Some folklore thoughts 💭🌲✨🏳️🌈
Part 1
I’m going to take it song by song while also tracking key themes in red! Please also feel free to add in your thoughts in the comments, I’m curious to see what else people think folklore is about…
folklore
‘folklore’ is defined as “a body of popular myths or beliefs relating to a particular place, activity, or group of people.” or, by Steve from Taylor’s IC,”the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth.” Taylor herself in her introduction/prologue says “A tale that becomes folklore is one that is passed down and whispered around. Sometimes even sung about. The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible. Speculation, over time, becomes fact. Myths, ghost stories, and fables. Fairytales and parables. Gossip and legend. Someone’s secrets written in the sky for all to behold.”
the 1
- firstly, it’s the best opening track she’s ever had! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
- “I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit” = sounds to me like a conversation you have with an ex, like someone is saying “yeah I’m doing great, I’m dating/doing ‘x’” the first time they run into their ex in a while.
-“I thought I saw you at the bus stop” has BIG “this city screams your name” energy but is also very clever by Taylor because Miss Karlie Kloss is ALWAYS on advertisements on bus stops/literal buses around the globe 🚌
- “I hit the Sunday matinee” to me seems like an inside thing, because obviously as the world biggest pop star, if taylor is going to go to the theatre or cinema, she’ll pick the least busy and most filled with older people which would be the Sunday matinee.
- “you know the greatest films of all time were never made” —> the greatest love stories never get told? happen behind the scenes? There’s something deeper here but I’m still forming the cohesive idea!
- “if you wanted me you really should’ve showed” = showed up or showed for the world, either way Taylor wanted KK to chose her not Josh so they could work but that didn’t happen so now she’s left to wonder.
- “roaring twenties” evokes two clear images for me! 1. They were both in their 20s for the entiretyof their relationship, the best years were spent together and 2. The Roaring 20s were a time of independence, pushing boundaries and breaking the rules of prohibition - which is basically what Taylor and Karlie were doing behind the scenes.
- “if my wishes came true, it would’ve been you” = let’s say, ONLY FOR ARGUMENTS SAKE, that Taylor really IS with Toe, that still means that this song is her yearning for someone else who she always loves more AND had to lose at some point. Looking at her past beards “relationships”, there are only two plausible options - Joe (which seems unlikely seeing as they’re still “together”) or CH who she supposedly wrote “you would’ve been the one if you were a better man” about. Either way doesn’t seem like it fits. However, if you look at it as Karlie is the 1, it becomes clear - it would’ve been fun being best friends and lovers for ever baking cookies and dancing around the kitchen, it would’ve been forever if Karlie hadn’t “married” jerk, it would’ve been her and it still is. 💗
- “in my defense I have none, for never leaving well enough alone” & “I know that I went psycho on the phone, I never leave well enough alone” are about the same moment with the same person = she didn’t leave well enough alone because she kept writing about Karlie and re-engaging us Kaylors as well as I’m sure, she kept up with seeing Karlie or keeping tabs on her to the point where it forced someone to reach out to the other…. she can’t apologise or defend her actions because you can’t explain the things you do for true love.
- “I have this dream you’re doing cool shit” aka starting a podcast, expanding businesses, making headway as an entrepreneur and being a highly-paid and respected international model? Seems straight forward 👀
- “you meet some woman on the Internet and take her home” = 1. Karlie is specifically interested in tech and the internet, it is literally her entire business and 2. if Karlie and Tay did break up, then because Karlie is actually NOT married to Josh, she hooked up with someone she met through the internet somehow (probs social media not an app) and Taylor found out this is probably a snarky comment about that from a jealous ex. Could possibly also be about the dream mentioned above. 💔🔐
- “another day waking up alone” = lost her lover, sleeps alone? Bold claim on opening tack.
- “persist and resist” = very famous feminist saying, civil rights/political echo?
- “the temptation to ask you if one thing had been different, would everything be different today” = this what if mentality continues through the album but personally, I think this is about Kissgate.
- “Rosé flowing with your chosen family” = repeats later, your chosen family could refer to Karlie’s group of friends like Derek and Jourdan etc.
- “would’ve been sweet if it could’ve been me” = flipped perspective, wishes Karlie chose her.
- “dragging up the grave another time” = firstly, THAT pin on her EW jacket now makes more sense. second, Taylor has written about Karlie for 4 straight albums now, she hasn’t let their love story die even if they did.
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cardigan
- “brand new phone” = this is not some story, this is current reality. Taylor hides behind era-specific language and imagery in some other songs but this one is clearly about here and now, and her.
- “sensual politics” to me stands out because only really here and in TLGAD is politics explicitly mentioned and sensual politics to me screams sleeping with someone for political gain or with political connections which certainly sounds like someone…
- “when you’re young, they assume you know nothing” = sounds to me like a lot like a) love story and b) “you don’t know you’re gay, it’s just a PHASE! you’ll grow out of it!” 🏳️🌈
- “chase 2 girls, lose the one” = supposedly, when KK and TS met, Taylor was still in love/entangled with Dianna so perhaps she’s reflecting on making the wrong choice?
- CIWYW links: my baby’s high above the whole scene—> heartbeat on the high line, tidbit:as is clear in both Lover & 1989 New York is a sacred place for TS and KK’s love story, the high line is a) a beautiful NYC icon and b) right in between the girls’ two places…
- as mentioned, miss Karlie ELIZABETH Kloss was the brand model for Levi’s and definitely has worn some sequins and black lipstick on cobblestones sooooo…. 🤷🏼♀️
- “you drew stars around my scars” = see Drake’s birthday party and the infamous third Polaroid mystery 👀
- “stepping on the last train” could mean one of two things to me; 1. The last resort for KK was marrying J*sh or 2. the last train could represent some goodbye the girls had where KK chose something/someone else over Taylor.
- “peter losing Wendy” is such an interesting metaphor on so many levels but specifically, Wendy loses Peter because she wakes up (from nearly dying but nvm) and grows up and stops believing in Neverland and magic, basically Wendy loses an attachment to Peter because her reality shifts and that’s what gets remembered especially in the Disney version of the story. HOWEVER, the opposite is also true meaning Peter Pan loses Wendy because he can never co-exist with her again, he can never grow up or bring her back to Neverland without either killing her or ruining her. So this idea that someone wanted to change the ending from peter losing Wendy because he had to do what was best for her because he loved her echoes as Karlie didn’t want to marry Jerk or hurt Taylor but had to in order to protect her. Right? 😅
- “leaving like a father, running like water” = Taylor’s parents got divorced and there’s SOME thoughts Scott left the house and Taylor lives with her Mom in Nashville in her teen years.
- “I knew everything when I was young” - Taylor has always know she was LGBT+ 🌈 and also, baby VSFS vibes because as we all know, “we were both young when I first saw you…” send tweet.
- “I knew you’d come back to me” hopefully, HOPEFULLY foreshadows the girls being together/coming out soon !!!!!!! 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼
- music video wise, I’ll do a break down soon.
TLGAD
- ‘Rebekkah’ refers to the previous owner of Taylor’s Watch Hill, RI house, Rebekah Harkness. She was a divorcee until marrying Standard Oil heir William (aka Bill) Hale Harkness, a new-money dynasty was formed in this time from their profit. There are MANY wild, whimsical stories about ‘Betty’ (which is obviously an extended metaphor of folklore) that this song tries to re-create/recapture.
- Taylor is also known as ‘Becky’ due to the popular meme so this is quite literally a play on her own character as well as the previous inhabitants of the house.
- St Louis is not only Rebekkah’s hometown, but also Karlie Elizabeth Kloss’.
- “the wedding was charming, if a little gouche” seems like a direct shot fired at Karlie’s woodsy photoshoot of 2018 😂😂(ironically, folklore’s key aesthetic is the woods!!)
