the black dog is such classic taylor songwriting - starting with a small detail/memory (seeing her ex visit a bar) and then it spirals into a wider recollection of the relationship. the flip from 'magic fabric of our dreaming' to 'tragic fabric of our dreaming' because those dreams are now ruined. the disconnect between being so far apart that she's stalking his location, to once showering together while she was shaking. the switch in the last chorus to him being a black dog, leaving with his tail between his legs. i am simply OBSESSED
[speculating] the events of black dog happening… breakup the week later…. the black dog being recorded 6 weeks later
“six weeks of breathing clean air, i still miss the smoke, were you making fun of me, with some esoteric joke? now i wanna sell my house, and set fire to all my clothes, and hire a priest to come and exorcise my demons, even if i die screaming, and i hope you hear it”
there’s something so painstakingly beautiful about the way taylor (literally) screams when she sings ‘cause old habits die screaming’ in the black dog and how it purposefully sounds painfully aching each chorus until the very end when she just whispers it because she tried and tried and tried to make him hear her until she just gave up :’(
taylor asking “was it hazing? for a cruel fraternity/i pledged” is so good cause that means she was asking to be accepted and join his world, but in order to do that you have to go through the hazing (washing toilets with toothbrushes, etc.) to join and be accepted. so taylor was pledging for the love of this man but no matter how long she was there for she was still fighting to get in and be accepted and be in the fraternity of his life… and just comparing enduring hazing to cheating and having to handle that baggage is so heavy and intense and as someone who was hazed it hits me hard
and i won't confess that i waited but i let the lamp burn as the men masqueraded i hoped you'd return with your feet on the ground tell me all that you'd learned cause love's never lost when perspective is earned and you said you'd come and get me but you were 25 and the shelf life of those fantasies has expired lost to the lost boys chapter of your life forgive me peter, please know that i tried to hold onto the days when you were mine but the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light
i found the club she’s heard great things about, i left all i knew, you left me at the house by the heath (so long, london) // and your location, you forgot to turn it off, and so i watch as you walk into some bar called the black dog (the black dog)
How is this not about Wolfstar. Your telling me that’s not Padfoot in front of the full moon. Taylor can you just come out and say your mskingbean89 we all know it