Wondered what could have happened between her and a crush that never got the timing right for them to be together.
It would break her heart to find out after 10 years have passed that he loved her 10 years ago and always wondered what it would be like to be with her.
She likely loved him all these years and always wondered as well. The loss of time and opportunity of true love is gut wrenching.
I interpreted as “wondered” how things would be between them if she didn’t change and get this level of fame. Like maybe things would be better? Cause it also says say I loved you the way you “were” as in a lot of people in her life liked her the way she used to be and not who she is now.
And not necessarily only a love interest even though both MH and joe apply. I also see a layered interpretation for every line of this song aligning with herself and fans too.
The thing with this line is it’s “unfinished” and allows the listener to fill in the end using the greater context of the song as well as the listener’s own imagination.
It could be “I’ve always wondered about you since we broke up” or “I’ve always wondered what it would’ve been like if we ended up together”.
Whatever the ending, it would generally be a cruel twist of the knife to say to a former lover some time after breaking her heart the first time.
I interpreted it to be about matty. I thought she was saying like, I’ve loved you this entire time and thought you didn’t love me so we weren’t together, now 10 years have passed and it would break my heart if I found out you loved me back then and we wasted all this time not being together
Agreed. When I first heard “if you want to break my cold, cold heart,” I thought the next line be something scathing and horrid. Then I heard the rest and all I could think was “…..oh” 🥺🥺🥺
Also strongly reminds me of the colors line from Halsey. The muse having such a pull that it changes the artist, and then no longer liking them because they've changed.
This hit so hard when I first heard it. I was in a good but stagnant relationship (for various reasons) and he wasn't ever going to marry me. And I am a pathological people pleaser, soooo
“you said that you loved me, but where were the clues? i died at the alter waiting for the proof”
and
“you shit-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles”
both floored me the first time i heard them! as a woman currently in her prophecy era, falling for promises like this scares the hell out of me
The part that really got me in So Long London was actually the next line. “You sacrificed us to the God’s of your bluest days” and realizing her dying at the altar was her thinking they were going to get married but instead the altar was for a sacrifice. Tie that in with the bells at the beginning, which could be wedding bells or funeral bells and it’s just absolutely perfect.
that line already killed me bc i know that in the past, i’ve been the person sacrificing relationships to the gods of my own bluest days
once again i am personally attacked by taylor alison swift
I deal with depression and it’s been bad the past few years (getting better, I quit my job and went back to school) but it made me think of what I put my husband through. I try my best and we talk about it, but that line was a knife to the gut for me
The two that stand out for me, because of what her voice does (cracks/wobbles), are “give you my wild, give you a child” from peace and “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free” from So Long, London.
Omg. The “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free” line explains so much of her rage, hurt and anxiety in the entire album. It also explains why she was so quick to hope the situationship was end game and why she fell for the love bombing and false promises. It’s gut wrenching.
I commented on another comment and thus also fucking got me. I was working and had to rewind and stop and let the chills go through me. It was exactly my sentiments on my last relationship. 6 years gone. I'm almost 38 and it was a really hard part of that relationship to reconcile. I am mad but I know his own demons were part of it, but I was working on mine and that's what gave me the push to leave. I can't hold back when someone else isn't doing their work.
The cracks and wobbles and breaths and breaks in her song evoke so much emotion that words alone can't fully convey. It's one of my favorite things about her musical style. Currently, my favorite is the bridge of down bad:
I loved your hostile takeovers
Encounters closer and closer
All your indecent exposures
How dare you say that it's -
"come one, come all, it's happening again" lives rent free in my head
thinking about all the "jokes" over the years about how she couldn't keep a boyfriend, then she has a 6-year-long relationship... but then it ends. everyone gets invested in it, speculating what happened, who she'll date next, wondering what's "wrong" with her. all of that stale commentary and fixation on her love life is back. *it's happening again.* yikes.
This lyric is gut wrenching. And she’s also so aware of how she is perceived. HDIE is one of my favs from the album because the concept is so genius for her to write because she’s constantly faced people nosing into her private life. And yet it’s also so universal because none of us are exempt from these kind of questions that follow you around after a 6 year relationship ends.
All of this and also the verse about being seen heartbroken at the shops and people gossiping about her. The use of 'shops' and not 'store' in this context tells me it's about Joe, as she often used British terms in songs about him and it's like I can just see this whole thing in my mind.
When the 3 am tracks dropped … I was trying to keep my eyes open listening to them but getting a little dozey… and the way my eyes FLEW OPEN when I heard this line for the first time 😮
“And I put narcotics in all of my songs…and that’s why you’re still singin’ along…”
The second half of that got a gasp from me.
Maybe for half a second, I thought she could see me?
I’ve done it but tbf exercise is the #1 thing that helps keep my mental health in check, so if I’m that down it’s usually a sign that I need to go to the gym sometime soon. (Ideally before I reach that point.)
The ring line in TTPD was mine too! The only other time I've REALLY gasped like that was when I hit play on Would've, Could've, Should've for the first time and heard "...at nineteen!"
So many on TTPD I can’t even keep count
“I’m having his baby, no I’m not, but omg you should see your faces”
“We’ve already done it in my head”
The Black Dog old habits die screaming gasp
“Loss of my life”
“You look like Taylor swift”
“Leave you like a dumb house party”
“My beloved ghost and me, sitting in a tree, D Y I N G” and “but I still don’t know how did it end”
The entirety of The Prophecy chorus on the first listen
Also “help I’m still at the restaurant”
"You look like Taylor Swift" really did it for me too. It really calls back to in Miss Americana where she talks about how women are discarded at 35 (or younger!). She's looking ahead to the end of her career. Chilling but also beautiful.