- “it must’ve been her fault his heart gave out” refers explicitly to William dying of a heart attack in the house, but subtly I feel like this is a dig at the media who constantly blame women for things they cannot control, as they have done with Taylor too many times to even count.
- “who knows if she never showed up, what could’ve been” seems like Taylor is stuck thinking about what may have happened for her and Karlie if things had been different, see the 1.
- “she/I had a marvellous time ruining everything” is such an incredibly provoking lyric on two fronts, 1. obviously taylor buying her RI house had a massive impact on an otherwise sleepy holiday town that is now more famous for Taylor’s july 4 parties than anything else and 2. seems introspective or personal, as if the things that ruined everything for Karlie and Taylor were the best and most marvellous parts of their relationship (big sur, kissgate etc.)
- “flew in all her bitch pack friends from the city” is not only about the friends and celebs Rebekkah was notorious for hosting but also Taylor’s ‘bitches and model’ girl gang circa 2015 which includes one Karlie Kloss.
- “blew through the money on the boys and the ballet” refers to Rebekkah’s love of wasting her fortune on things, including a ballet company that went under not long after she created it BUT also refers to Taylor paying so many boys to be her beards and PR stunts whilst also spending her money on a certain ex-Ballerina. Also remember her AMA’s performance of Lover/ bts of Shake It Off? 😉😉😉
- “50 years is a long time” - 50 seems deliberate, a bit of a reach but note it WAS the 50th anniversary of Stonewall last year. 🏳️🌈
- “free of women with madness, their men and bad habits and THEN IT WAS BOUGHT BY ME.” - this clearly shows that ALL the songs are being narrated by Taylor, some of the lyrics are about her, some are about these fictional or fantastical characters she’s created but there is her truth behind all of them too.
- “the loudest woman this town has ever seen” = Taylor is undoubtedly the most famous woman in the town who regualrly causes uproar there (see the Sea Wall debacle and the Taylor Swift Tax)
- in all, the two famed women owner’s of Holiday House have many overlaps and are forever intertwined.
exile
- “i can see you standing honey with his arms around your body” as the opening line is LOUD. to me, feels like this is about ALL those staged photos of Josh and Karlie uncomfortable/fake as hell on social media.
- “laughing but the joke’s not funny at all” is something we’ve all thought about Karlie’s marriage before and is about that moment where if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry at the situation.
- “it took you 5 whole minutes to pack up … holding all this love out here in the hall” to me is about someone moving out of a shared home, like Karlie from Taylor’s NYC apartment, after a break up or fight. We know it is MORE than likely that the girls’ broke up, for a while or for good, in 2017/18.
- “I think I’ve seen this film before, and didn’t like the ending” is a lot like “Cause cruelty wins in the movies, I’ve got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you” / “All of my heroes die all alone.” which makes me truly believe that delicate > the archer > exile are all the progression of the same love story. ❤️
- “now I’m in exile seeing you out” = both of them have lost their home, exiled from the relationship.
- “I can see you staring honey, like he’s just your understudy” has a lot to unpack. Firstly, see this photo. Second, as a beard, Joe is quite literally Karlie’s understudy - stepping in only to fill a public void or play her part when she can’t.
- “like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me” is basically this tweet
- “second, third and hundredth chances” - hopefully this means the girls WILL be together again soon!!!
- “those eyes add insult to injury” - Taylor has often made explcit reference to her lover’s eyes, but this could also mean the eyes of the public on her every move and relationship not allowing her to properly grapple with break ups. 👁️
- “i’m not your problem anymore, so who am i offending?” - homophobes love to say wlw or mlm relationships “offend” them or their beliefs, so who could taylor be offending if she’s publicly in a straight relationship?
- “you were my crown”, Taylor was/is Karlie’s princess, if Karlie is gone, Taylor doesn’t feel like she’s a princess anymore. Likewise, Karlie is Taylor’s sunshine which makes the moody, misty, dark aesthetics all the more relevant to this album.
- “so I’m leaving out the side door’ - this side door? the other side of the door?
- “all of this time, we always walked a very thin line” between outing themselves and being happy?
- “I gave so many signs” - Taylor has queercoded EVERY album since her self-titled, she has been dropping hints and signs for years that she is LGBT+ so it must be exhausting to have to keep hiding who she loves. This is repeated so many times - it means a lot.
- written with William Bowery who nobody can quite identify, but Karlie and Taylor have been to the Bowery many times together and William is mentioned earlier in TLGAD
- this whole song is a duet, a two-sided conversation between lovers - her and karlie both without each other.
my tears ricochet
- Track 5 is, as per usual, deeply confessional, personal, emotive and moving. 😿😿
- there are lots of theories and layers to this masterpiece of a song, including that it’s in reference to big machine. I personally think every single song of Taylor’s is made up of layers that reflect multiple things in her life and experience so plausibly it can be about multiple things all at once including Sco** and Scumbag as well as Karlie, who was under Scumbag’s management for the majority of the decade. Another theory which with every new listen I think is more and more possible is that this is alternating between Taylor and Karlie’s perspectives.
- ‘if i’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too” whoever is associated with Taylor will ALWAYS be dragged down with her. If she’s being attacked, they will be too. Big 2016 energy.
- “even on my worst day, did I deserve babe, all the hell you gave me?” could be directed at a lover, or at Big Machine, or even the public for all the shit they’ve said about Taylor over the years.
- “I swear I loved you ‘till my dying day” seems a lot like the 1, as well as could be about the music and the label she helped build.
- “I didn’t have it within myself to go with grace.” Taylor was LOUD about her split from Big Machine, she called them out (rightly) and made noise which is not a ‘graceful’ split.
- “you’re the hero flying around saving face” very easily is about S+S jackasses but deeper than that, while Taylor was under immense attack and criticism, everyone who actually like her music pretended suddenly to hate it and her to stay ‘cool’
- “cause if I’m dead to you why are you at the wake?” this lyric becomes especially important in the final verse but essentially those who publicly distanced themself from Taylor still showed up when she was thriving again and/or because they actually truly loved her *uhmm karlie uhmm*
- “cursing my name, wishing I stayed” either at Big Machine or with Karlie/Taylor.
- “some to make a diamond ring” > firstly we still have never understood the ring image from the LWYMMD and ME! videos, it is entirely possible this is a continuation of that same symbol/image. Second, I think this hints to Karlie getting ‘engaged’ while still being with Taylor, the rock for the ring in the song was found by the two people gathering stones after all.
- “you know i didn’t want to have to haunt you” both Taylor and Karlie have big reputations all over the world that follow them everywhere. For either one, they will always be haunted by reminders of each other.
- “you wear the same jewels that I gave you as you bury me” - on the Big Machine side, Taylor made the label professional and big, she is literally the sole reason it succeeded in the music industry so she handed Sco** his fortune and reputation which he still had when he sold her music to Scumbag and got into a very dirty bed with him. From the Karlie side, many people have noted that not only does she wear her black cartier necklace, which is assumed to be from Taylor, but to her ‘wedding’ wore a necklace she’d worn before with Taylor.
- “when I’d fight you’d tell me I was brave” could refer to Sco** encouraging her in 2016 to defend herself. Could refer to Karlie supporting her behind the scenes.
- ‘and I can go anywhere I want, just not home” seems like a continuation from exile, as in she’s lost the place she called home because her lover is no longer there but could also mean she can’t go back to her other albums and the house (see the lover music video) that they created as her musical home.
- “you will still miss me in your bones” could be about Sco** losing his money and label without her there to physically support and carry it or about the fact that the love Taylor and Karlie had is so ingrained it’s in their bones forever.
- “and i still talk to you when I’m screaming at the sky” this lyric has a lot of possible interpretations (i’ve seen one about cursing out God?) but i think it’s similar to “asking the traffic lights if i’ll be alright” as in, it’s Taylor asking the universe to help her make sense of things.
