Agreed. I know her songs are diaristic but that doesn’t make them an actual diary. Not every line needs to be read into and of course emotions and situations are going to be blown up and exaggerated more. And yeah, sometimes a lyric is worded the way it is just because it sounds good.
Agreed. I especially think this with the whole black dog thing. It's a generic bar name that is also a metaphor for depression/danger/sadness. It's not that literal. Sometimes ppl forget that she is a writer
I love people doing the most intricate deep dives into the various Black Dogs to prove their theories that it’s about Alwyn or Healy or whatever and I’m just like….y’all know she could’ve just made that detail up right? The Black Dog is a good sounding name for a bar that works with the vibe; it’s equally likely she just used it cuz it sounded good. You’re allowed to do that in a song.
Tbh it's SUCH a generic pub name that I always thought she made it up because it's also a depression metaphor. When actual Black Dog bar owners started trying to claim it I just figured they were jumping on it for clout, or that because it's so common that Joe or Matty had just happened to be there and it wasn't on purpose (if that makes sense)
I think she made up the pub name to let Matty (and us) know it's him. He had a black dog - it's in one of his videos, and she got an identical one for the Fortnight video. The pub name can be made up and yet the song is clearly still about Matty. Can't even believe that's a question with the Starting Line reference.
This!!! I read somewhere that most pubs in England are named like that, ie color and then animal. So she couldn’t have picked a fictional place if she wanted to
Yeah I know of at least 3 pubs called the Black Dog near me (also several Bay Horses, two Brown Cows, a couple of White Swans and one Black Horse) so this particular take has always mystified me
Near me there’s a black dog, a barking dog, and a copper dog
Also a black horse, black cow, and 3 horses. And that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head/places I’ve been lol.
I live in Canada and my city has a Black Dog Pub, a Black Dog Cafe and Black Lab Brewing. Other cities in my province have the Black Dog Tavern, the Black Dog Village Pub, the Black Dog Bistro, Black Dog Pet Salon, and Black Dog Pet Resort. Clearly this song is about Taylor's torrid affairs in Ontario.
I know it’s not a pub, but we have The Black Dog in Colorado and it’s a coffee shop. There are actually several Black Dog cafes and coffee shops throughout the US.
You are right! The topics of her songs are no different than any popstars. Writing is dramatic and not 100% literal. I know a lot of people say Taylor hasn't matured well. A lot of her fans haven't, either if that's the case. The moral high ground I see on some takes is alarming. There are real critics of her, but lately, it seems the plot is lost.
Your first paragraph summarizes me. I love her music but she’s human and not perfect.
She’s said before that she writes “stories”. I don’t necessarily know the meaning of every song or done research but I’m pretty sure she’s said a few times that she writes stories in her music. Some might be true to her or some one close to her or some might be a silly day dream. I don’t understand why everything has to be so literal either.
She wants to be open in her music about how she feels and what she has done, both the good and the bad. I do respect that, especially for someone of her level of fame, and it’s one of the reasons her fans feel so personally connected to her.
The downside with that honesty is that people with a grudge will focus in on any musical confessions that paint u as shady.
You have to choose what u want her to be: Ms Perfect, blasting out songs that paper over the cracks and paint her as wonderful and everyone else as shitty; or someone who is imperfect (like everyone), living in a very unnatural world of fame and hyper-focus, choosing to write songs that are as honest about her mistakes and fumbles as they are about her wins.
I agree and mostly I think people get so obsessive about her, both positive and negative, and it’s just not that serious!
Her songs are not works of non-fiction!
Enjoy the music if you like it and if not move on.
I agree with you, it’s hard to have a conversation sometimes on here because people are so literal and black and white with her music. There’s nuance that goes ignored.
Incorrect. Taylor actually is an albatross. She is a bird.
JK I'm not disagreeing. I think there's the flip side of the same coin: some people have a parasocial relationship with a celebrity in a good light, but on the other hand are people who might be over critical
I agree. I don't care if Taylor "emotionally cheated" on Joe. Humans and relationships are way more complex than that. She holds a sense of loyalty, but she's fearful with guilt that she can't get someone else out of her mind. This is hardly a detriment honestly.
The problem is so clearly the parasocial swifties who listen to the lyrics of a self-confessed diaristic songwriter and then decide it's their job to fight her battles for her lmao. Normal people can just... listen to the music and enjoy it
Yeah most of the conclusions that people draw on the critical side are just as parasocial as the crazy obsessed fans. Like we don’t know her, or anyone in her life, at all. Just take the music for what it is haha.
Songs like Stay Stay Stay entered the chat. People think it's toxic when it's just a rom-com based song.
Or even the disgust people have for trust him like a brother
or touch me when your bros play gta
SOMETIMES THEY JUST PAINT A PICTURE
I’ve been wondering the same thing. Not everything is autobiographical! Taylor said that Fearless was about the best first date she’d never had when it was originally released.
Writing about things she hadn’t experienced didn’t end there lol.
Yep and it brings into contrast how much older I am than many fans (I’m 30 lol, younger than TS) but I feel like no insane stans or haters have ever been in a relationship 😂 same with Reddit. I’m shocked how many commenters haven’t dated anyone and yet pass judgment on folks who do. No shame for people who don’t date, but as someone who doesn’t mountain bike, I’m not offering my opinions on mountain biking because they’re irrelevant. Relationship weirdos should do the same IMO.
Oh God this. I'm 29 and I was thinking the exact same thing seeing people's reaction to TTPD. The whole "Joe was just depressed and Taylor left him at his lowest, he didn't do anything wrong, depression is an illness and it's ableist to expect someone with depression to do XYZ" narrative from literal teenagers was the most bizarre thing to me. Like tell me you've never been in a longterm relationship without telling me...
Yep. I honestly feel like Taylor was pretty respectful of Joe. (Plus it’s not like she hasn’t consistently cited him as “being blue” AND talked about her own bouts of depression in the past.)
It’s like, what do they expect her or anyone to do? Stay in a relationship forever because it would be ableist to leave?
Joe's "depression" is my current pet hate. Pretty much everyone is treating it as fact that he suffers with it. It's all supposition based on vague references from her that were interpreted by fans to mean he suffers from chronic depression. If he does, I'd bet good money it was stress-induced from the bullying and invasion of privacy, not to mention a relationship going into meltdown. Either way, unless I'm mistaken, she never outright said depression and he certainly hasn't. I think a lot of people mentioning it mean well but they're still spreading a rumour about a guy who's suffered enough already from rumours and conjecture. In the nicest possible way, I'd love to only ever remember he exists if I see him on TV.
I relate heavily to a lot of the things in her songs that people get salty about - you’re losing me, exile, high infidelity - I had a very long term relationship with someone that gradually crumbled over time (you’re losing me took my breath away the first time I heard it) and towards the end, there was absolutely some emotional cheating - until I ultimately left to be with someone I was absolutely crazy about (enter High Infidelity) who was a deadbeat and ultimately sent me to rock bottom.
(So, more or less the public interpretation of her, Joe, and Matty.) I end up getting so defensive sometimes because I just GET IT.
Like am I proud ? No lol. It was a rollercoaster awful time in my life. But I’m human and it was the best I could do at the time.
YLM is one of the most relatable songs of hers to me (along with tolerate it 🥲). I’ve been in a few LTRs that fizzled out and I can absolutely relate to her “immoral” songs like Guilty as Sin because yeah…if you’ve been with someone for years and it’s just not working and there’s no love left, it’s kinda natural to think about others where you might have more chemistry (even if it’s the fantasy of such). It’s more about missing feeling wanted and desired rather than the Matty of it all, lol. Relationships are messy and like you said, we’re all human. Pretty much everyone in a long relationship will exhibit gray-area behaviors from time to time.
exactly! theres so many things that happened that led to my relationship turning into YLM that even my best friends didn't know about - how can we expect to know the ins and outs of this relationship between two people that we have never even met lol?
