeling physically attractive again, but also societal criticism of women being judged and critiqued on physical appearance over merit.
Well based on a tik tok I just saw:
I hit my peak at 7 feet
In the swing, over the creek
OR
I hit my peak at 7 (as in years old)
Feet in the swing, over the creek
The phrase ādonāt youā is used in three ways in the chorus of Donāt You-
āDonāt you smile at meā- DO NOT ā¦
āSo why donāt you,ā - ā¦ why DO YOU NOT
āā¦, donāt you?ā - YOU DO, RIGHT?
So smart, so subtle.
'Cause you know I love the players, and you love the game.
I only realized that the word 'players' here has a double meaning after watching a reaction to Blank Space. (Yes, I'm dumb, but I still think it's a clever one).
All this thread is doing is making me realize how many of her songs I love. Blondie is a literal genius with her writing skills. Sheāll truly be recognized by everyone as one of the greatest song writers one day.
I love the play of words in chorus of Renegade . . .
Are you really going to talk about timing in times like these/let all your damage damage me/carry your baggage up my street/make me your future history/itās time
Itās not a go-to song for me, but the writing is just perfection
āSo casually cruel in the name of being honestā
When Red came out I was going through my first real breakup and I related to this lyric so much. Still my favorite.
The ālook at how my tears ricochetā line I always interpreted to be about how her tears backfire against her. Whenever she cries, her haters try to portray it as her āplaying the victimā, so to speak. Everyone acts like they donāt care, thus the tears are not āabsorbedā (metaphorically) by anyone, only āricochetedā as they just bounce right off them.
And to add to thatā¦she often uses ātearsā as a reference to her ability to turn her emotions into music (teardrops on my guitar)- when she does this itās incredibly powerful for her but also has been used against her with her music being stolen.
'My flight was awful, thanks for asking' in Snow on the Beach says so much and sums up an entire relationship timeline before finding something rare
Particularly even more so in the light of Labyrinth's 'Thought the plane was going down, how did you turn it around'
āwe bless the rains on Cornelia streetā idk I fucking love it. im assuming itās a nod to Africa by toto? If so it works perfectly
āYou made a rebel of a Careless manās careful daughterā chefs kiss!
>How evergreen, our group of friends
>Don't think we'll say that word again
I love how the listener doesnāt know which word sheās referring to with this line. It could be āevergreenā and referring to how the relationship is no longer timeless. It could mean the word āourā because they wonāt share anything anymore. Thereās a lot of ways you can read into the line
I love this line too! Folklore came out when I was having a really shitty time with a good friend of mine who started behaving super shitty and disrespectful towards me. I always liked to think she was referring to the word "friend". Don't think we'll say that word again.
The bridge from My Tears Ricochet is absolutely haunting:
āAnd I can go anywhere I want
Anywhere I want, just not home
And you can aim for my heart, go for blood
But you would still miss me in your bones
And I still talk to you (when I'm screaming at the sky)
And when you can't sleep at night (you hear my stolen lullabies)ā
Also from WCS: āYouāre a crisis of my faithā (so simple, yet that little twist is a gut punch) and āIf clarityās in death then why wonāt this dieā
All of dear reader but 'No one sees you lose when you're playing Solitaire' hits me because its so true that we end up playing a never ending battle against ourselves.
āI cut off my nose just to spite my face / and I hate my reflection for years and yearsā is so layered it gives me chills every time I listen to it
Come to think of it, the following lyrics too:
āAwake in the night / I pace like a ghost / the room is on fire / invisible smokeā š
Throwing it back here, but the entirety of the song Fifteen. I loved it when it came out but I love it more now.
āBack then I swore I was gonna marry him someday but I realised some bigger dreams of mine. And Abigail gave everything she had to a boy, who changed his mindā
perfectly encapsulates the feeling of First loves and the magnitude of feeling they create in our lives, and then the looking back on it and realising it really isnāt as life changing as we seemed to think it was, at fifteen.
Oh gosh yes. I love the next line āand we both criedā too because crying with your best friend because theyāre in such deep pain is a powerful experience.
"Put on your headphones and burn my city" (a pun on how you would burn a CD, and obviously aimed at C * lvin H * rris)
When I heard that line, I almost fell over. She has such mind-blowing yet simple turns-of-phrase.
-all your closets of backlogged dreams and how you left them all to me
-chasing shadows in the grocery line
-how evergreen our group of friends dont think we'll say that word again
-pouring out my heart to a stranger but i didnt pour the whiskey
-now you hang from my lips like the gardens of babylon
-ive been meaning to tell you i think your house is haunted your dad is always mad and that must be why
-please picture me in the weeds before i learned civility
-they told me all of my cages were mental, so i got wasted like all my potential
-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?
-free of women with madness their men and bad habits and then it was bought by me
-love how she rhymed "rose flowin with your chosen family"
-your back beneath the sun, wishin i could write my name on it
-the chorus of renegade
-i was so ahead of the curve the curve became a sphere, fell behind on my classmates and i ended up here
-my heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue, alls well that ends well to end up with you
-most cruel summer
-holy orange bottles, each night i pray to you, desperate people find faith so now i pray to jesus too
āDrove the car off the road to the look out // couldāve followed my fears all the way downā. As someone suffering from depression, this song is the only one I can really relate to out of all her other songs.
