#lets talk lover

[youareinlovees]

[youareinlovees]

Hi do you mind doing like a breakdown analysis or just a general summary of what cruel summer’s about? I’ve been able to price together bits and pieces from your blog but could really use some help understanding the overall storyline

Sure! It started off as a general summary but I realised it would be easier if I went through line-by-line instead. 

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Fever dream high in the quiet of the night

You know that I caught it

She’s setting the scene here – it’s the middle of the night and she’s experiencing some kind of intense feeling that makes everything seem like a fever dream. Is it an emotional high because she’s so happy or maybe a drug trip or some kind of ~other high? There’s no clear cut answer but she says the other person ~knows she’s feeling this way, so make that of what you will.

Bad, bad boy, shiny toy with a price

By referring to him as a toy, she’s establishing that this is a no-strings attached, almost transactional situationship. It’s similar to “toying with them older guys / just playthings for me to use” – a line that’s heavily influenced by the public’s perception of her, so she’s saying that a) it’s set around the same timeframe, ergo 2016, and b) once she gets him out of her system, she’ll ditch and move on just like all those times before.

You know that I bought it

He’s well aware that they’re ~friends and this isn’t a defined relationship. Maybe it was something they agreed on, or maybe it’s an unspoken understanding, we don’t know.

Killing me slow, out the window

I'm always waiting for you to be waiting below

This actually reminds me of Tangled, like the idea of some sheltered princess falling for a normie who shows her a whole new world, and ultimately deciding to leave her life in the tower behind and run away with him? I could be reading into things too much but it’s a fun parallel for sure.

Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes

This is about her thought process: one part of her is deciding to take a gamble on the relationship – she might get hurt later, or the world might find out she’s seeing yet another guy and burn her alive for it, but she figures the risks are worth it. But at the same time, she’s like “here we go again 🙄” and doesn’t like that she’s so invested all of a sudden.

What doesn't kill me makes me want you more

The “what” in this line could be referring to a number of things. Maybe she’s talking about all the mess that’s happened this year and how shitty it’s been, and she’s using him as stress relief now. Maybe it’s about the lack of labels on their relationship and how that’s killing her, but makes her even more determined to get him to commit somehow. Or maybe it’s the general feeling of being so attracted to someone you think you might die.

And it's new, the shape of your body

It's blue, the feeling I've got

And it's ooh, whoa oh

It's a cruel summer

This is fairly straightforward, like they’ve only just started seeing each other so his body’s new and she feels blue because… 2016.

It's cool, that's what I tell 'em

No rules in breakable heaven

This is more of a general commentary on how she goes about a fwb situation, like it doesn’t have to be exclusive and pretty much anything goes. She also talks about the fragility of their relationship – they might be in heaven but it’s very much breakable and could end anytime.

Hang your head low in the glow of the vending machine

I'm not dying

I think this was meant in a literal sense, like they’re meeting up somewhere and he’s leaning against a vending machine and scrolling through his phone. She walks over and absolutely loses her mind over how hot he looks and realises that she’s down baaad. For a moment, in the midst of the ~cruel summer~, she’s not dying because she’s distracted by other priorities basically.

Alternatively, the snacks in a vending machine aren’t the healthiest way to deal with being hungry, and fucking your Words With Friends bestie isn’t exactly the healthiest coping strategy, but she really couldn’t care less.

We say that we'll just screw it up in these trying times

We're not trying

Both of them decided they didn’t want to get into a proper relationship, like she was fresh off two breakups and Going Through It, and his first movie was about to drop and he was going to head off to Asia for a promo tour soon. It doesn’t feel like the right time to define things, so why bother?

So cut the headlights, summer's a knife

I'm always waiting for you just to cut to the bone

The headlights being off represents them sneaking around and seeing each other in secret. She then says that although this summer’s already been so painful and shitty, he has the potential to hurt her the most by breaking things off or not reciprocating her feelings. And because she’s so cynical about love now, she’s expecting to get burned sooner or later.

And if I bleed, you'll be the last to know

If things do end badly, she’ll make sure she seems completely unaffected, because the last thing she wants is for him to think he broke her heart or whatever.

I'm drunk in the back of the car

And I cried like a baby coming home from the bar

This sounds super literal, and some people have connected it to the first verse in Cornelia Street, but I think this situation happens later on.

Said, "I'm fine," but it wasn't true

#TAYLOR: vulnerability 🤢 honesty 🤢 being upfront about how I feel 🤮

I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you

It’s killing her that she can’t tell him about how she actually feels, because what if he’s not on the same page and she scares him off? So in order to keep their relationship going, she has to keep it in.

And I snuck in through the garden gate

Every night that summer just to seal my fate

Basically, it was always inevitable that she would fall for him, but their constant meet-ups intensified those feelings even more.

The garden gate mention seems to be a continuation of the fairytale imagery in “I’m always waiting for you to be waiting below” except now she’s the one reaching out to him. It’s also reminiscent of “I sneak out to the garden to see you” in Love Story, which is all about fairytale endings. But now on Cruel Summer, she’s subverting that imagery because real life relationships are complicated and raw and nuanced, and not at all like the idealised perfect love she used to write about.

Also, because this lyric is between them being in the back of the car and her screaming I love you, it separates the two situations so they’re not necessarily about the same thing.

And I scream, "For whatever it's worth

I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?"

