#and now taylor has a song about her

[yannisdesk]

Cassandra has really become a muse for me these last few months. I just want to know everything about her.

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

I’ve said it before but I will say it again, “Midnight Rain” and in particular the lyrics “I guess sometimes we all get/some kind of haunted,/some kind of haunted/And I never think of him/Except on midnights like this…” is a thesis of Taylor’s work and understanding how she process her experiences through her writing.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Randomly thinking about “tolerate it” (narrator voice: it was not random) and how under the cloak of fiction it is ostensibly inspired by works like “Rebecca” (which Taylor said she read during the 2020 lockdowns I believe?), with the line of “you’re so much older and wiser” indicating that the speaker is significantly younger and inexperienced compared to the person she’s speaking to and a pretty direct reference to the plot of the book.

But I saw something somewhere once that stuck with me about how it might not be referring to relative age between the characters but chronological age as in the passage of time in a relationship. And that made me think about how in a contemporary context, it might not necessarily be referencing an actual age gap between the two characters, but rather a sarcastic or cynical response to the man’s claims that he has matured (“you’re so much older and wiser [than you were before/than you were when we met/etc.]”), which then made me think about that line in relation to the woman. And that it could be taken like, “you act like you’ve matured so much in our time together and like you know everything, while I’m supposedly still stuck as the girl I was when we first met.”

Which then made me think of the “right where you left me” of it all and did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen time went on for everyone else she won’t know it and the bit in Miss Americana where she talks about how celebrities get frozen at the age at which they got famous, and how she’s had to play catch up in a lot of ways not just in her emotional growth but kind of in general. (Which also made me wonder if she’s ever been called out for immaturity/lack of curiosity/lack of education about things in her life…)

Which then made me think about the rest of the song, and @taylortruther’s posts yesterday about “seven” and “Daylight” and the way Taylor idealizes her youth yet contrasts it with an almost sinister reality in its wake, and the line, “I sit by the door like I’m just a kid,” because the discussion raised that her relationship let her recapture some of the childlike joy and wonder she’d lost. So this line is a double-edged sword: the speaker sits by the door with childlike hope that the person will come home and cherish her, but on the darker side, feels like the child dealing with the monsters she doesn’t have names for yet and the feelings of isolation she felt as she aged.

I’m not saying the song is necessarily autobiographical; like most of the songs on folkmore, it’s clearly a fictionalized story based on media she’d consumed and created, but we know a lot of the fictional songs were infused with her own feelings and experiences and… This idea swirling in my head picked up steam and now I kind of can’t stop thinking about it. Sorry but I’m a little obsessed now.

Like maybe it might start to shed light on why she identified so strongly with the novel in the first place…

[rosalesbeausderholle]

At the end of the day, it just really sucks when you can't even enjoy a new release by your favorite artist because the greater internet has decided she's their acceptable outlet of misogyny and they have to comment or hate on her every move every single time.

[folklouire]

head full of love and appreciation for folklore and evermore. head full

[jakeperalta]

I never really got it when people would talk about getting the ick but alas. now I do

[maddy-ferguson]

i can't believe we have gay sabrina truthers now that's how you know she's really made it

[kazoosandfannypacks]

1989 is so ScarletQueen coded and I will die on this hill.

[djarinova]

from an article titled "I’m a Swiftie, but the staggering size of the Eras tour has left me feeling alienated"

girl im not sure you are a swiftie if you're saying the anthology is full of forgettable songs...

[mimiatmidnight]

Will you be commenting on the Taylor drama?

I love the way this was worded, like I'm one of the siblings on Succession and the press has cornered me outside my penthouse to ask if I'll be releasing a statement on my family's latest scandal. Hehehe anyways.

Sorry but I just don't understand how anyone is shocked. Truly what has that woman ever done to successfully convince people that this is out of character for her. Like I don't want to diminish anyone's pain or anything but I see all these stans on here and over on Twitter in all this distress, having their very first epiphanies like "Hold on . . . does Taylor . . . suck??" And I kinda just have to chuckle at them cause like bless your hearts babes, but omg catch UP 😭

Lol because 1) she is a severely emotionally stunted person who thinks edgy British "bad boys" are hot like she's 12 years old, 2) she has no true deeply-held moral principles outside of issues that directly affect herself, and 3) truthfully, she seems to be suffering from a serious crisis of identity after the end of the longest and most significant romantic relationship of her life, and in my opinion is pretty clearly desperate to prove something to the world/her ex/herself.

