A Gaylor/Kaylor Interpretation of "Cardigan" ‘Cause It’s Karlie’s Birthday
Overblown Analysis Under the Cut ↓
"Vintage tee, brand new phone // High heels on cobblestones // When you are young, they assume you know nothing // Sequin smile, black lipstick // Sensual politics // When you are young, they assume you know nothing"
I think these lines could describe Taylor in real life pretty well, through some of her eras, and therefore James. "Vintage tee, brand new phone // High heels on cobblestones" sounds like the early stages of her career. I know of at least one set of photos from her debut album's photoshoot where she wears what could pass as a vintage tee. Younger people often value vintage aesthetics and might be teased or judged by adults who find it pretentious, "fake nostalgia", or vapid. The aesthetics of her eras have often had vintage influences and she seems fond of vintage or old history, referencing Shakespeare, old niche queer history, and plenty of other examples. This was especially true for this album and many of the ones after it.
"Brand new phone" could be a reflection of the times during the first half of Taylor's career, as technology was rapidly improving and young people were often blamed for the new issues arising from it that they were both the victims and perpetrators of, such as online bullying.
"High heels on cobblestones" could reference the high heels Taylor often wears, as well as a reference to James "walkin' home on broken cobblestones" in "Betty".
"Sequin smile, black lipstick // Sensual politics" is the other half of her career at that point. A "sequin smile" paired with "black lipstick" sounds much like the Reputation era and how Taylor's aesthetic changed to black, but she seemed happier and healthier than ever. "Sensual politics" refers to the Lover era, as Taylor spoke about several politics in a way she never had before, including queer rights, which could be described as "sensual politics".
Older people often don't realize how smart younger people can be, assuming that they are dumb and often not afraid to tell them to their face. When it comes to queer people especially if they come out at a young age, they'll often be met with questions from older people like, "How do you know?" when straight people don't get the same types of questions because everyone is assumed straight.
"But I knew you // Dancin' in your Levi's // Drunk under a streetlight, I // I knew you // Hand under my sweatshirt // Baby, kiss it better, I // And when I felt like I was an old cardigan // Under someone's bed // You put me on and said I was your favorite"
Betty is aware that she knows James despite being assumed to know nothing, expanding on her description of him. With Betty often being seen as a fictionalized version of Karlie in gaylor spaces, "Dancin' in your Levi's" is both a reference to the clothing brand and a subtle reference to Karlie's first son Levi, who was born in the months after Folklore and Evermore's releases. I see the wording choice of "your Levi's" as also doubling as a slight clue that Levi is considered both Kar and Taylor's kid. As if to say, "Levi belongs to Taylor, who is James." I personally think that Karlie and Taylor consider themselves the parents of Levi, Elijah, and the currently upcoming baby girl, legally, spiritually, or what have you. I've never personally found a reason for me to think that the kids aren't theirs, but I get that others do, and I won't bash such a personal opinion. (Silly little tidbit that means nothing: whenever I think of this line, I picture the character of James dancing in Levi's boxers, specifically, though that probably was not the intention. I don't know why. And I assume he's not doing that under a streetlight outside in public, but drunk people do weird things sometimes...)
I do wonder if James's being drunk despite being underage at 17, is supposed to be a parallel to Taylor being a "functioning alcoholic," as she calls herself in "Fortnight," them both having not-so-great drinking habits.
To feel like an "old cardigan // Under someone's bed" is to feel discarded and forgotten, but James was there for her, which reassured her that she wasn't forgotten. I think this line describes how Betty felt after James went to August. Since Betty and James ended up together, according to Taylor, she forgave him, but likely still felt hurt. But "You put me on and said I was your favorite" refers to him coming back to her. August was "just a summer thing" to James, passing, but Betty is the love of his life. In my "August" analysis, I see August as a personification of Taylor Swift's brand. Taylor upholds her brand, something that pains them both, but she will go back to Karlie.
