thank you so much for all of your kind comments on this video! because this was made only two days after the album came out, the explanations are not fully developed and may be incomplete. i've been loving reading your theories in the comments, and after listening to the album many, MANY more times, i agree with a lot of you! i hope this video helped to just scratch the surface of the album. i would love to create a more in-depth video if anyone is interested!
Daria U should also watch Lauren Lipman. She has a ton of videos on Taylor and her songs 😊 it’s always fun for me to watch different people talk about her albums
Taylor also said ‘Tolerate It’ is based on/inspired by the book Rebecca. It’s about a woman married to a man who she believes is still in love with dead ex wife Rebecca. He treats her exactly how it is described in the song.
The line about the tires aludes to tires being used to identify murderers. Muddy tires because you berried someone in the woods, or tires linking a crime scene to a crime.
In my head, Coney Island is a song written from the perspective of a couple going through a divorce, only for the husband to die in a car accident before it’s finalized. The song takes place as she and his ghost recall why they were leaving each other before his death. Or at least that’s what i think based on the bridge when he says “when i go into the accident the sight that flashed before me was your face” and she follows it with “but when i walked up to the podium i think that i forgot to say your name.” Meaning he likely died in the accident and she forgot to say his name while giving his eulogy because she felt so disconnected from him already.
@RUTH SCHWEISTHAL Taylor wrote coney island with her boyfriend joe. i don’t think she’d care to write each line in the bridge dedicated to her ex boyfriends lol
@RUTH SCHWEISTHAL Also the "Were you standing in the hallway with a big cake happy birthday" is a reference to The Moment I Knew and "When I got into the accident the sight that flashed before me was your face" is a reference to Out Of The Woods where she sings "Remember when you hit the breaks too soon 20 stitches in the hospital room when you started crying baby I did too when the sun came up I was looking at you".
is it just me or gold rush could be joe's perspective when he first met Taylor? also "what must it be like to grow up that beautiful?" could be about her growing up in the media idk if this makes sense
it makes more sense being her own perspective about him tho, cuz she's the one who is ALWAYS talking about how everybody is supposedly obsessed with him and feeling threatened by other girls liking him: "there's a lot of cool chicks out there" "everyone who sees you wants you" "your the kinda guy the ladyes wants" "do the girls back home touch you like I do" "the ladies had their stories about when you pass through town but that was all before I locked it down" "he better lock it down or I won't stick around cuz good ones never wait" "stay here honey I don't wanna SHARE" "if you got a gf, I'm jealous of her" "all eyes on you my magician, I'm so chill but you make me jealous" "I don't wanna miss you like the other girls do". she's constantly talking about how she is feeling threatened by other girls, from is past and present as well, for he is sooooo attractive to everyone and so incredibly gorgeous - according to her. "you should think about the consequences of you magnetic field being a little too strong" "that's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you dear", the whole song Gorgeous... so yeah. Taylor is the one sho sees Joe like that.
The brand new tires in NBNC I believe is because he disposed of the body in his truck and had to get new tires so any tracks at the crime scene won’t match his truck tires.
I wasn't really a swiftie before quarantine, and just liked a few of her songs like 'Black Space' and 'You belong with me'. Just those two. But 2020 made me a HUGE swiftie... especially my bestie. D A M, Taylor's a Queen. And Selena Gomez also helped me become a swiftie through her friendship with Taylor. Oh, and also, Dorothea is dedicated to Selena Gomez, thought yaa should know :)
I think Dorothea is about the boy's perspective from tis the damn season... it's also about leaving someone and Taylor wonders if they think about her. So it's definitely not about Selena cause she never left Taylor's side.
I think Happiness is more about how your relationship can end badly but it doesn't mean you didn't have good memories from it? Like referenced from the bridge about how a good man can hurt you and you can hurt him too. Like it's getting over the relationship and accepting that it doesn't mean you can't find love again bc a good thing didn't work out. Anyway, enjoyed the video! Happy holidays!