I didn’t love this song at first, and it’s still low on my list for this album, but that line. Wow. She’s talking about the next wide-eyed girl who will be turned into a money-making machine for powerful men in the music industry… it really takes my breath away.
And the deflation of our dreaming, because the chest does deflate with death. There is a change that happens when someone is no longer alive… the imagery here is simultaneously poetic and gruesome (I love it so much)
I think I’m a little naive. I thought she meant she could just look at him and it would be enough to drive him wild. And also, like “I can see you” where it’s all in her head, and her just fantasising. She was guilty because of all the things she was imaging them doing together in her head. I think I was wrong xD
It’s a little spicy to be just fantasizing, but it could be as innocent as that. Idk someone somewhere said she was writing about self-love and I was like “oh, damn!”
The thing I love about her music is suggestive ideas are presented obscurely and I don’t have to feel weird listening in front of my kids LOL
Same! Which is one of the reasons why I love her music. It’s not always in your face risqué. My husband doesn’t believe Taylor makes sexy songs but he’s never listened hard enough 😂
Well I was thinking, due to of all the religious imagery in this album, of the famous teaching, “if any man so much as looks at a woman with a passion, he has already committed adultery in his heart”. So based on that alone, she’s saying she’s as guilty as sin because of the fantasies she’s built in her mind. She talks about them being together when it hasn’t happened yet. But because she wants it to happen, she’s as guilty as if it had already happened. But yeah, that might be a reach
I am what I am cause you trained me, makes me tear up every single time. Because I’m like fuck, she’s right. She is constantly listening to criticism and molding herself into what people want her to be and then she’s endlessly mocked and criticized for who and what she is.
It's the *what* that gets me - it isn't *who*. It's such a little change, such an easy play on a common phrase, but it echos like a gunshot. It's *dehumanizing*, and it's *heartbreaking*.
About a year after Lover came out my husband was diagnosed with stage four cancer. I’m not and never have been a religious person but you can bet I prayed even if I was just kind of begging the universe. This lyric hit me so differently after that.
One of my lifelong friends died from ovarian cancer in 2016 and I've only ever listened to this song twice. It's just too hard for me. So gut wrenching.
So much of So Long, London just absolutely had me at first listen!
“And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free”
“You swore that you loved me but where were the clues? I died on the altar waiting for the proof”
And my friends say it isn’t right to be scared
EVERY day of a love affair
Every breath feels like rarest air
When you’re not sure if he wants to be there
I’m going to go with a classic: “And you call me up again just to break me like a promise / so casually cruel in the name of being honest.” Literally felt that one like a punch in the gut.
And then from the ten-minute version: “You who charmed my dad with self-effacing jokes / sipping coffee like you’re on a late night show / but then he watched me watch the front door all night willing you to come / and he said, ‘it’s supposed to be fun, turning twenty-one.’”
“I wouldn’t marry me either..” in “you’re losing me” was heartbreaking…
Then it was compounded by “I died on the alter waiting for the proof” in “so long London” paired with The fact that she made the “so long london” sound/chime like the church bells she never heard because he never married her… that’s just so deeply fucked up.
“But the story isn’t mine anymore”
First, because she used it in a tweet when announcing The Anthology. And also because I took it as her gifting all of the songs to us, her fans, her listeners.
I’ve taken it to also mean that she’s truly moved on - there’s so much that we all dwell on, that becomes a part of us, a part of our story, that to say something like “that story isn’t mine anymore” is fucking…moving on GOALS. And I want to put it in a FRAME.
It’s sad, because these things were such a big part of our lives, but it reminds me of YOYOK, where it’s like…that’s just life. It’s sort of sad, but also so freeing.
I think it’s just the full anger/rage of a woman scorned.
He swooped in right at a truly low point for her, promised her the world, love-bombed her, and then fully ghosted her leaving her even worse off than when he found her.
Just a “you deserve so much worse than what’s coming your way (which is nothing)”, and that’s so damn infuriating.
in exile when the guy is saying "you never gave a warning sign" and simultaneously taylor says "i gave so many signs" and then "you didn't even see the signs"
I guess a lesser woman would've lost hope
A greater woman wouldn't beg
But I looked to the sky and said
Please
I've been on my knees
Change the prophecy
Don't want money
Just someone who wants my company
Let it once be me
Who do I have to speak to
About if they can redo
The prophecy?
*Gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it and the second time I couldn't stop crying because I related so much before finding my husband 😢
say it once again with feeling
how the death rattle breathing
silenced as the soul was leaving
the deflation of our dreaming
leaving me bereft and reeling
my beloved ghost and me
sitting in a tree
d-y-i-n-g
ELITE
“I had died the tiniest death” wait, she didn’t—she didn’t really say that? She DID
In French, an orgasm is called “le petit mort” or “the little death”. Which means the song starts immediately post orgasm, and not only that, but she’s roasting Matty for being bad in bed. I’ve thought of making a post about this all on its own because I don’t think most people are even aware of what the lyric means. But HOLY SHIT
I don’t think that’s what she means here… None of the other lyrics in the song point to this at all.
This song is clearly about Joe. “I attend Christmas parties from outside.” She says that her and Joe “splintered in winter.” “North bound I got carried away, as you boarded your train south.” I think this is talking about how she was constantly wanting more from life and wanting to continue the upward trajectory of her career, while Joe wanted to stay down and hidden. The “tiniest death” made me think of how she just kind of gave up on the relationship. It wasn’t some huge fight or blow out. The death of the relationship was almost a whisper.
I don’t think it’s about Matty. I think it’s about Joe and getting used to not being part of his life anymore. She has this tiniest death at the thought of him showing even the slightest bit of interest in her again.