I think it's also cool to point out that Betty and James alternate clothing, at least spiritually. It's Betty's cardigan, but James puts it on. Much like the various twinning moments between Karlie and Taylor in real life.
There's also a possible pun with "cardigan" and "Kar-again," as in Karlie. Is the lyric supposed to sound like, "And when I felt like I was the old Kar again?" as I've seen suggested? What could it mean in this context? To me, at least, the old Kar could've been the closeted one who'd been there for years. In 2019, Karlie, believing freedom was near, could've felt like a new her was on the horizon. But plans were thwarted. So she felt like her old closeted self again. But Taylor kept Karlie in her life, despite the hardships, keeping her close to her like a warm cardigan you wear. In the music video for this song, after Taylor nearly drowned, she clung to her music to survive, and once to safety, she puts on the cardigan. Maybe this could symbolize that, when in hard times, Taylor's own music is what saves her, and her lover comforts her. I see the video as Taylor playing James, voicing Betty's thoughts. After all, the lyrics to this song are Betty saying, "You, James, put me, the cardigan, Betty, on," like what we see in the video.
"A friend to all is a friend to none // Chase two girls, lose the one // When you are young, they assume you know nothin'"
In Miss Americana, Taylor plans to shed her people-pleasing habits; if the theory that Taylor was supposed to come out at this time is true, Taylor would've been able to be herself and be with Karlie openly. If Taylor stays the closeted "good girl" and heeds from making people uncomfortable with her queerness, she would be marketable or "a friend to all". But in actuality, if the version of you that you put out is faked to make everyone like you, you aren't really anyone's friend, so "a friend to none".
If Taylor chooses to both chase being marketable and keep Karlie, she'll lose "the one". In the surface-level storyline, the one is presumably Betty. And in this deeper reading, it could still be Betty/Karlie. However, I like to play with the idea that the song "The 1" is about Taylor's fans and how Taylor feels a gap between her and them due to the closeting and rejection of the idea that she could be queer. In my interpretation of "MIAB," I also play with the idea that the song is about Taylor deciding to flag to fans, calling them "the one" again. Taylor, in that song, has so much faith that her fans could see her for who she is. Therefore, this line could expand on those ideas from Karlie's perspective. If Taylor chases both marketing to her fans and being with Karlie, she'll eventually lose her faith in her own fans if they never want to entertain the idea that she's queer. It'd be like losing her fans, "the one," entirely.
Since James dumps August and goes back to Betty, it seems like Taylor plans to choose Karlie and herself over keeping herself marketable. That doesn't have to mean that Taylor would literally end her career, though who knows on that front, but her career would definitely change after a coming out.
"But I knew you // Playing hide-and-seek and // Giving me your weekends, I // I knew you // Your heartbeat on the High Line // Once in 20 lifetimes, I"
"Playing hide-and-seek" seems to be a reference to Taylor's queer-flagging. Taylor's in the closet, but she invites her fans to look into certain lyrics and seek the queerness in them. And if you were like me as a kid, the closet was the first place you'd hide in when playing hide and seek inside; yet it's also the first place anyone's going to look, so it's not a great spot to hide because you will be found out, much like Tay and Kar's failed glass closet that led to the love blackout. As James plays hide-and-seek, he spends time with Betty on the weekends. This particularly reminds me of Taylor meeting up with Karlie immediately after the Red Tour ended. This also hints that Betty and James are childhood friends. This parallels the fact that there is reason to believe Karlie and Taylor met at the 2008 Teen Vogue Young Hollywood Awards, when Karlie was around 16 and Taylor was around 19, arguably children (at least in a mental sense, in Taylor's case. I don't think 19 year olds are fully adult in a traditional sense). While I am not aware of any specific evidence that suggests Taylor and Karlie were close friends in 2008, I believe Taylor developed a liking for her by the time she wrote "Enchanted," which I personally think is about Karlie.
