#fortnight ft. post malone

[paintedmered]

lyrical analysis of fortnight (ft. post malone) by taylor swift

disclaimers

my analysis will consider the album epilogue, in which taylor explains that her relationship with matty was 'not a love affair!' but a form of 'self-harm' stemming from a 'manic phase' as her relationship with joe disintegrated and then completely fell apart· it will take into account taylor saying matty 'love-bombed' her while feasting on 'low-hanging fruit'.

idc what matty stans think. i'm analysing taylor's perspective, not yours.

if you disagree with my interpretation, you don't need to attack me.

analysis!

based on taylor's amazon music commentary and my own interpretation of the song, fortnight seems to be a hypothetical future where she stays with joe and they get married, but he's not the person she's meant to be with. it picks up where hits different leaves off ('is it you or have they come to take me away?' / 'i was supposed to be sent away, but they forgot to come and get me') – after the break described in hits different, joe returned to her (it was his key in the door, after all) and they gave the relationship another try... but they shouldn't have. she needed out of it for the sake of her mental health. no one intervened, and she now wishes they had. saying they simply 'forgot' to come get her shows how she feels like she slipped through the cracks... (this also calls back to 'my friends found friends who care' from dear reader. she's been checked out with them, so they've been checked out with her.) a similar sentiment is given by 'i was a functioning alcoholic 'til nobody noticed my new aesthetic'. no one noticed how much she was struggling. now she feels more unwell than ever.

the relationship has progressed to the point that they're husband and wife, but their problems haven't been solved... he's cold towards her. he's cheating on her. (this represents the emotional cheating or weird almost-cheating that's implied elsewhere on the album to have actually happened ('he was with her in dreams' / 'fell victim to interloper's glances' / 'i founded the club she's heard great things about' / 'go home to their husbands, smug 'cause they know they can trust him') but also how she feels like his physical cheating is therefore inevitable in this hypothetical future.)

she wants another guy (matty), but he's also married to someone else now. she recalls/fantasises about a fortnight she spent with this guy (likely representing 2014, though whether it was literally or figuratively a fortnight is unclear – the point is that it was a short time). all her days are mondays (widely considered the worst day of the week) in an endless february (one of the coldest, most depressing months of the year) – her existence is merely something to endure. she 'loves' both men, but it's ruining her life. (one is unfaithful and keeps her trapped ('locks and ceilings' on fresh out the slammer), while the other makes her dream of destroying her life as she knows it...) she hates her cheating husband. she hates the other guy's perfectly nice wife. she feels insane and wants to kill someone.

taking the album epilogue into account, my reading of this is: fortnight was the fear – what she saw as the situation taken to its logical end if she didn't leave joe. matty whispered 'what if?' in her ear a lot when things were bad with joe, selling her the 'get-love-quick scheme' referred to in the epilogue – 'what if it's meant to be us? i've always wanted you. i've grown up. i'm ready to give you all the things you want that he won't give you!' ...and in her desperation, she thought, 'what if he's right? what if joe isn't my destined love? what if i stay with him just hoping things will be good again but they never are? what if i'm not meant to marry him anyway? what if i regret not taking a chance on this other guy, and he was meant to be the one all along?' (this is despite the fact that they were only ever involved very briefly in the past, possibly betraying that this 'love' is superficial. she's an unreliable narrator from the beginning of this record, and reality consistently slips through. she touched him for only a fortnight... still, she touched him. some important subtext here is that means she doesn't have to start all over with someone brand new...)

ultimately, she HAS to find out 'what if?'. so at the end of the song, she runs away to florida, buys the car this guy wants and lets him touch her again. there's a LOT of symbolism here: the car she thinks she's bought is actually the rental car he crashes in loml – it's not really hers, just something she uses for a short period of time. the setting of florida leads to the song florida, which contains the same/similar symbolism in the form of the 'timeshare down in destin'. the car is also a getaway car. it will only start up when she lets him touch her again because she's realised the only way to leave her relationship with joe and find out 'what if?' with matty is to actually just DO IT – to go be with him instead of just thinking about being with him (see also: guilty as sin?).