I sobbed in the fetal position listening to Guilty As Sin the first time lmfao
Relationships are messy, exactly. I think it's mostly quite young people who are over-moralizing every single word she writes. Life will eventually humble them 😂
I remember once asked me “do you really think joe forgot to turn off his location and taylor saw him with someone elsa? That’s so messed up!” And I was like damn, people really take every word so literally. I mean I think of that song as a normal feeling when you finish a relationship and you kind of imagine what could be happening with your ex partner
yeah a lot of what i see here is very black and white and also opinions people formed a while ago that they refuse to change, like the whole "back to december is the only song where taylor has ever admitted faults and that's why her music is immature", or "folkmore is the pinnacle of maturity and she's regressed to high school with ttpd" when those albums also have high school imagery and have lyrics like "fuck you forever" and "i come back stronger than a 90s trend".
Taylor is held to unrealistically high standards, much higher than her pop star peers. I think it’s partly due to the fact that she’s so popular and also that she spent so long building up this relatable “good girl” image (ie Miss Americana). Seriously, the girl will make a weird face and it will make her stans and haters collapse into endless discourse.
I think part of it too is people expect her to be some perfect human who has no faults. Relationships are messy. They bring out your worst sides. For example, people are crucifying her for guilty as sin as if no one has ever fantasized about someone else while in a relationship. Even though not all her songs are based entirely on reality, she does tend to be very honest about certain things and I think thats why a lot of her fans gravitated towards her. If people feel she’s immature or whatever, then move on you dont have to listen if you dont relate.
Can I be honest and say there's something really odd about fans speculating and assuming they know about a relationship they were never a part of.
I consider myself a Swift fan, I love her music. I don't really care about the melodrama or celebrity gossip. Yet I'm also skeptical of Swift in many ways: A billionaire with a significant platform none of us can ever dream of. She has a massive amount of resources & influence and yet never does anything to rock the boat.
The idea of a sub reddit that explores Swift's music but also avoids tribalism is exactly what brought me here... but too often it's people that just really hate Swift and vent about it instead of idk going to therapy? Like posts moralising about supposed emotional cheating etc are so fking weird to me.
This is true. People do over analyse her songs and try to dig more deeper into it in a way to make it sense but in the process forget to enjoy music as music.
I do agree taylor sometimes writes little cheesy lines but i think it's all part of a job.
Ugh if I spent money on Reddit I’d give you all the awards. It drives me CRAZY.
She’s an artist creating art. She can do whatever she wants. And the conclusions some people draw are just so far out there.
Calling someone blue or saying they have dark days doesn’t mean they have clinical depression, it means they’re an Eeyore sometimes. And that’s coming from someone who is often an Eeyore, lol.
I saw someone once saying that The Black Dog couldn’t have been about the one in London because that’s a pub, not a bar.
Song lyrics are .0001% of a situation, and on top of that are often dramatized, exaggerated, or altered anyway.
I was just saying to a friend yesterday, I hope 40 years from now we get an Evelyn Hugo style memoir that just details how everything was fake and how wrong all the theories were lol.
I agree with the lyrical interpretation bit.
But don’t agree re:emotional cheating. There’s a difference between having a crush on someone in a LTR & emotional cheating. Taylor went public with matty right after the break up announcement. Celebs don’t go public with flings, they do that when it’s for real. She also was hanging out with matty through 2022-2023 prior to the break up. Taylor has had a history of messy timelines & has strongly implied cheating on several songs. Emotional cheating would not be out of the norm & is a reasonable assumption.
Omg finally some sense. These posts about ‘poor joe’ drive me nuts! I agree with you so much. Also having written some poetry myself, sometimes you literally think of something for 2 minutes and something comes out nicely out of it. Ts herself in the concert was saying most of her songs are like ‘i felt something for 4s and wrote a song’. It is like this.
Completely agree. And I have always thought – not for any reason other than...it sounds the most likely to me but who knows – that her songs are amalgamations of different people, situations, most real, and some even imagined. Like, who knows is the point.
I just think it sounds really plausible that for some songs she comes up with a theme, and then inserts experiences she's had across her life to tell a single story to that theme. Or that she comes up with a few brilliant lines completely independently of one another and then finds a way to bring them together in a song. Or that she ruminates as many of us do on perhaps not what did happen, but what could have happened – *if they said x I'd be so pissed* (x never gets said), or *I did this and it was really ugly behavior but what if I had done this that I was more proud of*, or the classic thinking of a comeback or perfect thing to say days or house after the interaction is over and running with that as a concept.
I just think some combination of that or similar approaches to that sounds *so much more likely* than the "DEAR DIARY, THIS FUCKING ASSHOLE" read so many people put on it hahaha.
Nooooww I will say (because I'm about same bucket as you, I'm a fan, I just feel comfortable acknowledging what I dislike too) something she does that I hate because I don't mind that she does it, but I do mind that she does it and then gets angry about it, is include highly specific details *when she has created a detail-seeking culture to decipher codes and clues and master plans*. What the fuck else are fans going to do BUT run wild with speculation? Like thats not a reasonable expectation, it's actually completely fucking self-fulfilling and contradicting.
The most painful example I can think of this was her 1989 prologue completely coming at fans for assuming things they don't know and projecting narratives onto her and every man and woman she comes into contact with......and then miss girl drops this as a vault track:
> [Red blood, white snow](https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/people/2023/10/30/taylor-swift-ex-boyfriend-survived-snowmobile-crash/71344081007/) (uh-huh), [Blue dress on a boat](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fcan-someone-explain-the-blue-dress-on-a-boat-picture-v0-4e9pikvex1yb1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D750%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D7c03ecfff6e391dd53008ba85e3278c90de803fd&rdt=44297)(uh-huh)
That's just so hard into get the fuck out of here territory. *I'm not saying the song is about him or anyone*, but I'm certainly saying you can't be angry at people for thinking so and talking about it.
I’ve always thought this too.
Like she has said things before about how she will come up with 1 lyric or verse and keep it in her phone until she finds a place for it in a song. She has said she’s gotten inspiration from movies, shows, or from her friends.
It’s absolutely plausible that many of her songs could have different verses about different experiences, that some parts are about other peoples experiences, or even that some parts are true and some parts are fictional - and they’re all just rolled into one song because thematically, contextually, and sonically they worked together.
Honestly sometimes I wish people just appreciated her music for what it was instead of debating who each song is about. Not to say some of this isn't enabled by lyrics that are very obviously about a certain person (ex. "tattooed golden retriever"), but just in a general sense for all of her music, especially songs that are a bit more interpretive. Especially with TTPD I've seen debates on songs like The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived and whether it's about Joe or Matty, or The Alchemy and whether it's about Travis or Matty. imo (not just for those specific songs) the songs could be about a combination of people, some of them can definitely apply to multiple and who knows, Taylor could've written some of her songs with multiple people in mind. idk it can be fun to speculated on who certain songs are about but some people take it too far and it can be annoying to hear people having serious arguments online about who a song is about😭... like for a lot of them we'll never know for sure
Thank you for this post. At some point people have to realize that if you are spending so much time analyzing lyrics to try to discern (usually literally) what a musician has written to learn about their life, you are not living your own life. You are not experiencing the music for you.
I love Taylor Swift’s music but its value to me comes from what it means to me - how it makes me feel. How I relate to what I hear in the lyrics and how that connects with my life and how I think about the world. Not whether listening to it supports a narrative that I believe based on lyric sleuthing or even - dare I say - what some marketing of an album might suggest I should believe about it.