This was my interpretation of the song too. "There is happiness after you, but there was happiness because of you, both of these things can be true" - meaning the relationship is over and I will find happiness again but I can still acknowledge that what we had was good and I was happy
timestamp for anyone who needs it 0:27 willow 1:01 champagne problems 1:37 gold rush 2:01 'tis the damn season 2:29 tolerate it 2:56 no body, no crime 3:45 happiness 4:18 dorothea 4:48 coney island 5:04 ivy 5:27 cowboy like me 5:57 long story short 6:18 marjorie 6:43 closure 7:15 evermore
Yes, I agree because police would look for somebody with those tire marks if he killed her then buried her in the woods or something like that. The slashing doesn't really fit the scenario unless taylor slashed them
"No body, no crime" is also a continuation of another song of hers "Should've said no" because of the storyline and the chords that you can hear at the beginning of NBNC, which are the same ones in SSN
I believe ivy is Taylor’s best song lyrically. -Ivy is a symbol of fidelity, but she uses it as a metaphor for infidelity. -Ivy covering a house will eventually destroy that house -“my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand…my house of stone, your ivy grows, and now I’m covered in you” when you die your body becomes cold, and house of stone could be in reference to a tombstone which adds to the death imagery and fits with how the “old widow goes to the stone everyday” -The protagonist says that their husband will “burn this house to the ground” but ivy is actually fire resistant ;)
Does anyone think that tolerate it and coney island are connected as well? Like in coney island they are talking about not appreciating their significant other until they were gone and apologizing for that and in tolerate it she is saying that she doesn't feel appreciated
I think ivy & tolerate it can both be connected to Coney Island & it's time to let go or No Body No Crime. It's like two different paths that the estranged partners could take
I feel like tolerate can also be from a paternal POV. It can also be a romantic way, but the way is described and how she tells it sounds more from a love that you are supposed to feel
Ack. Ok but champagne problems is legit slang. It’s a sort of ‘first world problems’ kind of thing. Like ‘oh poor you-you have all this and this and this but she won’t marry you/he wants to marry you and you don’t want that? Yeah, that must be _really hard.’_
but it’s also meant literally right? like they bought all this champagne to celebrate the engagement and then it never happened so they didn’t know what to do with all the champagne, a literal champagne problem... so it’s sort of a double meaning?
I think that's what makes the song so interesting - the character is acknowledging that the situation is a problem that some people would only have the _privilege_ of complaining about, but she's simultaneously honoring it and how deeply it impacted her. Like: "yeah, these are champagne problems, but they still hurt."
I love Taylor Swift's new songwriting style so much!! I think it's a great career move to because after so many albums focusing on her own experiences, this can really help add variety to her work x
Ivy also symbolizes fidelity, making the title of the song very ironic because the wife is having an affair. Or maybe in some way, she's actually faithful towards the person she's having an affair with because she loves them and her husband doesn't love her. Either way, it's not a coincidence that the song is called "Ivy" because it's Taylor obviously!
"Ivy" documents a married woman's infidelity, much like Gilbert's supposed cheating on her husband with Dickinson. Emily Dickinson was very close to her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert, and many scholars interpret their relationship as a romantic one. A mythology developed around "Ivy" that one of Swift's influences for the track was the alleged affair between the poet and her brother's wife. Among the clues: Swift released Evermore on December 10, Dickinson's birthday. Dickinson ends one of her poems addressed to Gilbert with "forevermore."
in ivy, the lyrics "he's in the room, your opal eyes are all i wish to see, he wants whats only yours" makes me think that the person she's singing about also has a husband, which means she's singing about a woman! :)
YESS Also when Taylor says "and the old widow go to the stone everyday" I think She's talking about the person with she is cheating her husband. And she say "widow" so it is a woman. If you analize all the lyrics again You will notice that the song talked about a woman who had a husband that doesn't love her, and so she fall in love with another woman ( who is widow, bc her husband die). But they can't stay together because of the husband of the first woman.
This was so good! Thank you! I haven’t even heard the full album yet, but I heard “no body no crime” and fell in love with it, because I love true crime. I couldn’t finish listening to the album because I thought I heard connections between songs (which I’m obsessed with, I love albums that tell stories) and was trying to search for an explanation.
Thanks for that! Seeing your video really validated my hypothesis. I think the track “coney island” is about the same couple we see on “tolerate it”, in which case she really didn’t left him and then he died and regretted all the indifference he showed her. Also, in my mind, the widow on “ivy” is the same person from those tracks.
I definitely agree that Tolerate It, Ivy, and Coney Island are related! I almost see it as a complete story, where the wife first feels neglected by her husband (Tolerate It) to the point where she seeks out attention from another man (Ivy), and all of the negativity ultimately leads to the couple’s demise / end of life (depending on how you interpret the exchange with the accident and forgetting his name at the podium)(Coney Island). I also think Happiness can be linked to these as well because the narrator learns that there were lots of pros and cons to the relationship and despite the relationship ending, both parties know that the other brought happiness into their lives in various ways and they’ll find happiness from other sources going forward.
Steve B. I like your theory and definitely will listen close the next time I hear the album, but I think the husband from “ivy” really cared about his wife to the point where he would get jealous. The husband from “tolerate it” is indifferent, I feel like he wouldn’t care if she got involved with someone else. I still think “ivy” is related to “coney island” in the sense that on one side we have the neglected widow grieving and on the other the beloved wife that cheats. Two extremes of being married, different kinds of pain - but still pain.