The High Line is a park in New York. Taylor was very associated with New York by the 1989 era, an era that Karlie was very important to. Taylor continued to paint herself as such afterward, like with "Staring out the window like I'm not your favorite town // I'm New York City" in "False God" and on this album with "You know I left a part of me back in New York" from "Hoax". Therefore, her personhood, her heartbeat, is a part of New York.
"Once in 20 lifetimes" could refer to how most might find love so strong as what Betty/Karlie and James/Taylor felt once in many lives, or rarely. It could also be a comment towards Taylor as an experience. Experiencing an artist as big as Taylor happens rarely, as Taylor constantly breaks records and is comparable to older sensations like "Beatlemania" during the 60s.
"To kiss in cars and downtown bars // Was all we needed // You drew stars around my scars // But now I'm bleedin'"
Betty and James kiss in secluded areas. I've gone at length in my other song analyses about how cars or just modes of transportation represent the closet much of the time in Taylor's music. The bar line reminds me of all the mentions of dive bars in Reputation, especially "Delicate", where Taylor and her lover quietly meet up in secret like Betty and James here.
James helped Betty heal from obstacles, like drawing stars to make wounds not as scary, but his struggles have since become the obstacle they must face. Better yet, it could also mean that James's remedies could only be emotional, not practical. Drawing stars isn't like giving Betty a band-aid. Drawing stars on scars could emotionally heal someone, but it doesn't make the bleeding stop. In terms of closeting, Taylor could make being closeted emotionally easier for Karlie, but Taylor couldn't end the closeting or the hurt.
"'Cause I knew you // Steppin' on the last train // Marked me like a bloodstain, I // I knew you // Tried to change the ending // Peter losing Wendy, I // I knew you // Leavin' like a father // Running like water, I"
So in my "ILIPW" and "Champagne Problem" analyses, I see the trains as a metaphor for gaylors, in Taylor's fears, leaving her behind after nothing happened after Lover. Here, Taylor leaves on the last train, choosing not to come out, which hurts Karlie. I believe Kar and Tay made the decision to not come out together due to the circumstances around them and the safety of the family they wanted to start, but it likely hurt them still and left a mark.
Taylor and Karlie weren't supposed to work out. The closet was supposed to make their relationship break eventually, as hiding isn't typically sustainable. Take Arthur Laurents and Farley Granger while working on the film Rope (1948), who eventually broke up because Laurents wanted to "cure" his sexuality while Granger saw nothing wrong with his (Matt Baume has a great video about that if you want to know more about them). Karlie and Taylor were supposed to not last in the world they were in. This film has been seen before. But Taylor tried to change the ending and come out so they could be happy. But the plan was thwarted and no coming out happened in 2019. Peter is Taylor's younger queer self, as explained in "Peter". Taylor never got to grow up and be out, so Peter lost Wendy, her adult self by the window. Wendy could also be Karlie, but I'll talk more about what I think "losing" means here soon.
James left behind the coming out plan and Peter "like a father" and ran away to August or the brand "like water", the opposite of the "burn it down" theory.
"But I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss // I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs // The smell of smoke would hang around this long // 'Cause I knew everything when I was young"
But Karlie knew that Taylor would linger with her in their relationship like a "tattoo kiss", reminiscent of their golden tattoos. I don't believe Taylor and Karlie have ever broken up, at least not truly, for any extended period of time. The potential of being out and publicly with Taylor haunts her what-ifs. The thought hangs around like the smell of smoke.
Smoke means fire is actively happening, but it can also come before a visible flame has appeared. The entire Lover era was an attempt to burn down the closet. It. didn't work, so the smell of smoke still hangs in the air, and Karlie isn't surprised because she has such good foresight.