- “when you can’t sleep at night, you hear my stolen lullabies” suggests a) sco** + scumbag is still haunted by the music they stole from Taylor because it was literally the backbone of the business which is now practically worthless and b) that Karlie is kept awake by the songs Taylor has written for and about her over the years which again were stolen away by the jackasses at Big Machine.
- “you had to kill me, but it killed you just the same” again, same idea - big machine will never be profitable without her/while they hold her masters hostage. BUT Karlie wise, breaking up with Taylor broke her too?
- this is where the song changes. it shifts from Taylor’s story to someone else’s, personally I think Karlie.
- “you turned into your worst fears” as in she settled for the money and sold her values off by marrying Josh. Also, Karlie was under Scumbag’s management for years (part of Taylor’s hatred of him was him keeping the girls’ from doing as they pleased) so by being completely controlled by him, she turned into this completely fake person. Contrast 2014/15 Karlie with 2017/18 Karlie and it so much more all about PR and money.
- “you’re tossing out blame, drunk on this pain, crossing out the good years” - sco** and scumbag have made so many false excuses for their behaviour and completely erased the good relationship between the Swifts and sco**. Not sure yet what the Karlie side is here but it’s here somewhere.
- in conclusion, this is about Big Machine and Karlie. As the first song Taylor wrote for the album, I think it’s clear just how incredibly multi-faceted this album is. ☕☕☕
mirrorball
- first off, we can never forget about this and this look from both girls. ✨✨
- “I’ll to show you every version of yourself tonight”, the public and the private sides to them both. this is big glass closet energy in my opinion
- “and when I break it’s in a million pieces” is so personal and heartbreaking. 2016 and Kaylor breakup vibes. I cannot elaborate at this time.
- “when no one is around my dear” = the secrecy, forbidden love motif returns and again, if she’s in a hetero relationship, what’s to hide?
- “you’ll find me on my tallest tiptoes”, Just an fyi, Karlie, a giraffe, is 6′2″, Taylor is 5′10″ – thats a big difference. 🦒🦒🦒
- “i know they said the end is near” = end of the relationship or the end of hiding it, either way, it’s a romantic last private moment together, swaying as the room burns down.
- “i can change everything about me to fit in” = Taylor when she was starting out was forced to create this all innocent, american-girl image of herself. She has had to hide herself to succeed, as she said in Miss Americana, she was muzzled.
- “you are not like the regulars, the masquerade revelers” = Karlie is different to everyone else, or any other ex, ‘masquerade’ implies masked or hidden figures at a party, very Love Story
- “and the called off the circus, burned the disco down” = the ‘circus’ could be the media/public, or all the illusions Taylor has cast in order to appear straight. The ‘disco’, and Taylor is the ‘mirror ball’ to her lover means that this isolated existence of just the two of them.
- “I’m still on that tightrope, I’m still trying everything” for now, she’s still closeted, she’s still trying to have the best of everything.
- “I’m still a believer, but I don’t know why” believer in everything working out perhaps, or perhaps believing it’s better if she’s in the closet and it’s only the two of them.
- “never been a natural” = she has completely created herself through years off trying to be what people want, not who she naturally is.
seven
- “picture me” implies this is retrospective of Taylor, she’s reflecting on her childhood/youth.
- “I hit my peak at Seven” could either refer to the age 7 or album 7, ‘Lover’ which many critics argued was her best work.
- “Over the creek I was too scared to jump in” = fear of jumping is something Taylor has discussed in many songs but this is different, the creek represents something she fears will drown her.
- “High in the sky with Pennsylvania under me” = obviously, Taylor was born and raised in rural PA, so this truly is a childhood memory unearthed and explored. It’s personal to Taylor, it’s her story. 👏🏼
- “Are there still beautiful things?” Recognizing the world isn’t all daisies and rainbows
- “cross your heart, don’t tell no other” = again, secret keeping and hiding something is a big queer image, ‘cross your heart’ is a quite childish phrase but it’s adult equivalent in Taylor’s world is an NDA, ie swearing people to secrecy is something she’s always known… 🔐
- “Although i can’t recall your face, I still got love for you” = this childhood love has faded with time to memories, this girl simultaneously forgotten and remembered.
- “Your braids like a pattern” = definitely about a girl (1996 rural Pennsylvania was not the kind of place where boys had braids), specific use of YOUR pronoun not ‘my’ or ‘our’ suggesting again it’s about a girl. Very obviously about a first girl crush. 🌈
- “passed down like folk songs, the love lasts so long” = firstly, reference to Neruda’s poem Taylor used in the red prologue. second, folksongs change slightly from generation to generation but the heart/melody remains the same meaning that in Taylor’s mind, the story of her first girl love has changed but it’s still the same song/story all the years later. also, clearly a reminder of the setting of the song and the album as a whole being folklore. 💛
- “your dad is always mad and that must be why” feels a lot like Love Story and forbidden love, also again rural Pennsylvania in the mid-1990s was not the most liberal place so I can imagine a lot of homophobic ideas that perforated Taylor’s childhood.
- “I think you should come live with me” is such an innocent image of someone in love and wanting to just fix things by bringing them home, it also is like a baby gay version of uhauling
- “we could be pirates” = pirates are not just a childhood image/motif but also one historically seen as gay, gangs of pirates often had ‘mateolage’ agreements that basically were like widow’s benefits. See John Swann. ☠️
- “you won’t have to cry, or hide in the closet.” = I think this one is explicitly clear but just to be sure, Taylor could’ve said “hide when he lost it, hide if you wanted, hide in the woods too” etc. Read this for a full understanding of why it such a LOUD image to use. It is VERY DELIBERATE PEOPLE. 🌈🌈🌈
- “just like a folk song, our love will be passed on” = different from the first bridge but deliberate again. Their story, aka Taylor liking girls from a young age will always be talked about, AND their love lives in this song she wrote.
- “picture me in the weeds before I learned civility” = again, given the homophobic attitude, ‘civility’ and straightness should be read as the same so Taylor is saying when she was a child, free in the grass and herself, she wants to always be.
- “I used to scream ferociously any time I wanted” = she wasn’t muzzled as a child, she could say and be who she wanted, screaming it aloud for everyone to hear but that changed as she grew up.
- “pack your dolls and a sweater, we’ll move to India forever” = ‘dolls’ again would imply it’s two girls running away together and India is this exocitc far off place to a child, a place where they can be together without anyone knowing them or controlling them.
August
- Karlie Kloss is born in August. Karlie Kloss posted yesterday about being a Leo (an August born). August belongs to Karlie Kloss. 🦁♌
- “rust on your door” = image of something well-worn, perhaps someone who’s been here too a few times before?
- “whispers of are you sure?” = obviously there is the sexual connotation, but beyond that, what if it’s about Taylor and Karlie going public etc.
- “never have I ever before” = see above but also the game ‘never have I ever’ evokes youthfulness and sounds almost like a reminder of a fun night with friends.
- “I can see us lost in the memory” = implies they’re still together, losing themself in the memory together
- “I can see us twisted in bedsheets” = again, sexual imagery but also the intimacy of sharing a bed with the person you love after sex
- “Like a bottle of wine” = matures the song a bit, the youthfulness of earlier is now more adult. 21 is America’s drinking age, 20s were mentioned early etc. 🍷
- “Cause you were never mine” = the whole of Taylor and Karlie’s relationship, Karlie has publically been dating Josh so she was never solely Taylor’s.
- “Will you call when you’re back at school?” = Karlie attended NYU in 2015, the height of Kaylor.
- “back when we were still changing for the better” = instead of changing to adapt/survive or keep up appearances.