Champagne problems is my fave from this album too! I love this album but it always makes me want to cry 😭 it’s so beautiful and full of emotion. Thanks for making this :)
I always thought Ivy was about someone struggling to move on after their spouse dies, so they feel like they owe their love to their dead spouse and feel guilty for moving on.
I fell like evermore doesn’t get enough love like this is the best song writing I’ve ever seen like the storytelling of each song is so detailed and good that I can visualize it as I’m listening to the song like no body no crime whenever I listen to it I create the settings described in the song all in my mind just like I normally do when I read books in shorter words taylor is genius
I've been a fan of Haim since 2016 and when I heard that Taylor was doing a song with them I was so excited. no body, no crime is definitely my favorite on the album. Also, I loved this video, it was so helpful! Lysm!!!
Ok hear me out... long story short is from Dorothea's perspective. When she speaks about 'the wrong guy' she could be referring to the guy she was with in her hometown (Tupelo) maybe? And how she let him go when she found someone she really cares about in LA. In the second verse she talks about how he's missing her. And she also speaks about how she looks better in the rear view mirror which could be referring to her leaving Tupelo (her hometown) and when she drove off, the last thing he saw was her reflection in the rear view. But Dorothea has moved on and has found someone else. (She's all about him) (Long story short was also probably inspired by Taylor's real life situation with Joe because in the second part of the second verse she mentions that she's ready to fight back when people disturb their 'peace' which is a reference to the folklore track of the same title.) For the rest of the song Dorothea is talking about her new love and how she's finally happy and has survived everything that happened with her old fling in Tupelo and the fame she's received in LA. This might be far fetched but I really believe this theory... also 'tis the damn season, dorothea and long story short are the same amount of songs apart just like the teenage love triange in folklore!!
Ok hear me out; Illicit Affairs and Ivy are linked. They are both about affairs between seemingly older people. And also Ivy seems like it is about two women. The narrator seems to have no passion in her marriage which could symbolize her attraction to women instead of men, therefore making the affair the only way she can be fulfilled (“I can’t stop you putting roots in my dreamland”). And “he’s gonna burn this house to the ground” could be a reference not only to the husband’s anger because of the cheating, but also his homophobia. I also think Illicit Affairs could be about two married women secretly in love (“leave the perfume on the shelf that you picked out just for HIM”). Additionally, “you showed me colours you know I can’t see with anyone else” seems to be a reference to a discovered sexuality, or more simply, the pride rainbow.
yES i always saw ivy as a lesbian love affair,,, and i always thought it was connected to the tis the damn season/dorothea narrative !! in my brain dorothea and ivy are the couple that all three songs are about
I love and agree with the theory about Ivy, however I don't think Illicit Affairs are about lesbians, I think the narrator talks to herself and the new colors are just new levels of passion which is something that can happen even with the same (here hetero)sexual relationships
@@luciepavlova6739 ur right! it doesnt sound explicitly about 2 women but it could easily be related to since im p sure it never genders a love interest
This came up on my recommendations and it’s AMAZING! The whole video was so well thought out. IMy favourites on the album are gold rush, evermore, and ivy . :)
I have a strong feeling that 'dorothea' is about TS's bff selena Gomez. The lines-' you're a queen selling dreams selling makeup and magazines' could be referencing to her new beauty line Rare beauty. ' tiny screen' could be referencing her video chat. These are some things that i found. I think this song has multiple meanings and TS did it intentionally.
selena loves the wizard of oz, and so it would make sense that since the main character is Dorothy she used the name Dorothea bc it ends in an A like selena
honestlyyyyyyy......I think closure is about Karlie Kloss. It's almost too nice to be about scott or scooter, and also in the bridge when she says "staying friends would iron it out so nice" and she wasnt friends with scooter and it doesnt sound like something about scott borchetta
@@lilas8217 I wouldn’t call a business relationship where she had to fight to release what she wanted a friendship, and she felt like she was the daughter he never had. I know she has other friends, and I honestly LOVE Karlie, i’m not trying to start any drama and hate when people bring drama to karlie unnecessarily but the way the lyrics are, the beginning lyrics to it’s time to go ://// I would never bring drama to karlie because as I said I love her, but this song is not about scott borchetta and honestly it’s too nice to be about him. She would be way more mad about it if it were about him. She has a lottttttttt more pent up anger towards scott borchetta it’s too nice for him
The bridges of long story short and The Story of Us are quite interesting. In TSOUS, she sang “this is looking like a contest of who can act like they care less”, and then in LSS she said “no more keeping score now, I just keep you warm”. That’s growth.
I wasn’t a swiftie before but I listened to a few of her old songs but right after these two albums I started appreciating her more and my fav so far is Champagne Problems too! 💕
ive never really cared about the meaning and theories of songs before but the way taylor creates stories with her music really interests me!! this video was really helpful with understanding the songs as i dont have a lot of experience with it, thank you!!!