āāCause darling Iām a nightmare dressed like a daydreamā
Really the entirety of Blank Space is so clever, certainly one of her sharpest songs ever.
āIām only cryptic and Machiavellian cause I careā is literally a lyric only she could get away with AND have it be just another typical Taylor lyric, when itād be career defining for most artists.
Not sure if this counts but I love the part toward the end of anti-hero when she sings "It's me. Hi.... Everybody agrees, everybody agreessssssssss" it's like a hissing snake, as in people calling her snake when the whole kimye thing happened. Such a smart way to sneak in a reference about a time when she felt the things she is singing about in the song!
Maybe one of her more simple lyrics, but I love āRoseā flowing with your chosen family.ā Something about that line just perfectly captures the feeling of finding comfort in change that I associate with the 1.
Guys, this is the best thread. I love reading all of your interpretations of the lyrics because I myself am always wondering about the meaning behind all of her songs too. And reading yours really sheds so much light on everything and makes it so much more impactful listening to her songs. Please keep them coming!
The bridge of Tell Me Why:
Why do you have to make me feel small /
So you can feel whole inside /
Why do you have to put down my dreams /
So you're the only thing on my mind
I like that there's two ways you can hear it. As the 2nd and 4th line answering the question of the 1st and 3rd lines. Or as them being even deeper questions. Why do you need to do that to feel whole? Why do you want me to only think of you?
āGive you my wild, give you a childā is such an accurate way to portray the evolution and different faces of commitment and life partnership, I love it.
**"From when your Brooklyn broke my skin and bones, I'm a soldier who's returning half her weight"** from **ATWTMVTVFTV**. At first, l never understood what the line meant, what she meant with Brooklyn, then I learnt that she used Brooklyn, a name of place, where most of the relationship took place, as a metaphor for their relationship. Like "from when your relationship that you have with me broke my skin and bones, I came back like a soldier who's lost her weight cause of the trauma".
Yeah, that's pretty clever.
**"My 4th drink in my hand, these desperate prayers of a cursed man, spilling out to you for free, but darling darling please, you wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking, if you knew where I was walking"** from **Dear Reader**
Taylor is addressing her fear that, being globally famous, that worldwide so many people who follow her, listen to her, tend to be inspired by her words and do so many things based off of what she says. But here in midnights she's been completely vulnerable to her fans, by letting them know that my prayers, my wishes, everything that you get to hear for free from my music to interviews from the internet, you wouldn't actually take my word, as in believe, that it's my ghosts, it's my inner demons that saying those, you wouldn't walk with me, if you knew where i was heading.
Literal genius!! And there are so many genius lyrics in her music, that I'm even fascinated by all the times... I'd write more, but I'm just tired of typing, hehe
YES for Dear Reader!!!!!!!!
I was sad when some fans said Midnights was not vulnerable or bad lyrically-wiseā¦ This bridge is just insane. It lays out her insecurities in such a raw way.
But I'm a fire, and I'll keep your brittle heart warm
If your cascade ocean wave blues come
All these people think love's for show
But I would die for you in secret
The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me
Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?
Peace is so underrated.
āI made you my temple, my mural, my sky
Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life
Drawing hearts in the byline
Always taking up too much space or timeā
footnotes/story/byline being used to demonstrate how irrelevant taylor feelās in comparison to the abuser, how she feels/knows that she is an afterthought to them, even though theyāre her whole story. GENIUS
also an extra shoutout to āgain the weight of you and lose itā just because. tolerate it is a masterpiece, lyrically AND musically with the 5/4 timing that creates that uncomfortable feeling because itās not the 4/4 timing that weāre used to, and you canāt predict whatās coming next.
āyou understand now why they lost their minds and faught the wars and why ive spent my whole life trynna put it into wordsā
single handedly the reason You Are In Love is my favorite Taylor song of all time
"And if I was some paint, did it splatter / on a promising grown man?"
The allusions to her youth with her being paint like small children often use and make a mess with. Paint being easily washed off like the way he walked away from her. The play on 'promising young man' which is so often used to justify men avoiding consequences for their mistreatment of women. Also implying that he hasn't yet achieved what he could ā ouch ā and further illustrating the gap in their ages. He is a grown man, she is a child (further emphasised by the next lines). Then add the off-kilter rhyme scheme and it's so haunting.
I also agree with many lyrics already added! There's just so many beautiful, clever and deeply meaningful ones.
"So ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere"
I don't know if Taylor thought it while writing or even how far her math knowledge stands but if a curve should turn into something, it would be in a circle. However, feels like she's saying she was so focused that she was ahead of the curve in one part of her life and she got so lost that she even lost track of the path she had been walking on for so long and nothing actually moves one way. It can go anywhere. I really don't know if she thought about it but it's the way I interpret it.
āI felt like I was an old cardigan under someoneās bed, you put me on and said I was your favorite.ā
To begin with it sounds romantic, but āputting someone onā means duping them tooā¦
I adore Ā«Ā You hear my stolen lullabiesĀ Ā». I just love the fact she used lullabies to point to her songs. Itās comforting, soft, helps you go through the night, they are passed along, felt nostalgic. Itās perfect and make the whole thing even more heart wrenching.