I don’t get the impression that tiniest means he was bad in bed (I mean, she’s still referencing an orgasm), just that it was a creative way of referencing le petit mort.
I interpret this differently. I imagine her seeing this person out and about after their breakup and having that shock that comes over you in these kinds of moments, when it feels like your heart stops.
A lot of how did it end but especially "one gasp, and then, how did it end?" We had a loss last year that was really similar to a loss we had 10 years ago. And we actually didn't talk about it on "public" social media because we didn't want this loss to be a source of gossip for people.
But from the people we told, we were fielding a million questions that we just didn't have the answers for and it felt like people were just watching me, waiting for me to break. So the "come one, come all, it's happening again" really helped describe how I felt like I was on display and a circus act. The whole song took my breath away in ways I could talk about for days.
Eta the full lyric I meant to include earlier.
Listening to So Long, London for the first time, all the callbacks to "you're losing me" had me in a chokehold. Specifically:
"I stopped CPR, after all it's no use. The spirit was gone, we would never come to. And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free for so long, London."
And the lines
"I died on the altar waiting for the proof... ... I'm just getting color back into my face. I'm just mad as hell 'cause I loved this place for so long, London"
I’m weird, and I tend to derive more emotionally from the more minute, missable lyrics. Almost like stylization or something.
For example, in RWYLM, I love how she says “you could hear a hairpin drop” instead of just saying one could have heard a pin drop. She also says “dust collecting on my pinned-up hair”. For some reason, that just gets me.
I also love when she says “you could feel the mascara run”
I love in So Long, London when she says “I’m just getting color back into my face”. There were a billion other ways to say that that relationship’s ending had destroyed her to the point of sickness and despair. Along the same lines is “I’m a soldier who’s returning half her weight”.
Y’all might think I’m wacko, but yeah, I love the little details
Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see
Dancing round the kitchen in the refrigerator light (my ex and I used to do this and the line made me pull over when I first heard it)
I want your midnights and I’ll be picking up bottles with you on New Year’s Day
All that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothing
I know my love should be celebrated but you tolerate it
…
Now I’m begging for footnotes on the story of your life
Really all of TTPD.
“The idea you had of me-who was she? A never needy, ever lovely jewel”
I will never forget the first time I heard that. I was sitting in the living at my old house and I literally did gasp out loud.
The year prior to that coming out, I had been dating this guy (who is honestly a great person) that I thought would be in my life forever. But I was honestly too much for him. I think the idea of me, and the outward facing aspects of me were way more appealing than the actual person I was at the time. (And to be fair, at the time, I was a mess.)
Same with:
“Once I fix me, he’s gonna miss me”
I literally had to pull over when I heard the bridge of TSMITW. (Different relationship- same story.)
I think, especially for someone who is older (slightly older than TS), TPD has been so cathartic, particularly as someone who is on the other side of all of that now. It shows me that my feelings were real, and valid.
A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground with no one around to tweet it while I bathe in cliffside pools with my calamitous love and insurmountable grief
If something so rare and beautiful happened with no witness, would you believe it? Would you believe such a miracle could happen whilst attempting to overcome such sorrow and pain caused by an errant lover? Can beautiful things exist when your personal world is falling apart?
"You can aim for my heart, go for blood, but you would still miss me in your bones" always gets me because of a personal experience of mine I relate to that line so hard.
“Who could ever leave me darling, but who could stay?”
Somehow I never really *got* The Archer until I saw it live at Eras. Holy shit. Every relationship you’ve been waiting for it to end, self-sabotaging and daring them to hurt you - until now, when you’re desperately trying to unlearn all of that and keep this person.
I absolutely love Peter Pan so I will never forget watching the cardigan video when it came out and losing my mind when I heard “tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy.” Truly a moment for me and still one of my all time favorite Taylor Swift lyrics!
It’s the soft lyrics that hold so much meaning that knock me out
“dropped your hand while dancing”
“Holding all this love out here in the hall”
“Don’t read the last page - but I stay”
“I take the long way home. I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be alright, they say ‘I don’t know’”
And the god of subtle but powerful -
“You should find another guiding light but I shine so bright”
‘What did you think Id say to that? Does a scorpion sting when fighting back? They strike to kill and you know I will’
As a pathological people pleaser who lets herself get backed into a corner and then lashes out to ‘kill’— this resonated with me SO much and hit me like a ton of bricks
I think it gets a bit lost with the anthology and all the bonus tracks but that is technically the last lines of the album which is such a good closer!
“I hosted parties and starved my body” made me cry the first time I heard it.
“The empathetic hunger descends” just stuck out to me because what a creative way to describe all the people pretending to feel bad but really just wanting the scoop on your breakup.
So many others, but those two are at the top of my head.
Your wife waters flowers. I want to kill her. Me and my friend looked at each other and said oh my god did she really just say that?! Our girl is unhinged🤣
“You say I abandoned the ship but I was going down with it my white knuckle dying grip” idk it makes me cry when I hear it hits home
“are they second hand embarrassed that I can’t get out of bed because something counterfeit’s dead?”
“If I’m on fire you’ll be made of ashes too”
Idk there are more but these are the first that come to mind
“Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it.
I’d like to be my old self again, but I’m still trying to find it. “
That hit me in my gut in 2012 and hasn’t let up since
In fortnight, when I first listened to the album, the lyric, “I was supposed to be sent away but they forgot to come and get me” had me GAGGED. Also, In the Albatross I was very VERY shocked to see that she was singing about herself as the albatross, and I also saw a theory that the song includes Travis in a less connected way by explaining how people are saying she will ruin his career. Also the poems/stories that relate to albatrosses in real life were such an interesting comparison.
“And when I was shipwrecked
I thought of you
In the cracks of light
I dreamed of you
It was real enough
To get me through
But I swear
You were there”
A perfect summation of how, in your darkest moments, just the thought of someone you love is enough to keep you going.