- “wanting was enough” = wanting Karlie without labels was enough, rather than having to go public etc. Many have said for a long time that Karlie and Taylor fought about coming out or not.
- “cancel plans in case you would call” = sounds like a very love-sick Taylor Swift thing to do. Also waiting on a lover’s call when they constantly are travelling like both Karlie and Taylor do makes sense. ☎️
- “so much for summer love” = cruel summer echo? Summer 2015 was again, peak Kaylor so this could be a specific reference to that period
- “Do you remember? Remember when I pulled up and said ‘get in the car’” another specific reference, comes up again later in Betty, clearly is something personal.
- “Back when I was still living for the hope of it all” = back as in the past when everything was happening, hope of it all being the hope they’d still end up together.
TO SUM UP PART 1:
BENEATH ALL FICTION OR MYTH IS FACT & FEELING. Taylor is no longer hiding. Yes, some of these songs are about stories and people not her but there is so much of herself and her own story layered in too. PAY ATTENTION!!! Obviously, these are just my opinions, I’m not Taylor so I cannot know exactly what these songs are about but I think, after years of analyzing her music, these images/themes and deliberate word choice are well-versed in this part of the fandom. It is entirely possible this is the beginning of Taylor’s full, public coming out journey.
I’ll be back with Part 2 tomorrow. Stay Tuned!
Some folklore thoughts 💭🌲✨🏳️🌈
Part 2
thank you all so so much for your patience!!! I’m sorry it took so long but there’s a lot to unpack in the 2nd half of folklore!! Please keeping letting me know your theories/ideas/thoughts/comments!
this is me trying
Feels like an explanation to someone, the history of Taylor trying to tell us something, or do the right thing, or be what everyone wanted her to be. Almost like it’s an apology too.
“Shiniest wheels now their rusting” could be about her careers, in MA Taylor talks about how as she reached 30 she wondered if her career would begin to plateau/diminish, elephant graveyard analogy 🐘
“Didn’t know if you’d care that I came back, I have a lot of regrets about that” = either about her relationship with the fans after 2016, that she thought we wouldn’t still be here for her so she disappeared for longer AND/OR about perspective post break up and wanting to reconnect/rekindle a relationship lost
“Pulled the car off the road to the lookout” = many have proposed this is about the Big Sur trip where the girls stopped along Route 1 (hint: apparently known as the 1 to Cali people)
“Could’ve followed my fears all the way down” = Taylor could’ve spent her whole life/career in the closet and her fears could’ve kept her from “trying” to come out/be with K publicly 🌼
“I don’t know quite what to say” = vs “a hundred thrown out speeches I almost said to you” seem like twins or siblings as lines.
“Told me all of my cages were mental” = play on the word “mental”, as well as cages being metal. What is encaging/closeting Taylor is her own thoughts about coming out and/or that her fears are irrational (as in crazy). Also, remember when Taylor was literally held by 7 guards (or in my mind, beards) and locked caged in LWYMMD?
“So I got wasted like all my potential” = it’s easier to get drunk and ignore reality than face the music, in my opinion 🍸
“My words shoot to kill when I’m mad” = perhaps Taylor regrets things she’s said and done when she’s been angry at certain people, or maybe she’s talking about the end of a relationship again.
“So ahead of the curve that curve became a sphere” = personally, this sounds to me as though her bearding created a world beyond what was expected of her, all her beards and her reputation as a serial dater protected her true loves in a sphere behind it.
“Pouring my heart out to a stranger” = are the strangers are the fans/consumers of Taylor’s music or is it a physical stranger Taylor once drunkenly confided in?
“At least I’m trying” = Surely, trying is better than never trying?
“It’s like being at a party when I feel like an open wound” = clearly, there was a party or event soon after Karlie and Taylor split, the question is which one?
“You’re a flashback, and a film reel on screen in my town” = New York screams Karlie’s name, on huge billboards and buses, and yes, on TV/ the internet. Pretty inescapable.
illicit affairs
the melody is so gentle, almost sorrowful but it’s actually a cautionary tale of a lullaby ✨
“Make sure nobody sees you leave, hood over your head” = something you’d say to a secret lover, again, why is Taylor’s lover secret? Why hide? Unless...
“Tell your friends your out for a run” = a certain somebody we know has a running club and LOVES to go running... ironically, her running rallies never get posted to her club 🏃🏼♀️
“Take the road less travelled by” = Robert Frost poem reference that literally means ‘take the back streets and lanes’.
“What started in beautiful rooms” = there are 2 versions of how Taylor and Karlie Met: 1. Lily Aldridge introduced them at the 2011/12 Met Gala or 2. The 2013 VSFS — either way, beautiful rooms seems to describe either setting!!
“Clandestine meetings” quite literally means secret meetings, which we all know Taylor and Karlie have had MANY of.
“Longing stares” = like these all ones? 👏🌈
“Leave the perfume on the shelf, you picked out just for him.” = hints at a love triangle but I can’t help but wonder if this is more about the fact that you can be in love with someone whilst publicalt dating someone else? It feels like a bigger metaphor.
“Leave no trace behind, like you don’t even exist” = Taylor’s wlw relationships barely left traces behind, she’s been so careful and deliberate with not only the relationships but these lyrics too. It’s too specific to be nothing.
“Take the words for what they are, a dwindling mercurial high” = mercury poisoning causes delusion and can kill you whilst simultaneously looking shiny and beautiful, ‘dwindling’ suggests she’s coming off it meaning that reality is blurring back in, and that the words were the product of the high.
“Only worked the first few Hundred times” = whatever excuse that everything okay and justifiable for lying about her relationships has over time worn off
“They show their truth one single time but they lie and they lie and they lie a million little times” = this has big Kissgate energy, the one time Taylor showed her truth, she buried it it a thousand more lies to protect herself.
“You’ve shown me colors you know I can’t see with anyone else” = again, parallels to “rest of the world was black and white but we were in screaming colors!”, another queer nugget 🌈
“You taught me a secret language I can’t speak with anyone else” = see above but also, taylor can only relate to other people who beard and the language that comes along with that. I assume the industry has special words to communicate these relationships behind the scenes.
“You know damn well, for you I’d ruin myself a million little times” = again post Kissgate, Taylor would happily ruin everything for Karlie, let her ruin her relationships and reputation if it meant them staying together
invisible string
“centennial park” = in Nashville, which is not far from Music Row where Taylor spent a lot of time as a teenager and has a full size replica of the Parthenon — a symbol of Ancient Greece and Greek MYTHOLOGY
“Teal was the color of your shirt when you were 16 at the yougurt shop” = from what I can find, the Toe yogurt ship narrative doesn’t work; Snog’s colors are pink and black, he was barely 16 in 2008 and lived almost 40 minutes from the only location of his supposed place of employment that had JUST opened in 2008 BUT he also supposedly only had the job before he got Billy Lynn when he was 24. See here vs here (also it’s very interesting what he said {only 6 months ago} about reading Taylor headlines, if 99% of them are about how he’s her muse and he says their wrong, isn’t it clear how he can say it with 100% certanity? He’s not talking about the pregnancy/marriage rumors, in 2019 it was ALL about him being her muse for lover or her soulmate...) 🤷🏼♀️
“Time, curious time,” = as time goes on, society has been more and more accepting of LGBT+ people and maybe so has Taylor with her own sexuality. 🌈
“Gave me no compasses, gave me no signs” = this is perhaps about navigating a very heteronormative industry and/or about
“Invisible strings tying you to me” = bigger metaphor here, invisibly Taylor and Karlie have always been linked to one another, especially by those of us here on the internet tracking their Easter Eggs.
“Bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to LA” = bad blood was released as a single in 2015 but came out late 2014. WAY too early for the Toe timeline. First trip to LA could mean a lot of things - firsts of something rather than the first ever trip to LA (FYI Joe Alwyn reportedly visited LA for the first time in mid-2016 only for Billy Flynn promo). Also, Taylor bought her current LA mansion in 2015 so perhaps it was Karlie’s first trip to the new LA house?