"I knew I'd curse you for the longest time // Chasin' shadows in the grocery line // I knew you'd miss me once the thrill expired // And you'd be standin' in my front porch light // And I knew you'd come back to me // You'd come back to me // And you'd come back to me // And you'd come back // And when I felt like I was an old cardigan // Under someone's bed // You put me on and said I was your favorite"
"Curse" could mean that Betty is angrily cursing out James, but if she knew James would come back and potentially that she'd forgive him, why bother cursing him out? There could be reasons found if you make scenarios in your mind, but instead, I think "curse" here means the same as "hex". Taylor has seemingly referred to being queer in a homophobic world as being cursed in songs like "Ivy" or "The Prophecy". So Karlie, similarly to Taylor in "Mastermind," knew she'd curse Taylor and make her life tougher by having the kind of relationship she has with her.
"Chasing shadows" feels similar to, "I thought I saw you at the bus stop, I didn't though" from "The 1," seeing someone you think you know but it was someone else. But to me, chasing shadows isn't the same as thinking you see someone, but it turns out to be someone else. In a literal sense, a shadow is usually a dark blob in a place like a grocery store, so I don't know how Betty would think a random blob on a surface belonged to James, especially if she's presumably also in the grocery line and could just see the shadow's owner with her own eyes. Therefore, as silly as it might be, this line reminds me of when Taylor went on a grocery store date with Calvin Harris, the start of their bearding as far as I'm aware, or at least the early whisperings of it. Karlie could be comparing not getting to come out and continuing to beard after 2019 to when Taylor did so near the end of the 1989 era. After being with Karlie without any bearding, the fake relationships had to start up again, their glass closet not working. Bearding presumably would've ended after Taylor came out, but she didn't, so it felt like when it started back up in 2015, a bit of freedom lost. In 2015, Taylor chased her old habits, like depression or shadows, by bearding in a grocery line.
The thrill expired for Taylor. So what was the thrill? It could be the thrill of safety from Taylor being marketable. Or the thrill of Taylor getting to keep her fanbase by being marketable, the very one that ignored her signals and queer flagging. So Karlie knows Taylor would run to her porch and come back to her, and maybe the plan to come out would continue.
As a bit of a bonus, I'll also be analysing the cut lines from the voice memo version of this song, as, while they're arguably not "canon" to the teenage love triangle, they still give insight I think.
"But I knew you // Living in a gold age // Sneaking to my bird cage, I // I knew you // Laughing like a damn fool // Breaking every damn rule, I"
A gold age is usually seen as an age of great peace and/or prosperity. I definitely think Taylor's personal (as in, not necessarily in terms of her career) gold age was the Lover era. Obviously, there's the song "Daylight" that seems to equate with the idea of being free from the closet as "golden like daylight." You'd be hard-pressed to find many who don't think Taylor seemed very happy during this album rollout, and many gaylors think that this had to do with the theorized coming out that failed. Taylor was in a gold age of her own joy.
"Sneaking to my bird cage" is also a reference to the closet. Taylor has seemingly eqated cages to the closet several times, wheter it's being closeted by someone, like in "I Know Places," or a more mental, self-closeting, like in "So It Goes," or even not being sure if your closeting is of your own doing or not, like in "This Is Me Trying." Being closeted also, Karlie is in a cage like Taylor. Taylor sneaking into Karlie's cage to me just illustrates the fact that they're closeted together. It's like Taylor sneaking into the garden gate in "Cruel Summer." She's sneaking off to be with her lover in private. With it being specifically a bird cage, I feel like this could either be early whisperings of the song "The Albatross" or maybe this line was slight inspiration for the meaning of the song. I also somewhat wonder if this line could somehow clue in that Taylor and Karlie quarantined together, since this album was made during the worst of Covid, but I don't know the details of that theory to really elaborate or suggest it more deeply.
"Laughing like a damn fool // Breaking every damn rule" screams Lover to me. Again, Taylor seemed like the happiest she'd ever been, but the joy was taken away. She was breaking the rules, flagging so damn hard, arguably harder than previous celebs who eventually came out. I imagine that Taylor could see herself as a fool for believing so confidently that she was finally out of the woods and incorporated that feeling into this song. Maybe that's why the line was cut, as this song is supposed to represent Karlie's view more than Taylor's, though of course Taylor can't fully take her perspective out, being the writer. I actually feel like that could be at least one of the reasons many of these lines were cut. To me, they feel just a tad bit more scaving toward James, which might be a holdover from Taylor’s self-loathing, not a proper reflection of Karlie’s feelings.
