a random but soulful analysis of one of my favorite Taylor songs of all time, The Outside =") <3
The Outside is the #6 song on Taylor Swift's 1st Studio album, Taylor Swift, released in 2006. It is also the second song she ever wrote, at only 12 years old, about being an outsider in middle school.
"I didn't know what I would find
When I went looking for a reason, I know
I didn't read between the lines
And, baby, I've got nowhere to go"
Taylor is a very expressive, extroverted girl, and if she's spontaneous the way she is now I can't imagine how she used to be as a kid. I truly feel she's the most truthful public person out there not bc she makes an effort for it but bc she doesn't know how to be anyway different. She clearly has always been that super loud, happy child that would get excited over small things and talk about what she loved nonstop even if no one was interested in what she had to say.
Now, at that age around 12, 13 when everybody's trying to fit in and act cool and unbothered, and draw the least attention to themselves as possible, her not being able to "read the room" and act like everyone else was annoying to the other kids. Since they didn't have the courage to be like her, that was unacceptable.
So, going back to the lyrics, little 12 year old Tay was confused and hurt as to why the others wouldn't accept her, and tried to find a reason for it, because after all, she was just being herself, like she had been her whole life.
She felt guilty because she couldn't speak the same nonchalant lingo of the others and wasn't able to get their underlying warnings of how inappropriate her behavior was to them.
"I tried to take the road less traveled by
But nothing seems to work the first few times
She tried to continue to be herself (the road less traveled by since the others just complied to the social rules to fit in) and keep her usual excitable personality in all ways she could - probably trying to balance her true self with the people pleasing, but nothing worked..
"So how can I ever try to be better?
I can still see you, this ain't the best view
On the outside looking in
I've been a lot of lonely places
I've never been on the outside"
*this is the part that breaks me the most ><*
now she's just being ostracized, confused, completely alone and desperate to be seen. She's convinced that she's the part of the equation that doesn't fit, she didn't comply to their rules, she's in the wrong and needs to do better.
But how if she's been shut off? She's now looking at her peers from outside of their dome, and all her chances to please them were wasted.
You saw me there, but never knew
That I would give it all up to be
A part of this, a part of you
And now, it's all too late, so you see
You could've helped if you had wanted to
But no one notices until it's too late to do anything
This is about not the perpetrators (her actual bullies) but their accomplices. To keep the social norm and status quo all kids must comply, even the ones who can see that there's something wrong there. Everyone saw her alone at the cafeteria, being made fun of in the corridors and eating alone in the bathroom.
Still, they just thought it'd be better to feel guilty from afar than to befriend her and accept her for who she was, which meant going against the unspoken rules - and being an outcast with her.
How can I ever try to be better?
And I can still see you, this ain't the best view
On the outside looking in
I've been a lot of lonely places
I've never been on the outside
There's no happy ending to this song. It ends with the exact sentiment it begins with of not belonging and being the problem.
This song (and this cruel experience) feels like the foundation of everything for Taylor. Her career, her songwriting, her self love and self image. The way that this magnificent social butterfly continuously puts herself in that 'observer', outcast place even years later, as a grown, stratospherically successful woman and dives deeply into the loneliest corners of her inner self which later translates itself into the most raw and beautiful art like I look in people's windows and I hate it here.
The way all her emotional issues seem to start and end inside her. She's always the primary perpetrator of her pain because, to her, she's also always the issue itself. She's the one cursed with the prophecy, she's the one cutting off her nose to spite her face, she's the one with the blind optimism.
I haven't got a proper ending to this either, I just think about this song a lot - and the very real person Taylor is.
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