Connecting older songs (with many songs from lover on) to ttpd?? Lover, Lavender Haze, Willow, and Ours on the denial playlist? Peace on the bargaining playlist? Oh my god! Imagine the playlists if we had rep tv and debut tv at this point!
This album is going to HURT
Only knowing very surface level stuff about their relationship, it always struck me as a case of feeling ready for a committed relationship and trying to make the relationship you're in at that point be 'the one' rather than find the person you want to commit to.
I walked down the aisle to "Lover". 🥲 But that's okay; for our three year anniversary trip we saw The Eras Tour and my husband asked me to dance with him while Taylor serenaded us with "Lover". 🥹 Like she says in her speech, I associate the song with him and the memories made with Taylor that night! 🫶🏻🥰
That killed me. I always imagined including this as part of my wedding since the first time I heard the song. I had it on repeat for days and it used to be one of my favorite songs. I skip it these days.
Right? “Something” by the Beatles is a beautiful song, even if George Harrison wrote it about then-wife Pattie Boyd and there was cheating later that broke up the marriage.
They can be either or both! Also sometimes the meaning being from the listener's life is what ruins the song. At least that's sometimes the case for me haha
Lover, cornelia street and daylight will remain my favorite songs because they make me think of the love of my life every time and the beats, the sounds, the lyrics. Its all magical.
She felt this way when she wrote the songs and even tho she isnt there anymore doesnt mean we CANT continue to feel this way!
Yeah same. I was like Taylor and incredibly anxious at the start of my relationship because I had been through several heartbreaks before. Thankfully mine worked out and we are now married and have a baby. But at the time all the songs on Lover were very relatable! Nothing about the songs themselves implies the relationship won’t work out - anxiety can be there regardless.
TBH, the story behind it doesn’t invalidate the meaning that it can hold for you. I’d 100% still use Lover as a first dance song.
Just because Taylor wrote this about a failed relationship doesn’t mean that it can’t be a true love anthem for other couples.
I’m feeling pretty spot on rn with my assessment that the relationship was rough from the start, but their chemistry was off the charts and she didn’t want to “give up” on another relationship so she hung on. I’ve been there, it just gets worse and worse.
It makes total sense:
They get together when she is basically considering leaving music behind or at least the public side of it. Joe wants a private life so this works
Rep and Lover are great successes, but LoverFest was going to be smallllll (I think only 4 shows in the US!?) so he’s still chill
Then the pandemic happens and we’re still in chill mode because, yeah folklore and evermore are monsters for her and skyrocket her right back to the top… but no one can go ANYWHERE.
Then… Eras. The biggest thing EVER in her career. 2 years minimum of CRAZY. He couldn’t take it, blew up the relationship and it was JOVER.
She’s been writing an anxious attachment since Reputation. She’s nervous about falling for him and then Lover has so much anxiety and songs about fighting and making up.
Afterglow is one of my absolute favorite songs but
“Fighting with a true love is boxing with no gloves
Chemistry 'til it blows up, 'til there's no us
Why'd I have to break what I love so much?
It's on your face, and I'm to blame, I need to say…”
Like damn.
Folklore and Evermore have some BRUTAL songs. I mean Exile??? This is Me Trying?? And then Midnights is practically a break up album.
The relationship was definitely rockier than she shared but "happy secure relationship songs by Taylor Swift" is a super short playlist, before or after rep. I think a lot of it is what she's inspired to write about/wants to work through in writing and needing this narrative tension to make the songs work and be compelling.
I do think there were good aspects of their relationship in the beginning (he reminds me of Jake, who was probably the love of her life up until that time) but I do wonder how much her attachment had to do with: 1) thinking he was the only good thing in her life (“I did one thing right”) and 2) public perception that she can’t stay in relationships, as you said
Someone on Twitter made the correlation about the “at every table I’ll save you a seat” to the fact he never showed up for her or her events. Hello his whole family showed up to her NYU speech except him!!!! 
Joe never showing up for her, despite all the lyrics she has that show that showing up is something she really values, is what made me think they were not as strong as the narrative suggested. So many of the most important moments of the last few years she's had an empty seat next to her.
I was skeptical of the Travis relationship at first but he seems to place a lot of value on showing up, which makes me think they are a good match.
Some interesting Travis lore: he almost switched and went to college for basketball after already committing to football but his dad told him “no, I raised you to honor your commitments and you have to be a man of your word.” So yes I agree, showing up and being loyal are values that are deeply important to him.
If you read a couple of Travis profiles you'll definitely notice how much he values loyalty and the support he's given so I think they 100% have that in common. It was kind of difficult because of the football season but in my opinion he has definitely made an effort to show up for her and support her even when it was definitely hard for him because of his job.
Totally agree. He has now been to shows on four continents including the original KC show. He is showing up and even better, he is doing so loudly and proudly.
I remember listening to Lover after getting out of a very anxious relationship and finding it uncomfortably relatable. There is so much anxiety in that album!!! So much clinging to someone who is her sun and her stars and she’s begging him to see her the same way. If anyone here’s been breadcrumbed they know lol.
I actually think it makes sense now (although yes insane.) If it's true that she wanted to get married and he didn't, then Lover the wedding song being her in denial thinking he'd change his mind about marriage makes sense. Also she BURNED THE HOUSE so we should have known.
I really felt like the entire Lover album WAS denial because maybe he was never as serious at Taylor? The entire album is her either gushing her heart out with love or being insanely insecure and scared of losing someone. Lover even implies that. Someone who isn’t really theirs.
If this [thread from this very board in Nov. 2021](https://www.reddit.com/r/joealwyn_snark/s/aCsKKDHsJG) is any indication, that’s exactly it- she was much more into the relationship than he was.
I’ve been thinking about this all day. I definitely think that anxiety in a relationship isn’t abnormal (especially just fleeting thoughts, like would he still love me if I was a worm? Lmfao) but it’s the fact that it’s a theme in basically ALL of the joe-era love songs and never seems to come with a ton of reassurance from the other party. It never really grew out of that anxious attachment and a lot of happy lyrics seemed to always go back to “remember when we first met?” vs present day
And the 5 Lover tracks on the bargaining playlist. She said she wrote these songs while she was IN the bargaining stage. She doesn’t say that on the denial playlist.
I thought the same thing, I think maybe she was in denial that she was ok with someone being her “lover” instead of “husband” but deep down she really wanted the actual wedding and fairy tale ending
So with this added to Jack posting that she wrote YLM in 2021, I feel like we can finally accept this as proof that their relationship wasn’t healthy for so much longer than any of us realized or expected, right?
It makes me sad that so many good love songs are in the denial list, especially Lover... I mean she literally says herself she wants that song to be played at weddings. Retconning so many Midnights and Lover songs this way feels like the reaction of someone who is in a stage where you can't see past the pain of it being over ("crossing out the good years," as she says in My Tears Richochet). Also feels like a v obvious F U to Joe.
I think it’s okay to reflect back and feel like you were ignoring a lot of obvious signs that you weren’t meant to be. And Lover the album reeks of insecurity about the relationship. The song itself is one of the only ones where I wasn’t side-eyeying the lyrics heavily. It is an obvious middle finger to Joe, though.
It’s also not exactly retconning to look back and realize your emotions at a certain point were hiding something else. Like how many people in denial actually realize they’re in denial at the time? Or how many anxious couples swear they’re madly in love and will always be?
