“I’ve been thinking about addiction and I’ve been thinking about people who, if they’re suffering from mental illness or they’re suffering through addiction or they have an everyday struggle, no one pars them on the back every day but every day they are actively fighting something. But there are so many days that nobody gives them credit for that and so, how often must somebody who’s in that sort of internal struggle must want to say to everyone in the room, ‘You have no idea how close I am to going back to a dark place.’ (...) I had this idea that the first verse would be about someone who is in a sort of life crisis and has just been trying and failing and trying and failing in their relationship, has been messing things up with the people they love, has been letting everyone down, and has driven to this overlook — this cliff, and it’s just in the car going, ‘I could do whatever I want in this moment and it could affect everything forever.’ But this person backs up and drives home. (...) And then the second verse is about someone who felt they had a lot of potential in their life. I think there are a lot of mechanisms for us in our school days, in high school or college to excel and to be patted on the back for something. And then a lot of people get out of school and there are less abilities for them to get gold stars, and then you have to make all these decisions, you have to pave your own way and there’s no set class yourself you can take. I think a lot of people feel really swept up in that, so I was thinking about this person who feels really lost in life and then starts drinking and every second is trying not to.”
—Taylor on “this is me trying” in folklore: the long pond studio sessions (Disney+)