"I knew you // Tried to change the ending // Peter leaving Wendy, I"
I think this is a pretty significant change. Peter leaving Wendy is different from Peter losing in my eyes. Leaving insinuates that James had an active choice. Losing implies that it's more complicated. To start off with, especially after becoming a gaylor two years ago, I feel like the teenage love triangle is more complicated than some give it credit for. While James "put [Betty] through it," as Taylor said in TLPSS, I feel like James might've not actually cheated, at least not in the traditional sense. Betty, James, and August are fairly cryptic about what exactly happened in detail. In the songs themselves, no one states definitively that cheating happened. Phrases like "Chase two girls," "You weren't mine to lose," and "The worst thing that I ever did" could mean cheating, but it could also be other complications in relationships. Maybe the characters of Betty and James broke up or went on a break; that confusion would fit the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. parallel with "Two of Them Kissed Last Night." Maybe August just knew deep down that, even if Betty and James were off, James's heart was with Betty, not her. Maybe while on an off period, James dated August to best Betty, who danced with some guy, the worst thing he did. It honestly depends on your personal definition of cheating (and whether or not I'm blanking on Taylor ever saying point-blank that James cheated, but shhh!). If James cheats, he is leaving Betty, but if he doesn't cheat and just fools around with August for murky reasons, he is losing Betty (temporarily).
As for the real Karlie and Taylor, I feel like the failed coming out was complex. I think that Karlie and Taylor chose to uphold their closet together because that is what I hope. I won't pretend I have literal evidence for that, but I also don't know of any literal evidence to the contrary other than people's personal feelings, which is fine. To me, the music just communicates them working together with plans. So, in my opinion at least, Taylor didn't abandon Karlie in the closet and leave her after the masterheist. I think they assesed the situation and decided that to stay closeted, likely for the safety of themselves and the family they wanted, aka, Levi and their other kids (to me the idea of them coming out and having kids publicly makes sense, but of course they wouldn't throw out such a huge dissision such as kids just because of their closet plights. The kids were likely a big factor in why the coming out was shelved in my opinion). But that choice included them still not seeing each other in the open. While I think Kaylor is still in a relationship, they lost each other in the public eye. Peter lost Wendy. (I could go into all the different ways Taylor's used the word lost in her recent music and what I think each individual one means, but that could be a whole other analysis. For now, I'll just say that I don't think Kaylor's ever broken up and lost each other in a break-up sense.
"But I knew you'd linger like a stolen kiss"
"Tattoo kiss" is way more overtly Kaylor coded than "stolen kiss" from what I can tell. But to steal a kiss is, according to Merriam-Webster, "to kiss someone in a quick and sudden way," which could align with the kissgate footage, as the moment, whatever it was, was very quick, yet caused such a stir. Maybe this line was to say that Taylor and the night of kissgate lingered in Karlie's mind.
"I knew I'd wish you would've changed your mind // I knew you'd miss me once the moment died // I knew to love would be to lose my mind"
While I did say that I think Karlie and Taylor made the choice to not come out, I also think that it was complex. If I were in either of their shoes, I'd understand the safety precautions and that the issue was bigger than me, but of course I'd still want to be free. Maybe while making the choice to not come out, Karlie still wanted Taylor to change her mind and try anyway, despite the dangers. But, especially if I'm right about the future of their kids being involved, she'd likely recognise that that wish is quite risky. You'd have to lose your mind to want that. In a more general sense, being queer has historically been seen as a mental illness in the past. Queer people were seen as losing their minds; therefore, to love is to lose your mind.
Happy Birthday, Karlie!
