the breathless, wailing anguish with which she howls "take me HOOOOOoooooome" as she finally gives in to her vices, her weaknesses, knowingly but willingly. because she's so tired of doing the right thing, the smart thing, so lonely, so hopeful, and soooo horny she's helpless against self destruction. A song so unflinching in its awareness of that while also unapologetic in her choice to fully throw herself into temptation.
and even still the continued breathless, endless questioning in out of the woods. is this it? is it finally over? when it be over? when will someone just love her, and when will she stop doubting that they don't? when will this cycle of searching and heartbreak end? the way the song ends, so desperate is she for guidance that her voices harmonize together in a nearly religious choir, calling to the heavens for an answer. utterly lost, screaming into the forest doubting everything she remembers, was it real? can she even remember herself?
In I wish you would, how she turns a quiet, fleeting moment of laying in bed, watching headlights crawl across her bedroom wall though the gap in her curtains into a bombastic tour through all the regrets and dashed hopes that fly through her head. how you can mentally run through the span of fifty emotions over the course of ten seconds.
wildest dreams where the song is paced using her own heartbeat i mean what a clever way to quite literally let you into her heart
also in wildest dreams, giving into the idea that maybe this is what she deserves maybe, all she deserves. it's all she'll ever be, just a memory to someone and so in that fatalist acceptance, she's determined to at least make sure she's a phenomenal memory. and she asks them to lie to her, just this once. she doesn't ask for anything else, just to be told one time that she's worth remembering. an incredibly vulnerable thing to admit about how you see yourself and how dark of a place to be mentally.
the murky, wobbly synth and wistful whispery voices on this love. the whole song sounding like a fog or like wading in the tide as it ebbs and flows. so tactile in how it renders the feeling of wading through the fog a breakup or dissolution. not sure what the right thing to do is, to turn around and fight for them, to let them go, to move on. a song where she's so lost, she surrenders her fate completely and accepts whatever happens will happen and completely succumbs to the current, wherever it takes her and whatever it brings. she has to believe they'll come back on their own because there's nothing else to do now. she's done everything she could and it's just up to the tides of fate.
i mean clean?? hello??? one of the most apt metaphors for breaking up with someone when the relationship was intense and maybe codependent or manipulative. how addiction can be a person, and all the same trappings apply. how the whole album was her struggling through that. revisiting it over and over, how hard it is to try to live without them, as if it feels like drowning. but ultimately finding a baptism of self in the drowning, being the one to save herself for the first time, realizing she could save herself. revolutionary idea for the person who wrote all 4 prior albums, a monumental moment of growth. while still acknowledging that the itch to return to them will always linger, but recognizing that that's not love or fate or destiny like she once thought it was. it's just her insecurities trying to drag her back into bad habits, ultimately pulling the monster out from under the bed and in the harsh light of day, seeing it for what it is and rendering it unable to fool her anymore. one of the most pivotal moments in her mental and emotional growth as a person that she's ever discussed in her art. Where she completely abandons the fairytale idea of fate and destiny and begins to embrace her autonomy.
bonus of YAIL being one of the quietest, most intimate and mundane stories of love she’s ever written. how poignant for it to come after the bombastic pop and clashing synths of the sweeping and tragic romances regaled on the entire album. as if to say nah, real love, true love is in the quiet, unremarkable moments. the synths and echoes used again here but in a more dreamy, ethereal way, as if it's not happening quite yet but it's a wish for something totally different than she had before, something she should have wished for all along. a beautiful contrast!!
also just i'm sorry but blank space was so clever, maybe you had to be there but for her to come out with this song after the Red era and just.... absolutely destroy the pervading narrative about her with a sledgehammer but in the most tongue and cheek way, the most above it all way. like look how stupid you sound? this is the person you think i am? do you hear how ridiculous this shit is? get a grip! she not only made them into the fool and came off smarter and savvier than anyone else, she made BANK off of their stupidity. slay of the century!!!
basically 1989 is the rawest and most honest depiction of a woman in her 20s at some of the lowest points your 20s can bring. how through that time, as you figure out who you're supposed to be as an adult, you completely lose sight of who you are, and because of that you feel the lowest about yourself you may ever feel in your life. You let yourself get treated horribly and you begin to wonder if this is all there is. and it's awful and it feels endless and so lonely because you feel like the only person going through it, that everyone else knows something you don't, and that you're pathetic and worthless for falling so behind everyone else. but at the same time your 20s are soooooo fun and exciting and liberating because of your first foray into independent adulthood, so to lay unapologetically pop instrumentals over these crushing feelings is genius. it's the whiplash of that time in your life, the oscillation making each feeling of euphoria and devastation that much more potent. And how she emotes on this album is unlike anything else! She’s theatrical with her syllables and delivery as if she might never get the chance to say any of this again!
but also, the perhaps unconscious metaphor she presented that so many people, fans included, seem to fall victim to. the idea that oh, it's just pop music, it's not that deep, it's soulless and vapid. only serious music can actually be emotional, when the words she's saying and the hard truths about herself she's conveying are raw and bleeding open wounds. repetition isn't laziness, but a manifestation of anxiety and building tension. heavy synths and electro-pop stylings aren't soulless compared to guitars, but a way to unground you from reality and give you that atmosphere of disorientation and so as she grapples with losing her bearings, so do you. it's a musical allegory for how in your twenties someone can outwardly be having the time of their life, but inwardly be the lowest they've ever been. it's the eternal duality of your 20s, rendered so beautifully and harnessing musical stylings so masterfully to convey this experience. i'll defend it forever for that reason and implore people to reexamine their view of pop music and pop instrumental compositions as less artistic achievements and less emotional than acoustic ballads. sadness isn't the only vulnerable emotion. confusion, anger, anxiety, frustration are all profound and loud emotions that deserve an electric guitar because sometimes words aren't enough for how much you're feeling, and it's up to a cacophonous soundscape of electric guitars and moog synthesizers and your own cathartic screams to fill in the rest.
blakekathryn
janainaart
jacobvanloon
gummygunk
yousharknotpass
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