#sonic parallels

[soberqueerinthewild]

The slides with her voice she does in Honey (what’s the plaaaaan) reminded me of Question? where she says “that’s what’s suitable and right”

[chickawah23]

Just a quick thought trail about background sounds in Guilty as Sin?

There’s a series of sounds in Guilty as Sin? that begin at the 1:33min mark and continue until 1:43 min mark.

Taylor sings “someone told me” and then there’s a muffled sound similar to that sound in the background of dorothea that sounds like someone talking on phone call. But this is super muffled. And it doesn’t happen at any other part of the song.

The lines that immediately follow are “There's no such thing as bad thoughts. Only your actions talk. These fatal fantasies…”

During those lines that there’s this rewinding sound that happens on “only your actions talk” and then we get the wind chimes sound as she sings “these fatal fantasies” which ends at the 1:43min mark. The sound is reminiscent of the VSFS signature transition twinkly chime sound that we also heard in Snow on the Beach and gold rush.

Small bits of the chimes stay in the background throughout but the big drum moment at the end that kind of sounds like a rewind as well but just with drums around the 3:18min mark leads into the wind chime VSFS full sound.

Here’s a quick video of all the parts in the songs I referenced with the VSFS sound:

And just to drive the point home each of these songs are talking about something that is real and the fantasy is her desire to talk about it. It only exists in my mind. I just felt like adding this quote from the interview Taylor did with Lily A for VSFS 2014.

[chickawah23]

Longwinded Cornelia Street and the 1 TimeWarp Theory Revisited

So awhile back I made this post where I posited that the 1 was an alternate timeline branch from the turning point in Cornelia Street because they share a similar time warp sound. And since the 1 opened the album folklore I went on to posit that it opened up room for a “what if” storyline on that album where at the end all the roads still lead back to that one person.

While I was listening to Midnights I realized Taylor did the time warping sound again on Midnight Rain. Moreover, she specifically references time travel in the lyrics and it made me want to expand this alternate timeline theory more to highlight Taylor’s use of production as well as lyrics to develop what I feel is this cool story arc.

I am going to focus on the lyric and sonic connections between Cornelia Street, Midnight Rain, and the 1.

Cornelia Street:

Sounds: the reverb sound in the background; in the second verse the time warp sound is introduced when she says “windows flung right open.” Then it gets fuller before the turning point in the song “but then you called” (see my other post linked above)

Lyrics: the time warp changes the trajectory of the relationship. The person comes back and they work it out. As I said in my other post, the 1 felt like it opened up an alternate world where they didn’t come back and the regrets that come from that choice. In Midnight Rain we get a similar vibe of late night thoughts of roads not taken. I’ll discuss it further below.

the 1

Sounds: the time warp sound from Cornelia Street repeats throughout.

Lyrics: she is singing about pretending to be okay with how things are but in the end admitting that she still wonders if one thing had been different would I be the one doing all of this life stuff with you. We get this similarly in Midnight Rain.

Midnight Rain

Sounds: the entire song production is a time warp

Lyrics: she includes the lyrics: “So I peered through a window A deep portal, time travel. All the love we unravel. And the life I gave away. 'Cause he was sunshine, I was midnight rain.” These lyrics are so interesting because of her use of past and present tense in the same stanza. She “peered through a window. A deep portal, time travel. All the love we unravel and the life I gave away.” It just reads like she is saying she is unraveling the love that currently exists and the life she gave away that she currently has to watch from the outside. The fact that this verse starts with it came like a postcard. Like she ignores it or suppresses it until midnights like this come and take her back to the what if alternate life she had to give up.

Analysis

If we take my theory from the original post that folklore was an alternate timeline, Midnight Rain fits in neatly within that allusion. All of Midnights does, but Midnight Rain tells you that it is happening. It’s Taylor’s use of windows from Lover to Midnights as a portal. And the evolution of her position relative to that window. During Lover era we get open windows in Cornelia Street that then become boarded up in DBATC where Taylor is on the outside looking in at the light flickering inside. The love still exists but they hide it inside the house. Then during folklore we have Taylor leaving that house in exile on the outside looking in then transitioning into being in a new location (a cabin in the woods) safe inside. Then in evermore she escapes to find her other half and bring them to this new safe location so they can leave together. Think of the end of the lakes and then the end of the willow music video. Then in Midnights we get constant imagery of going places in her mind because they cannot physically go there yet. Taylor during the lakes discussion with Jack in the LPSS explains the lakes as a place that she goes to because she can’t physically go there at the moment. Paris does the same thing.

In Midnights evermore and folklore she goes between time traveling back to the past in her mind at night when she can’t sleep and plodding and plotting through the process of getting her past back (ITTG) so that she can get to Daylight..

Conclusion

Midnight Rain specifically highlights all of the themes I felt appeared on folklore and evermore and discussed in my other post. Themes of losing a piece of yourself, being trapped in limbo, and replaying the moment everything changed over and over and hoping you can get another chance to make the right choice. “He stayed the same all of me changed like midnight…”

To me these songs create such a cool story arc of this detour that unravels her love story as it was but gives her back the life she was forced or chose to give away.

The fact that she says “meet me at midnight…” and then “all of me changed like midnight…” and “I never think of him except on midnights like this…” makes it feel like her true self is always thinking of this life she gave away. The me you meet at midnight is trying to get her life back so she can get to Daylight.

All in all, this is just my thoughts. And it’s still a fun extension of my alternate time line theory.

[chickawah23]

The Albatross, ivy, and willow are sister songs. This thought is based solely on the production (particularly the arrangement on tour for willow). But maybe I’ll return to this thought after a deep dive of the lyrics.

[nerdgasrnz]

Ironwood is that shitty military commander from “Shadow the Hedgehog”

[nerdgasrnz]

Instead of Penny being Maria, Penny being E-102 Gamma

alexander-the-amazing said: Maria is Summer Rose 

THAT IS SO AWFUL

AND CORRECT

[nerdgasrnz]

ooooh. Blaze the cat could be cinder

FUCK

[nerdgasrnz]

Calling it now, Ozpin's the President. You know the one. The one that's name is just the President, and keeps a freaking framed picture of Sonic and Shadow on his desk.

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