All You Had To Do Was Stay (that’s how it works that’s) How You Get The Girl: A few general observations.
I. All You Had to Do Was Stay and How You Get the Girl were the first two songs to be written for 1989, on the 10th and 15th January 2013 respectively.
II. The way Taylor has described the inspiration for AYHTDWS - as a dream involving an ex who turned up unexpectedly on her doorstep in the hopes of rekindling their relationship - is unmistakably reminiscent of HYGTG. (x) (x)
III. There are parallels in both cases with White Horse (which may be of relevance when it comes to deciding precisely what, if any, relation these songs bear to reality). Thus:
‘Now it’s too late for you and your white horse to come around’ is partially echoed by All You Had To Do Was Stay’s ‘Now you say you want it back/now that it’s just too late.’
It’s just occurred to me that I Wish You Would might be considered a further elaboration on the same theme, with the third verse perhaps consciously alluding - either by condensing or offering a possible conclusion - to the events narrated by HYGTG/AYHTDWS.
That Taylor (in Tokyo) contextualised IWYW generally as a ‘cinematic’ fantasy of the type with which HYGTG has itself been thought analogous is interesting. As more importantly, is the fact that she later introduced the third verse with the following words:
‘And then at the end of the movie, the person shows up, right at the right time and says exactly what the other wanted to hear. At 2.am’
This perfectly describes the conditions under which the re-conciliatory doorstep conversation of HYGTG/AYHTDWs is supposed (actually or otherwise) to have happened.
I was doing some reading and (re)discovered this:
So who’s Drew in “Teardrops on My Guitar”?
He was a guy who I met freshman year of high school. He had the most beautiful eyes and this amazing smile. He was so cute and
nice–and he talked to me every day…about his girlfriend! Which is like the screeching brake sound. But I had it bad for him. And I just kept thinking, Why am I so invisible to him? Why does he have to have a girlfriend? I never told him that I liked him, but I did write a song with his name on it–so I think he knows now.
Actually, he showed up in my driveway a couple months ago, and it was like in the movies where at the end the guy shows up in your driveway, and you have this awesome kiss – except it’s three years too late. I’m like, Why didn’t you do this years ago?!? He was a stranger by then, so I felt like I didn’t know him anymore.
Seventeen Magazine, 29th December 2008 (X / X)
When considered with the arguments presented above about HYGTG and AYHTDWS, and Taylor’s fascination more generally with the lyrical motif ‘ex-lovers on a doorstep,’ this is interesting for what it implies about the tension between imagination and reality in her lyrics. It suggests that a particular (personal) experience might plausibly be (re)imagined after the event and used subsequently to introduce a variety of new circumstances (actual or fantastic) with which it is implicitly compared, but to which it is most probably unrelated. (The same actors are not involved.)
ETA (24/04/2018): Given that the first song to be inspired by this historical experience (with Drew) – The Other Side of the Door – was written in 2007, Taylor’s claim that ‘he showed up in my driveway a couple of months ago’ (as of November/December 2008) is at best inaccurate and at worst a lie.
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