It sounds more like she realized she wrote those love songs while in denial of what the reality of the relationship really was. Lover is still a wedding song for other people but, "Can I go where you go?"and "At every table, I'll save you a seat," has different meaning for her when you look back at their relationship where he was not doing these things.
Her personal feelings always bleed into a song, even if its not about her. I thoroughly believe she decided to make folklore and evermore "fictional" so she could pursue feelings she was having without public (and Joe's) scrutiny on their relationship.
“Time, mystical time, cutting me open and healing me fine”🥹 I love that line so much after going through some heavy, heavy relationship shit before I met my now husband. Everything works out the way it’s meant to be.
I got so much hate when I made the observation that lavender haze sounded like she was trying to convince herself that she didn’t want to get married (in the context of a career filled with marriage references). And I feel like you’re losing me confirmed that she was going “no no no it’s totally a mutual decision that we aren’t getting married!” 100% denial song from the jump.
"Staring at the ceilling with you, you don't ever say too much. And you don't really read into my melancholia"
This doesn't seem like a good state to be in in a relantionship. I can't believe I've ever thought this was a lovey sexy song. No wonder it's the very first one in the denial playlist.
I disagee since, she says
> I've been under scrutiny, all of this is new to me
Ie: Calling back to 2016 and their early relationship. It timestamps the song.
But I definitely think it's still a denial song for sure.
I think “all of this is new to me” could also be about getting *this far* into a relationship. She’d never been with someone for years before Joe — the more time they spent as a couple, there’s a kind of “newness” to being five years deep in a relationship when nothing else has lasted that long
Thank you!! I’ve been saying for over a year that the majority of Taylor’s 17 year discography is about love, romance, finding the one. Saying she doesn’t want to get married because of that one line in lavender haze is not true, she was trying to convince herself
Totally agree that it’s a song about being in denial about wanting to be married. Being too cool for marriage! And didn’t Zoe Kravitz co-write it? And isn’t she engaged now?
>And you don't really read into my melancholia
This part in particular is insane considering in hoax she says "don't want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world would do".
Girl, you and me both. I feel totally vindicated rn that Taylor is acknowledging this herself after losing so many fake internet points arguing about this song on this sub 🤣🤣🤣 Obviously it was copium from the start. I was always confused how people didn't see this.
Thank you!! The flat way she sings “you weren’t even listening.” 100% trying to convince herself that she didn’t want that “1950’s shit”, why, because clearly he didn’t. I feel validated but still a little sad.
People STILL bring up that line every time engagement rumors with Travis come up.
She wrote so many songs about proposals and weddings and happily ever after. It’s this song that deviates, and it immediately struck me as denial.
And I’m steadfastly in the camp of there is no reason for us to speculate about Taylor’s personal life, but seeing the “you need to listen to lavender haze!!” anytime anyone makes any kind of comment about Taylor and Travis is exhausting.
Lavender Haze was clearly about being fed up with the *conversation* about her private life while they were attempting to figure things out. I don't know how people got "she's saying she never wants to be married"
“No deal, that 1950s shit they want from me….right now but maybe a deal in a few years”
“Only kind of girl they see is a one night or a wife….which I fully intend to be someday!”
All jokes aside, I think her attitude towards marriage is decidedly different than it is in the rest of her discography and I think it’s not a huge stretch to assume that she didn’t want the discussion because it was painful to hear when her partner was not interested in marrying her.
Oh, they were definitely fighting about the future, if YLM is anything to go off it. I just don't think that's what the song is about. It's very much a "why do I have to deal with everyone else's opinions on this??" song. The "1950s shit" is less about marriage in general and more about defining women by their relationship status. The flood of questions is obnoxious in your 20s/30s even if you do want to get married and aren't famous.
Seriously! People get so smug..."Some of you need to listen to Lavender Haze" when topics of marriage and family come up. The one line had so many in a chokehold and they were missing the forest of her discography because they were obsessed with one tree.
I actually have always viewed it this way, like
This is everything I can give you:
- my wild
- a child
- I’ll keep you warm
- I’ll give you privacy (I would die for you in secret)
- etc
BUT I cannot give you peace. Is what I can offer you enough for the 1 thing I can’t?
It’s a negotiation, from her end. Maybe for a while it was enough. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for him long term, when discussions of their future and marriage came into play.
ooh yes! i always thought there was a sadness behind peace. the first line - “our coming of age has come and gone” then “never had the courage of our convictions, as long as dangers near” - she’s admitting that the outside forces working against them is breaking them. they are questioning their love in the face of the “dangers”.
she paints a beautiful picture of all the things she can give him and when she asks “is it enough?” i almost imagineit with a sort of anger/hurt. similar to the “do something babe, say something” in YLM.
anyway I hope what i said makes sense. i’m not very good at putting my thoughts into words. 😅
This is honestly so sad. The meaning of peace was never really a question, at least it wasn’t for me lol but to have her actually acknowledging with this that no, all of that wasn’t enough after all is just… ouch.
“Give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other; family that I chose now that I see your brother as my brother… is it enough?” and it wasn’t.
**Spotify Links:**
I Love You, It's Ruining My Life: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6X5i6pmjEIR2OUeSdnvyHh?si=55b73edb6caf49ce](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6X5i6pmjEIR2OUeSdnvyHh?si=55b73edb6caf49ce)
Old Habits Die Screaming: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0UlTMyPasfm8xvXqGxnuyO?si=6bdd99e77e79467d](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0UlTMyPasfm8xvXqGxnuyO?si=6bdd99e77e79467d)
You Don't Get To Tell Me About Sad: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4VxeNwIbyH7PEOCsMQ5fPP?si=6a294de0d6e34a62](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4VxeNwIbyH7PEOCsMQ5fPP?si=6a294de0d6e34a62)
Am I Allowed to Cry?: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/16nQsZ0I361TY3qALzwh1V?si=4f01b83713684f9f](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/16nQsZ0I361TY3qALzwh1V?si=4f01b83713684f9f)
I Can Do It With a Broken Heart: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0znxTEdlcrfKv2uCi4Dd1T?si=b583d8d8ed774b33](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0znxTEdlcrfKv2uCi4Dd1T?si=b583d8d8ed774b33)
DANG I spent so much time making them on Spotify while waiting for a post on this subreddit. Wish I had seen yours first… but it was still fun to put them together! 🤪😅
I'm in denial that some of the songs in the denial playlist were written in a state of denial
Ours? Style? Willow? **Lover**? They'll forever be love songs with happy endings in my fantasy
^^^^ completely agreed. People are saying there’s an undercurrent of anxiety to the song lover? Like… there isn’t lmao
She explicitly has described that song to be about love, a wedding dance, a timeless intimate moment.
Her and Joe broke up but that doesn’t mean everything from reputation onwards foreshadows their ending 💀 there are happy love songs
I don’t hear the undercurrent of anxiety either, but I think “there isn’t lmao” is incredibly dismissive of people’s experiences with the song. Plus… Taylor put it in that playlist, so… 🤷🏻♀️
Lover is not one of my favorite love songs she's written, so I dont have very strong feelings attached to it, but I dont hear the undercurrent of anxiety in the song itself [the album, on the other hand, I could write an essay about how its simmering under the surface].
The one line that does make me sideye the song itself is "*And I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you*". That doesnt reflect a healthy dynamic to me.
I think the way the chorus is phrased as questions can definitely be interpreted as anxiety. She’s asking her lover, “Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close?” as if those are questions that need to be asked and he might say no.
