i analyze song meanings through the lens of literary analysis ✨ i do this by concentrating on diction, connotation, imagery, metaphors and other literary devices.
i'm always down for analyzing artists new to this channel. so far i analyze: - taylor swift - lana del rey - lorde -mitski -phoebe bridgers
if you have any songs you'd like me to analyze and react to, feel free to suggest them in the comments!!
brb gonna go annotate some lyrics as if it were a novel!! 💅🏻
9:31 When she says the line "Watch you breathe in, watch you breathing out" I connected it more with the image of that person that went through the trauma reliving it in a panic attack and her being there to witness it ; that moment could be the epiphany for her, the moment she really understood just how much the trauma affected the other person
After having a husband with an addiction blow up our life and then he died from the addiction… I did wear the same jewels that he gave me when I buried him. He didn’t have it in him to go with grace. I’m still dealing with the aftermath and cleaning up behind him. In the end I had to leave our home for my child to not be around any of that, but still loved and cared for him until the end. I feel like this song is him and I singing it to each other, as he passed.
To me this entire song is about someone who is very special to the protagonist and they might know eachother and the other person has so much positive stuff going on (being in a band having a sister) and the protagonist may habe nothing exciting going on and that to other person is older then them and is deciding to move away but the protagonist might lose contact with them and is scared they won't speak again or see each other again and the protagonist is asking them to not become a stranger and hope they still talk. I thought of this because this is something going on with me right now and when i listen to the song it hits very hard and relatable because the person is in a band has a younger sister and older then me and will be leaving school this time next year and we only became friends a few months ago so we aren't close and im scared we wont see eachother as much
i feel the exactly same way you described with this song, without you without them, I bet on losing dogs, philophobia from Sunday cruise and so many others songs but I just couldn't describe just how incredibly you did!! it's like "oh my god being me is so much fun sometimes !! "
I always relate this song back to Ready For It where she says “and he can be my jailer” where at that point, she wanted a jail where he would ‘keep’ her but time passed and she realised it really wasn’t what she wanted anymore
Sometimes when you feel so little for yourself you surround yourself with destructive environments, thoughts, people. Because they’re so bad you think you could exist there. But you never can you will always lose. When you think you deserve no better you live there over and over. You know they’re losing but you paid for your place.
To me, this song is presented as if the person the protagonist is singing about, is going through some sort of prolonged sadness and not feeling worthy of love. So when she says “if you don’t (want to dance), I’ll do it anyway” or “if you fight I’ll fight, it doesn’t matter, now it’s all gone “ means that if her partner is giving up (on themselves) and no longer wants to keep fighting to live, she can keep fighting for the both of them. “It’s all gone” means all of her fears about maybe putting her all into this relationship are now desolved and she’s willing to fight for their love.
I prefer to think that the phrase “I never wanted love, just a fancy car” means that she didn’t want anything serious like love. She wanted something to show, nothing more. Her describing herself as a cowboy (a treacherous person, who doesn't care much about the meaning of things and people) and saying that she “never wanted love” proves my point of view, according to my interpretation. But I like your interpretation that the "fancy car" is a form of escape, where she would switch from one “fancy car” to another, but deep down she just doesn't want to be hurt. There are many interpretations and it highlights what an incredible lyricist Taylor Swift is!
The Gardens of Babylon is such a brilliant allusion. As they fall in love it is like one of the seven wonders of the world, but now she's locked it down, she's not sure it ever existed.
When I think of this song, I think that Mitski is singing about someone who cheers for people don’t have anyone to cheer for them. She wants to be there for someone who faces life alone. Kind of like a mother.
I think the telephone wires sizzling like a snare are referencing snare drum wires that are underneath a snare drum and give it that sizzling vibration sound- which makes sense since she is dancing and hearing music in the sounds around her
Thank you for this analysis. I think, as you mention during the video, the key word is "regret". This is a song of regret and of being haunted by a bad experience with love. And, as you also said, the different uses of "take me back to the night we met" illustrate both 1. the author's wish to escape future pain by changing history and not getting involved in the relationship and 2. reliving the euphoria of those first electric moments of feeling he had for this new person. The juxtaposition of those two different interpretations of that line is stark. After all, for those of us who have been through break-ups --- who has not had a hard time reconciling the wish to have never met the person with the nostalgia of discovering new love?
I hadn’t thought of it before, but, when you talked about the possibility that she did something to end up in the slammer, I thought of the way people talked about her dating life. She should be able to date people for whatever length of time and not be the butt of jokes due to it, but a years-long relationship worked as a response to them. With that in mind, how can you leave if it’s not right? When the narrative is that you blow through guys, how long do you need to stay in a relationship to change that? “But it’s gonna be alright; I did my time.”
Then when you mentioned Getaway Car: That other relationship that she felt the need to escape lasted about 15 months, right? But that wasn’t enough to change the narrative. This relationship needed to be much longer.
I always thought that it ended with him stealing her money. The relationship starts at a tennis court and switches back and forth between “you’re a cowboy like me” and “you’re a bandit like me” almost like a tennis game itself. The power in the relationship switch back and forth as well which we can see in who will pay for it in the end, as in “only if they pay for it” versus “and I know I’ll pay for it”. Notice also how it’s never the other person who will pay for it. After she “locked it down” the other person is hanging from protagonists lips, insinuating that they are the person in power at that time. It can indicate that she locked the relationship down with this person but also that she succeeded in swindling someone, securing money. Going off of that, the protagonist now embodies the very people they both swindle, a person with assets, which is why I believe that the last line in the bridge is important to discern the ending. “Forever is the sweetest con” is not a hopeful ending. It insinuates that the protagonist believes that it won’t last forever which leads to “I’ve had some tricks up my sleeve” which indicates that she no longer has them. I believe the protagonist got swindled herself but she was prepared to spend the money she locked down in order to pursue the love she felt for the other person. She no longer has the tricks because she’s no longer engaging in the game, she quit swindling and became a victim of it instead. The “I’m never gonna love again” could mean that she quit swindling for good and that she is quitting love because it ruined her.
Thank you for all these analysis. I've been a huge swiftie since the Fearless era. English is not my first language, so watching you has helped me a lot to understand the lyrics more deeply. "I will never miss your videos again" 🎶
Thank you for another insightful analysis! I thought I had a pretty good understanding of this song but, as usual, you brought up intriguing ideas for me to think about... Your close examination of specific word choice is key; as we know, Ms. Swift is hyper-deliberate in all forms of art she releases, and must not be skimmed over. Your analysis helps me appreciate her brilliant songs/poetry/ lyrics even more than I already do!
thank you for your kind words! 😊 and i agree that taylor is very intentional so imo her work requires a fine tooth comb lol i really appreciate your comment! means a lot 😊✨
"Handcuffed to the spell..." makes me think of "spell" as in a period of time. She'd never been in a relationship so long. Maybe she felt a stronger pull to the commitment than to the person?
When I hear tunnels in this context I think of Cornelia Street. "Turned around before I hit the tunnel." Perhaps that's something she did often. Maybe fight, her drive off, get to the tunnel and get the call from him to go back home?
!!! so interesting to think of it that way! for some reason i was only thinking of tunnels in the context of england lol but so much of that relationship was in new york and with songs like cornelia street it makes sense to take that into consideration! could totally see this being a nod to that! thank you for pointing that out 😊
I absolutely love your analysis!! I can’t wait to hear more! I would love to hear your analysis on songs like The albatross and Cassandra and who’s afraid of little old me and The prophecy etc. !!! Those are some of my favorites off the album!❤