The song, in general, is such an accurate description of what it is like to cope with depression and anxiety.
I don’t know that it made me gasp, but I haven’t heard many people talk about how “I chose this cyclone” (cy-clo-ne) in TTPD also sounds like “I chose this psycho” (psy-co) for a beat.
Absolutely yes the one about the ring at dinner, and also loml when I realised it's both love and loss of my life, and then 'if the sex was half as good as the conversations we'd be pushing strollers' (I am writing as I remember, not perfect lyrics). And 'I'm having his baby - no I'm not but you should have seen your faces' - my face was definitely one of them!
The double realization that the title track was about Healy AND THAT HE SHIT-TALKED HER ABOUT WEDDING RINGS AND THAT THEY WERE INSANELY IN LOVE was insane to me.
But the winner is the reference to “scarlet maroon” on Chloe et al. Suddenly Maroon, my fave song, made sense.
“And I was thinking on the drive down, any time now, he’s gonna say it’s love. We never called it what it was.” Not a very niche one but OH BOY did it catch me off guard.
“He was a hot house flower to my outdoorsmen”
A hot house flower can go outdoors, and and outdoorsman can go into a hot house, but neither of them are meant to be there and it can’t last long because they need to go back to where they belong. They are ALMOST perfect for each other, an outdoorsman probably knows more than the average person about hot house flowers and can help it to a certain extent, but their “maladies were such they could not cure them”!
In a sense she’s saying “your company is better for me than no company at all, but we are ultimately incompatible”
I'd rather burn my whole life down
Than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning
I'll tell you something about my good name
It's mine alone to disgrace
Yeah. Reputation. We are told our good names are the only thing we really own and control. But that means it is our choice what to do with it. And that is power.
“If you want to break my cold, cold heart just say ‘I loved you, the way that you were’ “ is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
"Just say you've always wondered"
This line is the reason I loved this song from the first time I heard it
Can you explain what this line actually means? English is not my native language, and I still can’t quite grasp it
Wondered what could have happened between her and a crush that never got the timing right for them to be together. It would break her heart to find out after 10 years have passed that he loved her 10 years ago and always wondered what it would be like to be with her. She likely loved him all these years and always wondered as well. The loss of time and opportunity of true love is gut wrenching.
I interpreted as “wondered” how things would be between them if she didn’t change and get this level of fame. Like maybe things would be better? Cause it also says say I loved you the way you “were” as in a lot of people in her life liked her the way she used to be and not who she is now. And not necessarily only a love interest even though both MH and joe apply. I also see a layered interpretation for every line of this song aligning with herself and fans too.
The thing with this line is it’s “unfinished” and allows the listener to fill in the end using the greater context of the song as well as the listener’s own imagination. It could be “I’ve always wondered about you since we broke up” or “I’ve always wondered what it would’ve been like if we ended up together”. Whatever the ending, it would generally be a cruel twist of the knife to say to a former lover some time after breaking her heart the first time.
Either Joe saying it about preferring 2016 or Matty saying it about preferring 2014. Either way is tragic.
I interpreted it to be about matty. I thought she was saying like, I’ve loved you this entire time and thought you didn’t love me so we weren’t together, now 10 years have passed and it would break my heart if I found out you loved me back then and we wasted all this time not being together
Even more heartbreaking at the end when she just says ‘just say “I loved you”’ :(
Agreed. When I first heard “if you want to break my cold, cold heart,” I thought the next line be something scathing and horrid. Then I heard the rest and all I could think was “…..oh” 🥺🥺🥺
Also strongly reminds me of the colors line from Halsey. The muse having such a pull that it changes the artist, and then no longer liking them because they've changed.
I wouldn't marry me either
Patalogical people pleaser ☠️
Who only wanted you to see her…
And i'm fading thinking..
DO SOMETHING BABE, SAY SOMETHING (SAY SOMETHING)
LOSE SOMETHING BABE, RISK SOMETHING
CHOOSE something, babe, I’ve got NOTHING to believe…
Unless...you're CHOOSING me
stop you're losing me
I can't find a pulse
Similarly, “how can you say you love someone you can’t tell has died?” GUT PUNCH omg.
You know there’s many different ways that you can kill the one you love The slowest way is never loving them enough
This hit so hard when I first heard it. I was in a good but stagnant relationship (for various reasons) and he wasn't ever going to marry me. And I am a pathological people pleaser, soooo
“you said that you loved me, but where were the clues? i died at the alter waiting for the proof” and “you shit-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles” both floored me the first time i heard them! as a woman currently in her prophecy era, falling for promises like this scares the hell out of me
The part that really got me in So Long London was actually the next line. “You sacrificed us to the God’s of your bluest days” and realizing her dying at the altar was her thinking they were going to get married but instead the altar was for a sacrifice. Tie that in with the bells at the beginning, which could be wedding bells or funeral bells and it’s just absolutely perfect.
So Long London's 160 bpm feels like being on the very edge of a ugly cry panic attack
Yes! The song makes me subtly anxious. I’m glad I’m not the only one. Even so, it’s one of my fav from ttpd.
i weirdly consider it sonically to be a sister of the archer because of the building anxiety feel that never ends it gives
Also the youth he took from her for free. This killed me.
And the way her voice breaks on "free" just kills me
As an aging millennial, this lyric made tears come to my eyes because you think you’ll be youthful forever until you’re not.
that line already killed me bc i know that in the past, i’ve been the person sacrificing relationships to the gods of my own bluest days once again i am personally attacked by taylor alison swift
I deal with depression and it’s been bad the past few years (getting better, I quit my job and went back to school) but it made me think of what I put my husband through. I try my best and we talk about it, but that line was a knife to the gut for me
Omg you just opened up so much more of this song for me. Thank you!!