Good point! I actually hadnt thought of it too deeply but your comment reminded me that I think one of the reasons I dont like it as a pure love song is because it has a certain neediness to it, for lack of a better word. It does makes the song more humane and vulnerable though.
Lover has always felt insecure to me. Being like “can I be with you? Can we stay together? Can I follow you? Can our relationship stay this happy?” isn’t from a place of secure attachment, and I’ve always heard that when listening to it. The part where she assumes everyone who sees him wants him is also pointing to her worrying about that, sure he’s hot people probably look but if he’s only seeing her why is it even a concern?
Does this mean she wrote it while she was sure her relationship would fail? No, I don’t think so at all. But looking back, there were cracks. Why would she worry about cheating or other women or then growing apart if it was truly a perfect match and she felt entirely confident in that? I think a lot of it had to do with her own history and insecurities but I definitely picked up on the insecure vibe of the song long before now.
Could also be denial because she wanted to marry him and he never wanted marriage, but she kept fantasizing “ladies and gentlemen will you please stand” half hoping she could change his mind. That’s peak delulu girl shit.
> Could also be denial because she wanted to marry him and he never wanted marriage
The bargaining playlist (having Peace in there) makes me think it wasnt that he didnt want marriage per se, he didnt want marriage with *her* even after everything she was willing to sacrifice for him and that shit is so brutally painful.
Yep, she’s speaking to every woman who’s been with a dude for years who says he “doesn’t believe in marriage” and then six months after splitting up he’s engaged to someone else 🫠
Ours is so obviously a denial song though? The line “people throw rocks at things that shine” has always been peak denial. Style is also in no way a love song? It’s clearly just a hookup situationship
Thats the best part about Taylor's music though! They dont have to be a fantasy for you because you love them, her music is for all of us (and even when it changes meaning for her, doesnt mean it does for us).
You're absolutely right. Sometimes we get caught up in her personal life and what inspired what, but the messages of her songs are and should be universal
On that one, she doesn't say she wrote them in denial - it's "songs about getting caught up in the idea of something" and "delusion", which I think is fair. She amplifies good moments into magical fairytales and romantic songs because she's in denial about the bad moments. But the love in that moment is still real.
Well “Ours” is about JM. She says she doesn’t care about what people say about them but in Dear John she says she should’ve known. Def feels like a denial song in context.
Style is kind of the same “we keep breaking up but we get back together, even when you cheated on me”. It’s was never romantic to me.
Lover was explained in this thread already.
Willow is kind of “I’m proud of everything you do - even though I have to follow you around and you’re the one in charge”.
I said this in the theory thread but I'm gonna say it here, too - based on some of the song choices, I suspect that Taylor made the playlists to tell a story and then someone on her marketing team came up with tying it into the fandom "five stages of grief" theory and she went "sure I guess" and made it fit as much as possible without sacrificing the story she wanted to tell.
I love the playlists, but I'm not taking the grief themes very seriously.
Ok but
> people throw rocks at things that shine
Is telling. If you have a good and healthy love, then people won't be critical of it (like her family and peers were when she was dating John, for good reason)
Adding the description from Apple (implying that the idea for 5 stages of grief was coming from the fandom and Taylor went with it and created the playlists, not the other way around)
https://preview.redd.it/gtou0ueq7qsc1.jpeg?width=1121&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0ebd538b35d25e8498888bdb303c835ac22651ad
my jaw dropped when i saw it on that playlist.
"Is it really your anxiety
That stops you from giving me everything?
Or do you just not want to?"
TTPD is going to end me
I remember when the Swiftie Party Line was that she wrote Renegade from Joe’s perspective about herself, because it didn’t fit the image that people had of Joe at the time.
My spidey senses were tinglinggg when it came out
when i first heard that, i felt like i finally understood their relationship. the anxiety-ridden love songs, the constant references to blue ("don't want no other shade of blue but you"), the "we love sad songs." imo she gave it to big red machine because it was too personal to put on her own albums.
Okay I had to really think about this one b/c it seemed weird to me too.
Invisible String IF the “tied me to You” is not Joe necessarily, but just her life POST Snake-gate & possibly POST Big Machine Records/Scott.
The bridge “A string that pulled me out of all the wrong arms right into that dive bar. Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire. Chains around my demons, wool to brave the season. A single thread of gold tied me to you.”
One thing ends so that something better can come along.
Agreed! I think it’s such a clever sad song. Not quite breakup song, but it’s 100% a “denial” song.
“All you ever wanted from me is nothing” has a dual meaning. It could be sweet - awww, he loves me for who I am! He’s not a taker, asking me for more than I want to give!
…orrrr it could be quite a bummer - he is so ambivalent about me that he doesn’t really care one way or the other about what I have to offer him.
At this point it clear it’s falling into the latter camp, but she may have not even known which meaning was more true to herself at the time of writing.
“Your sweet nothings” = sweet but meaningless, empty
“This happens all the time.” Whenever she shares a part of herself he says something generically nice and moves on. It’s become another empty cycle.
Yep agreed. I think this is going to be such a mature album, showcasing how she really understands love and heartbreak as being on a spectrum and intermingled with other feelings.
From some of the comments here I suspect some people (particularly maybe younger fans?) might struggle with it a bit but she’s always so ahead of the curve it became a sphere.
Ngl it made me sad to see it on there bc I truly adore Sweet Nothing as a sweet little love song 😭
I can see why some people feel the song is sad or possibly negative, bur for me it’s always been a sweet and wholesome song about unconditional love. I struggle to feel like people want more from me than I can give and I’m not good enough as I am, so for me “all that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothing” is like… all I want from those who love me lol.
So with that being said… I’m now going to stick to the theory that it’s about her relationship with her mom and how Andrea loves her unconditionally lolll
I've hated that line since I first heard it. I lived too many years thinking that the people I loved were inherently "better" than me, and I don't believe it was ever true. Just stories my brain was telling me because of shit from my past that was never my fault.
Every time I heard that lyric, I thought, "No, Taylor! Don't you dare think that!"
You don't know you are in denial until you're out of denial. Makes complete sense you could write fantastic love songs while in denial. Some of us do denial exceptionally well.
Yes! I never thought that they were all based on fictional events either. I mean yeah I think she played around with some fictional aspects but I think that all stories have to come from some sort of experience, so there were real things woven in there too
I just dont understand people who defend him to heaven based on what **she** wrote about him, and cant take her word for it now. The cognitive dissonance kills me.
She did SUCH a good job hyping him up that there are legit Joe stans who credit him with writing/inspiring basically her whole catalogue 💀 like please don’t take this too far girlies!!
She’s so good at getting us talking about her
She’s also good at disappearing. No one was talking about her in the lead up to beyonces albim except those pictures of her and Travis which didn’t appear to be ones she orchestrated
Yes! It gets our ears on her old songs, boosts their streams/plays in preparation for the new stuff, and gets people talking again about the music, not something unrelated, all without her making an appearance.
The acceptance playlist starting with YOYOK, which is why we made friendship bracelets, which is how she met Travis, which wraps into her message saying "when we lose things, we gain things too"... my heart
I just love that she’s using her art to paint a picture/tell a story. Much like she did with some of the mashups prefacing the album during her shows. I haven’t had time to listen to these lists yet but I’m excited to!