The first reason is cringe but not news to longtime viewers, the second reason is pathetic but also not news (to those who can be honest with themselves), and the third is . . . understandable in some sense, but not pitiable enough to make me willing to humor this insufferable little episode she's having. I wish her luck on this humiliating rebound journey, but she is gonna have to walk that road on her own.

Normally, I always roll my eyes when people make these kinds of jokes, but given the circumstances I feel justified in saying: I can't wait to hear the breakup song about him, sis 🤡

[iammissingautumn]

okay but honestly imagine dating taylor swift and she releases So High School like that’s embarrassing i’m all for hating or loving taylor swift or whatever but like. she creates all of Lover. Imagine someone wrote Daylight and then releases So High School. Imagine your partner wrote Paper Rings for an ex and then wrote So High School for you. like that’s embarrassing. i would be embarrassed.

[titsthedamnseason]

to be completely honest with you i usually get a little disappointed when i see a feature on a track list even when i like the featured artist because i tend to enjoy taylor’s solo songs more. but something about fortnight and florida!!! have made them two of my most anticipated songs on the album. like probably both top 5.

[letterstotheflre]

great. people have already started calling taylor a slut again and it’s not even been a day

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

“Back to December” is such a bittersweet song, but I think in light of everything we know now, the post-Dear John, WCS, I Can See You of it all, there’s something even more poignant about it.

On the surface, it’s an apology to a boy whose heart she broke because she just didn’t love him enough at the time, and how much she misses these very innocent things about him — his sweet smile, his tan skin lol that line always makes me laugh though, his uncomplicated love. It’s a romance that’s painted with summer sunshine and easy affection.

But as we know with later songs, at this point it wasn’t enough. She was tempted by the “forbidden fruit,” the thrill of the chase, the furtive glances and electric touch (lol sorry) of someone else and followed the path to desire. (OK that feels a little gross to type out, but you know what I mean.)

And as we also know, that experience, that fall from grace as it were, is one of the single most traumatizing experiences of her life. The god’s honest truth is that the pain was heaven, maybe, but it came at the cost of the very person she thought she was, and is something she’s been trying to rebuild over and over again ever since.

Which is why “Back to December” is so sad to me, taken in that context. It’s like she’s not just wistful for a sweet relationship that fizzled and the boy she left behind; she’s yearning for the very idea of what that relationship represented. The summer car rides, the laughs, the earnestness of their youth. She wants her girlhood back and this is the last moment she had it in her reaches before it was taken from her before she was ready.

And then the cold came, the dark days

When fear crept into my mind

You gave me all your love and all I gave you was goodbye

In the context of the songs that came in years to follow, we know those dark days are not just from their breakup; someone made her days very, very dark, and she’s replaying the moment before that penny dropped.

But if we loved again, I swear I'd love you right

Sure, the song is about making amends to the boy for breaking his heart, wishing she could get a do-over, but given how these themes are explored afterwards, it feels like it means more than that. Because after this point in time, she knows exactly how it feels not to be loved right, and she’s desperate to go back to a time when her world made sense.

I'd go back to December, turn around and change my own mind —> And I'll look back and regret how I ignored when they said, "Run as fast as you can" —> I regret you all the time

It’s just a constant loop of, this is the moment everything changed, and this is the last time I felt safe.

And then the last thing that just kind of clicked for me, is the recurring theme of reliving a moment over and over again and being unable to let it go. In Back to December, she’s replaying the moment she let him go, but again in light of what we know now, I don’t think it’s a reach to relate to the other closely related memories she relives in spite of herself. There are other examples of the theme of memories in her discography I’m sure, but this is obviously the one that sticks out in this discussion:

I go back to December all the time —> Memories feel like weapons —> The tomb won't close, stained glass windows in my mind

Sure I may be seeing things where there are none, but to me, underneath the puppy-love surface of “Back to December” are the seeds of trauma at work, yearning to return to a time before it happened and staying on the same “righteous” course with the right boy, the right behaviour, the right responses. She may not have the words to voice them at the time, but the feeling permeates all of her writing. Speak Now the album(s) is all about the things she wished she’d said or done in the moment, and this right here is one of the most poignant ones for so many reasons.

TL;DR: apologies to the boy in question, but it isn’t just about you.

[hanthecannibal]

"the new taylor swift song destroys harry styles" does it though??? so he sleeps around with models??? how is this new and damning information???

[whogirl42]

Omg Taylor's vocals are so beautiful in Speak Now (Taylor's version)