#i could make a retrospective on the 1d happenings alone | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

oopssasha · 4 years

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Dear Sasha,

I know you said you felt dumb for typing out all the plot bunny from that playlist. But you have to know that you made my days for weeks. Honestly, I wasn’t planning on luring you onto the shipping train. You got there all on your own without even realizing it and it’s both hilarious and so seriously incredibly adorably you. I have no clue how to put the amount of affection I have for you into letters.

I love how you couldn’t help yourself and had to ask how the Larry Stylinson thing came to be. Just remember this before you read any further: Curiosity killed the cat. I hope you subscribe to the idea that satisfaction brought it back, otherwise this is going to leave you dead. You asked about it the last time we talked. So here’s my thoughts on what could have happened if the hypothesis that HS and LT were/are in an actual relationship is true. Keep in mind that I have no clue what actually happened. I’m just a song nerd, investing way too much in musical inspirations.

First of all, let me just get this out of the way. I love Taylor Swift as an incredible songwriter that she is and she was the one who got me to notice 1D because she was dating Harry Styles that one time. Her song, ‘Style’ screamed PR stunt to me like nothing else. Actually, her whole 1989 album felt like a middle finger to incompetent PR managers everywhere. ‘Blank Space’ was the epitome of “I can manage my public persona better than you ever could.” ‘New Romantics’ was a love letter to fans filled with irony about high profile public life. How it sucks and makes everything possible at the same time.

Oh my god. I’m sorry I went off the rail. I just love her and her music. Please forgive my ramblings. Again.

Anyway, back to Larry Stylinson. Taylor mentioned how ‘Out of the Woods’ was inspired by a relationship she was in. And the biggest feeling in that whole relationship was anxiety. Funnily enough, ‘Out of the Woods’ makes the most sense to me if Taylor was in a PR relationship with HS, being fully aware that HS and LT were together, and wrote the whole song from imagining LT’s perspective. Taylor put herself in somebody else’s shoes in a song all the time. The most sincerely heartbreaking one to date for me is ‘Ronan’ and I cannot tell you how hard I cried for that song. ‘You were my best four years,’ got me bawling my eyes out. Every. Single. Time.

Here’s my line by line lyrics interpretation for ‘Out of the Woods’ on the assumption that Taylor wrote it from LT’s perspective.

>Looking at it now, it all seems so simple.

[HS was in a PR relationship to stop the gay rumors and hype up 1D world tour. Taylor was in it to turn her image into ‘good girl gone bad’ without having to go full on Miley Cyrus’s ‘Wrecking Ball’ and hype up her own world tour. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Simple but effective.]

>We were lying on your couch. I remember.

[LT once said, ‘Nobody knows where we live’ but the public narrative at the time said HS and LT no longer lived together. Hence, your couch, not ours.]

>You took a Polaroid of us, then discovered the rest of the world was black and white.

[Introducing artsy black and white Polaroid aesthetic to set the stage.]

>But we were in screaming color

[Obvious rainbow reference became painfully obvious.]

>And I remember thinking…

[The following repetitive chorus is so claustrophobic. It plays out as if it was a constant cloud hanging over LT’s head at all times. Like, will people leave us alone now that they no longer think we’re together? Are highly publicized heterosexual relationships enough to keep the scrutiny away? Can we just be together since we’re sworn to the secrecy now? We’re okay, right? We have to be. But are we really?]

>>>

Are we out of the woods yet?

Are we out of the woods?

Are we in the clear yet?

In the clear yet? Good

Are we out of the woods yet?

Are we out of the woods?

Are we in the clear yet?

In the clear yet? Good

Are we out of the woods?

>>>

>Looking at it now, last December we were built to fall apart then fall back together.

[Seeing each other in a PR relationship with someone else hurt further than just simple jealousy. It’s also a reminder that their relationship is not meant to exist, let alone to last.]

>>>

Your necklace hanging from my neck

The night we couldn't quite forget

When we decided (we decided)

To move the furniture so we could dance

Baby, like we stood a chance

Two paper airplanes flying, flying, flying

>>>

[This is where either my imagination ran away with me or Taylor is an actual Queen of Reference. I think it make sense that two paper airplanes here are a combination of a retrospective reference to HS’s necklace and an acknowledgment of LT’s paper airplane tattoo. In ‘Style’ MV at 00:13, HS’s paper airplane necklace, one Taylor wore publicly before, shows up. At her lucky number of seconds, Taylor is holding it like she’s praying, implying her best wishes for the relationship that the paper airplane represented. Throughout the music video, all the broken mirrors and jaded reflections alluded to a recognition of a kindred spirit. Media portrayals of their identities are so distorted to the point where the relationship people see is just a theatrical show for entertainment. I mean, ‘Style’ is almost 4 minutes long and, just 40 seconds in, the lyrics transition to ‘Fade into view’. If this doesn’t scream cinematic, I don’t know what else does. When Taylor flippantly said she could’ve named ‘Style’ as ‘I’m not even sorry’ and called it a day, I think she meant how she twisted the narrative in her favor and the media bought into it so much so that they’re chasing their own tails. Which is a reference I just made to ‘I Know Places’. What can I say? I’m a slave to my queen.]

>And I remember thinkin'

[Then the chorus repeats here. So I’m not going to repeat the interpretation.]

>Remember when you hit the brakes too soon?

>Twenty stitches in the hospital room

>When you started cryin', baby, I did, too

[If your loved one got hurt when they’re away on a job, would you cry when you heard the news? Especially when there’s nothing you could do to help? Then consider this. If Taylor was there to witness the conversation between two heartbroken boys, wouldn’t she decide right then and there to protect them against the world? She talked about the incident once before and how she kept its details on the downlow by looking at people involved dead in the eyes and straight up asking for decency. That’s such a mama bear thing to do, if you ask me.]

>But when the sun came up, I was lookin' at you

[The sunrise usually represents hope. I don’t see why this would be any different. Isn’t nice to know that there’s one more person in your corner?]

>Remember when we couldn't take the heat

>I walked out and said, "I'm settin' you free"

>But the monsters turned out to be just trees.

>And when the sun came up, you were lookin' at me

[This is the biggest reach ever. But I think this is when things had gotten so bad for HS and LT. That if they were together, this was probably their first potential breakup. But then HS got his ship tattoo. As a reminder that no matter where he is, he’s homeward bound. And then LT proceeded to get the compass pointing toward home tattooed on his arm. Taylor was there with HS because she’s a character in the PR narrative, just like a tree in the woods. For her, the show must go on. But she’s not a monster so as soon as the PR stunt was done, she booked it out of there. Her ‘I Know Places’ is almost a promise to not out HS & LT even if their PR relationship went down the drain in public. 1D just broke into North America which was sadly rather homophobic half the time, and, well, “Loose lips sink ships all the damn time. Not this time.”]

I need to go to sleep. I can’t believe I just wrote an essay about one hypothetical angle of a relationship that isn’t from a lit class required reading. If you’re dumb, I’m dumber. It’s 4 AM here and I have work in the morning.

Love you, but don’t call me tonight. I need to catch more zzzZzz.

Delaney

#larry stylinson #taylor swift #brain dump #why am i like this #too active imaginaion #out of the woods #lyrics interpretation #music video interpretation #style #haylor #larry

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