“Bold was the waitress our three year trip getting lunch down by the lakes” = Kaylor has supposedly been together since 2013-14 so 2017 would’ve been their 3 year anniversary when Taylor and Karlie were both in London. See this instagram by Karlie that is VERY reputation-esq. Comparatively, late November 2019 is when Toe supposedly would’ve had their 3 year anniversary (see the above linked article to show how gushy he was about Taylor) 🙄🙄🙄 .
“Cutting me open then healing me fine” suggests that the relationship has been on going and has had ups and downs, it’s left it’s scars and it’s healing but tender still.
“Were there clues I didn’t see?” Is this directed at us, the listener? 🤭
“Right into that dive bar” = delicate vibes? Also, the golden golpher in the delicate music video with the Karlie look alike at the bar? See these posts - 1, 2, 3.
“One single thread of gold, tied me to you.” = gold is the color taylor associates with Karlie. “Golden like daylight” etc., this whole invisible string idea links back with Taylor having string on her finger in the Lover video AND DWOHT.
“For the boys who broke my heart” could be satirical, like Blank Space or London Boy where it’s basically mocking the media’s perception of those relationship’s impact on Taylor.
“Gold was the color of the leaves when I showed you around centennial park” = see this photo of Taylor and Karlie in Nashville back in 2015/16 🌼
“Hell was the journey but it brought me heaven” = putting up with the media circus and the rumors was worth it because without it Taylor would’ve never had or been able to be with Karlie.
“Gave me the blues then purple pink skies” = many have already pointed out, rightly so, that these are the colors of the Bisexuality flag. Taylor’s hair in the YNTCD music video also used the same colors. 💙💜💗
“And it’s cool, baby, with me” = Taylor and/or Karlie is “cool” with the other’s/their own sexuality being what it is
mad woman
Another interlayering of somebody else’s story and history and her own. Like ‘my tears ricochet’, I think there’s more than one story being told here.
Seems to continue to from TLGAD and Rebekah’s life story and how she is perceived in Watch Hill by her neigbors as being “mad”.
“Does a scorpion sting when fighting back?” = feels like a shot at Big Machine, how she went public and called them out, exposing Scumbag etc., they declared war and she wasn’t going to just silently take it.
“They strike to kill and you know I will.” = Taylor’s venom is in her words and her platform, she has struck back at Kimye, Scumbag, Sco** and others when attacked, even if it means the media perceives her as a vengeful, mad woman. Snakes only bite when stepped on, remember? 🐍
“What do you sing on your drive home?” = sounds like a shot at her ex lover/anyone who dumped her in 2016; her music and songs are still so big and iconic that her “haters” sing along, look at tiktok and the love story remix taking off - some of those people using it DEFINITELY ‘cancelled’ her in 2016.
“Does she smile or mouth ‘fuck you forever’?” = could be continuing from the neighbor’s lawn line OR could be about her ex’s new girlfriend and the face/person is Taylor saying “fuck you for moving on”
“When you say I seem angry, I get more angry” = such a common call-out of women, especially those in professional spotlights, is that we’re too angry or emotional, which makes us more mad. I’m sure for Taylor it’s what many of us experience times a thousand because the media does it too as well as the public. It’s a more mature and witty version of the Man in my opinion 👨
“No one likes a mad woman, you made her like that” = literally Scumbag and Sco** made her the angry force they’re dealing with now, they can’t complain about her being “calculating” or “angry” when she has every reason to be after Sco** stabbed her in the back and Scumbag tried to buy her.
“Poke that bear till her claws come out” = Mama bears protect their cubs, artists protect their art, lovers protect their loves. Weird tangent; some of the alleged Lover Secret Sessioner’s claimed there was a track called ‘Get That Bear Out Of My Trashcan’ on Lover. 🐻🐻🐻
“My cannons all firing at your yacht” = listen, I’m not saying it’s totally right but Scumbag does have a history of dragging his clients to stunt and be photographed together on his yacht. Like here 🤢
“They say move on, but you know I won’t.” = again, from big machine but also maybe from a past relationship that’s still got a fire burning somewhere - “(S)he built a fire just to keep me warm”/“if I’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too” and this post by Karlie
“Women like hunting witches too” = first, seems like a big circle back moment to IDSB and “burning all the witches”, another song about her shedding her old ways of silently grinning and bearing it. Secondly, other women attack women time after time too. See Kim🐀KW, Yael Braun, Hailey Bieber etc. You cannot be a feminist is you actively oppress or help oppress other women. Lastly, this whole hunted/vs hunter metaphor takes me straight to The Archer and I Know Places - some of Taylor’s queer anthems 🏳️🌈
“It’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together” = easily about Scumbag and Sco**, doubles as Kim🐀KW and Konye .
“You took everything from me” = not just her masters and her art but literally the entirety of her 20s and many relationships that may have failed based on Taylor’s contractual inability to come out.
“Watching you climb over people like me” = a LOT of queer artists, and just young artists in general, get extremely taken advantage of in the industry, especially by Scumbag - Taylor’s close friend Todrick has spoke on this before.
“The master of spin has a couple side flings, good wives always know” = on the surface this is a shot at Scumbag who has had many rumors over the years about affairs that he has connviently scrubbed from the internet but deeper than that it does also reflect Taylor’s own history of having ‘side flings’ while portraying different public relationships while some have always known the truth.
“She should be mad” = Yael, us, women who get taken advantage of in any form SHOULD be mad but when we do get angry and loud, we get hated on or worse.
epiphany
again, like most if not ALL the songs on this album, what this song is explicitly about and what this song subtly suggests co-Exist
On the surface, the song follows Lieutenant Archie Dean Swift II who is Taylor’s paternal grandfather and who served in the United States Marine Corps after attending Princeton and in time for the 2nd World War.
Her maternal grandfather, Robert Bruce Finlay, also served in the United States Military during the 2nd World War era.
As such, I’ll try to just stick to the Queer analysis instead of a history lesson on World War II.
“Keep your helmet,” = the battle is still ongoing, still need to protect self for battle, in essence, the fight isn’t over yet when the song starts
“Just a flesh wound” = this wound only damages the surface, what is seen by the naked eye and supposedly hurts less (dubious though), much like damaging a reputation but not the actual person’s career say.
“Sir I think he’s bleeding out” = death is imminent, the wound that was ‘just a flesh wound’ is much deeper and fatal
“Some things you just can’t speak about” = because they’re so emotional and raw that it’s painful, because they’re not your story to tell and legally you can’t, because they’re too complex, because it reveals everything.
“With you I serve, with you I fall down” = loyalty at its most stripped back and basic as well as most high stakes.
“Someone’s daughter, someone’s mother” = deeply personal connection, perhaps (but for her sake, hopefully not) her own mother.
“Hold your hand through plastic now” = obviously, due to the corona virus pandemic this is a new reality for anyone who works in any health or care related field but the bigger metaphor of being see-through without physically touching one another is another glass closeting image
“Doc I think she’s crashing out” = again, someone dying, but perhaps also someone burning out/giving up because they can’t do it anymore?
“You dream of some epiphany” = epiphany is defined as ‘a moment of sudden and great revelation or realization’, perhaps one that shows you the right path when you no longer know what it looks like.
“Make some sense of what you’ve seen” = in all the heartache, trauma and pain, we search for a reason, try to make sense of the things too hard to talk about.
“Watch you breathe in, watch you breathing out” = physically watching someone you love sleep to know that they’re physically still alive; truly a heartbreaking image that right now, in the state of the world, is pretty much universal.
betty
(Okay, buckle up!!!!)
