So hang on, hang on, lemme make sure I’m getting this right. So she’s in a psych ward. In a wedding gown. And she takes the “miracle move on drug” the “forget him” pill of which the effects are temporary. Right, right. And then she’s set free, and immediately walks into a sterile office in a VICTORIAN MOURNING gown! And sits down to start working away on her typewriter. She’s writing, and she loves her muse, and it’s ruining her life. Okay. And then she and the muse are laying on the papers, in love. The pages of her work, her diary, her songs, THE FILES!! And they’re together, and the pages are flying around them, blocking them from the camera, okay? You still with me? She reaches for the muse and then she’s getting electric shock therapy?? With curly hair?? Okay. Okay. And again, loving the muse is ruining her life. And all the doctors, the people closest to her, run away scared when the electricity short circuits or whatever, and the muse is the only one who notices and stops it from killing her!!! The muse is in a (glass) phone booth, and Taylor is sitting right on top, but out of view from the muse. And they are in the middle of NOWHERE. The rust that grew between telephones??? And then we’re back in the office, and she’s pulling all the files out of the drawers!! In the mourning gown again!!! And she’s letting them out, ruining the sterility, and she’s freaking out, sobbing. And then she’s facing the camera, stone cold, letting the files swirl around her, now out in the open ON FIRE I MIGHT ADD. And back in the psych ward in the wedding dress, she breaks the glass to escape, to bolt?? And then, once the files are free, once the glass is broken, once the muse steps out of the glass!! Then she can touch the muse. Then she can touch the muse. Somebody give me an oxygen mask, holy shit
i'm still not 100% convinced about this intepretation (but it's really fun to play with all ideas!), but thinking about this line:
"cause it wasn't sexy once it wasn't forbidden"
if TSMWEL is about SB and a failed coming out, what if this line is him telling her that her songs wouldn't be as sexy (or make as much $) if she came out because they would lose the forbidden dangerous nature of her longing (at its height in reputation, her most recent and highest grossing release at that point) that made them so hot, and when he couldn't control her via the record label anymore, he sold her masters to SB2 to sabotage her "sparkling summer" and coming-out plans with Lover era
Peter is brand Taylor talking to real Taylor, I Look in People’s Windows is real Taylor talking to brand Taylor (the two were supposed to become one, but the more famous she gets the harder it is)😭😭
The whole theme of the album is Taylor herself and her career and how the industry has affected her, joe/matty/travis/kim are just red herrings bye im gonna go cry listening to Peter
(more details⬇️)
I’m not saying that some songs aren’t about those specific people, I’m just saying they’re only PART OF the theme, I believe her father (and other big heads in the industry) had a big influence on her career and forced her to stay in the closet from the very beginning, that messed her up, she had to hide her true self and keep bearding, and in 2019 she planned to come out but didn’t because of the masters heist, now it’s because she’s gotten more famous than ever that she has too much to lose. So maybe these men he dated, she did like them and she had multiple feelings when these relationships ended, but it’s all part of who the industry had made her into; she had one true love (maybe Karlie) but she couldn’t be with that person that’s why some songs are about a true deep love lost, but that’s still part of the “her career” theme, because of her career, she can’t be with that person. (more details⬇️)
What’s really interesting in this theme is that she’s calling out her father in multiple songs because he really made her life harder…
In Cassandra, (the obvious theory is that Cassandra representing gaylors bc we’ve been saying the truth but never believed. And the first verse is about her getting the news of her masters heist just before her coming out plan, and then “stone’s thrown” is referencing Stonewall.) And in the bridge “They knew the whole time that I was onto something. The family, the pure greed, the Christian chorus line. They all said nothing. Blood's thick but nothing like a payroll. Bet they never spared a prayer for my soul” she’s saying her family knew something but said nothing because greed and money, we saw the leaked emails of her father and how he cares more about making money out of Taylor’s career than caring about her as his daughter, so I think this bridge is about her father, also about religious trauma may or may not due to him.
In The Bolter, “A curious child, ever reviled by everyone except her own father. With a quite bewitching face, splendidly selfish, charmingly helpless, excellent fun 'til you get to know her, then she runs like it's a race” she’s talking about herself being a precocious uniquely intelligent ambitious child, which everyone reviled except her father. why? because he wanted to invest money on her, he controlled how she conducted her career from the beginning.
What’s crazier is that Robin may be about her father too. That song sounds like a sweet song but she’s faking it like “all this showmanship to keep it for you in sweetness”. If she’s referring to her father (only wanting to make money out of her career) in this song then “you’re an animal, you are bloodthirsty” makes so much more sense. And the “buried down deep and out of your reach, the secret we all vowed to keep it from you in sweetness” her father probably knows about her queerness but wants her and everyone to keep it quiet.
In But Daddy I Love Him, “people only raise you to cage you” is pretty obvious about her father forcing her to stay in the closet, and “people try and save you cause they hate you” is literally about homophobes. “Dutiful daughter, all my plans were laid” is about her father laying all the plans for her, which isn’t always what she wants. “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” reminds me of that scene in Miss Americana where her father was lecturing why she couldn’t public her opinions. “Thinking it can change the beat of my heart when he touches me. And counteract the chemistry, and undo the destiny” is so queer coded. “Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see / You ain't gotta pray for me” another reference to religious trauma.