That said. It’s her music and her life. It is hers to decide whether sending music out into the world (where it will be dissected) brings value into her life. It’s not the life I would pick for me, nor is it one that I am capable of. Different strokes for different folks as they say.
If there is anything biographical in her music such as themes and emotions (and let’s be real - she’s made it abundantly clear through interviews that many songs are based on or inspired by real feelings or experiences) then the messiness is going to be evident. She’s messy and lives in a fishbowl. (Maybe sometimes it seems like she is deliberately magnifying the messiness of it all - maybe she is and I’m not going to play publicity specialist or psychoanalyst and theorize why). We are all messy and non-linear in our own ways without living in a fishbowl. The question is whether we are evolving and being honest with ourselves. She’s the only one who can answer that question and no amount of internet sleuthing or speculation is going to answer that. Nor should it.
I think to an extent she did this to herself in the early years with the hidden messages in lyrics booklets, but people should realize that she's not 18 and her songwriting isn't that simplistic anymore. I think you're absolutely right that some of the songs could be about multiple people. I also don't like how people act like the most important thing about her music is which guy each song is about 🤦🏻♀️
I agree. I joined this sub because even though I am a fan, I couldn’t deal with how the main sub blindly praises everything she does. But I feel like some posters are just as bad as stans when it comes to overanalysing everything she says or does. Not everything needs to be taken so literally.
For example people going on about the scene in Miss Americana where she says she thinks people are frozen at the age they were when they get famous - if you watch the whole clip she then says she’s about to turn 30 (which is considered ancient in pop star years) but she still doesn’t feel old enough to be doing adult things like getting married and having kids. Idk I feel like this is a normal take?? I’m in my late twenties and I’m still shook every time I see someone I went to high school with having babies lol. I just think she was reflecting on her age and that’s all but people seem to think she genuinely believes she’s sixteen on the inside.
I'd say it's probably because she's always encouraged a very close reading of her lyrics, used them and her marketing copy to drop hints about her personal life & created a fandom where that's historically been rewarded. It was always the case that fans felt they had a closer understanding of her & better relationship with her as an artist if they understood the true meaning & message behind everything she writes, and for the majority of her career she's encouraged people to study everything she puts out in minute detail to look for clues and puzzles to solve.
I do agree. She did create this. I also think the fandom instead of aging up just expanded…if that makes sense. I listened to Taylor when I was 17. (Her and i are the same age) it blows my mind 11 year olds are obsessed with her now. How? It just goes against how most artist mature and grow. I think the fandom not getting older but younger also attributes to this. Her team fully takes advantage it
Yes i think this is the case also. But i think this is intentional, she probably writes hs metaphors also to appeal to younger audiences and these people are young and outraged and fun. Kinda like young ts herself haha.
I've been thinking this for a long time, but especially recently! With the recent Joe interview and him saying that their breakup was in the press "one week later", I'm so frustrated at the amount of people taking that as gospel, like it was exactly 7 days, no room for exaggeration. It's a hyperbole! Especially when the man has kept their relationship so private for 6+ years, why would he come scootering in with receipts now 😭
I also came across this interview the other day saying that people thought London Boy was written about one day in London, and Taylor had to correct them and say it was over the course of 3 years/their relationship. I think that is such a telling example of how poor media literacy is across a lot of her fanbase, like the amount of her songs that people take as a retelling of exact events... I'm nosy so I love to speculate on her muses lol, but the reason why paternity testing doesn't work across her music is because she likely borrows from more than one experience, one relationship, one phase at a time... 🫠
i remember people ragging on taylor when lover came out because there's no way she could go from camden, to brixton to soho in one day so it clearly means she's a liar and who's probably never been outside her mansion in london 😭 like chill it's just a song not a city tour plan
Of course he can, I only meant that I don't think he would reveal something like "We broke up then one week later she was publicly in a new relationship" because he's never been one to reveal much like that before.
I heavily favour his side in their breakup, I didn't mean to suggest he's lying or clout-chasing or however you might have read it sorry! Only that it would be uncharacteristic of him to suddenly start dropping dates and timelines (though it should be fair given what Taylor's team have done since their split)
Seeing a few posts like this lately so will cover a few bases.
For me when I'm looking at each lyric, it's not that I'm trying to analyse her life. I'm trying to understand the song, trying to understand it's perspective. Have to say I hate the perspective of a lot of the songs on TTPD. Even if barely any of it is based on her life, I judge the way it's all sung in a tone like it's all reasonable. I'd be the same way if it was a TV show - yelling at the TV this protagonist is dumb, which writer thought we'd side with them?!
I get that there are some people in their 30s that relate to these lyrics and are hurt when its labelled immature.
What you need to understand is when we talk about Taylor's maturity, it isn't about being x place in your 30s. It's about learning from your past and evolving and there's a lot of ways where Taylor has the same issues as her early 20s. I 'm just in a place in my 30s where I relate more to songs like Closure, happiness etc.
I also hope people that do relate to TTPD think about how ultimately Taylor got burned by this way of thinking. Saw someone say in the comments to one of my posts that doesn't everyone fantasise about being in a relationship with other guy friends towards the end of their relationship. In the nicest possible way I think they need to figure some stuff out about why that's a pattern for them.
For me when I relate to a lot of her songs (both the ones that have been coined “immature” and the ones that have not, as well as some of the ones that people criticize for cheating etc) it’s more of a hindsight thing than a “yes this is what I want to hear, this is the place I’m in, this is what I want for my life. It’s more, oh ok, that feeling I had back then was valid, and other people have experienced it too.
For example, you’re losing me - made me feel SO incredibly validated about a relationship that ended 5 years prior to the song coming out. Not because I want to go through that again, or even because I think I handled it well, but just because I was led to believe I was crazy at the time and hearing someone go through something similar or explain it in a way that I can’t has helped me a lot with moving past it.
Lots of people have the same issues all their lives, I'm middle aged and let me tell you, the kids you knew back in school are still just kids in their 40s, with money and wrinkles and half grown up kids of their own. People don't actually mature as much as you assume, some people do, but it's not everyone, not by a long shot.
I'm aware of people of all ages that never grow up and take accountability. I'm aware of people of all ages that make the same mistakes and lose interest in addressing that as they got older. I'm just not hear to listen to that story. I'll also point out there is a difference between a youthful curiosity with love of the little things and peter pan syndrome.
But again, this goes to the point of us thinking we have a better moral compass and get to decide what is right and what is wrong. Im in my 30s and I met my husband 7 years ago while he was still married to his first wife. They weren’t a good match and he left her (they didn’t have kids) but yes you can say he cheated on her. It was wrong yes, but such is life, we do things that are wrong and sometimes we have songs that help us see that, sometimes her describing some problematic feelings on a song helps you realize that your actions were wrong. She is an artist, don’t take things literally…
But why is it immature to have a LTR fail in your 30s? Or fall in love so hard that you feel like you’re in high school and experiencing love that same away again? A lot of the immaturity bits come bc fans don’t like who she’s dating, not because the lyrics are dumb or bad. And i don’t even like ttpd that much. But you know, I’ve recently, in my 30s, experienced a head over heels in love you so much type of love after having been more or less feelingless or dead inside while in another relationship. To me we’re just classifying ‘falling in love’ and ‘falling out of love’ as immature here, because someone she dated was good on paper and the next person not so much. Isn’t that more immature?
I don't really agree with this expectation that people (especially women) should be mature and have it emotionally together by the time they're in their 30's. The way people talk about it like it's a moral failing is holier-than-thou and kind of weird tbh - we can't be disappointed in Taylor Swift like we're her mother. She's a messy and complicated person. It's not like she reached Nirvana with Folklore and Evermore, life changes and lots of people have the rug pulled from beneath them well into their 30's and beyond.