GAYEST SONG SHE’S RELEASED TO DATE!!! 🌈
BRIDGE CITY!! HARMONICAS!! DO I HEAR A BANJO?!? JAMES AND BETTY 4 EVER!!! YAY!
Sonically, this sounds so much like early Taylor that I’m convinced this is her reflecting and remembering her teenage years and her early (queer) love songs (like Angelina, Dark Blue Tennessee, Mary’s Song etc.) 🌾
To clarify: Betty is clearly a girl in this scenario, the person singing is Taylor which implies that the narrator is also a woman (the same one from August and Cardigan?) and James, the third person, is the one who walked on cobblestones in high heels ergo being a third woman, not only this but James is a common unisex name which many females have, including Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s daughter who recorded the opening line to ‘Gorgeous’.
major karlie, dianna, taylor triangle vibes - just saying.
“I won’t make assumptions” = a bigger statement about those who ‘assume’ her sexuality, what she reveals is that you don’t have to ‘assume’ someone’s gay when the evidence points to them, in this case, moving homeroom’s because of you. Seems like something that only happens in an intimate relationship of some kind. Likewise, Taylor’s choices and queer Easter eggs of the years have meant we know by now that we don’t need to ‘assume’ taylor is LGBT+, she either is or has so heavily queer-baited her fans that it’s unacceptable(case and point, wearing a literal bi flag as her hair in the YNTCD video). 🏳️🌈🌈🏳️🌈🌈
“I think it’s cause of me” = again establishes that the relationship between the two girls.
“I was riding on my skateboard” = a. Big queer middle school energy here and b. riding on a skateboard is a male-dominated sport but also, a very historic lgbt+ one.
“It’s like I couldn’t breathe” = one of Taylor’s most notoriously queer songs outside of Betty is Breathe ft. Colbie Calliat which Colbie herself confirmed was about Ex Emily Poe here.
“You heard the rumors from Inez.” = rumors, especially for young queer people, are basically what forces people out of the closet. Makes me think of “the rumors are terrible and cruel but honey most of them are true”... Taylor herself has said that ‘truth and fiction become almost indiscernible”
(side note: Ines {spelt with an ‘s’ which is why it is odd Taylor chose to spell it with a ‘z’ in the lyric video) is another one of Blake and Ryan’s daughters)
“But this time it was true” = see above for the New Romantics parallel. Also, any queer young person can tell you how tough it is to tell a person you like you’re lgbt+ when you’re in a homophobic place.
“The worst thing that I ever did was what I did to you” = probably there is a deeply personal story behind this (OR maybe this is Taylor writing from the perspective of someone she wishes she had never known - as in her first heartbreak) and/or what she did to us, her lgbt+ fans, by agreeing to market herself as a conservative straight country singer.
“Would you have me? Would you want me?” = so. much. queer. yearning and questioning. 🌈
“Would you tell to go fuck myself or lead me to the garden?” = so, this album already has echoed Love Story a few times but this really does too. In the bridge of Love Story, the ‘Juliet’ character which I’ve always said is a young gay Taylor, gets tired of waiting and is angry at her Romeo (her forbidden young love) for not showing up, but their love started in the garden, this secret oasis where they could be together and it’s always where I’ve pictured that song ending (a proposal in a garden). Likewise, ‘the garden’ is also mentioned in cruel summer (cough cough). Taylor has repeatedly used this as an image of being a safe haven for her and her secret lovers — lovers that are secret because they’re ‘forbidden’ in some way. Obviosuly there is also a lot today sexual tension in ‘fuck myself but but I’m focusing more on the physical garden rather than what it is Betty and james do in it . 😉😂🌹🌻
“ In the garden would you trust me?” = literally just see above but again enforces the garden as this space for the two people and a private, scared space
“If I told you it was just a summer fling” = this is what makes a lot of people think it’s part of the larger young love triangle in folklore as a whole and it is. The love triangle itself is so interesting too because I feel as though it’s a mix of Taylor’s own stories/perspectives, her ex’s stories/perspectives and some fiction. I also can’t help feel as though Taylor is maybe talking sarcastically and directly the world like Blank Space, saying “would you believe me if I said I just had a fling with Karlie that one summer? Probably not, huh?”
“I’m only 17,” = firstly, if you haven’t seen Taylor’s MySpace from when she’s around 17, please go look at that baby gay nugget of queerness! Secondly, 17 is around the time Taylor wrote/recorded love story (recorded in 2008) in which there are three often forgotten gems of information about. 1. Taylor said this about it “I relate to it more “as a love that you cannot really elaborate on — a love that maybe society wouldn't accept [or] maybe your friends wouldn't accept.”, 2. There are so many conflicting stories about WHY and on WHO Taylor wrote Love Story about - some examples 1,2,3. And last, The original lyric in Love Story was “this love is DIFFERENT but it’s real.” 🔏
“I don’t know anything but I know I miss you.” = vs “when you are young they assume you know nothing”;clearly the protagonist may not know what their sexuality is but they know they love and miss Betty.
“Your favorite song was playing” = Karlie has repeatedly said her favorite Taylor song of all time is Love Story
“I was nowhere to be found” = seems like a little nugget of grown-up Taylor here — she’s reflecting not only on her teen years but 2016/17 when she disappeared. In Miss Americana she (basically if not word for word) says “I was nowhere to be found for a year.”
“I hate the crowds you know that” = this relationship is intensely private, perhaps because it’s one that ‘crowds’ would react badly to, rather than just kept out of the spotlight.
“Plus I saw you dance with him” = if it’s this him she’s referring to, there’s not much to worry about 😉 but again, a public, fake straight relationship keeps her from a public, real queer one.
“I was walking home on broken cobblestones” = vs “high heels on cobblestones”; as mentioned at the start, this means the narrator of ‘Betty’ is a girl and this ‘confirms’ that Betty and Cardigan are linked as two sides of the same story (with switching perspectives we say the same love story twice and in two different memories - both of which have many Kaylor crumbs)
“She pulled up like a figment of my worst intentions” = the third person in the love triangle, another female pronoun making it an exclusively first person and female pronoun song. Feels also like the dark haired girl in YBWM music video.
“James, get in let’s drive” = person who broke Betty’s heart is James. Established as a woman above. 🚗
“Slept next to her but I dreamt of you all summer long” = vs “chase two girls lose the 1”, and also reiterating that this love triangle is between 3 young women (possibly in New York) during a Summer (aka August). Also, makes true that the excuse of “ a summer thing” lasts at least till then.
“Betty I’m here on your doorstep” = vs “you’d be standing in my front porch light” and “before I could knock, you turned the lock and met me on the front porch” AND “stand there like a ghost shaking from the rain” = this is an example of a queer-coded motif, these 4 songs are about WLW relationships and come from 3 different Taylor albums but showing up on her porch to get her back that the ex has “planned it out for weeks” (same story line in IWYW, Love story, HYGTG to name a few!)
“It’s finally sinking in” = realization of possible last chance, “the sinking feeling starts, they should’ve been here” is the opposite perspective of waiting at a party for someone you love to show up . Also echoes “loose lips sink ships” idea that when you give voice to the thing it can destroy it. As in, when Taylor or James’ secret love gets pushed into the light is when it ends because of the reaction they had to it becoming ‘real’.
“Right now is the last time I can dream about what happens when you see my face again” = James is planning their reunion, (the same one that plays out in HYGTG, IWYW, Love Story etc.) where it’s all about should I or shouldn’t I? Taylor has never publicly gotten back together with an ex yet she talks about it A LOT. 💔💔
“The only thing I want to do is make it up to you” = echo from earlier bridge, and again could be referring to the actual story line of the song or speaking to the people who she tricked into believing she was straight.