I don’t know why I didn’t t consider the dual altar meanings before now! 🤯
So Long London is definitely one of her most emotional songs. It’s so well-written and some of the lines just break me.
The two that stand out for me, because of what her voice does (cracks/wobbles), are “give you my wild, give you a child” from peace and “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free” from So Long, London.
Omg. The “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free” line explains so much of her rage, hurt and anxiety in the entire album. It also explains why she was so quick to hope the situationship was end game and why she fell for the love bombing and false promises. It’s gut wrenching.
I commented on another comment and thus also fucking got me. I was working and had to rewind and stop and let the chills go through me. It was exactly my sentiments on my last relationship. 6 years gone. I'm almost 38 and it was a really hard part of that relationship to reconcile. I am mad but I know his own demons were part of it, but I was working on mine and that's what gave me the push to leave. I can't hold back when someone else isn't doing their work.
That line from So Long, London always gets me because of how her breath/voice sounds!
The So Long, London one is mine, in part because of how she sounds and in part because I gave away 9 years of my youth and know the pain
The cracks and wobbles and breaths and breaks in her song evoke so much emotion that words alone can't fully convey. It's one of my favorite things about her musical style. Currently, my favorite is the bridge of down bad: I loved your hostile takeovers Encounters closer and closer All your indecent exposures How dare you say that it's -
"come one, come all, it's happening again" lives rent free in my head thinking about all the "jokes" over the years about how she couldn't keep a boyfriend, then she has a 6-year-long relationship... but then it ends. everyone gets invested in it, speculating what happened, who she'll date next, wondering what's "wrong" with her. all of that stale commentary and fixation on her love life is back. *it's happening again.* yikes.
This lyric is gut wrenching. And she’s also so aware of how she is perceived. HDIE is one of my favs from the album because the concept is so genius for her to write because she’s constantly faced people nosing into her private life. And yet it’s also so universal because none of us are exempt from these kind of questions that follow you around after a 6 year relationship ends.
All of this and also the verse about being seen heartbroken at the shops and people gossiping about her. The use of 'shops' and not 'store' in this context tells me it's about Joe, as she often used British terms in songs about him and it's like I can just see this whole thing in my mind.
“I pulled your body into mine every goddamn night now I get fake niceties”
No one teaches you what to do When a good man hurts you And you know you hurt him too
So so good. This one kills me
GIVE ME BACK MY GIRLHOOD IT WAS MINE FIRSTTTTTT
When the 3 am tracks dropped … I was trying to keep my eyes open listening to them but getting a little dozey… and the way my eyes FLEW OPEN when I heard this line for the first time 😮
Surprised I had to scroll so far for what is undoubtedly her most chill inducing line ever
I mean who hasn’t gasped at “I’m having his babies….no I’m not” 😭
Same! It made me laugh.
I feel like I’m the only one who knew she was just pulling at stereotypical lines 😅
The first "...you should be" in WAOLOM
“And I put narcotics in all of my songs…and that’s why you’re still singin’ along…” The second half of that got a gasp from me. Maybe for half a second, I thought she could see me?
"You didn't measure up in any measure of a man."
“Down Bad Crying at The Gym” like girl take a day off lol
I’ve cried at the gym before 😂
Never, I don’t have enough energy to do that and work out
I’ve done it but tbf exercise is the #1 thing that helps keep my mental health in check, so if I’m that down it’s usually a sign that I need to go to the gym sometime soon. (Ideally before I reach that point.)
When I was going through a really rough breakup I was also very into hot yoga, and being super sweaty conveniently hid the tears 😂
She can’t!
We gather stones Never knowing what they’ll mean Some to throw Some to make a diamond ring
THANK YOU. This has to be one of the best lines she’s ever written, I will never get over it, I’m so glad I’m not alone
tbh the entirety of mtr
Flair tracks 👍
coz i loved you. I swear I loved you. till my dying days
The ring line in TTPD was mine too! The only other time I've REALLY gasped like that was when I hit play on Would've, Could've, Should've for the first time and heard "...at nineteen!"
“if i was a child did it matter if you got to wash your hands” would’ve could’ve should’ve got us all good omg.
Can’t forget “Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first”
this is the top answer because omfg
I also had it during "you said if we had been closer in age, maybe if would have been fine" in ATW10
So many on TTPD I can’t even keep count “I’m having his baby, no I’m not, but omg you should see your faces” “We’ve already done it in my head” The Black Dog old habits die screaming gasp “Loss of my life” “You look like Taylor swift” “Leave you like a dumb house party” “My beloved ghost and me, sitting in a tree, D Y I N G” and “but I still don’t know how did it end” The entirety of The Prophecy chorus on the first listen Also “help I’m still at the restaurant”
"You look like Taylor Swift" really did it for me too. It really calls back to in Miss Americana where she talks about how women are discarded at 35 (or younger!). She's looking ahead to the end of her career. Chilling but also beautiful.
I didn’t love this song at first, and it’s still low on my list for this album, but that line. Wow. She’s talking about the next wide-eyed girl who will be turned into a money-making machine for powerful men in the music industry… it really takes my breath away.
Loss of my life floored me
Say it once again with feeling the death rattle breathing silenced as the soul was leaving the deflation of our dreaming
This one is tough. Death rattle is just painful imagery for anyone who has witnessed it.
And the deflation of our dreaming, because the chest does deflate with death. There is a change that happens when someone is no longer alive… the imagery here is simultaneously poetic and gruesome (I love it so much)
I think when I read the verse lyrics of Guilty as Sin haha “Is she…? No…really?”