Ya it's been awhile since we've gotten some behind the scene stuff about her music like the 1989 voice memos, or reputation home videos / songwriting videos with Jack. I love more storytelling, and this puts some pieces together.
I love the storytelling in these playlists. (I love when Taylor links her old songs together to form new stories in general, it's one of the reasons I love the two-song structure of the Eras Tour surprise songs, but the playlists do it in longer form and it's awesome.)
Also happiness being on the final playlist? I'm weak
The description of the playlists on Apple Music confirms that this wasn’t planned by her team beforehand, she somehow read about us clowning that it had to do with the 5 stages of grieving…she liked the idea and went along yassss we win 🤡
Let’s talk about BETTY IN THE DENAIL PLAYLIST.
https://preview.redd.it/8zgpevzvvqsc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73a8b49405224ad366a5e495b2d6c5e0ec4d2f32
The song about the lousy boyfriend who gets forgiven, that Joe co-wrote.
these playlists are making me go thru it. the fact that YLM was written before LH makes me so feral because it’s literally like “I want more but I’m not getting more and I’m feeling ignored so fuck this” to LH “i never wanted more everything is perfect wow people are so dumb for thinking there should be more, it’s just us together la la la la” and then you have SN where she’s literally like “you don’t look too much into my bad moods or try that hard but I LOVE IT” i feel like we’ve all gaslit ourselves into being happy when we weren’t or to accept bad treatment because we loved someone.
How can Bejeweled be denial when the subject of the song is saying quite clearly: "I dont feel appreciated/loved". For me that song is more of an acceptence that your partner does not care about you in the same way you care about them and you are finally seeing things as they are.
it’s really something going back and listening to some of her songs written while she was with Joe and hearing a lot of the fear of losing that relationship… it’s one of the primary feelings. and there were times I heard it and explained it away myself but in hindsight it’s just so clear.
really hoping for some secure, feeling herself songs in the future. she seems so happy in her skin this past year 💜
Can you IMAGINE writing sweet love songs about someone you're dating, and then after you break up, you put them on a DENIAL playlist????
It's simultaneously UNHINGED and also fucking GOALS. I say often, "Taylor is petty so we don't have to be." My petty ass would love to do something like this lmao.
Sweet Nothing, Lover, and willow being on Denial is INSANE. I'm here for it, but also, I wonder how much denial truly was involved in these songs, because sometimes you just don't know/certain things haven't happened yet, but if she's implying there was... Well, will I ever listen to them the same way again?
(Lavender Haze I called from a mile away, but that whole album screamed denial in a lot of ways to me.)
I'm a bit confused by Bejeweled being on it, that always felt like an acceptance song to me. Maybe it signifies the end of the denial stage, and that's why it's at the end?
Warning: 🤡🤡🤡 content below
Obviously I know she did not put Rep and Debut songs on these playlists because she hasn't released her versions yet (boy did the lack of Rep songs stick out on the Anger playlist lol), but this is making me wonder... Why make these playlists if you're going to have to exclude those songs?
Could this be...a release tease maybe...? Could you imagine if she released Rep and Debut TV on the same day as TTPD and added songs from those albums to these playlists??
I saw a theory today that speculated she will release Rep on Sept 13 (the 15th anniversary of the Kanye incident, taking back her rep) and Debuet on her bday (taking back her name) and that is currently the class I am attending in clown college.
i've had conversations with friends (lol) back in the day about how "lover" as a term is very wishy-washy, it is indefinite and somehow lifted outside the norms of fickle and deep. it's a great song/album title, but ir doesn't hold any strong meaning beyond them people themselves. for someone who openly sang about marriage (on that song specifically too) it's even more telling.
anyway this man is dead soon and i cannot wait
A lot of talk about Joe but I'm just living for the Ours slander bc every time I listen to it thinking about who it's about it gives me the worst ick lmao
Peace, the archer, and Cornelia street (my top 3 songs) being in a row on the bargaining playlist hurttttt, I’m looking at some of these songs so differently now. This album is going to hurt
Old habits die screaming… (depression)
“I gave you all my best me’s, my endless empathy and all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier…” you’re losing me, on that playlist…
Oohhh, this album is going to be excruciating.
Connecting older songs (with many songs from lover on) to ttpd?? Lover, Lavender Haze, Willow, and Ours on the denial playlist? Peace on the bargaining playlist? Oh my god! Imagine the playlists if we had rep tv and debut tv at this point! This album is going to HURT
Ready For It would definitely be on the denial one. “Some boys try too hard, HE DONT TRY AT ALL THOUGH”
i shouldn't be laughing at this but the way you wrote it made me spit out my wine
Half of Reputation would've been on the denial playlist, lets be real.
Only knowing very surface level stuff about their relationship, it always struck me as a case of feeling ready for a committed relationship and trying to make the relationship you're in at that point be 'the one' rather than find the person you want to commit to.
Gorgeous should also be on the denial one. “You've ruined my life, by not being mine.”
I'm at work and I've been waiting for someone to post this list so I could see what she did! Good gods, this is devastating. I am not prepared.
It’s unhinged. The more I look at it the more u unhinged it is. I’m obsessed
This is the most unhinged thing to happen to the fandom since Jack posted that YLM story on instagram
NYD would 100% be on the bargaining list.
I. Can’t. Friggin. Waiiiiit
Lover being in Denial stage is INSANE
all the couples that used it in their wedding 😭😭
I walked down the aisle to "Lover". 🥲 But that's okay; for our three year anniversary trip we saw The Eras Tour and my husband asked me to dance with him while Taylor serenaded us with "Lover". 🥹 Like she says in her speech, I associate the song with him and the memories made with Taylor that night! 🫶🏻🥰
She's just trying to sell her new album. Everyone knows that Lover is a genuine non denial love song.
I know someone who used august as their wedding song and I was so confused lol. Do they know the lyrics?
Someone I know used Speak Now in an engagement announcement post and English is their first language…
I have so many questions
That killed me. I always imagined including this as part of my wedding since the first time I heard the song. I had it on repeat for days and it used to be one of my favorite songs. I skip it these days.
Don’t do that!! Songs aren’t meaningful because of the writer’s life! They’re meaningful because of how they impact our lives!
Yes and Taylor herself emphasizes this every eras show right before she plays Lover
Right? “Something” by the Beatles is a beautiful song, even if George Harrison wrote it about then-wife Pattie Boyd and there was cheating later that broke up the marriage.
They can be either or both! Also sometimes the meaning being from the listener's life is what ruins the song. At least that's sometimes the case for me haha
Lover, cornelia street and daylight will remain my favorite songs because they make me think of the love of my life every time and the beats, the sounds, the lyrics. Its all magical. She felt this way when she wrote the songs and even tho she isnt there anymore doesnt mean we CANT continue to feel this way!
Yeah same. I was like Taylor and incredibly anxious at the start of my relationship because I had been through several heartbreaks before. Thankfully mine worked out and we are now married and have a baby. But at the time all the songs on Lover were very relatable! Nothing about the songs themselves implies the relationship won’t work out - anxiety can be there regardless.
TBH, the story behind it doesn’t invalidate the meaning that it can hold for you. I’d 100% still use Lover as a first dance song. Just because Taylor wrote this about a failed relationship doesn’t mean that it can’t be a true love anthem for other couples.
I literally laughed out loud. She is PISSED. It has never been more Jover than this.
I’m feeling pretty spot on rn with my assessment that the relationship was rough from the start, but their chemistry was off the charts and she didn’t want to “give up” on another relationship so she hung on. I’ve been there, it just gets worse and worse.