“So I showed up at your party” = reunion happens, we KNOW James and Betty end up together, even through the break ups and love triangles. Also, queue key change almost identical to Love Story’s!! ❤️
“Will you have me? Will you want me?” = queer yearning is such a quintessential part of growing up in the closet and it is every where in this album - the self doubt and questioning that goes on as a queer person is a thousand times more intense than any heterosexual experience because if you’re straight, you never get turned down for being simply the wrong ‘gender’
“Will you kiss me on the porch in front of all your stupid friends?” = aka ‘can we forget about the secrets and lies and just kiss in front of everyone unashamed even though their homophobes?’. Also, at this point, why would it matter so much (or take a whole song to be brave enough) to publicly kiss someone? Oh, right! Because queer people literally can die for doing that in a homophobic place like early 00s Tennessee.
“If you kiss me will it be just like I dreamed it?” = MORE. QUEER. YEARNING. YOUNG. GAY. LOVE. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤
“Will it patch your broken wings?” = caged imagery, see later on for what I mean by this.
“standing in your cardigan” = once more confirms James is a girl and the SAME girl from Cardigan (cardigan is in my opinion, from the perspective of a woman, but if it isn’t, then it still makes the person singing Betty a woman) Also, I don’t know any heterosexual males who give their girlfriends cardigans, let alone wear one on a night out in New York in Summer soooooo...
“Kissing in my car again” = the same car as in Cardigan, definitely, but maybe even the same car as Getaway Car or even ITHK.
“Stopped at a streetlight, you know I miss you.” = this last line is so complex to me because my first thought after years of being a keen and sleuth of a Taylor Swift fan, my automatic response is to link this to DBATC, “I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be all right they say ‘I don’t know’.” BUT ‘streetlight’ and ‘traffic lights’ are very different images to Taylor. What we have seen under ‘street lights’ is a girl drunk in her Levi’s AND a girl in jeans under a streetlight on a night out so if those are the images we’re meant to link together, this story of ‘Betty’ becomes a bigger metaphor for the Kaylor love story.
in the end, this sums it up nicely. Thanks King Princess 👑
peace
let me preface this by saying I am fully and wholeheartedly convinced that this song is completely from Karlie’s perspective and I’ll explain why/how as we go! 🌈
“our coming of age has come and gone” = their 20s, the years of growing up and figuring everything out. also, it is the period where both of their careers absolutely became huge and successful.
“Suddenly this summer, it’s clear” = summer again, continues the love stories in the album, also suggests that a summer (maybe 2016 - Taylor’s apocalypse)
“I never had the courage of my convictions as long as danger is near” = in situations where she feels backed into a corner, Karlie can’t stand by her morals/convictions - she caves. Aka letting this happen, TWICE.
“Just around the corner” = something is going to happen, soon, in the time frame of the song or soon in reality - but there’s clearly pressure on time.
“Darling, it lives in me” = the love and the memories live in the person, in this case Karlie, which keeps it alive even if it is no longer existent. 💗
“No, I could never give you peace” = this seems so loaded as a lyric. First, the physical peace of mind because of the media and public, speculation and rumors, the whole circus of fame but secondly, from a romantic perspective of being someone’s safe place to land and peaceful home is about granting them peace in being who they are around you without pressuring them.
“I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm,” = again, parallels to CIWYW but also ‘brittle heart’ suggests so many different ideas; fragility, hardness and anxiousness. So, this strong heart breaks from the rig he amount of stress and pressure and fear? 🔥
“If your cascade ocean blue waves come” = drowning has been a consistent Taylor Swift theme, this could be a reference to Taylor always feeling like she’s treading water and this is Karlie saying she’ll always keep her afloat. Blue - the color of sadness and struggles, and the color of Taylor’s eyes so Karlie will literally catch the falling tears.
“All these people think love’s for show, but I’d die for you in secret” = ‘these people’ being the Kushners and Trumps, the media and the ‘influencer’ world Karlie and Josh somehow have broken into, yet Karlie is saying she’s still die any day for Taylor, her secret love.
“Devil’s in the details but you got a friend in me” = contrast this lyric with “a friend to all is a friend to none” and then unpack the difference, the devil, a friend to none is what’s perceived but there’s true friendship underneath. The phrase ‘the devil is in the details’ literally means that it’s the details, the hidden and subtle ones, that make up or complete something. The details here are all the tiny invisible strings that tie Taylor and Karlie together - the ‘coincidences’ and ‘rumors’. And beneath all of them, Taylor still has Karlie as her best friend.
“What it be enough if I can never give you peace?” = Karlie is literally asking Taylor if it’s enough to keep doing what they’re doing, being secret lovers while she’s faux-married to Trump’s in-law. A peace that may not come for a while.
“Your integrity makes me seem small” = especially recently, Taylor has been increasingly more politically active and fighting for things that matter to her (see the Equality Act, supporting BIPOC movements and voting out Trump, etc.) while Karlie has continually been linked to the Kushners (who are money launderers and all-round crooks according to the New York State Attorney) and the Trumps (one of the most evil and vile families on the planet). In comparison to Taylor, Karlie’s reputation is tainted at best and any good reputation is shrinking daily.
“You paint dreamscapes on the wall.” = Taylor is a painter and poet, a musician and artist, the lover music video featured a make-shift cinema on literally the closet wall (in her rainbow house of Masterpieces), Taylor can vividly create these dreamy scenes for Karlie of what ifs and some days that keep her believing.
“I talk shit with my friends, it’s like I’m wasting your honor” = ‘talking shit’ publicly/with ‘friends’ has led to many saying Karlie and Taylor are no longer close or feuding because it’s what Karlie has been forced into doing while under Scumbag’s management and playing house with Josh. In comparison to Taylor’s honor of doing what’s right and being one of the nicest people on the planet, Karlie is playing the classic evil character and hates it.
“You know I’d swing with you for the fences, sit with you in the trenches” = ‘swing with you for the fences’ is a baseball idiom about hitting a home-run but is more commonly thought of as being how you make your dreams come true. ‘Sit with you in the trenches’ echoes the war imagery of epiphany but also, again, suggests hidden support as trenches are dug our to protect soldiers below ground and literally out of sight from the enemy - Karlie will sit there and support Taylor, out of sight.
“Give you my wild, give you a child” = no, I personally do NOT think this is a pregnancy announcement by Taylor (seriosuly how do people think it is?!) Anygay, what I think is more likely is that it’s about giving someone everything you physically can, every side of you, the wild and the maternal, the soft and the outrageous. On a literal level, Karlie supposedly bought Olivia Benson for Taylor in June 2014 so, she may have actually given Taylor a feline child.
“Give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other” = which is born out of year of closeness and a truly, madly, deeply engrained love for one another.
“family that I chose now that I see your brother as my brother” = firstly, yes, Joe has brotherS (plural) however I don’t buy that it’s about any Alwyn boy for 3 reasons. 1. If it’s from Karlie’s perspective, which I’m convinced it is, Austin is her brother too, just like Karlie’s sisters are like Taylor’s I’m sure (see these kind of experiences). 2. It’s well documented that Austin and Karlie have mutual respect and love for each other and consider each other family. 3. I believe firmly that Paper Rings was also written from both Taylor AND Karlie’s perspectives so it could be a reference to the line in it which is about “painting your brother’s wall”
“Is it enough?” = more of that classic queer wondering about being enough...
“Robbers to the east, clowns to the West” = robbers being Scumbag and Sco**, clowns being Kim🐀KW and Konye, as well as people surrounding them who could destroy their glass castle
“I’d give you my sunshine” = Karlie Kloss is Taylor’s sunshine and daylight, it’s been so well established that this image is inextricably linked to Karlie so here Karlie is literally saying she’d give up everything that makes her sunny and shiny for Taylor, she’d give her everything if it were enough.
hoax
In my mind, this is Taylor’s response to Karlie’s perspective in ‘peace’ - it’s Taylor’s thought process and reasoning on what should be their ending - is it enough or too much?