He looks up, grinning like a devil

And finally, it all becomes too much and she’s no longer able to hide her feelings, because she suddenly screams that she loves him. He looks up from whatever he’s doing, and is like 😁😁😁 because it turns out he’s equally as whipped, and the rest is history!

[youareinlovees]

I am sorry, is the song you just shared (Alright by Keaton Henson) that was on Joe's and allegedly Taylor’s playlist as well literally his side (even though I hate people saying the pov thing) of False God...

“I know the West was won this way” / “You are the West Village”

“But God forgive the heartless way, we let this burn down” / “Even if it’s a false God”

“I know you're off on tour” / I mean, she is Taylor Swift

“Let your heart a generous bow” / “We still worship this love”

“If it's in the city” / “I am New York City”

“You and I are monsters, we'll not find another. Cannot be together lest we eat each other” / The whole song is about using sex (oral sex, in fact) to make up the fights in a relationship

“You know me, I worry. Could always use some pity, scared you'll do a session if it's in the city” / This reminds me of what seems to be their dynamic according to her songs. She goes off at him (“you can't talk to me when I'm like this, daring you to leave me just so I can try and scare you”) and he gets sad and moody (“I can't talk to you when you're like this, staring out the window like I'm not your favorite town”).

“I hear the crowds adore you” / I mean, she is Taylor Swift x2

“Come and meet me in the trenches” / Peace tease

“You can load the guns and i'll hide behind the others” / Daylight and Long Story Short tease

“Always had intense eyes” / Every Taylor Swift song about Joe Alwyn ever

YUPP exactly. "you and I are monsters, we'll not find another" especially, like knowing that you'll never experience this kind of love with anyone else (and vice versa) is suuuch a prevalent theme in CLM, RFI, Me! etc.

[youareinlovees]

how do u interpret “And I cut off my nose just to spite my face. Then I hate my reflection for years and years” of the archer?

The first part's a common saying – so when she tries to hit back at someone or get even, she only ends up hurting herself in the process. And then she's being literal and saying she gets insecure about how she looks.

Also I only just thought of this, but you could also take it as a play on words and link it back to the first line, so she's staring at her figuratively cut-up face in the mirror and hating it – which represents her looking back at her past missteps years later and regretting what she did.

[youareinlovees]

What did she say about DBATC at the sessions? I remember nothing she’s said about it except the thing about the Netflix movie. But if we’re talking about problems or fighting during the WRITING of the album, yes I def believe that and it’s made pretty clear by the songs. But I think whatever was going on was worked out by the time the album was done/being released because she was writing shit like little Lover towards the end, and penning that Elle article basically explaining what she’d learned about fighting with a partner, how to apologize etc. All during promo he was around, at SNL they were making out at the after party and she turned into a literal heart eye emoji performing Lover, the Prime Day thing she was smiling like an idiot at him, he went to Paris with her and was taking pictures of her all over the city and he was hanging around in the background with Andrea during the interview you’re referencing, none of that scream major problems are going on to me. Like the Lover album isn’t really about the Lover era as we know it, it’s probably more about rep/rep tour and the aftermath of all that. Folkmore songs are probably as close to real time insight in their relationship as we’re gonna get lmao but she’s not usually writing and releasing that fast.

"the Lover album isn’t really about the Lover era as we know it, it’s probably more about rep/rep tour and the aftermath of all that" – I agree with this!

This is what she said about DBATC by the way:

Also right before the album dropped, one of my mutuals who went to the Nash session tweeted a thread that was like "Lover tracks as reaction pictures" and track 10 was Leslie from Parks and Rec saying "god I am so annoyed that he would hypothetically do that" 😭 like it's still inspired by the movie and her friends' breakups but also based on real-life fears

[youareinlovees]

Those poor London bitches lmao. Imagine how they feel being dragged once per album // lol and she even specifically wrote a song about it for Lover but didn't release

Imagine if All of the Girls and The Man were on the same album help meee

[youareinlovees]

Oh my goodness. You’ve got me hooked. Sorry I’m the same anon asking about the timeline. I just started following Taylor after lover came out so I’m trying to follow along as best as possible. What’s the cruel summer outburst on the 28th that you mentioned in the tags?

Okay so this is a really old ask and I was going to answer it ages ago but then just forgot. Obviously this is all speculation and we don’t know anything but:

From what we know, there are basically 3 *significant* events that happened from summer-fall 2016, namely the dive bar night, the cruel summer night and the night up on the roof where they finally defined things and got serious.

Some people think the first two happened on the same night but that’s never really made sense to me because uhm... why would she be telling him that she loved him when they barely knew each other and hadn’t even hooked up yet. And there's also the question of how Sep 28 fits in with all of this since we know they consider that to be their anniversary and we know the dive bar night def happened way before that (probably late August?) and the rooftop night seems to align with the late November stuff in CIWYW about them deciding to run off to the UK, so by process of elimination, that means the 28th was when the cruel summer outburst happened and then they decided to become exclusive the next morning 😁

I’d also like to add that there are photos of Cara leaving the Cornelia Street rental really early on the morning of the 29th looking annoyed as fuck so uhm... yeah you can form your own conclusions about that 💀

[youareinlovees]

what did taylor mean with "meet me in the afterglow"

Well this is what afterglow means, so she’s basically saying “okay okay I was wrong I’m tired of fighting can we fuck now 🥺”