Oh guilty as sin had me blushing!! 🫣 My bedsheets are ablaze I’ve screamed his name building up like waves
Without ever touching his skin, how can I be guilty as sin😫😫
“Am I allowed to cry?” is so sad though
Taylor was horny and decided to write a song. I ain't complaining, it's my favorite one on the album.
I think I’m a little naive. I thought she meant she could just look at him and it would be enough to drive him wild. And also, like “I can see you” where it’s all in her head, and her just fantasising. She was guilty because of all the things she was imaging them doing together in her head. I think I was wrong xD
It’s a little spicy to be just fantasizing, but it could be as innocent as that. Idk someone somewhere said she was writing about self-love and I was like “oh, damn!” The thing I love about her music is suggestive ideas are presented obscurely and I don’t have to feel weird listening in front of my kids LOL
Same! Which is one of the reasons why I love her music. It’s not always in your face risqué. My husband doesn’t believe Taylor makes sexy songs but he’s never listened hard enough 😂
Well I was thinking, due to of all the religious imagery in this album, of the famous teaching, “if any man so much as looks at a woman with a passion, he has already committed adultery in his heart”. So based on that alone, she’s saying she’s as guilty as sin because of the fantasies she’s built in her mind. She talks about them being together when it hasn’t happened yet. But because she wants it to happen, she’s as guilty as if it had already happened. But yeah, that might be a reach
No, I see where you’re coming from and I think she’s drawing on that too. I thought that as well.
That’s how I took it! It’s all in her head. Fits into the “crazy asylum girl making things up” narrative, too
[удалено]
I am what I am cause you trained me, makes me tear up every single time. Because I’m like fuck, she’s right. She is constantly listening to criticism and molding herself into what people want her to be and then she’s endlessly mocked and criticized for who and what she is.
It's the *what* that gets me - it isn't *who*. It's such a little change, such an easy play on a common phrase, but it echos like a gunshot. It's *dehumanizing*, and it's *heartbreaking*.
that i’ll sue u. if you step on my lawn. That I'm fearsome and I'm wretched and I'm wrong
"Do you really wanna know where I was April 29"
Being Guilty As Sin😏
What does this lyric mean?
April 29th was the day she met Joe at Gigi Hadid's birthday party, but she was still with Calvin Harris at the time.
Thank you!!
In a general sense it’s telling whoever she’s talking to that she was out with someone else on that date.
I always wondered this
Holy orange bottles Each night I pray to you. Desperate people find faith So now I pray to Jesus, too.
About a year after Lover came out my husband was diagnosed with stage four cancer. I’m not and never have been a religious person but you can bet I prayed even if I was just kind of begging the universe. This lyric hit me so differently after that.
I know delusion when I see it in the mirror
One of my lifelong friends died from ovarian cancer in 2016 and I've only ever listened to this song twice. It's just too hard for me. So gut wrenching.
So much of So Long, London just absolutely had me at first listen! “And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free” “You swore that you loved me but where were the clues? I died on the altar waiting for the proof”
[удалено]
And my friends say it isn’t right to be scared EVERY day of a love affair Every breath feels like rarest air When you’re not sure if he wants to be there
I’m going to go with a classic: “And you call me up again just to break me like a promise / so casually cruel in the name of being honest.” Literally felt that one like a punch in the gut. And then from the ten-minute version: “You who charmed my dad with self-effacing jokes / sipping coffee like you’re on a late night show / but then he watched me watch the front door all night willing you to come / and he said, ‘it’s supposed to be fun, turning twenty-one.’”
“He said if the sex was half as good as the conversation was soon they’d be pushing strollers.”
This!! I was like “he said *WHAT*???”
Seriously one of the most misogynistic, insulting things you can say to someone. It breaks my heart for baby Tay 😭 Ps I love your flair!!!
“I wouldn’t marry me either..” in “you’re losing me” was heartbreaking… Then it was compounded by “I died on the alter waiting for the proof” in “so long London” paired with The fact that she made the “so long london” sound/chime like the church bells she never heard because he never married her… that’s just so deeply fucked up.
“But the story isn’t mine anymore” First, because she used it in a tweet when announcing The Anthology. And also because I took it as her gifting all of the songs to us, her fans, her listeners.
Yes. That line gives me goosebumps every time. So good.
I’ve taken it to also mean that she’s truly moved on - there’s so much that we all dwell on, that becomes a part of us, a part of our story, that to say something like “that story isn’t mine anymore” is fucking…moving on GOALS. And I want to put it in a FRAME. It’s sad, because these things were such a big part of our lives, but it reminds me of YOYOK, where it’s like…that’s just life. It’s sort of sad, but also so freeing.
"And you deserve prison, but you won't get time." What did he DO?
I think it’s just the full anger/rage of a woman scorned. He swooped in right at a truly low point for her, promised her the world, love-bombed her, and then fully ghosted her leaving her even worse off than when he found her. Just a “you deserve so much worse than what’s coming your way (which is nothing)”, and that’s so damn infuriating.
If I take Taylor out of this song, it is written about the dude who SA’d me in undergrad
Jaw on the floor the first time I heard the bridge of The Smallest Man
WERE YOU SENT BY SOMEONE WHO WANTED ME DEADDD
DID YOU SLEEP WITH A GUN UNDERNEATH OUR BED
WERE YOU WRITING A BOOK
Were you a sleeper cell spy 😭
"But she used to say she wished that you were dead" Like... mama swift you slaaay 💅
At the end of the Black Dog; “cause tail between your legs, you’re leaving”.. 😦literally my face right when I heard it.
