I don’t know if someone has said it before but in my head Betty has abandonment issues cause her father abandoned her and I have proof:
First of all, for what reason would she say “leaving like a father”? Like, it’s a very specific thing for her to say and really sounds like she’s bringing this back cause James KNEW she had this trauma and he betrayed her and LEFT her to be with Augustine anyway.
There are a few things in Cardigan that made me believe that her father leaving really affected her self esteem. “And when I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone’s bed, you put me on and said I was your favorite”. Betty felt abandoned and unwanted and James showed up and made her feel loved again. “Baby kiss it better” is one more proof that she was hurt and James was really important, helping her heal and feel good again. Another thing is said in Cardigan: “You drew stars around my scars and now I’m bleeding”. James helped her, she felt wanted, special, and then when he left everything came back even stronger cause he kind of confirmed that nobody really wants to be with her, he was just pretending, he didn’t mean any of that, she’s replaceable and no one really wants her, he left her just like her father did.
But I feel like she had this hope that this time it would be different and MAYBE James really liked her and would regret everything. And considering that Betty is writing the song in the future, she knows what happened in the end and when she says “I knew you’d miss me once the thrill expired, And you'd be standin' in my front porch light, and I knew you'd come back to me, you'd come back to me and you'd come back to me and you'd come back” really sounds to me like she’s talking about this hope, the fact that she keeps repeating at the end of the song “you’d come back to me” sounds like she’s trying to convince herself that he would come back to her, she’s trying to hold on to this thought of a happy ending.
I have no ideia if I’m mad here but I really feel like all these lines couldn’t be there for no reason and it just makes so much sense to me LOL
@taylorswift