...the rest of the album is her realising she wishes she'd just left it alone ('it was unnecessary, should've let it stay buried' from loml). (this is also why the ivy/wcs mashup happened on tour, imo – he planted roots in her dreamland... but now that she knows, she wishes he'd left her wondering!)

- END -

analysis of other tracks coming soon?

[aidenelsa]

and i won't confess that i waited but i let the lamp burn as the men masqueraded i hoped you'd return with your feet on the ground tell me all that you'd learned cause love's never lost when perspective is earned and you said you'd come and get me but you were 25 and the shelf life of those fantasies has expired lost to the lost boys chapter of your life forgive me peter, please know that i tried to hold onto the days when you were mine but the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light

[imgondeletedis]

hey guys so

who would be interested if i wrote a mini-series Benedict bridgerton x reader, like a dark multi-shot, might or might not be inspired by fortnight by Taylor Swift because in my opinion one of the complex songs on this album, you've got to trust the process, I MIGHT GET A LOT OF BLACK LASH BUT ALRIGHT I am kinda proud of it, gonna include a slight cheating warning. So who wants to be on the taglist?

Gif not mine obviously.

Will also post on ao3 if someone's actually interested hehehe

[th30ra3k3n]

I love you, it's ruining my life

(I love you, it's ruining my life)

I touched you for only a fortnight

(I touched you, I touched you)

[theysaidspeaknoww]

'Til nobody noticed my new aesthetic...

[lyricallyiinlove]

fortnight, taylor swift ft. post malone

[mastermindmp3]

ttpdminutes - fortnight ft. post malone

The idea of a 50s housewife is very like, ubiquitous in American culture, and the reexamining of that stereotype is, in it's own way, a stereotype ( think the Stepford Wives. ) Fortnight, I think, is Taylor's imagining on this ( as confirmed in her IHeartRadio interviews, ) weaving personal experience with a slice of very specific Americana.

Taylor's take is somewhere between the Joneses of 1950s advertisements, and Stepford, Connecticut; a wife forever longing for her previous lover, who's since moved on. She clearly struggles with depression (stuck in an endless February,) and I think her lack of love only exacerbates the feeling of being stuck.

Fortnight feels stuck in a lot of way. The narrator lamenting her previous love, stewing in murderous drive. The feeling is helped by a repetitive beat, and coming back to that refrain. Her husband is cheating, she fantasizes of killing him. Her lover sees her at the mailbox and makes small talk, as if he's not the lohl (love of her life.)

The love she keeps coming back to, like repeating the outro, that everyone else has moved past.

Honestly, I love the very scant imagery the song. It allows the song to have its own identity outside of the main metaphor ( unlike some songs, which get smothered in the metaphor without going anywhere. ) while still tying into those touchstones - meeting at the mailbox, watering flowers in suburbia's plasticine lawns.

[texashippiecowboy]

there’s something to be said about how when she takes the Forget Him drug she finds herself covered in tattoos almost like the effects of the drugs she’s taking are physically manifesting

and then the first time we see Him, he’s covered in tattoos

she’s clean and they are writing together while she’s pining for him. when they get together for a short time they are both clean

next we see her being experimented on and he’s covered in tattoos again

and when she gets tortured and he pulls the plug she notices his tattoos again

[yellowsugarwords]

𝙸 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞, 𝚒𝚝'𝚜 𝚛𝚞𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎

fortnight / taylor swift ft. post malone

[bluewhiteseagull]

FORTNIGHT (FEAT. POST MALONE) BLOND:ISH REMIX [Concept]

By bluewhiteseagull

@taylorswift @taylornation

[swanandstar]

marauders as TTPD songs pt 1

Fortnight (feat Post Malone): This song is so Jegulus coded. Regulus as Taylor and James as Post Malone. The first lines are so Regulus. “I was supposed to be sent away but they forgot to come and get me/ I was a functioning alcoholic/ ‘til nobody noticed my new aesthetic.” The people that forgot to come and get him are his parents and the functioning alcoholic but us after him and James breaking up being self destructive.