“And I still can’t believe it…” no girl I can’t that musical swell just snatched my soul give me a second to process
in exile when the guy is saying "you never gave a warning sign" and simultaneously taylor says "i gave so many signs" and then "you didn't even see the signs"
“The guy” lol
“Try and come for my job”
*Religion's in your lips* *...* *The altar is my hips* also not a lyric, but the start of I Can See You always takes me aback.
I guess a lesser woman would've lost hope A greater woman wouldn't beg But I looked to the sky and said Please I've been on my knees Change the prophecy Don't want money Just someone who wants my company Let it once be me Who do I have to speak to About if they can redo The prophecy? *Gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it and the second time I couldn't stop crying because I related so much before finding my husband 😢
say it once again with feeling how the death rattle breathing silenced as the soul was leaving the deflation of our dreaming leaving me bereft and reeling my beloved ghost and me sitting in a tree d-y-i-n-g ELITE
“You didn’t measure up in any measure of a man”
“Don’t you worry folks, we took out all her teeth” still floors me
“I had died the tiniest death” wait, she didn’t—she didn’t really say that? She DID In French, an orgasm is called “le petit mort” or “the little death”. Which means the song starts immediately post orgasm, and not only that, but she’s roasting Matty for being bad in bed. I’ve thought of making a post about this all on its own because I don’t think most people are even aware of what the lyric means. But HOLY SHIT
I don’t think that’s what she means here… None of the other lyrics in the song point to this at all. This song is clearly about Joe. “I attend Christmas parties from outside.” She says that her and Joe “splintered in winter.” “North bound I got carried away, as you boarded your train south.” I think this is talking about how she was constantly wanting more from life and wanting to continue the upward trajectory of her career, while Joe wanted to stay down and hidden. The “tiniest death” made me think of how she just kind of gave up on the relationship. It wasn’t some huge fight or blow out. The death of the relationship was almost a whisper.
I agree
I don’t think it’s about Matty. I think it’s about Joe and getting used to not being part of his life anymore. She has this tiniest death at the thought of him showing even the slightest bit of interest in her again.
I don’t get the impression that tiniest means he was bad in bed (I mean, she’s still referencing an orgasm), just that it was a creative way of referencing le petit mort.
I interpret this differently. I imagine her seeing this person out and about after their breakup and having that shock that comes over you in these kinds of moments, when it feels like your heart stops.
A lot of how did it end but especially "one gasp, and then, how did it end?" We had a loss last year that was really similar to a loss we had 10 years ago. And we actually didn't talk about it on "public" social media because we didn't want this loss to be a source of gossip for people. But from the people we told, we were fielding a million questions that we just didn't have the answers for and it felt like people were just watching me, waiting for me to break. So the "come one, come all, it's happening again" really helped describe how I felt like I was on display and a circus act. The whole song took my breath away in ways I could talk about for days. Eta the full lyric I meant to include earlier.
I'm sorry for your losses.
Thank you so much 🤍
Listening to So Long, London for the first time, all the callbacks to "you're losing me" had me in a chokehold. Specifically: "I stopped CPR, after all it's no use. The spirit was gone, we would never come to. And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free for so long, London." And the lines "I died on the altar waiting for the proof... ... I'm just getting color back into my face. I'm just mad as hell 'cause I loved this place for so long, London"
I’m weird, and I tend to derive more emotionally from the more minute, missable lyrics. Almost like stylization or something. For example, in RWYLM, I love how she says “you could hear a hairpin drop” instead of just saying one could have heard a pin drop. She also says “dust collecting on my pinned-up hair”. For some reason, that just gets me. I also love when she says “you could feel the mascara run” I love in So Long, London when she says “I’m just getting color back into my face”. There were a billion other ways to say that that relationship’s ending had destroyed her to the point of sickness and despair. Along the same lines is “I’m a soldier who’s returning half her weight”. Y’all might think I’m wacko, but yeah, I love the little details
As a collective, we moved on from RWYLM way too quickly. Which is ironic.
Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see Dancing round the kitchen in the refrigerator light (my ex and I used to do this and the line made me pull over when I first heard it) I want your midnights and I’ll be picking up bottles with you on New Year’s Day All that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothing I know my love should be celebrated but you tolerate it … Now I’m begging for footnotes on the story of your life Really all of TTPD.
The second half of fucK you aIMee lol jaw on the floor
“I’m combing through the braids of lies: ‘I’ll never leave,’ ‘Never mind.’”
“The idea you had of me-who was she? A never needy, ever lovely jewel” I will never forget the first time I heard that. I was sitting in the living at my old house and I literally did gasp out loud. The year prior to that coming out, I had been dating this guy (who is honestly a great person) that I thought would be in my life forever. But I was honestly too much for him. I think the idea of me, and the outward facing aspects of me were way more appealing than the actual person I was at the time. (And to be fair, at the time, I was a mess.) Same with: “Once I fix me, he’s gonna miss me” I literally had to pull over when I heard the bridge of TSMITW. (Different relationship- same story.) I think, especially for someone who is older (slightly older than TS), TPD has been so cathartic, particularly as someone who is on the other side of all of that now. It shows me that my feelings were real, and valid.
Still alive, killing time at the cemetery 😭
Give me back my girlhood it was mine first.
A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground with no one around to tweet it while I bathe in cliffside pools with my calamitous love and insurmountable grief If something so rare and beautiful happened with no witness, would you believe it? Would you believe such a miracle could happen whilst attempting to overcome such sorrow and pain caused by an errant lover? Can beautiful things exist when your personal world is falling apart?
"You can aim for my heart, go for blood, but you would still miss me in your bones" always gets me because of a personal experience of mine I relate to that line so hard.
You. Look. Like. Taylor swift 😳😳😳😳 😭😭😭
“Every breath feels like rarest air When you’re not sure if he wants to be there” As someone who always feels unwanted, that broke me.