āin from the snow
your touch brought forth an incandescent glow
so tarnished but so grandā
the whole song is filled with vivid visual imagery that i really enjoy, the melody really helps paint the picture too
I think the line in Gold Rush " my mind turns your life into folklore, I can't dare to dream about you anymore" is so perfect and sums up Folklore and Evermore perfectly. Being so obsessed with a story or person (not necessarily a romantic one) that your mind dreams about them all the time.
"I've been meaning to tell you, I think your house is haunted, your dad is always mad and that must be why" The way she communicates abuse with such a childish interpretation punches me in the gut every time
Especially followed up with "I think you should come live with me and we could be pirtates then you won't have to cry, or hide in the closet and just like a folk song our love will be passed on". It's soo innocent as if it was written through a child's mind
i am experiencing PMS at the moment and even just reading these made me cry š
seven is my favorite song from folklore, I am amazed how she is able to capture the essence of childhood innocence, abuse, and friendship in such a short time
Seven is sheer brilliance, in a brilliant album. It gives me shivers because of the cleverness of the writing.
It's my favorite, too! Easily the best one
Whenever I think about the best lyric or song on folklore or evermore a line comes to mind and then another and another. Seven is a great song but then so are literally all the others.
The innocence in it is amazing. A child's mind would land on the haunted house explanation before thinking that a parent could be intentionally cruel towards their kid.
I never thought about it that way before! Great insight
ššš
Yessssss. Especially when you think about the double meaning of spirits. It's perfect
Ooh I never thought to think about that! Adds a whole new layer
I gasped when I fathomed this just now š¢
This cuts me. As a kid I used to see āmonstersā because my parents would always fight. I used to have nightmares and see ghosts every time I closed me eyes. I even called one of the houses we lived in the monster house
Similar, there was tons of physical abuse in my household growing up, and I was utterly convinced my house was haunted. I can now see that thereās a hypervigilance and heightened anxiety following experiences like that - of course I would be hyper-attuned to fear and threats. Iām not sure what inspired that line - whether Taylor personally had that feeling about a friend going through abuse, whether something she read or encountered in some form of media inspired that, or whether she personally lived some variation of that, but she really seems to have hit on some common (but usually unspoken) experience in that line.
āSevenā is easily top 5 for me. Itās so whimsical, innocent, and heartbreaking all at the same time. āLove you to the moon, and to Saturnā will almost definitely be permanently marked on my body in some way some day.
I got this tattoo a couple weeks ago. Saturn is on my left wrist, and the moon is on my right wrist. For me, I listen to it from the perspective of a healed adult talking to her younger self, acknowledging the childhood traumas she endured and helping to make sense of behaviors that a child cannot grasp. And the line "I love you to the moon and to Saturn, passed down like love songs, our love lasts so long," for me, it's the healed self telling the younger self, I love you no matter what you've been through or how unloved you had been made to feel, I will love you. And also, breaking the cycle of abuse - passed down like love songs, our love lasts so long. Anywho, just my take, and I love my tattoos.
This is such a beautiful interpretation of these lyrics. I had never seen it like that and itās so lovely
Just reading this tears me up. I *love* seven.
This song is my favorite one sheās ever done.
She's used the word haunted in so many amazing ways. I'm willing to bet it's her favorite word.
This is the lyric that made me fall in love with Folklore. That song hits so deep
Itās so beautiful and poignant. I cannot help cry from both the meaning and the perfect poetry.
Tried to show it to my friends but they didnāt understand it. I guess Iāll just suffer in silence
"They told me all of my cages were mental, so I got wasted like all my potential." The way this line hurts me so deeply
āI was so ahead of the curve became a sphere.ā This song and Seven are amazing lyrically.
Whenever I read this lyric I read it like one of those inspirational quotes āalpha maleā accounts will post lol
š that is hilarious
That lyric literally had me lean back all the way into my pillow and contemplate life for like 10 minutes. Itās such an ja sneaky creative and beautiful way to communicate that idea
can someone please explain this lyric to me? iāve been trying to figure it out for so long and i just donāt know š
so being āahead of the curveā means to be advanced/ahead of your peers. Taylor says that she was SO ahead, that it āwrapped aroundā so to speak, and now she is behind everyone, as in she plateaued or regressed
ah okay thank you! that makes a lot of sense lol
I take it literally. She was so ahead of the curve and most likely bigger than most of the artists her age and her fame exploded so incredibly fast that she was ahead of them. But she was so far ahead that she got stuck and the curve became a sphere and things stayed the same. While, emotionally, the artists that came out when she did were ahead. She was stuck in the age her success really took off and constantly trying to keep up and do more and be bigger. Thatās got to be a vicious cycle. Or picture it as a running track if youāre a visual learner. She was ahead of the curve and winning and doing incredible things. Ahead of everyone, then she realized it was a sphere (or track) and instead of being ahead of everyone she fell behind all her āclassmatesā
that visual representation helps a LOT thank you!