So all of this, about her father, about her lover and other men, it’s all connected to her career and she’s looking back at it, thinking and reflecting on it, that’s it that’s the blog
Lots of thinking on this first verse which seems very coded toward the fans—
She was supposed to be sent away- her old image; but her old image was kept around. No one noticed her new “aesthetic”- glittery and covered in rainbows, and so old Taylor TM stayed.
She hopes the fans are okay; she knows ultimately this wasn’t any one person’s fault, but when I hear this line in combination with no one noticing her covered in rainbows it feels like treason. She’s trapped in her old self bc her image was too big to destroy, and the fans went along with it and turned a blind eye.
It is reminiscent of the NYT post; that she tried to come out and “the world wasn’t ready for her”
Just thoughts.
**addition: I also think a lot of the line I was supposed to be sent away but they forgot to come and get me —- in context of her thinking her pop days were originally going to be over (like Ms. Americana- thought she was fading out with lover) before her stardom exploded
I can tell when somebody still wants me, come clean
Standing at the bar like something's funny, bubbly
Once you fix your face, I'm goin' in
… Whether I'm gonna be your wife or
Gonna smash up your bike, I
Haven't decided yet
But I'm gonna get you back
… Whether I'm gonna curse you out or
Take you back to my house, I
Haven't decided yet
But I'm gonna get you back
… I, I hear the whispers in your eyes
I'll make you wanna think twice
You'll find that you were never not mine
You're mine
… Small talk, big love
Act like I don't care what you did
I'm an Aston Martin
That you steered straight into the ditch
Then ran and hid
… And I'll tell you one thing, honey
I can take the upper hand and touch your body
Flip the script and leave you like a dumb house party
Or I might just love you 'til the end
… Whether I'm gonna be your wife or
Gonna smash up your bike, I
Haven't decided yet
But I'm gonna get you back
… Whether I'm gonna flip you off or
Pull you into the closet
I haven't decided yet
But I'm gonna get you back
… I, I hear the whispers in your eyes
I'll make you wanna think twice
You'll find that you were never not mine
You're mine
… I can feel it comin', hummin' in the way you move
Push the reset button, we're becoming something new
Say you got somebody, I'll say, "I got someone too"
Even if it's handcuffed, I'm leaving here with you
… Bygones will be bygone eras fadin' into gray (fadin' into gray)
We broke all the pieces but still want to play the game (oh)
Told my friends, "I hate you but I love you just the same"
Pick your poison, babe
I'm poison either way
… Whether I'm gonna be your wife or
Gonna smash up your bike, I
Haven't decided yet
But I'm gonna get you back
… Whether I'm gonna curse you out or
Take you back to my house, I
Haven't decided yet
But I'm gonna get you back
… I, I hear the whispers in your eyes
I'll make you wanna think twice
You'll find that you were never not mine
I'm gonna get you back
Observations:
-Gender neutral pronouns
-Using the word “bubbly” to describe her muse…..is so sapphic and 1000% screams Karlie
-“once you fix your face I’m going in” I mean….sure guys can wear make up and be bubbly but come on. This isn’t sounding like any of the beards. This is Karlie or another woman at least.
-whisper in your eyes….whispering eyes is queer
-the “I, I” before whispering eyes sounds EXACTLY like Dress BUT incomplete. Only two instead of 4….because they’re stuck in between. In Dress they were in the moment of the dress coming off and then….
Here the ending isn’t known yet….will this end in a fight or will the dress be coming off when she takes her home?
- “bygones will be bygones, eras fading into gray” Is this indicating that they will be publicly “burying the hatchet” so to speak and be seen together again towards the end of the eras tour?
Thoughts on TTPD and how it relates to Dead Poets Society and queerness
(Spoilers for DPS ahead.)
I saw DPS a long time ago and rewatched it before TTPD came out, thinking there could be a connection just by virtue of the similar titles. (This connection was, of course, confirmed with the inclusion of Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles of DPS in the Fortnight music video.) The thing is, before I rewatched DPS, I remembered that Neil Perry kills himself because he is gay. It had been a long time since I’d seen it, and that was what I remembered. While rewatching it, I kept waiting for Neil to try to kiss a boy or come out to his dad or something. But he doesn’t. No one in the film ever says ANYTHING overtly about queerness. There are references to Whitman and Tchaikovsky (both presumed to be queer). Neil wants to be an actor and gets his start playing a literal fairy (Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream). But never does he overtly express any attraction to someone of the same sex, and never does he identify himself as gay or queer. But as a teenager watching this movie, the implied queerness was so obvious to me that I later REMEMBERED THE MOVIE WRONG.
And that’s the same way that TTPD is queer. The queerness isn’t overt. It’s not obvious or clear to everyone who listens to it. But it’s there, baked in, and undeniable when you really dissect the lyrics. Queer themes of the world not accepting your love, feeling trapped, the closet, religious trauma, and feeling judged are obvious in the album. And the genius of Taylor’s lyrics is that they can be attributed to Matty Healy (A Man™️), they can be attributed to queerness and the queer experience, and, I think, they can be attributed to both of those things at the same time.