The chorus is James and Regulus interacting “And for a fortnight there, we were forever/ Run into you sometimes, ask about the weather/ Now you're in my backyard, turned into good neighbors/ Your wife waters flowers, I wanna kill her.” Regulus is jealous of Lily and bringing up him and James’s past.

“I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary/ And I love you, it's ruining my life” The miracle move on drug is a rebound like Barty but Barty is cheating with Evan which ties into the later line “my husband is cheating, I wanna kill him.” “I love you it’s ruining my life” is because all he can think about is James and their past. James repeats it because he’s still in love with Regulus even though he is with Lily.

The last couple of lines “Thought of callin' ya, but you won't pick up/ 'Nother fortnight lost in America/ Move to Florida, buy the car you want/ But it won't start up 'til you touch, touch, touch me” is James talking to Regulus. He wants to rekindle their relationship but he doesn’t know if Regulus is interested. America is representing Lily. The last two lines are saying that he can do what he wants but not to do it without James by his side.

I don’t really know if this makes sense but ever since I heard this song, this is all I can think about. Please someone tell me i’m not crazy lol.

[artemis-de-la-lune]

ttpd ft. dps i.e., knox and todd was not on my 2024 bingo card but it wasn't surprising either ahsjskldld max exciteeee

[euryvices]

"I was a functioning alcoholic" "they won't remember all my champagne problems" WHEN I TELL YOU I CRIED

[imgondeletedis]

~𝒊 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖. 𝒊𝒕’𝒔 𝒓𝒖𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒚 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆.~ || 𝚊 𝙱𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚝 𝙱𝚛𝚒𝚍𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚘𝚗 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚒-𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜. || 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚋𝚢 𝚃𝚊𝚢𝚕𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚠𝚒𝚏𝚝 𝚏𝚝. 𝙿𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝙼𝚊𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚎

pairing: Benedict Bridgerton X fem!reader

a/n: that's a snack before the meal hehehe, this prologue is from the reader's pov,, the next chapters will all be from third person's pov haha,, also pleaseeeee benophie fans don't hate me, I'm not gonna hurt ur girl sophie dww hehehe. this is obviously inspired by the first verse of the song. I hope this mini-series lives up to y'all's expectations ahaha

Word count: 358 (it is js the beginning trust me)

Warnings: umm I don't really think there's anything to warn the reader is slightly insane (ig?) that's all but like aren't we all lmfaoa

The mini-series' masterlist

next chapter

𝟎𝟎-𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞:

“ 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐓𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞.”

asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum asylum.

That's probably where I should be right now. Instead I am here, in the Canary Islands, in Spain.

so far away from London, from home, from him. The gossip flowing around is true. He's the torment, bless, curse, and love of my life. He's none other than the artistic

Benedict Bridgerton.

It's the year 1819.

Benedict Bridgerton got married 2 years ago. From what I've heard, he married that beautiful woman called Sophie, 2 years ago, he had a son last year, another this year, Which is funny.

Benedict and I always used to talk about how we'd both love and would be great parents to a girl. Together.

Now he's all married off, to another woman, and has 2 boys, funny isn't it?

Life may lack a lot of things, one thing it surely can and would never lack is the element of surprise, the dynamatic plot-twists,and turns.

4 years ago , I would've sworn to you that he was the one for me, honestly I still do think so, no matter how insane that sounds, I mean I know I can't say the same thing about me to him, because apparently he's content with his current life, but I am not with mine.

I can't exactly say I am happy for him but I do hope he's okay. Even if he's the literal reason for why I turned out in such a way.

You see you can't live without having a story to tell, an explanation to explain, so let me tell you ours, mine. And you be the judge of that…

taglist🏷️💓🫶:

@skyrigel @avngrssckr @preetrambles @ephemeral-oasis @basekpagalsiladki @ihateitheretaylor @littlebitb

another a/n hehehe: did you notice that i made her residing in the canary islands which was THE FLORIDA of their time??? (according to my research ofc) this is just a reminder that NOTHING IS A COINCIDENCE WITH ME. and ive learnt it from the best (catlady taytay)🤭🤭

[lyricallyiinlove]

fortnight, taylor swift ft. post malone