“My only one, my smoking gun, my eclipsed sun” = the only true love Taylor’s ever known, her 1; her secret weapon because (almost) nobody knows about their existence so they can live in a little bubble together; a sun that is eclipsed has had its light blocked out by the moon (if you’re looking at it from the Earth) but whilst being eclipsed, shines through in halo-light around the moon. The last total solar eclipse in America was in 2017. And by now, the sun is just instantly Karlie when it comes to Taylor Swift.
“This has broken me down” = all the hiding and relationships have been so much that it’s wrecked her belief in love/Karlie and her ever working.
“my twisted knife, my sleepless night, my winless fight” = twisted knife suggests being a) conflicted and b) stabbed and the knife gets twisted when she begins to feel love or hope again (ie Taylor’s alleged plan to come out in Rolling Stone last year and the day before, Scumbag announced he bought Big Machine); sleepless night is what keeps her up at night wondering what could have been or what Karlie is up to or whatever else that we all lay awake thinking about when separate from the love of our life; my winless fight to me is about Taylor coming out - it’s such a tricky tightrope she’s walking because on one hand, she’s spent a decade literally overselling being straight and convincing the public of fake relationships so coming out will make people feel betrayed, lied to, strung along etc. (see what happened when Elton John came out for example) however, it will also make the majority of the lgbt+ community call her hypocritical while they were praising her as an Ally when she refused to identify and join in on the fight for equal rights. There’s also a legal question given that it’s well-known many of Taylor’s most famous beards were made to sign iron-clad NDAs which is why they never talk about the breakups. And then lastly, when she does come out, Taylor will literally have to face her fear of being the most hated woman in America again - Americans are more tolerant than they were in the 70s or 80s but the majority still are conservative. (See this polling data)
“This has frozen my ground” = no matter which way she steps, she’s on such thin ice that Taylor can’t win, she could fall through the ice no matter what she does. ❄️
“Stood on the cliff side screaming ‘give me a reason!’” = again, big sur vibes here and with all the coastal imagery. Also, ‘give me a reason’ is Taylor still in conflict with herself on what to do - to literally dive head first off the cliff into certain hate and more media hounding or stay on the firm, heteronormative ground which she’s built her entire career upon...
“Your faithless love’s the only hoax I believe in” = another deep lyric on many levels!! Firstly, I feel like this is a subtle dig at Karlie’s supposed ‘conversion’ to Orthodox Judaism (there are many posts in the world about how it’s not likely or evident she actually did this at all). Secondly, ‘faithless’ defined means unbelieving or untrue, for example what many people say/think when first learning about Kaylor at all. Lastly, ‘hoax’ is such a specific word to chose not only as the song title but within the lyric, a ‘hoax’ is a falsehood portrayed as the truth that deliberately deceives people’s understanding of something. Kaylor, to many, is a ‘hoax’ with only hypothetical proof (like these kinds of buried articles) -- so basically Taylor is saying that the only hoax she believes in (because it’s not a hoax, it’s real) is that of her and Karlie’s love story.
“Don’t want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world will do” = “it’s blue this feeling I’ve got” / the only shade of sadness she wants is Karlie, nothing else. 💙
“my best laid plan, your sleight of hand, my barren land,” = ‘best laid plan’ vs “I am an architect I’m drawing up the plans” feels deliberate to me, this is all about how Taylor planned for literal years how to slowly come out of the closet so she could be with Karlie; the sleight of hand refers to how magic tricks are performed by using hands to deceive the audience from seeing how the trick works - in this case, it’s about how Karlie marrying Josh was meant to deceive everyone and bury any speculation but ended up causing Taylor to be/feel alone. ‘Barren’ (which let me say if she was {she’s not} pregnant, would be a VERY weird word to slide into the literal next song) means nothing can ever grow or thrive, it’s literally desolate like Taylor standing alone in the desert with her getaway car but without her partner in crime. 🚓
“I am ash from your fire” = this is the answer to “I’m a fire I’ll keep your brittle heart warm” in ‘peace’; it’s Taylor saying that Karlie set her on fire too and then Taylor burned out without her// they got too close and it burned them both out.
“You know I left a part of me back in New York” = major “this city screams your name” vibes, also connects back to the 1, AND Welcome to New York is the first song where Taylor explicitly uses specifically queer language/imagery. New York is Kaylor City - literally. 🍎
“You knew the hero died, so what’s the movie for?” = “all of my heroes die all alone” / “I’ve think I’ve seen this film before, I didn’t like the ending” + lots more ‘film’ theme but it’s basically Taylor asking if it’s worth it if it’s basically inevitable that coming out will at least partially ruin their careers.
“You knew it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart” = Taylor has never, as we saw in Miss Americana, recovered from the aftermath of 2016 and the whole Kimye debacle. I truly think her greatest fear is going through everyone hating her again. Perhaps that’s why folklore and reputation share so many aesthetics and themes, they’re both born from opposite ends of the same thing running from ruin and running toward ruin. Also, using ‘they’ means that it’s not the love that tore her apart but rather what happened when she was at her lowest and everyone turned against her.
“You knew the password so I let you in the door” = again this secret language and secrecy resurfaces and makes me scream to those who still don’t get it WHY BE SO SECRET ABOUT THINGS UNLESS THAT THING IS A SECRET BECAUSE OF HOW THE WORLD TEARS IT APART?? 🔐
“You knew you won so what’s the point of keeping score?” = this line I feel is a reminder to herself about the battles she’s lost and won over the years, maybe a reminder of what will win - her head or her heart. ❤️
“But what you did was just as dark” = as in fake marrying a man so he can get his inheritance and not get cut off from his parents’ dirty money and basically spending the better part of 2 years playing the part of evil queen.
“darling this was just as hard as when they pulled me apart” = personally, I believe this is about making the decision to finally come out rather than ‘this’ referring to the relationship itself being so difficult because of the situation.
“My only one, my kingdom come undone, my broken drum” = again her 1, if it wasn’t already clear; her kingdom is this life and career she’s built for herself - Taylor’s kingdom has crumbled and been besieged but over time, her kingdom became her oasis with Karlie ( SEE ALL OF THE KOMH IMAGERY AND LYRICS PEOPLE!!) but it fell apart when/if they did or under the pressure of keeping it secret; the broken drum to me echoes ‘broken record’ or something that no longer can carry on the beat from before for whatever reason - it’s broken and it’s time for a new drum, a new beat, a new song. 🥁
“You have beaten my heart” = at first glance this seems violent and submissive, as in the heart can’t fight anymore, but beneath the first layer is the idea that Taylor’s head has beaten her heart for too long (thus the past tense) OR that the love they both have is so strong is has literally been the reason it beat (past tense of beat is beaten, beated is actually not a word!) so the final idea of folklore is that this heart/love has been overcome by the need for it to be with the other one - whether that’s Betty or Karlie or whoever.
the lakes
stay tuned!! but my prediction based on what I’ve seen in reviews is that it’s the mutual conclusion of the love story between ‘peace’ (Karlie) and ‘hoax’ (Taylor) together and just living openly and happily.
TO SUM UP PART 2:
Like above, I firmly believe that any artist or storyteller peppers in their own stories, memories, feelings and experiences into their art. Even when the stories those artists tell are “fiction”. folklore is an album of personal histories, of re-imagined memories, of confessions and poems set to music and most importantly, of secrets whispered and obscured by half-truths and allusions. The Easter Eggs here only hatch if you are looking at them for what they are. So, newbie gaylors and veterans alike, folklore is an album that confirms that we should have faith in the love people call a hoax. Taylor, the greatest songwriter of all time, knows EXACTLY what she’s doing!! 👏🌈👏🌈👏🌈👏🌈👏🌈👏🌈👏🌈👏🌈👏🌈