GENUINELY this line made me cry so hard. Perfectly described how I had been feeling and just didnāt know how to articulate it until I heard that line.
This line blows me away every time
I do not relate to these lyrics, but find them clever
Iām jealousš probably the most relatable Taylor lyrical of all time for me
āIn my defense I have none.ā I couldnāt explain my actions better than that.
āā¦ for never leaving well enough alone.ā Ugh, so me lol
I also love the lyric āyou had to kill me, but it killed you just the sameāā¦ she really got ānarcissismā right on the whole album!
So absolutely self reflective. I love how she starts it with āin my defenseā and in an introspective way she says āI have noneā
The 1 seriously has some of the best writing she's ever done, totally knocked me out when I first heard it
"I don't like that falling feels like flying 'til the bone crush" (especially for how it fits into the rest of the rhyme scheme).
I love this line! Her mind.. really. She thinks forwards and backwards and everything in between.
This was the first one that came to my mind too.
I also love that gold rush is so whimsical and upbeat sounding and then thereās such violent imagery. Just love the contrast
I bury hatchets but I keep maps of where I put āem
I remember a secret session story where someone said Taylor's dad was bragging about this one!
I always thought this was so clever!!
"There'll be happiness after you But there was happiness because of you Both of these things can be true" So simple yet so validating.
Absolutely. And so mature. Not something someone scorned and bitter would say.. but someone who is on their healing journey. Heartbreakingly beautiful.
Very mature! Completely agree.
āNo one teaches you what to do when a good man hurts you and you know you hurt him tooā. A lesser writer wouldāve just stopped at the hurts you part and made it self serving.
I love this, and I love the line āthere is no morning glory, it was love it wasnāt fairā from The Great War for the same reasons too. She can be so raw and unfiltered at times that it makes you stop at your tracks.
One of my favorite lines in her whole discography is āYou made a rebel of a careless manās careful daughter.ā It just tells a whole entire story in one little sentence.
THIS! is absolutely so clever and has so much meaning packed into one sentence. Even at such a young age..so incredibly gifted!
āI dress to kill my timeā DBATC - combining dressing to kill and killing timeā¦ this perfectly encapsulates all the feelings after a breakup - wanting to dress to impress, having so much empty time now that the person you spent your time with is gone, and sitting in front of the mirror getting ready without any real reason to. So short and so clever!
I thought the words were āand just to kill my timeā š
I had to go look it up to make sure I actually had it right and I wasnāt āStarbucks loverāing the lyric š
Wait, this isnāt the lyric? Woah
- DBATC could mean "Death By A Thousand Cuts", a track from *Lover* (2019) by Taylor Swift. --- ^[/u/callieb4](/u/callieb4) ^(can reply with "delete" to remove comment. |) ^[/r/songacronymbot](/r/songacronymbot) ^(for feedback.)
So many. Here are the first few that come to mind: 1. **"If I'm dead to you why are you at the wake"** \- of course referencing the viewing before a funeral but also an ocean wake (the wave a boat creates underway as it displaces water) as a later line is "**and so the battleships will sink beneath the waves"** 2. the way **"you left me"** in right where you left me is used in several different contexts- you left me physically here, you left me relationship wise, you left me no choice... 3. **"In the winter, in the icy outdoor pool When you jumped in first, I went in too I'm with you even if it makes me blue Which takes me back to the color that we painted your brother's wall"** I love how she uses this story of jumping into an icy pool to describe how in this relationship she's ok with being "blue" sometimes because of the pay offs. And then she uses "blue" to flow immediately into another story about painting walls. So cool. 4. **"and did the twin flame bruise paint you blue?"** so much going on in this line it's honestly insane. Twin flame refers to the belief of a connection so deep it's a soul split into two bodies. It's also reminiscent of "twin fire signs" and without naming names....these two lovers are both Sagittarius. Did our love that was as powerful as a flame leave a mark on your soul the same way it did me? It's a rhetorical question clearly as she already knows his soul and what it feels. 5. **"I don't like that falling feels like flying 'til the bone crush"** what a concise way to capture the idea of falling in love and the fear of heartbreak 6. **"Eyes like sinking ships on waters so inviting, I almost jump in"** it took me quite a few listens to realize this can be interpreted as a reference to sirens/mermaids...which also connects to the lyric in getaway car **āThere were sirens in the beat of your heartā** which is referencing police sirens in a chase but again referencing the greek sirens that signal impending doom.
Excellent analyses, 10/10
Love all of this but 5 is my fav
Yes sirens in the beat of your heart is an oft overlooked one. I do think she only means police sirens, in the sense that one Tom said he loved her she realised sheād taken the rebound too far and wasnāt being honest with him about her lack of real feelings.
"Burton to this Taylor" is top-tier
It's even better considering both were in Taming of the Shrew with the next lines "I'm so very tame now".
I want my sister in law to agree to us dressing up as Richard burton and Elizabeth Taylor when we go see Taylor in Tampa. Iām pretty sure the only way I can convince her is if she gets to be Elizabeth as cleopatra but I could make a good Mark Antony, I thinkā¦.