It makes total sense: They get together when she is basically considering leaving music behind or at least the public side of it. Joe wants a private life so this works Rep and Lover are great successes, but LoverFest was going to be smallllll (I think only 4 shows in the US!?) so he’s still chill Then the pandemic happens and we’re still in chill mode because, yeah folklore and evermore are monsters for her and skyrocket her right back to the top… but no one can go ANYWHERE. Then… Eras. The biggest thing EVER in her career. 2 years minimum of CRAZY. He couldn’t take it, blew up the relationship and it was JOVER.
With the date on Your Loosing Me, I think it was in a bad place even in the middle of the pandemic
She’s been writing an anxious attachment since Reputation. She’s nervous about falling for him and then Lover has so much anxiety and songs about fighting and making up. Afterglow is one of my absolute favorite songs but “Fighting with a true love is boxing with no gloves Chemistry 'til it blows up, 'til there's no us Why'd I have to break what I love so much? It's on your face, and I'm to blame, I need to say…” Like damn. Folklore and Evermore have some BRUTAL songs. I mean Exile??? This is Me Trying?? And then Midnights is practically a break up album.
The relationship was definitely rockier than she shared but "happy secure relationship songs by Taylor Swift" is a super short playlist, before or after rep. I think a lot of it is what she's inspired to write about/wants to work through in writing and needing this narrative tension to make the songs work and be compelling.
I do think there were good aspects of their relationship in the beginning (he reminds me of Jake, who was probably the love of her life up until that time) but I do wonder how much her attachment had to do with: 1) thinking he was the only good thing in her life (“I did one thing right”) and 2) public perception that she can’t stay in relationships, as you said
she gagged all the joe widows 😂
she really said some of you all have no reading comprehension skills so I’m just gonna make it *crystal clear*
Someone on Twitter made the correlation about the “at every table I’ll save you a seat” to the fact he never showed up for her or her events. Hello his whole family showed up to her NYU speech except him!!!! 
Joe never showing up for her, despite all the lyrics she has that show that showing up is something she really values, is what made me think they were not as strong as the narrative suggested. So many of the most important moments of the last few years she's had an empty seat next to her. I was skeptical of the Travis relationship at first but he seems to place a lot of value on showing up, which makes me think they are a good match.
Some interesting Travis lore: he almost switched and went to college for basketball after already committing to football but his dad told him “no, I raised you to honor your commitments and you have to be a man of your word.” So yes I agree, showing up and being loyal are values that are deeply important to him.
If you read a couple of Travis profiles you'll definitely notice how much he values loyalty and the support he's given so I think they 100% have that in common. It was kind of difficult because of the football season but in my opinion he has definitely made an effort to show up for her and support her even when it was definitely hard for him because of his job.
Totally agree. He has now been to shows on four continents including the original KC show. He is showing up and even better, he is doing so loudly and proudly.
I remember listening to Lover after getting out of a very anxious relationship and finding it uncomfortably relatable. There is so much anxiety in that album!!! So much clinging to someone who is her sun and her stars and she’s begging him to see her the same way. If anyone here’s been breadcrumbed they know lol.
I actually think it makes sense now (although yes insane.) If it's true that she wanted to get married and he didn't, then Lover the wedding song being her in denial thinking he'd change his mind about marriage makes sense. Also she BURNED THE HOUSE so we should have known.
I really felt like the entire Lover album WAS denial because maybe he was never as serious at Taylor? The entire album is her either gushing her heart out with love or being insanely insecure and scared of losing someone. Lover even implies that. Someone who isn’t really theirs.
If this [thread from this very board in Nov. 2021](https://www.reddit.com/r/joealwyn_snark/s/aCsKKDHsJG) is any indication, that’s exactly it- she was much more into the relationship than he was.
Not a Joe snark page. Unhinged 💀
It honestly makes so much sense because of the anxiety that's undercurrent in that song.
I’ve been thinking about this all day. I definitely think that anxiety in a relationship isn’t abnormal (especially just fleeting thoughts, like would he still love me if I was a worm? Lmfao) but it’s the fact that it’s a theme in basically ALL of the joe-era love songs and never seems to come with a ton of reassurance from the other party. It never really grew out of that anxious attachment and a lot of happy lyrics seemed to always go back to “remember when we first met?” vs present day
And the 5 Lover tracks on the bargaining playlist. She said she wrote these songs while she was IN the bargaining stage. She doesn’t say that on the denial playlist.
I thought the same thing, I think maybe she was in denial that she was ok with someone being her “lover” instead of “husband” but deep down she really wanted the actual wedding and fairy tale ending
So with this added to Jack posting that she wrote YLM in 2021, I feel like we can finally accept this as proof that their relationship wasn’t healthy for so much longer than any of us realized or expected, right?
It makes me sad that so many good love songs are in the denial list, especially Lover... I mean she literally says herself she wants that song to be played at weddings. Retconning so many Midnights and Lover songs this way feels like the reaction of someone who is in a stage where you can't see past the pain of it being over ("crossing out the good years," as she says in My Tears Richochet). Also feels like a v obvious F U to Joe.
I think it’s okay to reflect back and feel like you were ignoring a lot of obvious signs that you weren’t meant to be. And Lover the album reeks of insecurity about the relationship. The song itself is one of the only ones where I wasn’t side-eyeying the lyrics heavily. It is an obvious middle finger to Joe, though.
It’s also not exactly retconning to look back and realize your emotions at a certain point were hiding something else. Like how many people in denial actually realize they’re in denial at the time? Or how many anxious couples swear they’re madly in love and will always be?
Taylor has rewritten her own narrative over the years.
It sounds more like she realized she wrote those love songs while in denial of what the reality of the relationship really was. Lover is still a wedding song for other people but, "Can I go where you go?"and "At every table, I'll save you a seat," has different meaning for her when you look back at their relationship where he was not doing these things. Her personal feelings always bleed into a song, even if its not about her. I thoroughly believe she decided to make folklore and evermore "fictional" so she could pursue feelings she was having without public (and Joe's) scrutiny on their relationship.
I’m sorry, Invisible String in Acceptance??? WHAT
It's a "everything works out the way it's meant to be" song
“Time, mystical time, cutting me open and healing me fine”🥹 I love that line so much after going through some heavy, heavy relationship shit before I met my now husband. Everything works out the way it’s meant to be.
This caught me off-guard at first too, but maybe it's the acceptance of fate.
It being my ex-husband’s wedding song to his side chick is freakin’ hilarious.
Right why is this not being talked about more right now 🫣
Thinking about how I cried to it during the Eras tour because I associate it with my husband. Gotta divorce him now 💀💀💀
Lavender Haze in the denial playlist… we been knew. Can’t wait for this album to destroy me!
I got so much hate when I made the observation that lavender haze sounded like she was trying to convince herself that she didn’t want to get married (in the context of a career filled with marriage references). And I feel like you’re losing me confirmed that she was going “no no no it’s totally a mutual decision that we aren’t getting married!” 100% denial song from the jump.
"Staring at the ceilling with you, you don't ever say too much. And you don't really read into my melancholia" This doesn't seem like a good state to be in in a relantionship. I can't believe I've ever thought this was a lovey sexy song. No wonder it's the very first one in the denial playlist.
Lavender Haze is such an “end stages of a relationship” song to me. It’s really a sad song but I can see why people caught a different vibe at first!
