#probably to spare taylor the public drama and also idk they don't want people in their business

[whiskeyswifty]

I gotta be honest I’m really impressed by how Taylor still processes her emotions regarding her father through her art and shares that with fans but that’s still something that is in a weird way so public but so private to the extent that no media outlet has ever written about it in depth before. It’s just fascinating how people see certain things but don’t see the rest. It makes you wonder what else Taylor has shared that the public doesn’t fully understand

oh yeah i mean i'm probably the best person to send this ask to in that i've been that annoying bitch screaming from the rooftop that we don't know her at all for idk 6-7 years now lmaooo. i will also say that because that still stands for me, i'm resistant to the idea that we can say with certainty that subject matter about fathers are about her father exactly. we can only read into what we want to, but i'm not the blog for you if you want to definitively talk about Knowing Things About Her. art is always hyperbolic or dissociative or retconning things through fiction or projecting hopes and dreams through fiction. Even she has said not everything in her songs is actually true and she adds things to embellish or throw people off sometimes. so i don't wanna say all of the lines about fathers are necessarily about her father, confirmed, especially since she hasn't really said that herself. and i think that's why media outlets haven't picked up on it or strayed away from it, as it's all speculation at this point.

but i do find it an interesting insight that mothers in her songs gets the most delightful, loving lines and songs about how comforted and protected she is by her mother and devastated at the thought of losing her. and while there are nice lines written about fathers like "i love your handshake, meeting my father" or "charmed my dad with self effacing jokes", those lines aren't directly about the father, but about how she's impressed when a partner gets her father's approval. those are the nicest lyrics about fathers, and the rest are quite flippant verging on damning. "leaving like a father" or "careless man's careful daughter" or the one that's top of mind from seven about a presumably aggressive and/or verbally abusive father. it's just a fascinating comparison, how she paints mothers and fathers in her songs, and glaring in a way as well considering the STARK contrast. When you compare that to how she talks about her parents in real life, it's even more interesting! When talking about her mom, the sentiments line up pretty squarely with how mothers are depicted in her music, but when talking about her father, it's like night and day. She doesn't gush about her father in the way she does about her mother, no, but she says nice, charming things about him and only ever positively talks about him. because OF COURSE she would. why would she air her family drama to the public? her parents were divorced for YEARS before it became widespread fandom knowledge and still i don't think she's ever acknowledged it. maybe once, but hardly ever if that. i just find it so fascinating, and revealing in a way, that the most impressive thing a partner can do in her songs in regards to her parents is win over her father. perhaps something that's been somewhat elusive for taylor herself as she has strived for it, however subconsciously.

and also we have that scene from miss americana where she starts crying almost instantly when arguing with her dad about speaking out about politics. a scene i personally can't really watch often because of how it's an almost one to one mirror of my own conversations with my dad, down to how i also just start crying almost right away and how flippant and stubborn he is in refusing to understand where she's coming from. the most narrow minded approaches that he has and getting super defensive when she tries to get him to hear her point of view, as if what's most important to him is that he still comes off like a good person and not his daughter literally crying because of their dispute over something so personal. i shiver just thinking about it because of how i've been in that exact situation, and i deeply sympathize with her. it's a glimpse into how perhaps it's a rocky relationship and because of that, maybe she keeps her distance and keeps it a surface level relationship. i know i do with my dad to preserve the peace and my own sanity. it's a tricky thing to navigate, having a parent who loves you but doesn't fully respect your autonomy and even clashes with you ideologically to the point of diminishing you as a person, however unintentionally. they love you, but not fully in the way you maybe want them to. having a tricky relationship with a parent like that is really hard to talk about to a fucking therapist, let alone baring that to the public in art that can be picked apart. i wouldn't blame her for a second if she's shied away from that aspect of her life in her art for the most part. it bleeds through in her general depiction of fathers, as you said, and that's one of the ways that maybe helps her cope, idk who can say. i recognize that in her art and in that scene in particular just because i have those exact experiences in my life, but that doesn't mean that what i see is actually there in the same way i'm seeing it! it could be partially my projection, but it's also not uncommon and she is not immune to having the typical Tumultuous Father/Daughter friction relationship that seems to affect 90% of the world's daughters of fathers lmao.

i'm always trying to get people to the same realization you have which is that as much as she wants people to think she's an open book, she's really not. no human being could be, that's impossible they'd go insane. we only see the tip of the iceberg that is her life, even when it comes to her romantic relationships. most of her life, the 80% of it or whatever the iceberg stat is, goes entirely unnoticed and undisclosed. we see a very specific sliver of her that she CHOOSES to share with us, that she's painted with her favorite colors and is most comfortable revealing. we are not privy to the full reality of her life, the full scope of who she is as a person and what she does and engages with every day. there are ugly parts she doesn't want us to see, and also things she just plain doesn't want to share to keep herself feeling like a human being with a life that is her own. and yes there are some things she hints at through her art like you said, perhaps some of the details of her complicated relationship with her father. but also as you pondered, yes probably a myriad of other troubles or thoughts or experiences that are so vaguely referenced, nobody has ever picked up on them. but that's the point! she doesn't want to share them in a way that they can be consumed and taken from her. i think that's great and part of why she's somewhat of a stable famous person, so it appears (or at least hasn't had a gone of the deep end spiral like many famous people used to do like clockwork). maybe one day she will feel comfortable talking about her interpersonal relationship with her father in detail, but probably not and she never has to if she doesn't want to. there's a sort of dignity preservation in that i can understand completely, and a protectiveness that comes with that sort of relationship. as much as you may have disdain for your father, the burden of the daughter is that unimpeachable love that compels you to care for them despite what they do and want to protect them. she may hate him, but according to her, only she is allowed to hate him, that sort of thing, and we don't even know how she feels about him in totality. so she may want to keep that part of her life close to her chest and die without anyone ever knowing and that's entirely her decision to make, probably the best and most healthy one if you ask me.

anyway happy fathers day from taylor who says dads ain't shit!

#i don't think they are LEGALLY divorced also idk i haven't looked into it #they're probably just separated which is like divorced but without all the legal drama #probably to spare taylor the public drama and also idk they don't want people in their business #ending your marriage is sad already let alone having the world watch it happen cuz they're obsessed with your kid