the way that like 75% of folklore was inspired by some likeness of rebekah “betty” harkness aka the lady who owned taylor’s watch hill house before she did omg i feel like my brain is going to IMPLODE trying to connect all the dots but basically:
seven and betty are both from the perspective of the same person about betty
seven is about when they were kids
“i think your house is haunted, your dad is always mad” her dad was awful and considered a tyrant
“and though i can’t recall your face” when she was younger she had a chubby face and had a major transformation as she grew up
and then its confirmed that they knew each other as children in cardigan with “but i knew you playing hide and seek and giving me your weekends” vs seven’s “please picture me in the trees, i hit my peak at seven”
betty we know is about betty i’m not even going to explain that one!!!
but then!!!!! we have the last great american dynasty that is literally about a woman named rebekah and we already connected that rebekah = betty! and in the last great american dynasty we have the lyrics “there goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen” so i think the song is kind of like a 3rd person account of her life in watch hill and then mad woman is her perspective with “every time you call me crazy i get more crazy” and “no one likes a mad woman you made her like that”
and then i thought we were done with betty but i think my tears ricochet is about her too! i think its her talking to her kids after she died (her oldest daughter terry in particular) but basically she was a pretty shitty mother and her kids suffered because of it
and in my tears ricochet we have the lyrics:
we know her daughter was at the services bc there was an article in the new york times about betty’s death that mentions this
+ we have the lyrics “you wear the same jewels that i gave you as you bury me” and it’d make sense that a wealthy mom would try to win over her daughter with expensive jewelry that the daughter secretly cherished.
TL;DR...seven, cardigan, betty, the great american dynasty, mad woman and my tears ricochet are all inspired (however loosely) by the same person. seven, betty, this is me trying and peace are all from the guy’s perspective and then august and illicit affairs are connected to that “other woman” narrative so she was not kidding when she said that she created character arcs and recurring themes that map out all over the damn place!!!!!!!!! there are probably other connections in other songs like i could have added invisible string and maybe hoax but it’s 5:43 am and my brain is literally.............scrambled eggs because this has been me all night