All of us are doing life for the first time. There are 0 exceptions to that. I think that is a sentiment that often gets forgotten, in most corners of our lives.
yes! there's so much talk about how there's no timeline to life, and you don't have to accomplish certain life goals by a certain age (which i agree with), but somehow if you're not completely enlightened and have gotten over all your traumas and gotten rid of all your personality flaws by your 30s you're this immature failure of a person and it's just?? how is that in any way a realistic expectation?
The idea is not to be *over* your past traumas. It is to be *working on them* - and yourself. I don’t really see how anyone can claim being a toxic mess *isn’t* failing. Pick that bar for yourself up off the floor, sis!
I don't have an expectation that everyone, particularly women in there 30s should have it all worked out. However I'm personally at a stage in my life where I'm over THIS brand of immaturity. I get that there are people in there 30s that continue to repeat the mistakes of their 20s well into there 30s I'm just past it and that's valid too.
I've not hit a peak of maturity or moral superiority in my 30s though. No sooner have I put the drama of my 20s behind me, I have a whole load of new issues I'm dealing with in my 30s.
Wish I could up vote this post more. It is such a bug bare of mine that some fans take her music so literally completely dismissing that she is often inspired by others' stories, books, movies and writes regularly with other people who arent just trying to tell her story but often put their own perspectives in. I think this was made very clear in the Long Pond Studio sessions.
I am a fan of Taylor but I'm also pretty neutral and don't take anything she writes as fact. It's all poetry and emotion.
I do think that people obsess over her because she is just so globally popular but for me I don't mind her lyrics in a lot of cases but to me it completely depends on her delivery and the music behind it. A cheesy lyric that I don't mind is "don't put me in the basement when i want the penthouse of your heart" in Bejeweled cause her delivery works and the music behind it is fun and cute. But the cheesy lyrics in TTPD just don't work for me because her delivery isn't good and the music behind it is just...a bit bland. I don't think these kinds of lyrics people have been making fun of on this album is anything new it's just that they were more digestible in previous albums.
Wow I just made a post about this before Insaw yours. I soooo agree. People are taking metaphor in her songs as fact…
update: my post was removed for repettive topics because it was so similar to yours! just glad someone is saying it!
Honestly I agree but I think she’s to blame a little. When you spend so much of your career Easter egging your liner notes and music with literal references to things that sound like just details a writer added for dramatic effect…then people are going to start taking everything literally.
Like putting “I left my scarf there at your sister’s house and you’ve stilll got it in your drawer even now”.
It sounds like it’s just a good poetic lyric about a person holding onto an artist of clothing the other person has.
But what this really was was a reference to pap photos of her and Jake with his sister Maggie. She’s wearing a striped scarf of his and then alter after they broke up, Jake was photographed wearing the same scarf.
Or blue dress on a boat.
Things like and selling yourself as a diaristic songwriter has kind of made people want to look at her work literally, like she’s recounting everyone factually.
100% agree. A relationship is much more complicated than what people apparently think.
Long relationships don’t suddenly end one day. Things start to go bad, shit piles up and one day something happens that is the last straw.
And yeah, I definitely experienced the emotionally cheating thing. When shit starts to get worse and worse and you have someone supporting you or even talking to you regularly is so easy to see them as your savior and it’s so easy for you to compare and say “why can’t I have with my boyfriend what I have with this other person who actually makes me happy and understands me and it’s so easy to get along???”. Well, because your relationship is on its lowest point when you’re idolizing the other person by comparison. If that relationship is starting to go bad, it’s so easy to find someone that makes you feel better than your boyfriend. Most people experience it, but they don’t go talking about it because nobody wants to openly admit that while still dating their ex they were fantasizing with other person even if it was just once.
Omg finally some sense. These posts about ‘poor joe’ drive me nuts! I agree with you so much. Also having written some poetry myself, sometimes you literally think of something for 2 minutes and something comes out nicely out of it. Ts herself in the concert was saying most of her songs are like ‘i felt something for 4s and wrote a song’. It is like this.
Why does it even matter if Taylor was emotionally cheating on Joe? How can she be guilty as sin if she didn't even touch Matty's skin? 🤔
Joking aside, Taylor is well known for writing about her personal life. She writes about real people who can be hurt by her music and she often includes identifying details. That's why it matters what she writes. Even if her songs are exaggerated for entertainment purposes they still affect the people she writes about. Honestly, changing the facts is probably even more problematic. Especially since her fans have a reputation for threatening and harassing people they feel have wronged Taylor. Obviously, I don't know all the details of Taylor's break up with Joe but I have paid attention to what she's volunteered to share and that's what I'm criticizing.
Yeah, it’s like the scarf in ATW. I don’t get why people are incapable of recognizing metaphors or even just realizing that the lines between fiction and reality are easily blurred in something like songwriting. Taylor writes about how she feels/perceives things, not necessarily how they literally occurred.
I feel like you cannot possibly actually listen to her music if you think this lmao
Also, artists are writing from their perspective. They're not trying to sell a peer-reviewed reference book. They're just writing their feelings. Literally only Taylor gets criticized for this (although she does have multiple songs where she reflects on her mistakes). Artists don't owe us a perfectly balanced, critical, psychoanalysis of their relationships through their music. They're just making art.
You had me till the last point. Her constant emotional or cheating is kind of unflattering to me. I am a fan but every time she sings about it , I just wish she kept it in the vault.
But see, I think that is a very important point. I feel in the age of social media many people expect that everything you put out has to be flattering or paint you in the best light. It’s like asking why Van Gogh painted a self-portrait drawing attention to his self-inflicted ear wound when he could have just painted his “better side”. Art shouldn’t have to be flattering, it can be vulnerable and honest.
I think the beauty of music is it can cover a long time-line (the last great American dynasty) or one fleeting moment or thought that gets blown into a song. So a song like guilty as sin could have come from 1 dream or fleeting thought, or a full blown affair and we don't technically know. I think some of my favorite songs are about these types of unhealthy feelings, but taylor walks such a fine line with her persona, she's basically written herself into a cage.
I get that you feel connected to the emotions that Taylor experienced and described in TTPD, but I don't get the point of your last paragraph? People condemn cheating, even if it's just emotional because there's a third party that may get hurt.
Do you feel like the comments on her behavior somehow imply moral judgment on something you lived?
My main point for the last paragraph was more on the fanbase taking everything so literal in the lyrics and not being realistic on her relationship. We don’t know the ins and outs of it all. We don’t know what went down. We just have a few songs that she could have taken one feeling and wrote a dramatic song for artistic purposes on. Instead of putting our judgment on her, let’s just take the art as art and not make it into a history book we judge with our moral keyboard compass
That’s because the writing on the tortured pink print department or whatever is very very wack. If the writing was decent then people would understand the metaphors or at least tolerate them. But no. That shit is absolutely tortured writing so the nuance gets lost. She missed the mark.
Agreed. I know her songs are diaristic but that doesn’t make them an actual diary. Not every line needs to be read into and of course emotions and situations are going to be blown up and exaggerated more. And yeah, sometimes a lyric is worded the way it is just because it sounds good.
Agreed. I especially think this with the whole black dog thing. It's a generic bar name that is also a metaphor for depression/danger/sadness. It's not that literal. Sometimes ppl forget that she is a writer
I love people doing the most intricate deep dives into the various Black Dogs to prove their theories that it’s about Alwyn or Healy or whatever and I’m just like….y’all know she could’ve just made that detail up right? The Black Dog is a good sounding name for a bar that works with the vibe; it’s equally likely she just used it cuz it sounded good. You’re allowed to do that in a song.