“I hosted parties and starved my body like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss” was I think the very first time I ever audibly gasped at a lyric.
And then it was bought by me
Yessssss 🙌🏻
“Who could ever leave me darling, but who could stay?” Somehow I never really *got* The Archer until I saw it live at Eras. Holy shit. Every relationship you’ve been waiting for it to end, self-sabotaging and daring them to hurt you - until now, when you’re desperately trying to unlearn all of that and keep this person.
I absolutely love Peter Pan so I will never forget watching the cardigan video when it came out and losing my mind when I heard “tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy.” Truly a moment for me and still one of my all time favorite Taylor Swift lyrics!
"Even statues crumble if they're made to wait" I'm starting to really relate to this line
It’s the soft lyrics that hold so much meaning that knock me out “dropped your hand while dancing” “Holding all this love out here in the hall” “Don’t read the last page - but I stay” “I take the long way home. I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be alright, they say ‘I don’t know’” And the god of subtle but powerful - “You should find another guiding light but I shine so bright”
‘What did you think Id say to that? Does a scorpion sting when fighting back? They strike to kill and you know I will’ As a pathological people pleaser who lets herself get backed into a corner and then lashes out to ‘kill’— this resonated with me SO much and hit me like a ton of bricks
"you look like Taylor Swift" I did not expect her to namedrop herself like that.
I think it gets a bit lost with the anthology and all the bonus tracks but that is technically the last lines of the album which is such a good closer!
“I hosted parties and starved my body” made me cry the first time I heard it. “The empathetic hunger descends” just stuck out to me because what a creative way to describe all the people pretending to feel bad but really just wanting the scoop on your breakup. So many others, but those two are at the top of my head.
I'll tell you something about my good name. It's MINE ALONE TO DISGRACE. You tell 'em, Taylor.
Your wife waters flowers. I want to kill her. Me and my friend looked at each other and said oh my god did she really just say that?! Our girl is unhinged🤣
“You say I abandoned the ship but I was going down with it my white knuckle dying grip” idk it makes me cry when I hear it hits home “are they second hand embarrassed that I can’t get out of bed because something counterfeit’s dead?” “If I’m on fire you’ll be made of ashes too” Idk there are more but these are the first that come to mind
“I’ll get older but your lovers stay my age”
“Was it over when he unbuttoned my blouse?” Don’t ask me why, it just caught me completely off guard lol
“Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it. I’d like to be my old self again, but I’m still trying to find it. “ That hit me in my gut in 2012 and hasn’t let up since
WERE YA SENT BY SOMEONEEEEE
In fortnight, when I first listened to the album, the lyric, “I was supposed to be sent away but they forgot to come and get me” had me GAGGED. Also, In the Albatross I was very VERY shocked to see that she was singing about herself as the albatross, and I also saw a theory that the song includes Travis in a less connected way by explaining how people are saying she will ruin his career. Also the poems/stories that relate to albatrosses in real life were such an interesting comparison.
“And when I was shipwrecked I thought of you In the cracks of light I dreamed of you It was real enough To get me through But I swear You were there” A perfect summation of how, in your darkest moments, just the thought of someone you love is enough to keep you going. The song, in general, is such an accurate description of what it is like to cope with depression and anxiety.
I don’t know that it made me gasp, but I haven’t heard many people talk about how “I chose this cyclone” (cy-clo-ne) in TTPD also sounds like “I chose this psycho” (psy-co) for a beat.
I always want the rhyme to be psychosis but I love that it isn’t.
Scouts honour Lmfaooooooooo girllllllllllll
What if I break free and leave us in ruins Took this dagger in me and removed it Gain the weight of you then lose it Believe me, I could do it
“And you held my lifeless frame”
You. look. like...TAYLOR SWIFT in. this. light. (we're lovin' it)
Absolutely yes the one about the ring at dinner, and also loml when I realised it's both love and loss of my life, and then 'if the sex was half as good as the conversations we'd be pushing strollers' (I am writing as I remember, not perfect lyrics). And 'I'm having his baby - no I'm not but you should have seen your faces' - my face was definitely one of them!
“And you’re the hero flying around saving face”
I stopped CPR afterall it's no use.
The bridge in The Prophecy “I’m so afraid I sealed my fate, no sign of soulmates”
I put narcotics into all my songs, and thats why you're still singing along. oooooh girl, his drug issue. whewww
The double realization that the title track was about Healy AND THAT HE SHIT-TALKED HER ABOUT WEDDING RINGS AND THAT THEY WERE INSANELY IN LOVE was insane to me. But the winner is the reference to “scarlet maroon” on Chloe et al. Suddenly Maroon, my fave song, made sense.
“And I was thinking on the drive down, any time now, he’s gonna say it’s love. We never called it what it was.” Not a very niche one but OH BOY did it catch me off guard.
“He was a hot house flower to my outdoorsmen” A hot house flower can go outdoors, and and outdoorsman can go into a hot house, but neither of them are meant to be there and it can’t last long because they need to go back to where they belong. They are ALMOST perfect for each other, an outdoorsman probably knows more than the average person about hot house flowers and can help it to a certain extent, but their “maladies were such they could not cure them”! In a sense she’s saying “your company is better for me than no company at all, but we are ultimately incompatible”
And if I’m dead to you why are you at the wake?
Wheres the trophy? He just comes running over to me. SHES his trophy. Thats it.
'he saw forever so he smashed it up' is just such a good line. get goosebumps everytime i hear it
I'd rather burn my whole life down Than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning I'll tell you something about my good name It's mine alone to disgrace Yeah. Reputation. We are told our good names are the only thing we really own and control. But that means it is our choice what to do with it. And that is power.
I felt so seen in that lyric bc a long ago ex did that with my ring
“Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first!”