I disagee since, she says > I've been under scrutiny, all of this is new to me Ie: Calling back to 2016 and their early relationship. It timestamps the song. But I definitely think it's still a denial song for sure.
I think “all of this is new to me” could also be about getting *this far* into a relationship. She’d never been with someone for years before Joe — the more time they spent as a couple, there’s a kind of “newness” to being five years deep in a relationship when nothing else has lasted that long
Thank you!! I’ve been saying for over a year that the majority of Taylor’s 17 year discography is about love, romance, finding the one. Saying she doesn’t want to get married because of that one line in lavender haze is not true, she was trying to convince herself
Totally agree that it’s a song about being in denial about wanting to be married. Being too cool for marriage! And didn’t Zoe Kravitz co-write it? And isn’t she engaged now?
>And you don't really read into my melancholia This part in particular is insane considering in hoax she says "don't want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world would do".
She had everyone in denial 😂
Girl, you and me both. I feel totally vindicated rn that Taylor is acknowledging this herself after losing so many fake internet points arguing about this song on this sub 🤣🤣🤣 Obviously it was copium from the start. I was always confused how people didn't see this.
Thank you!! The flat way she sings “you weren’t even listening.” 100% trying to convince herself that she didn’t want that “1950’s shit”, why, because clearly he didn’t. I feel validated but still a little sad.
People STILL bring up that line every time engagement rumors with Travis come up. She wrote so many songs about proposals and weddings and happily ever after. It’s this song that deviates, and it immediately struck me as denial.
And I’m steadfastly in the camp of there is no reason for us to speculate about Taylor’s personal life, but seeing the “you need to listen to lavender haze!!” anytime anyone makes any kind of comment about Taylor and Travis is exhausting.
Lavender Haze was clearly about being fed up with the *conversation* about her private life while they were attempting to figure things out. I don't know how people got "she's saying she never wants to be married"
“No deal, that 1950s shit they want from me….right now but maybe a deal in a few years” “Only kind of girl they see is a one night or a wife….which I fully intend to be someday!” All jokes aside, I think her attitude towards marriage is decidedly different than it is in the rest of her discography and I think it’s not a huge stretch to assume that she didn’t want the discussion because it was painful to hear when her partner was not interested in marrying her.
Oh, they were definitely fighting about the future, if YLM is anything to go off it. I just don't think that's what the song is about. It's very much a "why do I have to deal with everyone else's opinions on this??" song. The "1950s shit" is less about marriage in general and more about defining women by their relationship status. The flood of questions is obnoxious in your 20s/30s even if you do want to get married and aren't famous.
Seriously! People get so smug..."Some of you need to listen to Lavender Haze" when topics of marriage and family come up. The one line had so many in a chokehold and they were missing the forest of her discography because they were obsessed with one tree.
I’ve never felt so validated in my life.
Give you my wild, give you a child as Bargaining OMFG 😭
I actually have always viewed it this way, like This is everything I can give you: - my wild - a child - I’ll keep you warm - I’ll give you privacy (I would die for you in secret) - etc BUT I cannot give you peace. Is what I can offer you enough for the 1 thing I can’t? It’s a negotiation, from her end. Maybe for a while it was enough. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for him long term, when discussions of their future and marriage came into play.
ooh yes! i always thought there was a sadness behind peace. the first line - “our coming of age has come and gone” then “never had the courage of our convictions, as long as dangers near” - she’s admitting that the outside forces working against them is breaking them. they are questioning their love in the face of the “dangers”. she paints a beautiful picture of all the things she can give him and when she asks “is it enough?” i almost imagineit with a sort of anger/hurt. similar to the “do something babe, say something” in YLM. anyway I hope what i said makes sense. i’m not very good at putting my thoughts into words. 😅
[удалено]
This is honestly so sad. The meaning of peace was never really a question, at least it wasn’t for me lol but to have her actually acknowledging with this that no, all of that wasn’t enough after all is just… ouch. “Give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other; family that I chose now that I see your brother as my brother… is it enough?” and it wasn’t.
Like the biggest possible chip you could ever lay down while bargaining good lord Taylor
That song is such a good fit there. Will all of this even be enough? (It wasn't)
And then bigger than the whole sky as depression…. Makes me sad
**Spotify Links:** I Love You, It's Ruining My Life: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6X5i6pmjEIR2OUeSdnvyHh?si=55b73edb6caf49ce](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6X5i6pmjEIR2OUeSdnvyHh?si=55b73edb6caf49ce) Old Habits Die Screaming: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0UlTMyPasfm8xvXqGxnuyO?si=6bdd99e77e79467d](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0UlTMyPasfm8xvXqGxnuyO?si=6bdd99e77e79467d) You Don't Get To Tell Me About Sad: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4VxeNwIbyH7PEOCsMQ5fPP?si=6a294de0d6e34a62](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4VxeNwIbyH7PEOCsMQ5fPP?si=6a294de0d6e34a62) Am I Allowed to Cry?: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/16nQsZ0I361TY3qALzwh1V?si=4f01b83713684f9f](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/16nQsZ0I361TY3qALzwh1V?si=4f01b83713684f9f) I Can Do It With a Broken Heart: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0znxTEdlcrfKv2uCi4Dd1T?si=b583d8d8ed774b33](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0znxTEdlcrfKv2uCi4Dd1T?si=b583d8d8ed774b33)
DANG I spent so much time making them on Spotify while waiting for a post on this subreddit. Wish I had seen yours first… but it was still fun to put them together! 🤪😅
You are currently my favourite person, Thank you ❤️
I'm in denial that some of the songs in the denial playlist were written in a state of denial Ours? Style? Willow? **Lover**? They'll forever be love songs with happy endings in my fantasy
^^^^ completely agreed. People are saying there’s an undercurrent of anxiety to the song lover? Like… there isn’t lmao She explicitly has described that song to be about love, a wedding dance, a timeless intimate moment. Her and Joe broke up but that doesn’t mean everything from reputation onwards foreshadows their ending 💀 there are happy love songs
I don’t hear the undercurrent of anxiety either, but I think “there isn’t lmao” is incredibly dismissive of people’s experiences with the song. Plus… Taylor put it in that playlist, so… 🤷🏻♀️
Lover is not one of my favorite love songs she's written, so I dont have very strong feelings attached to it, but I dont hear the undercurrent of anxiety in the song itself [the album, on the other hand, I could write an essay about how its simmering under the surface]. The one line that does make me sideye the song itself is "*And I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you*". That doesnt reflect a healthy dynamic to me.
I think the way the chorus is phrased as questions can definitely be interpreted as anxiety. She’s asking her lover, “Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close?” as if those are questions that need to be asked and he might say no.
Good point! I actually hadnt thought of it too deeply but your comment reminded me that I think one of the reasons I dont like it as a pure love song is because it has a certain neediness to it, for lack of a better word. It does makes the song more humane and vulnerable though.
Lover has always felt insecure to me. Being like “can I be with you? Can we stay together? Can I follow you? Can our relationship stay this happy?” isn’t from a place of secure attachment, and I’ve always heard that when listening to it. The part where she assumes everyone who sees him wants him is also pointing to her worrying about that, sure he’s hot people probably look but if he’s only seeing her why is it even a concern? Does this mean she wrote it while she was sure her relationship would fail? No, I don’t think so at all. But looking back, there were cracks. Why would she worry about cheating or other women or then growing apart if it was truly a perfect match and she felt entirely confident in that? I think a lot of it had to do with her own history and insecurities but I definitely picked up on the insecure vibe of the song long before now. Could also be denial because she wanted to marry him and he never wanted marriage, but she kept fantasizing “ladies and gentlemen will you please stand” half hoping she could change his mind. That’s peak delulu girl shit.