I know it's not the real meaning but I see Coney Island as a song from the perspective of a father/daughter relationship. The father was absent, emotionally unavailable or abusive ("sorry for not making you my centerfold", "did i close my fist around something delicate"), his daughter was hurt and disappointed but has grown up and is now indifferent to him ("will you forgive my soul when you're too wise to trust me and too old to care"), and it's only now that he realizes what he did wrong and feels tormented by it. I also like to believe this cause I feel there's this childish and family atmosphere with some terms like arcade/gift-wrapped/happy birthday/merry-go, and especially if you try to hear this line that way : "if I can't relate to you any more than who I am related to" (even if I know it's not the right lyrics) that was my little interpretation thank you!!
I love how a lot of the songs in folklore and evermore can be left to our own interpretation and we can fill the blanks with our own projection, like for instance, I always pictured cowboy like me being sung from the perspective of a man to another man, so saying "two people who fall in love" makes sense to me. And when I first listened to ivy all I could think about was the movie The World to Come, where to married women bond over their complicated marriages and fall in love with each other. It's really really cool how an album can give you so much more than the artist orginally intended.
I like this. Thank you for sharing. I have to say that my interpretation of 'Happiness' was considerably different. I interpreted it to be about 2020, and all the hardship that people experienced; the death, the isolation, the fear of change, and, strangely, the acceptance (of the pandemic) and life as we know it now. The song could also be about a relationship between two people, but I think it's much bigger picture than that. "Leave it all behind, and there is happiness." I think it's a great note to end the year on.
I thought in 'no body no crime' the brand new tires refer to him driving Este's dead body somewhere to bury her, and in order to make sure the traces don't lead back to him, he got new tires. Thank you for your explaination, I think it works! Maybe mine is far fetched.
In my mind the songs Tolerate it, Ivy and Happiness are all connected. Tolerate it is about the wife's observation about her husband not caring about her and her desire to leave him. Ivy is in connection to Tolerate it where the same wife has had enough and is having an affair with someone who appreciates her but she is still married therefore she can't give herself fully in the relationship. Finally, Happiness is about the wife and husband coming to terms with their failed relationship and decide to divorce and the song is like a speech she gives him about moving on, reminiscing of the good times and acknowledging that they will find their happiness again.
Ivy to me reads as a woman who is in an unhappy marriage or an arranged marriage perhaps and they end up falling in love with another woman. I think the lyrics "And the old widow goes to the stone everyday but I don't I just sit here and wait, grieving for the living" is about her seeing this old woman visiting her husband's grave and she feels the opposite, you have here a woman so in love that she still visits her dead husband's grave meanwhile she wishes she could be free from her husband and be with the other woman. In the end I think they were outed and got hate crimed and burned alive. I read the last "My house of stone, your ivy grows and now I'm covered in you" as ivies have started growing on their tombstones where they're buried.
I always thought the song Dorothea was about her friendship with Selena Gomez (with most of references like Selena’s makeup line, selling magazine, her new Hollywood toxic friends, seeing her only on screen because they FaceTime a lot)
Not only in champagne problems does she turn down the proposal, but as well as the man having plans to propose at the dinner, the other character of song planned to break off their relationship at that dinner
I had assumed the truck having brand new tires was a forensic countermeasure so they couldn't track the soil of his truck wheels if the suspicion did fall upon him in no body no crime.
i always thought dorothea was taylor singing about selena gomez, “selling makeup and magazines”: selena launched her rare beauty line not too long ago!
I think no body no crime is that she confronted him about cheating and he murdered Estee. The line about tires is because tires can be left at crime scenes (woods, mud etc), so he was trying to cover it up. To revenge, the protagonist murders him back and frames the mistress - the fact she took out a big life insurance makes her very suspicious, and Estes sister would swear she was with the protagonist too. I’m not sure it’s deffo open to interpretation but I have watched a lot of true crime stuff so that’s how I read it lol 😂
Champagne Problems has recently been rumored to be about characters from Gilmore Girls Logan and Rory how they could never have a perfect relationship because Rory couldn’t decide when he wanted to get married
I always felt like happiness was about morning a relationship and it tells the story of how you thought your ex loved you but really they didn’t. But you loved them completely. I also felt like the line “you haven’t met the new me yet” was another way of saying “you better watch out because I’m not the same person as before”. As in: “you may be gone, but if you ever try anything with me again, you’ll wish you didn’t”.
The 1st video of yours that I watched Liked it so much That I also subscribed In my comments said I was hoping to see a video on evermore and guess that video automatically popped up next.. You have such a great channel.