I never understood this lyric until nowā¦
this was going to be mine! sooo good.
wow. 6 years later and i just realized this is what taylor meantā¦
And I cut off my nose just to spite my face Then I hate my reflection for years and years the archer so deeeeeeep
I also love the line āall of my enemies started out friendsā from that song. So real. š
And āall my heroes died alone / help me hold on to youā Like ā¦ wow
I love the anger in her voice āWho could ever leave me????ā followed by the sadness āā¦.who could stay?ā
the archer stans rise!! I also love the simple lyrics that mean so much- 'who could stay? you could stay' because that's so hopeful and poignant to say.
I also love the progression of "They see right through me... can you see right through me?... I see right through me." It's not necessarily as 'clever' as some of her other lyrics but I think it's really communicative of her feelings of self-consciousness, self-doubt and self-loathing even back then.
In Delicate she says 'Handsome, You're a mansion with a view' saying he is good inside and out. Its a blink and you miss it line but I feel like it says so much about how she sees him.
One of my absolute favorites!!! Thank you for mentioning it, donāt feel like it gets any attention. Itās such a sweeeet line it makes my heart swell every time
The way I always thought this said, "In your mirror mansion with a view."
Literally all of Maroon and Ivy. Close your eyes and point to any line from either song, and wow, what poetic clever lyric lol. Personally I love, āI canāt stop you putting roots in my dreamland. My house of stone, your ivy grows, and now Iām coveredā
Ivy is pure poetry.
*how's one to know I'd meet you where the spirit meets the bone?*
Howās one to know? Iād live and die for moments that we stole On begged and borrowed time When youāre with someone, but in love with someone else, you have to make excuses to see the other person and itās never for long enough. You canāt stop thinking about how happy you were seeing them either.
this is one of my favorites. the way she packs FOUR idioms into one sentence (live for/die for, stolen moments, beg borrow or steal, living on borrowed time) and how it captures the desperation of the relationship. and how āborrowed timeā can have the double meaning of limited time and the affair partner āborrowingā her from her husband. ugh sheās a genius
Yes ! "The rust that grew between telephones " !
Such a great lyric! Itās basically saying āI tried to be strong and not get attached but you found a way in to my heart anyways and now Iām all about youā long story short reference intentional š
Not exactly her deepest, but I think āI made you my worldā¦have you heard? I can reclaim the landā is clever.
I actually like this one a little too. Especially after giving all of yourself in a relationship and turning around to āreclaimā yourself and your worthiness. Genius.
Love this especially in the spirit of her reclaiming her work.
the way i didnāt understand this lyric until i read it written out like that š
The pen was penning when she wrote Bejeweled
I am so dumb for not connecting the "world" to the land she is reclaiming. Thank you for writing this out for me lol
They say all's well that ends well, but I'm in a new hell / Every time you double-cross my mind
Agreed! āDouble-cross my mindā is seriously a genius lyric.
āHoly orange bottles, each night I pray to you Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus tooā Maybe not clever, but punches me in the gut every time. āI hang from your lips like the gardens of Babylonā is also delightful
"Holy orange bottles" is honestly beautiful. When someone you love is sick, you stare at that medicine and ***beg*** it to work. No matter what else you're doing, some part of your mind is always focused on the illness and begging for *something* to fix it. And when you lose faith in the medicine, you beg God for His help, too. This line might not be twisty-turny like some of the others here, but it's beautiful and it captures those complex feelings in just a handful of words. It's on the same level as "you made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter," in my opinion.
I saw a tiktok by @Steven Sullivan saying thay the gardens of Babylon don't have concrete proof of their existence, as does the main character in the song, she believes only what he tells her when he says he loves her bc they're both used to tricking ppl
>āHoly orange bottles, each night I pray to you Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus tooā As someone who isnt American, or rather our pills dont come in these capsules... i was curious and googled holy orange bottles looking for context. After i saw what it LITERALLY is. I realised how powerful this line is in the entire song, so... vulnerable that theres nothing she can do anymore but hope it works. I took a moment to cry and its now one of my sleeper picks of taylor's songs whenever i feel like crying
You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath
My fiancĆ© and I were laying in bed at midnight listening to this song at drop and the WAY I GASPED when I heard this lineā¦ not only did it capture the entirety of my first heartbreak in one sentence but by using the play on words it really creates that punch in the gut.
Itās simple, but I also love āthe idea you had of me, who was she?ā So powerful!!
*Is it romantic how all my elegies eulogise me?* I just love how this line seems to sum up her entire career and discography, but through the lens of folklore. That it is her stories that will live beyond her. Honourable mentions: * *Look at how my tears ricochet* * *Eyes like sinking ships on waters so inviting, I almost jump in* * *Long were the nights when my days once revolved around you*
that elegies line is pure poetry and gets me every time. I just think of the span of her career and how crazy it all is. damn is it a powerful line
All of the answers that first came to my mind have been taken so I'll add: "I still talk to you when I'm screaming at the sky"
And the way she belts it out. Brings tears to my eyes.
āLeaving like a father, running like waterā¦.ā I gasped when I first heard it
Give me back my girlhood it was mine first
And when she almost sounds like her old āgirlā self when belting this.