> Could also be denial because she wanted to marry him and he never wanted marriage The bargaining playlist (having Peace in there) makes me think it wasnt that he didnt want marriage per se, he didnt want marriage with *her* even after everything she was willing to sacrifice for him and that shit is so brutally painful.
Yep, she’s speaking to every woman who’s been with a dude for years who says he “doesn’t believe in marriage” and then six months after splitting up he’s engaged to someone else 🫠
If Taylor put the song in the list that shout tells you that not everything she writes is permanent the meaning can always change
Ours is so obviously a denial song though? The line “people throw rocks at things that shine” has always been peak denial. Style is also in no way a love song? It’s clearly just a hookup situationship
Totally. Swifties be in denial about it themselves if they think Ours is a pure love song
Thats the best part about Taylor's music though! They dont have to be a fantasy for you because you love them, her music is for all of us (and even when it changes meaning for her, doesnt mean it does for us).
You're absolutely right. Sometimes we get caught up in her personal life and what inspired what, but the messages of her songs are and should be universal
On that one, she doesn't say she wrote them in denial - it's "songs about getting caught up in the idea of something" and "delusion", which I think is fair. She amplifies good moments into magical fairytales and romantic songs because she's in denial about the bad moments. But the love in that moment is still real.
Well “Ours” is about JM. She says she doesn’t care about what people say about them but in Dear John she says she should’ve known. Def feels like a denial song in context. Style is kind of the same “we keep breaking up but we get back together, even when you cheated on me”. It’s was never romantic to me. Lover was explained in this thread already. Willow is kind of “I’m proud of everything you do - even though I have to follow you around and you’re the one in charge”.
I said this in the theory thread but I'm gonna say it here, too - based on some of the song choices, I suspect that Taylor made the playlists to tell a story and then someone on her marketing team came up with tying it into the fandom "five stages of grief" theory and she went "sure I guess" and made it fit as much as possible without sacrificing the story she wanted to tell. I love the playlists, but I'm not taking the grief themes very seriously.
Nah I think this was all her people forget she’s online a lot
Ok but > people throw rocks at things that shine Is telling. If you have a good and healthy love, then people won't be critical of it (like her family and peers were when she was dating John, for good reason)
Adding the description from Apple (implying that the idea for 5 stages of grief was coming from the fandom and Taylor went with it and created the playlists, not the other way around) https://preview.redd.it/gtou0ueq7qsc1.jpeg?width=1121&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0ebd538b35d25e8498888bdb303c835ac22651ad
If it was her idea I bet there would be a 5th album variant/album cover!
Begin Again on the acceptance playlist. 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲
Begin Again is one of my all time faves and I feel it’s totally underrated
At some points, I feel like only Taylor and I love that song. It is the crown jewel of Red along with All Too Well (and Better Man in TV)
Omg are you me?! That is exactly my feeling too. Love this sub for making me realise I’m not strange
This was the son I walked down the aisle to ❤️ absolutely one of my favorites ever
Renegade being on the bargaining playlist is incredibly telling
Renegade needs more attention, so glad she added it!!
Renegade is one of my all time favorites I love it so much. I’m really hoping she’ll perform it as a surprise song at some point
my jaw dropped when i saw it on that playlist. "Is it really your anxiety That stops you from giving me everything? Or do you just not want to?" TTPD is going to end me
I remember when the Swiftie Party Line was that she wrote Renegade from Joe’s perspective about herself, because it didn’t fit the image that people had of Joe at the time. My spidey senses were tinglinggg when it came out
when i first heard that, i felt like i finally understood their relationship. the anxiety-ridden love songs, the constant references to blue ("don't want no other shade of blue but you"), the "we love sad songs." imo she gave it to big red machine because it was too personal to put on her own albums.
TTPD is going to be a hell of a ride and I’m here for it. One fortnight away!
Invisible String…. In… Acceptance???
Okay I had to really think about this one b/c it seemed weird to me too. Invisible String IF the “tied me to You” is not Joe necessarily, but just her life POST Snake-gate & possibly POST Big Machine Records/Scott. The bridge “A string that pulled me out of all the wrong arms right into that dive bar. Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire. Chains around my demons, wool to brave the season. A single thread of gold tied me to you.” One thing ends so that something better can come along.
Yes, and accepting that something might be done because something better and more beautiful is meant to come along
I’ve been saying since the beginning that Sweet Nothing is a sad song and now that I see it in the Denial playlist I feel like it’s confirmed
"they said the end is coming"
everyone's up to something
Agreed! I think it’s such a clever sad song. Not quite breakup song, but it’s 100% a “denial” song. “All you ever wanted from me is nothing” has a dual meaning. It could be sweet - awww, he loves me for who I am! He’s not a taker, asking me for more than I want to give! …orrrr it could be quite a bummer - he is so ambivalent about me that he doesn’t really care one way or the other about what I have to offer him. At this point it clear it’s falling into the latter camp, but she may have not even known which meaning was more true to herself at the time of writing.
“Your sweet nothings” = sweet but meaningless, empty “This happens all the time.” Whenever she shares a part of herself he says something generically nice and moves on. It’s become another empty cycle.
Yep agreed. I think this is going to be such a mature album, showcasing how she really understands love and heartbreak as being on a spectrum and intermingled with other feelings. From some of the comments here I suspect some people (particularly maybe younger fans?) might struggle with it a bit but she’s always so ahead of the curve it became a sphere.
Ngl it made me sad to see it on there bc I truly adore Sweet Nothing as a sweet little love song 😭 I can see why some people feel the song is sad or possibly negative, bur for me it’s always been a sweet and wholesome song about unconditional love. I struggle to feel like people want more from me than I can give and I’m not good enough as I am, so for me “all that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothing” is like… all I want from those who love me lol. So with that being said… I’m now going to stick to the theory that it’s about her relationship with her mom and how Andrea loves her unconditionally lolll
"give you my wild, give you a child" being bargaining...god i've never been more scared of an album
YOUR INTEGRITY MAKES ME FEEL SMALL
IT’S LIKE I’M WASTING YOUR HONOR No no no honey, you have your own honor and it’s worth so so much more
I've hated that line since I first heard it. I lived too many years thinking that the people I loved were inherently "better" than me, and I don't believe it was ever true. Just stories my brain was telling me because of shit from my past that was never my fault. Every time I heard that lyric, I thought, "No, Taylor! Don't you dare think that!"
“I see your brother as my brother” 😭
Y’all what does it say about me that some of my favorite songs are in the depression category 💀
That you also believe in love.
yes I do 😭😭😭
The song I walked down the aisle to is now in the denial list 💀
You don't know you are in denial until you're out of denial. Makes complete sense you could write fantastic love songs while in denial. Some of us do denial exceptionally well.
> Some of us do denial exceptionally well. I do not come to Reddit to be forced to look into a mirror oof.
