#whoever the song was initially about she’s clearly reassigning it

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Thinking about “evermore,” as you do, and something struck me about it this afternoon.

One of the things I love about the song is its imagery. It’s a song about the depths of grief and sadness (and depression), but instead of saying it explicitly, it’s all about conveying it with the mood. E.g. “Gray November, I’ve been down since July” = been in the pits of it for months, “Motion caption put me in a bad light” = freeze framing a bad time in your mind (or in the minds of others), “I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone, trying to find the one where I went wrong” = mulling over your actions over and over again trying to figure out if it’s something you did that has led you here, what you could have done differently to prevent this from happening, etc. “Writing letters addressed to the fire” = thinking of the million different ways you could have said something (or done something) but never being able to do anything about it, basically screaming into the void. And so on.

You’ve got all the imagery of being stranded alone in the winter cold, waves crashing, etc. Which on the surface lends itself to the “Victorian cabin” mood of the folklore/evermore era that Taylor talks about in her speeches every night at her concerts, but obviously stands in for feeling lonely and alone and unbalanced, and fighting your way back to yourself after going through the depths of despair.

One of the curious parts I’ve been thinking of is that the verses and the chorus are very self-centered — not in a narcissistic way, but in the sense that it’s very much about the narrator’s feelings of loss and isolation. Then the bridge hits and in the cracks of light “I thought of you,” dreamed of you, etc. Because “you were there,” and thats’s when the story flips from insurmountable pain to the first rays of hope by the end of the song.

But the one part that really struck me today was, “And I was catching my breath, floors of a cabin creaking under my step,” specifically because she’s talked so much about the fantasy cabin on tour. When I used to listen to the song, I loved the imagery (and sound) of that line, because she’s finally on solid ground after being tossed and turned in the water, but in light of how she’s talked about where her imagination took her in 2020, it also strikes me (intentional or not) as a metaphor for that whole uneasy period of the pandemic lockdowns. Taylor has talked about how the fantasy cabin sparked her imagination and set off this creative streak that hasn’t really stopped since. I almost wonder if “floors of a cabin creaking under my step” leading into “And I couldn’t be sure, I had a feeling so peculiar, this pain wouldn’t be for evermore,” can also be seen as, using this creative outlet (her music/the cabin) to process these feelings, and particularly in that point in time, to ground her and bring her back to herself. The creaking floors being the reminder that she will be whole once again, the metaphorical creaking in her mind being the spark of ideas leading to her most introspective work. “It was real enough to get me through,” like getting lost in these fantasies was enough to get through the worst patch, and in the end, it’s what ended up bringing her back to life (metaphorically of course).

I don’t necessarily think that was what the song set out to be, but given the narrative around the cabin in her mind etc., I just think it’s a neat coincidence at the very least that when she was feeling unmoored and “on waves out being tossed,” the metaphorical floors under her reminded her (and by her, I mean whoever the narrator was or will be) that the ground will be steady again under her, because it always will be when she goes back to doing what she loves.

Anyway. I love this song, why do you ask?