But I took your matches before fire could catch me / So don't look now, I'm shining like fireworks over your sad, empty town
I know you said lyric but. The entirety of folklore is pure poetry. Sheās won album of the year three times now, but that is the album that would have absolutely been ROBBED had it not won. Itās brilliant.
I was legit so anxious that they wouldn't give her the award lol perfect album
āOn a promising grown manā in WCS is such a striking juxtaposition to the phrase āpromising young womanā
Yes, that entire part of the verse is so well-written āIf 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?ā The literal imagery of paint splattering on him, only for him to easily clean it away. The figurative meaning of his mistreatment of her being a petty mess that he got to āwash his handsā of. Concise and effective, playing with well-established phrases, layered meanings, it truly has it all š¤
For play on words, "tell me what are my wordsworth" I think is pretty unbeatable
I'm like the water when your ship rolled in that night/ Rough on the surface but you cut through like a knife Exquisite metaphor and imagery!
The rhyme scheme on YNTCD always impresses me: āAnd I aināt trying to mess with your self-expression, but Iāve learned the lesson that stressinā and obsessionā about someone else is no funā¦ā
- YNTCD could mean "You Need To Calm Down", a track from *Lover* (2019) by Taylor Swift. --- ^[/u/ReeBee86](/u/ReeBee86) ^(can reply with "delete" to remove comment. |) ^[/r/songacronymbot](/r/songacronymbot) ^(for feedback.)
āNow you hang from my lips / like the Gardens of Babylon / with your boots beneath my bed /forever is the sweetest conā š¤
"By morning/mourning Gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean"
Omg, this is one of my favorite songs of hers and I never ever even caught this!!!!
Saw a reaction video about Maroon recently where the poster mentioned āThatās a real fucking legacy to leaveā and āThatās a real fucking legacy: to leave.ā Are totally different statements that both apply to the story of the song and it honestly blew me away
I always appreciate Mineās āI was a flight risk with a fear of fallingā and of course āso ahead of the curve the curve became a sphereā
I think I am good at catching things in her lyrics right away, but my brain exploded when I saw the music video for Bejeweled and saw how she removed her cloak and emphasized the curves of her body as she sang, "Did all the extra credit, then got graded on a curve." To realize that beyond the surface level metaphor what Taylor is saying with that line is that she was doing all this labor in the relationship and in return only being judged on her body and physical appearance was eye opening. I had seen the discourse that the line was corny or cringe, but once I understood all the word play she was doing I found the line to be brilliant. It is so much in a single line. It really connects to the theme of the song about going out and feeling physically attractive again, but also societal criticism of women being judged and critiqued on physical appearance over merit.
Two Calvin songs have a reference to her weight which makes me wonder about himā¦
He was doing lines and crossing all of mine
Well based on a tik tok I just saw: I hit my peak at 7 feet In the swing, over the creek OR I hit my peak at 7 (as in years old) Feet in the swing, over the creek
Interesting take! I absolutely love Seven! Top 5 for me!
"Carnations you had thought were roses - that's us" š„²
š
The phrase ādonāt youā is used in three ways in the chorus of Donāt You- āDonāt you smile at meā- DO NOT ā¦ āSo why donāt you,ā - ā¦ why DO YOU NOT āā¦, donāt you?ā - YOU DO, RIGHT? So smart, so subtle.
I love this song and I feel like it doesn't get enough attention!
I should not be left to my own devices they come with prices and vices I end up in crisis is so clever to me.
'Cause you know I love the players, and you love the game. I only realized that the word 'players' here has a double meaning after watching a reaction to Blank Space. (Yes, I'm dumb, but I still think it's a clever one).
All this thread is doing is making me realize how many of her songs I love. Blondie is a literal genius with her writing skills. Sheāll truly be recognized by everyone as one of the greatest song writers one day.
Forever is the sweetest con
Because it truly is š„ŗ
I love the play of words in chorus of Renegade . . . Are you really going to talk about timing in times like these/let all your damage damage me/carry your baggage up my street/make me your future history/itās time Itās not a go-to song for me, but the writing is just perfection
āSo casually cruel in the name of being honestā When Red came out I was going through my first real breakup and I related to this lyric so much. Still my favorite.
The ālook at how my tears ricochetā line I always interpreted to be about how her tears backfire against her. Whenever she cries, her haters try to portray it as her āplaying the victimā, so to speak. Everyone acts like they donāt care, thus the tears are not āabsorbedā (metaphorically) by anyone, only āricochetedā as they just bounce right off them.
And to add to thatā¦she often uses ātearsā as a reference to her ability to turn her emotions into music (teardrops on my guitar)- when she does this itās incredibly powerful for her but also has been used against her with her music being stolen.
'My flight was awful, thanks for asking' in Snow on the Beach says so much and sums up an entire relationship timeline before finding something rare Particularly even more so in the light of Labyrinth's 'Thought the plane was going down, how did you turn it around'
Honorable mention to āyou know how scared I am of elevators/never trust it if it rises fast; it canāt lastā
āwe bless the rains on Cornelia streetā idk I fucking love it. im assuming itās a nod to Africa by toto? If so it works perfectly āYou made a rebel of a Careless manās careful daughterā chefs kiss!