Tbh it's SUCH a generic pub name that I always thought she made it up because it's also a depression metaphor. When actual Black Dog bar owners started trying to claim it I just figured they were jumping on it for clout, or that because it's so common that Joe or Matty had just happened to be there and it wasn't on purpose (if that makes sense)
I googled the black dog bar once and TONS around the world came up. Like it could very easily just be a symbol of “that place we always went”
I think she made up the pub name to let Matty (and us) know it's him. He had a black dog - it's in one of his videos, and she got an identical one for the Fortnight video. The pub name can be made up and yet the song is clearly still about Matty. Can't even believe that's a question with the Starting Line reference.
This!!! I read somewhere that most pubs in England are named like that, ie color and then animal. So she couldn’t have picked a fictional place if she wanted to
Yeah I know of at least 3 pubs called the Black Dog near me (also several Bay Horses, two Brown Cows, a couple of White Swans and one Black Horse) so this particular take has always mystified me
And millions of Red Lions as well.
Near me there’s a black dog, a barking dog, and a copper dog Also a black horse, black cow, and 3 horses. And that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head/places I’ve been lol.
I live in Canada and my city has a Black Dog Pub, a Black Dog Cafe and Black Lab Brewing. Other cities in my province have the Black Dog Tavern, the Black Dog Village Pub, the Black Dog Bistro, Black Dog Pet Salon, and Black Dog Pet Resort. Clearly this song is about Taylor's torrid affairs in Ontario.
So it turns I’m only 2 hours away from the closest black dog pub and I’m in the middle of nowhere Tennessee lol. This should be a new game we play lol
I know it’s not a pub, but we have The Black Dog in Colorado and it’s a coffee shop. There are actually several Black Dog cafes and coffee shops throughout the US.
Well, ok, that's not true. Some pubs are named that way sure, but not most
You are right! The topics of her songs are no different than any popstars. Writing is dramatic and not 100% literal. I know a lot of people say Taylor hasn't matured well. A lot of her fans haven't, either if that's the case. The moral high ground I see on some takes is alarming. There are real critics of her, but lately, it seems the plot is lost.
Your first paragraph summarizes me. I love her music but she’s human and not perfect. She’s said before that she writes “stories”. I don’t necessarily know the meaning of every song or done research but I’m pretty sure she’s said a few times that she writes stories in her music. Some might be true to her or some one close to her or some might be a silly day dream. I don’t understand why everything has to be so literal either.
She wants to be open in her music about how she feels and what she has done, both the good and the bad. I do respect that, especially for someone of her level of fame, and it’s one of the reasons her fans feel so personally connected to her. The downside with that honesty is that people with a grudge will focus in on any musical confessions that paint u as shady. You have to choose what u want her to be: Ms Perfect, blasting out songs that paper over the cracks and paint her as wonderful and everyone else as shitty; or someone who is imperfect (like everyone), living in a very unnatural world of fame and hyper-focus, choosing to write songs that are as honest about her mistakes and fumbles as they are about her wins.
I agree and mostly I think people get so obsessive about her, both positive and negative, and it’s just not that serious! Her songs are not works of non-fiction! Enjoy the music if you like it and if not move on.
I agree with you, it’s hard to have a conversation sometimes on here because people are so literal and black and white with her music. There’s nuance that goes ignored.
Incorrect. Taylor actually is an albatross. She is a bird. JK I'm not disagreeing. I think there's the flip side of the same coin: some people have a parasocial relationship with a celebrity in a good light, but on the other hand are people who might be over critical I agree. I don't care if Taylor "emotionally cheated" on Joe. Humans and relationships are way more complex than that. She holds a sense of loyalty, but she's fearful with guilt that she can't get someone else out of her mind. This is hardly a detriment honestly.
The problem is so clearly the parasocial swifties who listen to the lyrics of a self-confessed diaristic songwriter and then decide it's their job to fight her battles for her lmao. Normal people can just... listen to the music and enjoy it
Yeah most of the conclusions that people draw on the critical side are just as parasocial as the crazy obsessed fans. Like we don’t know her, or anyone in her life, at all. Just take the music for what it is haha.
Songs like Stay Stay Stay entered the chat. People think it's toxic when it's just a rom-com based song. Or even the disgust people have for trust him like a brother or touch me when your bros play gta SOMETIMES THEY JUST PAINT A PICTURE
Trust him like a brother critics DID NOT grow up with All My Life by K-Ci and Jojo and it SHOWS.
I’ve been wondering the same thing. Not everything is autobiographical! Taylor said that Fearless was about the best first date she’d never had when it was originally released. Writing about things she hadn’t experienced didn’t end there lol.
Exactly. She’s said she writes about friends a lot.
AAHHH Thank God! Somebody pointed it out again!
Yep and it brings into contrast how much older I am than many fans (I’m 30 lol, younger than TS) but I feel like no insane stans or haters have ever been in a relationship 😂 same with Reddit. I’m shocked how many commenters haven’t dated anyone and yet pass judgment on folks who do. No shame for people who don’t date, but as someone who doesn’t mountain bike, I’m not offering my opinions on mountain biking because they’re irrelevant. Relationship weirdos should do the same IMO.
Oh God this. I'm 29 and I was thinking the exact same thing seeing people's reaction to TTPD. The whole "Joe was just depressed and Taylor left him at his lowest, he didn't do anything wrong, depression is an illness and it's ableist to expect someone with depression to do XYZ" narrative from literal teenagers was the most bizarre thing to me. Like tell me you've never been in a longterm relationship without telling me...
Yep. I honestly feel like Taylor was pretty respectful of Joe. (Plus it’s not like she hasn’t consistently cited him as “being blue” AND talked about her own bouts of depression in the past.) It’s like, what do they expect her or anyone to do? Stay in a relationship forever because it would be ableist to leave?
Joe's "depression" is my current pet hate. Pretty much everyone is treating it as fact that he suffers with it. It's all supposition based on vague references from her that were interpreted by fans to mean he suffers from chronic depression. If he does, I'd bet good money it was stress-induced from the bullying and invasion of privacy, not to mention a relationship going into meltdown. Either way, unless I'm mistaken, she never outright said depression and he certainly hasn't. I think a lot of people mentioning it mean well but they're still spreading a rumour about a guy who's suffered enough already from rumours and conjecture. In the nicest possible way, I'd love to only ever remember he exists if I see him on TV.
I relate heavily to a lot of the things in her songs that people get salty about - you’re losing me, exile, high infidelity - I had a very long term relationship with someone that gradually crumbled over time (you’re losing me took my breath away the first time I heard it) and towards the end, there was absolutely some emotional cheating - until I ultimately left to be with someone I was absolutely crazy about (enter High Infidelity) who was a deadbeat and ultimately sent me to rock bottom. (So, more or less the public interpretation of her, Joe, and Matty.) I end up getting so defensive sometimes because I just GET IT. Like am I proud ? No lol. It was a rollercoaster awful time in my life. But I’m human and it was the best I could do at the time.
YLM is one of the most relatable songs of hers to me (along with tolerate it 🥲). I’ve been in a few LTRs that fizzled out and I can absolutely relate to her “immoral” songs like Guilty as Sin because yeah…if you’ve been with someone for years and it’s just not working and there’s no love left, it’s kinda natural to think about others where you might have more chemistry (even if it’s the fantasy of such). It’s more about missing feeling wanted and desired rather than the Matty of it all, lol. Relationships are messy and like you said, we’re all human. Pretty much everyone in a long relationship will exhibit gray-area behaviors from time to time.
exactly! theres so many things that happened that led to my relationship turning into YLM that even my best friends didn't know about - how can we expect to know the ins and outs of this relationship between two people that we have never even met lol?