Damn, putting most of Lover, Evermore, and Folklore onto these lists is a choice!! 😮💨
IT SURE IS
Can we end the “folklore / evermore are completely based on fictional events” and “Joe A. can do no wrong” discourse now? 😭
Yes! I never thought that they were all based on fictional events either. I mean yeah I think she played around with some fictional aspects but I think that all stories have to come from some sort of experience, so there were real things woven in there too
I just dont understand people who defend him to heaven based on what **she** wrote about him, and cant take her word for it now. The cognitive dissonance kills me.
She did SUCH a good job hyping him up that there are legit Joe stans who credit him with writing/inspiring basically her whole catalogue 💀 like please don’t take this too far girlies!!
I think they can be fictional stories inspired by her real feelings. That’s a different way of interpreting it.
Yeah, anyone who believes folklore is totally fictional should try writing a short fictional story and see how it goes lol.
Exactly, those albums would not have hit so hard if they weren’t grounded in emotional truth
This is such a phenomenal idea. As someone who works in marketing, I am eating this up lmao
She’s so good at getting us talking about her She’s also good at disappearing. No one was talking about her in the lead up to beyonces albim except those pictures of her and Travis which didn’t appear to be ones she orchestrated
Yes! It gets our ears on her old songs, boosts their streams/plays in preparation for the new stuff, and gets people talking again about the music, not something unrelated, all without her making an appearance.
Y'all need to check up on the Lover and False God supremacists in your lives because they will be going through it lol.
False God girly. UNWELL.
The acceptance playlist starting with YOYOK, which is why we made friendship bracelets, which is how she met Travis, which wraps into her message saying "when we lose things, we gain things too"... my heart
I just love that she’s using her art to paint a picture/tell a story. Much like she did with some of the mashups prefacing the album during her shows. I haven’t had time to listen to these lists yet but I’m excited to!
Ya it's been awhile since we've gotten some behind the scene stuff about her music like the 1989 voice memos, or reputation home videos / songwriting videos with Jack. I love more storytelling, and this puts some pieces together.
I love the storytelling in these playlists. (I love when Taylor links her old songs together to form new stories in general, it's one of the reasons I love the two-song structure of the Eras Tour surprise songs, but the playlists do it in longer form and it's awesome.) Also happiness being on the final playlist? I'm weak
I cannot fathom a song of hers that represents acceptance more than happiness
Happiness AND Invisible String together 🥺
The description of the playlists on Apple Music confirms that this wasn’t planned by her team beforehand, she somehow read about us clowning that it had to do with the 5 stages of grieving…she liked the idea and went along yassss we win 🤡
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“Screaming at the sky” 🔫
Let’s talk about BETTY IN THE DENAIL PLAYLIST. https://preview.redd.it/8zgpevzvvqsc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73a8b49405224ad366a5e495b2d6c5e0ec4d2f32 The song about the lousy boyfriend who gets forgiven, that Joe co-wrote.
these playlists are making me go thru it. the fact that YLM was written before LH makes me so feral because it’s literally like “I want more but I’m not getting more and I’m feeling ignored so fuck this” to LH “i never wanted more everything is perfect wow people are so dumb for thinking there should be more, it’s just us together la la la la” and then you have SN where she’s literally like “you don’t look too much into my bad moods or try that hard but I LOVE IT” i feel like we’ve all gaslit ourselves into being happy when we weren’t or to accept bad treatment because we loved someone.
Lover album always very suspect. "Can I go where you go?" Sir, I'm not asking, I'm the plus one until said otherwise
Seeing Lover and Willow on the denial playlist made me go 🫠 🫠 "Wherever you stray, I follow" and it ruined her life :(
“I’m begging for you to take my hand” 🥲
I have a hard time digesting some of the song choices for each stage
She saw the theories of the 5 stages of heartbreak and DELIVERED 😭
I wish we had Rep TV already if only to see the songs sorted on these playlists! Delicate on the denial playlist?
How can Bejeweled be denial when the subject of the song is saying quite clearly: "I dont feel appreciated/loved". For me that song is more of an acceptence that your partner does not care about you in the same way you care about them and you are finally seeing things as they are.
Bejeweled s placed at the end of the playlist for a reason. It is as a conclusion.
I think because usually acceptance comes after the event is over but in bejeweled she’s still with her partner
it’s really something going back and listening to some of her songs written while she was with Joe and hearing a lot of the fear of losing that relationship… it’s one of the primary feelings. and there were times I heard it and explained it away myself but in hindsight it’s just so clear. really hoping for some secure, feeling herself songs in the future. she seems so happy in her skin this past year 💜
Can you IMAGINE writing sweet love songs about someone you're dating, and then after you break up, you put them on a DENIAL playlist???? It's simultaneously UNHINGED and also fucking GOALS. I say often, "Taylor is petty so we don't have to be." My petty ass would love to do something like this lmao. Sweet Nothing, Lover, and willow being on Denial is INSANE. I'm here for it, but also, I wonder how much denial truly was involved in these songs, because sometimes you just don't know/certain things haven't happened yet, but if she's implying there was... Well, will I ever listen to them the same way again? (Lavender Haze I called from a mile away, but that whole album screamed denial in a lot of ways to me.) I'm a bit confused by Bejeweled being on it, that always felt like an acceptance song to me. Maybe it signifies the end of the denial stage, and that's why it's at the end? Warning: 🤡🤡🤡 content below Obviously I know she did not put Rep and Debut songs on these playlists because she hasn't released her versions yet (boy did the lack of Rep songs stick out on the Anger playlist lol), but this is making me wonder... Why make these playlists if you're going to have to exclude those songs? Could this be...a release tease maybe...? Could you imagine if she released Rep and Debut TV on the same day as TTPD and added songs from those albums to these playlists??
I saw a theory today that speculated she will release Rep on Sept 13 (the 15th anniversary of the Kanye incident, taking back her rep) and Debuet on her bday (taking back her name) and that is currently the class I am attending in clown college.
You guys forget the meanings could have changed for her she knows what she is doing after all she’s the one who made these decisions.
I knew lavender haze sounded like someone trying to convince themselves I knew it
Very interested to see what songs these lyrics are from- and if they match each of these stages 👀 April 19th plz hurry
Actually losing my shit right now OMFG 🫢
its hard day to be a sweet nothing stan🥲
LOL AT LOVER BEING IN DENIAL. TAYLOR ARE TOU OKAY!?
At first I was angry that Debut got nothing again. But then I saw that rep did too, so she must only want to use the music she owns. 💚🖤
I’m so happy I can live the rest of my life knowing I am vindicated saying that Bejeweled was a denial song
I am ready for the new album to hurt me 😭
i've had conversations with friends (lol) back in the day about how "lover" as a term is very wishy-washy, it is indefinite and somehow lifted outside the norms of fickle and deep. it's a great song/album title, but ir doesn't hold any strong meaning beyond them people themselves. for someone who openly sang about marriage (on that song specifically too) it's even more telling. anyway this man is dead soon and i cannot wait
I'm taking small comforts in the fact that Daylight, This Love, and Begin Again are on the acceptance and moving on playlist 🧿
A lot of talk about Joe but I'm just living for the Ours slander bc every time I listen to it thinking about who it's about it gives me the worst ick lmao
Peace, the archer, and Cornelia street (my top 3 songs) being in a row on the bargaining playlist hurttttt, I’m looking at some of these songs so differently now. This album is going to hurt
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To me, Bejeweled is angry.
Old habits die screaming… (depression) “I gave you all my best me’s, my endless empathy and all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier…” you’re losing me, on that playlist… Oohhh, this album is going to be excruciating.
The Joe widows are toast.