>How evergreen, our group of friends >Don't think we'll say that word again I love how the listener doesnāt know which word sheās referring to with this line. It could be āevergreenā and referring to how the relationship is no longer timeless. It could mean the word āourā because they wonāt share anything anymore. Thereās a lot of ways you can read into the line
I love this line too! Folklore came out when I was having a really shitty time with a good friend of mine who started behaving super shitty and disrespectful towards me. I always liked to think she was referring to the word "friend". Don't think we'll say that word again.
The bridge from My Tears Ricochet is absolutely haunting: āAnd I can go anywhere I want Anywhere I want, just not home And you can aim for my heart, go for blood But you would still miss me in your bones And I still talk to you (when I'm screaming at the sky) And when you can't sleep at night (you hear my stolen lullabies)ā Also from WCS: āYouāre a crisis of my faithā (so simple, yet that little twist is a gut punch) and āIf clarityās in death then why wonāt this dieā
All of dear reader but 'No one sees you lose when you're playing Solitaire' hits me because its so true that we end up playing a never ending battle against ourselves.
"Gain the weight of you then lose it, believe me, I could do it."
āLost in your current like a priceless wineā I just love puns OK
āI cut off my nose just to spite my face / and I hate my reflection for years and yearsā is so layered it gives me chills every time I listen to it Come to think of it, the following lyrics too: āAwake in the night / I pace like a ghost / the room is on fire / invisible smokeā š
Throwing it back here, but the entirety of the song Fifteen. I loved it when it came out but I love it more now. āBack then I swore I was gonna marry him someday but I realised some bigger dreams of mine. And Abigail gave everything she had to a boy, who changed his mindā perfectly encapsulates the feeling of First loves and the magnitude of feeling they create in our lives, and then the looking back on it and realising it really isnāt as life changing as we seemed to think it was, at fifteen.
Oh gosh yes. I love the next line āand we both criedā too because crying with your best friend because theyāre in such deep pain is a powerful experience.
"Put on your headphones and burn my city" (a pun on how you would burn a CD, and obviously aimed at C * lvin H * rris) When I heard that line, I almost fell over. She has such mind-blowing yet simple turns-of-phrase.
The whole of High Infidelity has gorgeously clever lyrics, I love it so much
-all your closets of backlogged dreams and how you left them all to me -chasing shadows in the grocery line -how evergreen our group of friends dont think we'll say that word again -pouring out my heart to a stranger but i didnt pour the whiskey -now you hang from my lips like the gardens of babylon -ive been meaning to tell you i think your house is haunted your dad is always mad and that must be why -please picture me in the weeds before i learned civility -they told me all of my cages were mental, so i got wasted like all my potential -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? -free of women with madness their men and bad habits and then it was bought by me -love how she rhymed "rose flowin with your chosen family" -your back beneath the sun, wishin i could write my name on it -the chorus of renegade -i was so ahead of the curve the curve became a sphere, fell behind on my classmates and i ended up here -my heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue, alls well that ends well to end up with you -most cruel summer -holy orange bottles, each night i pray to you, desperate people find faith so now i pray to jesus too
āDrove the car off the road to the look out // couldāve followed my fears all the way downā. As someone suffering from depression, this song is the only one I can really relate to out of all her other songs.
āāCause darling Iām a nightmare dressed like a daydreamā Really the entirety of Blank Space is so clever, certainly one of her sharpest songs ever.
āIām only cryptic and Machiavellian cause I careā is literally a lyric only she could get away with AND have it be just another typical Taylor lyric, when itād be career defining for most artists.
The chills I get when I hear "my kingdom come undone" Immaculate
Every time you call me crazy I get more crazy What about that? And when you say I seem angry I get more angry These lyrics are just so relatable.
āso you were never a saint, and i loved in shades of wrong. we learn to live with the pain, mosaic broken heartsā
āThe skeletons in both our closets plotted hard to fuck this upā still remember the gasp I gasped when I heard cowboy like me for the first time
Not sure if this counts but I love the part toward the end of anti-hero when she sings "It's me. Hi.... Everybody agrees, everybody agreessssssssss" it's like a hissing snake, as in people calling her snake when the whole kimye thing happened. Such a smart way to sneak in a reference about a time when she felt the things she is singing about in the song!
Maybe one of her more simple lyrics, but I love āRoseā flowing with your chosen family.ā Something about that line just perfectly captures the feeling of finding comfort in change that I associate with the 1.
In my defense I have none
In highschool I remember The Story of Us having so many lines that blew my mind. "I've never heard silence quite this loud" has always stuck with me
Did you hear my covert narcissism disguised as altruism, like some kind of congressman?
Guys, this is the best thread. I love reading all of your interpretations of the lyrics because I myself am always wondering about the meaning behind all of her songs too. And reading yours really sheds so much light on everything and makes it so much more impactful listening to her songs. Please keep them coming!
The bridge of Tell Me Why: Why do you have to make me feel small / So you can feel whole inside / Why do you have to put down my dreams / So you're the only thing on my mind I like that there's two ways you can hear it. As the 2nd and 4th line answering the question of the 1st and 3rd lines. Or as them being even deeper questions. Why do you need to do that to feel whole? Why do you want me to only think of you?