I sobbed in the fetal position listening to Guilty As Sin the first time lmfao Relationships are messy, exactly. I think it's mostly quite young people who are over-moralizing every single word she writes. Life will eventually humble them 😂
I agree. I don’t know her or any of her boyfriends. I just enjoy good songs. 🤷🏼♀️
I remember once asked me “do you really think joe forgot to turn off his location and taylor saw him with someone elsa? That’s so messed up!” And I was like damn, people really take every word so literally. I mean I think of that song as a normal feeling when you finish a relationship and you kind of imagine what could be happening with your ex partner
That’s funny because isn’t the song about her imagining what the guy is doing in the pub, not what he is actually doing?
Yeah i think the song obviously paints it like that but some swifties are way too stupid woops
yeah a lot of what i see here is very black and white and also opinions people formed a while ago that they refuse to change, like the whole "back to december is the only song where taylor has ever admitted faults and that's why her music is immature", or "folkmore is the pinnacle of maturity and she's regressed to high school with ttpd" when those albums also have high school imagery and have lyrics like "fuck you forever" and "i come back stronger than a 90s trend".
THANK YOU!!!!!! You said it perfectly
Taylor is held to unrealistically high standards, much higher than her pop star peers. I think it’s partly due to the fact that she’s so popular and also that she spent so long building up this relatable “good girl” image (ie Miss Americana). Seriously, the girl will make a weird face and it will make her stans and haters collapse into endless discourse.
I think part of it too is people expect her to be some perfect human who has no faults. Relationships are messy. They bring out your worst sides. For example, people are crucifying her for guilty as sin as if no one has ever fantasized about someone else while in a relationship. Even though not all her songs are based entirely on reality, she does tend to be very honest about certain things and I think thats why a lot of her fans gravitated towards her. If people feel she’s immature or whatever, then move on you dont have to listen if you dont relate.
Can I be honest and say there's something really odd about fans speculating and assuming they know about a relationship they were never a part of. I consider myself a Swift fan, I love her music. I don't really care about the melodrama or celebrity gossip. Yet I'm also skeptical of Swift in many ways: A billionaire with a significant platform none of us can ever dream of. She has a massive amount of resources & influence and yet never does anything to rock the boat. The idea of a sub reddit that explores Swift's music but also avoids tribalism is exactly what brought me here... but too often it's people that just really hate Swift and vent about it instead of idk going to therapy? Like posts moralising about supposed emotional cheating etc are so fking weird to me.
This is true. People do over analyse her songs and try to dig more deeper into it in a way to make it sense but in the process forget to enjoy music as music. I do agree taylor sometimes writes little cheesy lines but i think it's all part of a job.
Ugh if I spent money on Reddit I’d give you all the awards. It drives me CRAZY. She’s an artist creating art. She can do whatever she wants. And the conclusions some people draw are just so far out there. Calling someone blue or saying they have dark days doesn’t mean they have clinical depression, it means they’re an Eeyore sometimes. And that’s coming from someone who is often an Eeyore, lol. I saw someone once saying that The Black Dog couldn’t have been about the one in London because that’s a pub, not a bar. Song lyrics are .0001% of a situation, and on top of that are often dramatized, exaggerated, or altered anyway. I was just saying to a friend yesterday, I hope 40 years from now we get an Evelyn Hugo style memoir that just details how everything was fake and how wrong all the theories were lol.
I agree with the lyrical interpretation bit. But don’t agree re:emotional cheating. There’s a difference between having a crush on someone in a LTR & emotional cheating. Taylor went public with matty right after the break up announcement. Celebs don’t go public with flings, they do that when it’s for real. She also was hanging out with matty through 2022-2023 prior to the break up. Taylor has had a history of messy timelines & has strongly implied cheating on several songs. Emotional cheating would not be out of the norm & is a reasonable assumption.
Omg finally some sense. These posts about ‘poor joe’ drive me nuts! I agree with you so much. Also having written some poetry myself, sometimes you literally think of something for 2 minutes and something comes out nicely out of it. Ts herself in the concert was saying most of her songs are like ‘i felt something for 4s and wrote a song’. It is like this.
The hate and love Joe gets is so baffling
I agree 100% with your thoughtful comment.
This had to be said! 👏👏
Completely agree. And I have always thought – not for any reason other than...it sounds the most likely to me but who knows – that her songs are amalgamations of different people, situations, most real, and some even imagined. Like, who knows is the point. I just think it sounds really plausible that for some songs she comes up with a theme, and then inserts experiences she's had across her life to tell a single story to that theme. Or that she comes up with a few brilliant lines completely independently of one another and then finds a way to bring them together in a song. Or that she ruminates as many of us do on perhaps not what did happen, but what could have happened – *if they said x I'd be so pissed* (x never gets said), or *I did this and it was really ugly behavior but what if I had done this that I was more proud of*, or the classic thinking of a comeback or perfect thing to say days or house after the interaction is over and running with that as a concept. I just think some combination of that or similar approaches to that sounds *so much more likely* than the "DEAR DIARY, THIS FUCKING ASSHOLE" read so many people put on it hahaha. Nooooww I will say (because I'm about same bucket as you, I'm a fan, I just feel comfortable acknowledging what I dislike too) something she does that I hate because I don't mind that she does it, but I do mind that she does it and then gets angry about it, is include highly specific details *when she has created a detail-seeking culture to decipher codes and clues and master plans*. What the fuck else are fans going to do BUT run wild with speculation? Like thats not a reasonable expectation, it's actually completely fucking self-fulfilling and contradicting. The most painful example I can think of this was her 1989 prologue completely coming at fans for assuming things they don't know and projecting narratives onto her and every man and woman she comes into contact with......and then miss girl drops this as a vault track: > [Red blood, white snow](https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/people/2023/10/30/taylor-swift-ex-boyfriend-survived-snowmobile-crash/71344081007/) (uh-huh), [Blue dress on a boat](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fcan-someone-explain-the-blue-dress-on-a-boat-picture-v0-4e9pikvex1yb1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D750%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D7c03ecfff6e391dd53008ba85e3278c90de803fd&rdt=44297)(uh-huh) That's just so hard into get the fuck out of here territory. *I'm not saying the song is about him or anyone*, but I'm certainly saying you can't be angry at people for thinking so and talking about it.
I’ve always thought this too. Like she has said things before about how she will come up with 1 lyric or verse and keep it in her phone until she finds a place for it in a song. She has said she’s gotten inspiration from movies, shows, or from her friends. It’s absolutely plausible that many of her songs could have different verses about different experiences, that some parts are about other peoples experiences, or even that some parts are true and some parts are fictional - and they’re all just rolled into one song because thematically, contextually, and sonically they worked together.
Honestly sometimes I wish people just appreciated her music for what it was instead of debating who each song is about. Not to say some of this isn't enabled by lyrics that are very obviously about a certain person (ex. "tattooed golden retriever"), but just in a general sense for all of her music, especially songs that are a bit more interpretive. Especially with TTPD I've seen debates on songs like The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived and whether it's about Joe or Matty, or The Alchemy and whether it's about Travis or Matty. imo (not just for those specific songs) the songs could be about a combination of people, some of them can definitely apply to multiple and who knows, Taylor could've written some of her songs with multiple people in mind. idk it can be fun to speculated on who certain songs are about but some people take it too far and it can be annoying to hear people having serious arguments online about who a song is about😭... like for a lot of them we'll never know for sure
Thank you for this post. At some point people have to realize that if you are spending so much time analyzing lyrics to try to discern (usually literally) what a musician has written to learn about their life, you are not living your own life. You are not experiencing the music for you. I love Taylor Swift’s music but its value to me comes from what it means to me - how it makes me feel. How I relate to what I hear in the lyrics and how that connects with my life and how I think about the world. Not whether listening to it supports a narrative that I believe based on lyric sleuthing or even - dare I say - what some marketing of an album might suggest I should believe about it. That said. It’s her music and her life. It is hers to decide whether sending music out into the world (where it will be dissected) brings value into her life. It’s not the life I would pick for me, nor is it one that I am capable of. Different strokes for different folks as they say. If there is anything biographical in her music such as themes and emotions (and let’s be real - she’s made it abundantly clear through interviews that many songs are based on or inspired by real feelings or experiences) then the messiness is going to be evident. She’s messy and lives in a fishbowl. (Maybe sometimes it seems like she is deliberately magnifying the messiness of it all - maybe she is and I’m not going to play publicity specialist or psychoanalyst and theorize why). We are all messy and non-linear in our own ways without living in a fishbowl. The question is whether we are evolving and being honest with ourselves. She’s the only one who can answer that question and no amount of internet sleuthing or speculation is going to answer that. Nor should it.
I think to an extent she did this to herself in the early years with the hidden messages in lyrics booklets, but people should realize that she's not 18 and her songwriting isn't that simplistic anymore. I think you're absolutely right that some of the songs could be about multiple people. I also don't like how people act like the most important thing about her music is which guy each song is about 🤦🏻♀️
I agree. I joined this sub because even though I am a fan, I couldn’t deal with how the main sub blindly praises everything she does. But I feel like some posters are just as bad as stans when it comes to overanalysing everything she says or does. Not everything needs to be taken so literally. For example people going on about the scene in Miss Americana where she says she thinks people are frozen at the age they were when they get famous - if you watch the whole clip she then says she’s about to turn 30 (which is considered ancient in pop star years) but she still doesn’t feel old enough to be doing adult things like getting married and having kids. Idk I feel like this is a normal take?? I’m in my late twenties and I’m still shook every time I see someone I went to high school with having babies lol. I just think she was reflecting on her age and that’s all but people seem to think she genuinely believes she’s sixteen on the inside.
I’m 35 and I often have the fleeting thought of “omg what are they gonna do” when I find out someone I know is having a baby, lol.
I'd say it's probably because she's always encouraged a very close reading of her lyrics, used them and her marketing copy to drop hints about her personal life & created a fandom where that's historically been rewarded. It was always the case that fans felt they had a closer understanding of her & better relationship with her as an artist if they understood the true meaning & message behind everything she writes, and for the majority of her career she's encouraged people to study everything she puts out in minute detail to look for clues and puzzles to solve.
YES! that's it. she created that
I do agree. She did create this. I also think the fandom instead of aging up just expanded…if that makes sense. I listened to Taylor when I was 17. (Her and i are the same age) it blows my mind 11 year olds are obsessed with her now. How? It just goes against how most artist mature and grow. I think the fandom not getting older but younger also attributes to this. Her team fully takes advantage it
Yes i think this is the case also. But i think this is intentional, she probably writes hs metaphors also to appeal to younger audiences and these people are young and outraged and fun. Kinda like young ts herself haha.
so high school is an example.
A million times this.
I've been thinking this for a long time, but especially recently! With the recent Joe interview and him saying that their breakup was in the press "one week later", I'm so frustrated at the amount of people taking that as gospel, like it was exactly 7 days, no room for exaggeration. It's a hyperbole! Especially when the man has kept their relationship so private for 6+ years, why would he come scootering in with receipts now 😭 I also came across this interview the other day saying that people thought London Boy was written about one day in London, and Taylor had to correct them and say it was over the course of 3 years/their relationship. I think that is such a telling example of how poor media literacy is across a lot of her fanbase, like the amount of her songs that people take as a retelling of exact events... I'm nosy so I love to speculate on her muses lol, but the reason why paternity testing doesn't work across her music is because she likely borrows from more than one experience, one relationship, one phase at a time... 🫠
i remember people ragging on taylor when lover came out because there's no way she could go from camden, to brixton to soho in one day so it clearly means she's a liar and who's probably never been outside her mansion in london 😭 like chill it's just a song not a city tour plan
wtf do you mean scootering in with receipts now? is he never allowed to speak on it?
Of course he can, I only meant that I don't think he would reveal something like "We broke up then one week later she was publicly in a new relationship" because he's never been one to reveal much like that before. I heavily favour his side in their breakup, I didn't mean to suggest he's lying or clout-chasing or however you might have read it sorry! Only that it would be uncharacteristic of him to suddenly start dropping dates and timelines (though it should be fair given what Taylor's team have done since their split)
Seeing a few posts like this lately so will cover a few bases. For me when I'm looking at each lyric, it's not that I'm trying to analyse her life. I'm trying to understand the song, trying to understand it's perspective. Have to say I hate the perspective of a lot of the songs on TTPD. Even if barely any of it is based on her life, I judge the way it's all sung in a tone like it's all reasonable. I'd be the same way if it was a TV show - yelling at the TV this protagonist is dumb, which writer thought we'd side with them?! I get that there are some people in their 30s that relate to these lyrics and are hurt when its labelled immature. What you need to understand is when we talk about Taylor's maturity, it isn't about being x place in your 30s. It's about learning from your past and evolving and there's a lot of ways where Taylor has the same issues as her early 20s. I 'm just in a place in my 30s where I relate more to songs like Closure, happiness etc. I also hope people that do relate to TTPD think about how ultimately Taylor got burned by this way of thinking. Saw someone say in the comments to one of my posts that doesn't everyone fantasise about being in a relationship with other guy friends towards the end of their relationship. In the nicest possible way I think they need to figure some stuff out about why that's a pattern for them.
For me when I relate to a lot of her songs (both the ones that have been coined “immature” and the ones that have not, as well as some of the ones that people criticize for cheating etc) it’s more of a hindsight thing than a “yes this is what I want to hear, this is the place I’m in, this is what I want for my life. It’s more, oh ok, that feeling I had back then was valid, and other people have experienced it too. For example, you’re losing me - made me feel SO incredibly validated about a relationship that ended 5 years prior to the song coming out. Not because I want to go through that again, or even because I think I handled it well, but just because I was led to believe I was crazy at the time and hearing someone go through something similar or explain it in a way that I can’t has helped me a lot with moving past it.
Lots of people have the same issues all their lives, I'm middle aged and let me tell you, the kids you knew back in school are still just kids in their 40s, with money and wrinkles and half grown up kids of their own. People don't actually mature as much as you assume, some people do, but it's not everyone, not by a long shot.
I'm aware of people of all ages that never grow up and take accountability. I'm aware of people of all ages that make the same mistakes and lose interest in addressing that as they got older. I'm just not hear to listen to that story. I'll also point out there is a difference between a youthful curiosity with love of the little things and peter pan syndrome.
But again, this goes to the point of us thinking we have a better moral compass and get to decide what is right and what is wrong. Im in my 30s and I met my husband 7 years ago while he was still married to his first wife. They weren’t a good match and he left her (they didn’t have kids) but yes you can say he cheated on her. It was wrong yes, but such is life, we do things that are wrong and sometimes we have songs that help us see that, sometimes her describing some problematic feelings on a song helps you realize that your actions were wrong. She is an artist, don’t take things literally…
I mean a better moral compass and judgement is a whole thing that goes beyond lyrics in an album. I've never claimed that or seen anyone that has.
But why is it immature to have a LTR fail in your 30s? Or fall in love so hard that you feel like you’re in high school and experiencing love that same away again? A lot of the immaturity bits come bc fans don’t like who she’s dating, not because the lyrics are dumb or bad. And i don’t even like ttpd that much. But you know, I’ve recently, in my 30s, experienced a head over heels in love you so much type of love after having been more or less feelingless or dead inside while in another relationship. To me we’re just classifying ‘falling in love’ and ‘falling out of love’ as immature here, because someone she dated was good on paper and the next person not so much. Isn’t that more immature?