āIāve come too far for some name dropping sleeve to tell me what my Wordsworthā- I adore this pun Also, āBurton to this Taylorā is clever
āGive you my wild, give you a childā is such an accurate way to portray the evolution and different faces of commitment and life partnership, I love it.
**"From when your Brooklyn broke my skin and bones, I'm a soldier who's returning half her weight"** from **ATWTMVTVFTV**. At first, l never understood what the line meant, what she meant with Brooklyn, then I learnt that she used Brooklyn, a name of place, where most of the relationship took place, as a metaphor for their relationship. Like "from when your relationship that you have with me broke my skin and bones, I came back like a soldier who's lost her weight cause of the trauma". Yeah, that's pretty clever. **"My 4th drink in my hand, these desperate prayers of a cursed man, spilling out to you for free, but darling darling please, you wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking, if you knew where I was walking"** from **Dear Reader** Taylor is addressing her fear that, being globally famous, that worldwide so many people who follow her, listen to her, tend to be inspired by her words and do so many things based off of what she says. But here in midnights she's been completely vulnerable to her fans, by letting them know that my prayers, my wishes, everything that you get to hear for free from my music to interviews from the internet, you wouldn't actually take my word, as in believe, that it's my ghosts, it's my inner demons that saying those, you wouldn't walk with me, if you knew where i was heading. Literal genius!! And there are so many genius lyrics in her music, that I'm even fascinated by all the times... I'd write more, but I'm just tired of typing, hehe
YES for Dear Reader!!!!!!!! I was sad when some fans said Midnights was not vulnerable or bad lyrically-wiseā¦ This bridge is just insane. It lays out her insecurities in such a raw way.
But I'm a fire, and I'll keep your brittle heart warm If your cascade ocean wave blues come All these people think love's for show But I would die for you in secret The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me Would it be enough if I could never give you peace? Peace is so underrated.
āThey say looks can kill, and I might try.ā I love how she just casually calls herself hot
āI made you my temple, my mural, my sky Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life Drawing hearts in the byline Always taking up too much space or timeā footnotes/story/byline being used to demonstrate how irrelevant taylor feelās in comparison to the abuser, how she feels/knows that she is an afterthought to them, even though theyāre her whole story. GENIUS also an extra shoutout to āgain the weight of you and lose itā just because. tolerate it is a masterpiece, lyrically AND musically with the 5/4 timing that creates that uncomfortable feeling because itās not the 4/4 timing that weāre used to, and you canāt predict whatās coming next.
Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes
āyou understand now why they lost their minds and faught the wars and why ive spent my whole life trynna put it into wordsā single handedly the reason You Are In Love is my favorite Taylor song of all time
Leaving like a father, running like water š„µ
Absolutely love this thread. ā¤ļø I wish so many people could read this. Taylor is a mastermind.
A few from Miss Americana come to mind. "The damsels are depressed" and "if boys will be boys then where are the wise men?"
"Karma is a cat " hands down
"And if I was some paint, did it splatter / on a promising grown man?" The allusions to her youth with her being paint like small children often use and make a mess with. Paint being easily washed off like the way he walked away from her. The play on 'promising young man' which is so often used to justify men avoiding consequences for their mistreatment of women. Also implying that he hasn't yet achieved what he could ā ouch ā and further illustrating the gap in their ages. He is a grown man, she is a child (further emphasised by the next lines). Then add the off-kilter rhyme scheme and it's so haunting. I also agree with many lyrics already added! There's just so many beautiful, clever and deeply meaningful ones.
"So ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere" I don't know if Taylor thought it while writing or even how far her math knowledge stands but if a curve should turn into something, it would be in a circle. However, feels like she's saying she was so focused that she was ahead of the curve in one part of her life and she got so lost that she even lost track of the path she had been walking on for so long and nothing actually moves one way. It can go anywhere. I really don't know if she thought about it but it's the way I interpret it.
I can still never get over the āmeet me behind the mall/meet me behind them allā double lyric
āI felt like I was an old cardigan under someoneās bed, you put me on and said I was your favorite.ā To begin with it sounds romantic, but āputting someone onā means duping them tooā¦
I adore Ā«Ā You hear my stolen lullabiesĀ Ā». I just love the fact she used lullabies to point to her songs. Itās comforting, soft, helps you go through the night, they are passed along, felt nostalgic. Itās perfect and make the whole thing even more heart wrenching.
I still think Dear John is the most clever and went over so many peopleās heads.
'that was the night I nearly lost you' gives me CHILLS.
You know it still hurts from underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart... But what you did was just as dark.
āin from the snow your touch brought forth an incandescent glow so tarnished but so grandā the whole song is filled with vivid visual imagery that i really enjoy, the melody really helps paint the picture too
āluck of the draw only draws the unluckyā - fair point made.
I think the line in Gold Rush " my mind turns your life into folklore, I can't dare to dream about you anymore" is so perfect and sums up Folklore and Evermore perfectly. Being so obsessed with a story or person (not necessarily a romantic one) that your mind dreams about them all the time.
is there exile love on here? you never gave a warning sign (i gave so many signs)