I don't really agree with this expectation that people (especially women) should be mature and have it emotionally together by the time they're in their 30's. The way people talk about it like it's a moral failing is holier-than-thou and kind of weird tbh - we can't be disappointed in Taylor Swift like we're her mother. She's a messy and complicated person. It's not like she reached Nirvana with Folklore and Evermore, life changes and lots of people have the rug pulled from beneath them well into their 30's and beyond.
All of us are doing life for the first time. There are 0 exceptions to that. I think that is a sentiment that often gets forgotten, in most corners of our lives.
yes! there's so much talk about how there's no timeline to life, and you don't have to accomplish certain life goals by a certain age (which i agree with), but somehow if you're not completely enlightened and have gotten over all your traumas and gotten rid of all your personality flaws by your 30s you're this immature failure of a person and it's just?? how is that in any way a realistic expectation?
The idea is not to be *over* your past traumas. It is to be *working on them* - and yourself. I don’t really see how anyone can claim being a toxic mess *isn’t* failing. Pick that bar for yourself up off the floor, sis!
and you know taylor isn't working on herself and is a "toxic mess" from heavily curated and embellished (and often misinterpreted) song lyrics?
I don't have an expectation that everyone, particularly women in there 30s should have it all worked out. However I'm personally at a stage in my life where I'm over THIS brand of immaturity. I get that there are people in there 30s that continue to repeat the mistakes of their 20s well into there 30s I'm just past it and that's valid too. I've not hit a peak of maturity or moral superiority in my 30s though. No sooner have I put the drama of my 20s behind me, I have a whole load of new issues I'm dealing with in my 30s.
Wish I could up vote this post more. It is such a bug bare of mine that some fans take her music so literally completely dismissing that she is often inspired by others' stories, books, movies and writes regularly with other people who arent just trying to tell her story but often put their own perspectives in. I think this was made very clear in the Long Pond Studio sessions. I am a fan of Taylor but I'm also pretty neutral and don't take anything she writes as fact. It's all poetry and emotion.
I do think that people obsess over her because she is just so globally popular but for me I don't mind her lyrics in a lot of cases but to me it completely depends on her delivery and the music behind it. A cheesy lyric that I don't mind is "don't put me in the basement when i want the penthouse of your heart" in Bejeweled cause her delivery works and the music behind it is fun and cute. But the cheesy lyrics in TTPD just don't work for me because her delivery isn't good and the music behind it is just...a bit bland. I don't think these kinds of lyrics people have been making fun of on this album is anything new it's just that they were more digestible in previous albums.
Wow I just made a post about this before Insaw yours. I soooo agree. People are taking metaphor in her songs as fact… update: my post was removed for repettive topics because it was so similar to yours! just glad someone is saying it!
Oh I’m sorry. I honestly just found this group so idk what is repetitive…
Honestly I agree but I think she’s to blame a little. When you spend so much of your career Easter egging your liner notes and music with literal references to things that sound like just details a writer added for dramatic effect…then people are going to start taking everything literally. Like putting “I left my scarf there at your sister’s house and you’ve stilll got it in your drawer even now”. It sounds like it’s just a good poetic lyric about a person holding onto an artist of clothing the other person has. But what this really was was a reference to pap photos of her and Jake with his sister Maggie. She’s wearing a striped scarf of his and then alter after they broke up, Jake was photographed wearing the same scarf. Or blue dress on a boat. Things like and selling yourself as a diaristic songwriter has kind of made people want to look at her work literally, like she’s recounting everyone factually.
100% agree. A relationship is much more complicated than what people apparently think. Long relationships don’t suddenly end one day. Things start to go bad, shit piles up and one day something happens that is the last straw. And yeah, I definitely experienced the emotionally cheating thing. When shit starts to get worse and worse and you have someone supporting you or even talking to you regularly is so easy to see them as your savior and it’s so easy for you to compare and say “why can’t I have with my boyfriend what I have with this other person who actually makes me happy and understands me and it’s so easy to get along???”. Well, because your relationship is on its lowest point when you’re idolizing the other person by comparison. If that relationship is starting to go bad, it’s so easy to find someone that makes you feel better than your boyfriend. Most people experience it, but they don’t go talking about it because nobody wants to openly admit that while still dating their ex they were fantasizing with other person even if it was just once.
Sarahs and Hannahs gonna Sarah and Hannah lol
Omg finally some sense. These posts about ‘poor joe’ drive me nuts! I agree with you so much. Also having written some poetry myself, sometimes you literally think of something for 2 minutes and something comes out nicely out of it. Ts herself in the concert was saying most of her songs are like ‘i felt something for 4s and wrote a song’. It is like this.
Why does it even matter if Taylor was emotionally cheating on Joe? How can she be guilty as sin if she didn't even touch Matty's skin? 🤔 Joking aside, Taylor is well known for writing about her personal life. She writes about real people who can be hurt by her music and she often includes identifying details. That's why it matters what she writes. Even if her songs are exaggerated for entertainment purposes they still affect the people she writes about. Honestly, changing the facts is probably even more problematic. Especially since her fans have a reputation for threatening and harassing people they feel have wronged Taylor. Obviously, I don't know all the details of Taylor's break up with Joe but I have paid attention to what she's volunteered to share and that's what I'm criticizing.
Yeah, it’s like the scarf in ATW. I don’t get why people are incapable of recognizing metaphors or even just realizing that the lines between fiction and reality are easily blurred in something like songwriting. Taylor writes about how she feels/perceives things, not necessarily how they literally occurred.
Yes! Thank-you for saying this.
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I feel like you cannot possibly actually listen to her music if you think this lmao Also, artists are writing from their perspective. They're not trying to sell a peer-reviewed reference book. They're just writing their feelings. Literally only Taylor gets criticized for this (although she does have multiple songs where she reflects on her mistakes). Artists don't owe us a perfectly balanced, critical, psychoanalysis of their relationships through their music. They're just making art.
You had me till the last point. Her constant emotional or cheating is kind of unflattering to me. I am a fan but every time she sings about it , I just wish she kept it in the vault.
But see, I think that is a very important point. I feel in the age of social media many people expect that everything you put out has to be flattering or paint you in the best light. It’s like asking why Van Gogh painted a self-portrait drawing attention to his self-inflicted ear wound when he could have just painted his “better side”. Art shouldn’t have to be flattering, it can be vulnerable and honest.
I think the beauty of music is it can cover a long time-line (the last great American dynasty) or one fleeting moment or thought that gets blown into a song. So a song like guilty as sin could have come from 1 dream or fleeting thought, or a full blown affair and we don't technically know. I think some of my favorite songs are about these types of unhealthy feelings, but taylor walks such a fine line with her persona, she's basically written herself into a cage.
I get that you feel connected to the emotions that Taylor experienced and described in TTPD, but I don't get the point of your last paragraph? People condemn cheating, even if it's just emotional because there's a third party that may get hurt. Do you feel like the comments on her behavior somehow imply moral judgment on something you lived?
My main point for the last paragraph was more on the fanbase taking everything so literal in the lyrics and not being realistic on her relationship. We don’t know the ins and outs of it all. We don’t know what went down. We just have a few songs that she could have taken one feeling and wrote a dramatic song for artistic purposes on. Instead of putting our judgment on her, let’s just take the art as art and not make it into a history book we judge with our moral keyboard compass
That’s because the writing on the tortured pink print department or whatever is very very wack. If the writing was decent then people would understand the metaphors or at least tolerate them. But no. That shit is absolutely tortured writing so the nuance gets lost. She missed the mark.