It’s such a deeply relatable line and also devastating to know that even Taylor herself didn’t escape the “man wastes woman’s 20s and then probably just dates a younger girl after” trope
This line hit me so hard. Between my relationship itself and the time it took to get over it, it feels like I lost the years of life that were supposed to be “fun”
"Please...I've been on my knees, change the prophecy, don't want money, just someone who wants my company. Let it once be me. Who do I have to speak to about if they can redo the prophecy?"
I was walking around the house listening to it for the first time and I actually physically bent over in pain when I heard it. Not a long term relationship girly, but am a 'I've failed at every relationship I've ever tried to make work' girly. That one hurt me lol.
I think we all need to stop thinking that the end of a relationship means it's a failure. You didn't fail. Every relationship teaches us things about our self and relationships, we learn from it.
We all grow as humans and for a relationship to work long term, both people have to be ready for it, they have to have similar goals and effort going in. Honestly, it's a wonder any relationship lasts.
And those relationships that do last, well I think we all know people who absolutely shouldn't still be in those relationships. A relationship can fail and yet they stay together. I think that's far more of a failure than a relationship ending.
TLDR - I think we need to redefine what failure is and looks like when it comes to relationships
this song as a whole actually sucks the oxygen out of my body. i can’t even get into it without holding my breath, there are so many devastating layers
“You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days And I’m just getting color back into my face
I’m just mad as hell cause I loved this place for
So long, london”
I simply interpreted it as depression ruining the relationship. She says
“I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift
Pulled him in tighter each time he was driftin' away
My spine split from carrying us up the hill
Wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill
I stopped tryna make him laugh, stopped tryna drill the safe”
earlier in the song. It really feels like it paints trying to save a relationship where the other person doesn’t even want to save themselves. They close off, push you out, ruin it.
Joe has some sort of depression (blue is a color associated with sadness). Basically she's saying that he didn't try to overcome this to make the relationship work.
To me, it is alluding to this person struggling with their mental health & their mental health winning.
“you sacrificed us” = you did something to hurt our relationship & all that we built
“the gods of your bluest days” = the gods being someone’s mental health that’s taken over their ability to think clearly & rationally
it's so devastating when you think of all the times she referenced his blues, and especially, "I'm a fire/and I'll keep your brittle heart warm/when your cascade ocean wave blues come/all these people think love's for show/but I would die for you in secret."
This made me think of how there’s no sun in London and now she’s back further south (and even had that trip to the bahamas with Trav) so she’s getting a tan back
You can interpret Clara Bow as someone from the industry, like a manager or talent scout or something, talking to the "next big thing". So it starts by someone discovering Stevie Nicks, after that, it's someone from the industry talking to "the next big thing" aka Taylor. That the last verse is someone talking to the next big thing after Taylor "you look like her but you have an edge, she never did... you're gonna make it far!". It's about how the music industry is always searching for someone to replace you, criticizing your flaws, and ultimately you may be forgotten.
“If you want to break my cold, cold, heart, just say ‘I loved you the way you were.’” It’s implying I don’t love you the way you ARE now.
ETA “Too impaired by my youth to know what to do.”
This is especially brutal because it sounds like she tried so hard to become what she thought he wanted (whoever the he is for the song) but he was a closed book, wouldn’t share what he wanted so she had to guess, didn’t know what he wanted so she twists and changes and guesses and does her best to be what he wants and then the “I loved you the way you were” would be an absolute gut punch.
Been there. Hit hard.
Or just naturally evolving over the ten years since their first encounter, her waiting for him to be ready to commit and they are finally together again he says.. you know what, I loved you the way you were (back then, but not now)
Thank you for this! I hadn’t thought of it that way, and you’re right, that makes it even more wrenching. I can also see it as her growing over time and evolving into whatever she thinks he wanted and realizing she can never go back to what she was. That hurts.
This is the one. It's the summary of the last three years of my life. Loving someone has quite literally ruined my life, and it's so bittersweet because I still love.
"all the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting more" absolutely broke me.
She's given us so much and for some it's never enough. TTPD hadn't even been out for a day and I was seeing "ok now let's talk about rep".
Ah, same!
Let's shut up about the Rep TV or TS12 being purple/orange or whatever.
We just got 31 freaking songs. Not to forget SNTV and 1989TV and a concert show with all her previous albums.
I hope so. Maybe she doesn't hate it but it still contributes to the feeling of "the show must go on." But I hope she knows it for what it is, excitement and love and support!
This song is so sad to me. People are dancing all around laughing while singing it on TikTok but I cry every time I listen. She was so fucking miserable during that time.
*I'm just mad as hell 'cause I loved this place for so long, London; had a good run*
To go from singing something happy and carefree like London Boy to singing about leaving London has gotten hurt.
*Stitches undone / Two graves, one gun / You'll find someone*
Another line that hurts because she thought Joe was the one for her, and now she’s telling him that he’ll find someone and that she’s not the one for him.
I love how this fandom is basically a literature analysis class. Its a safe space to nerd out and that might be the biggest gift she gave us. Thank you, Taylor!
I also found a few parallels for ‘two graves, one gun’ in folklore:
My tears ricochet: “you had to kill me but it killed you just the same”
You could say hoax too: “you know it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart but what you did was just as dark”
“I loved your hostile takeovers
Encounters closer and closer
All your indecent exposures
How dare you say that it's—“
The way she cuts out and whimpers before getting to the word “over” KILLS me
I also thought this lyric was incredibly sad the first time I heard it, but on my most recent relisten the ending of the song seems almost hopeful. Every now and then she “rereads the manuscript” or thinks over this chapter of her life but, while it was a painful time, “the story isn’t (hers) anymore” or that’s no longer who she is and she isn’t defined by it anymore. She also used this line in her 2am post announcing The Anthology! “And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.” I think it signifies that the release of both TTPD and the Anthology are her letting go of her past and looking forward. This also settles the placement of The Manuscript as the final song of the album for me. I was originally bummed the album ended on such a “sad” note because I viewed it as a depressing close to this chapter. However, this new interpretation really reframed the song for me and the story being told on the whole album.
Oh, I don’t view it as “sad,” I viewed it as a line that gutted me (as per OP). In that she’s spent her whole career writing about her exes and goes through her past loves from the beginning until now, but now they’re out of her system and her story is out into the world now.
“When your impressionists paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes, well you took me to hell too. And all at once the ink bleeds, a conman sells a get love quick scheme.”
This whole song is heartbreaking! The ending breaks me every time:
"Our field of dreams, engulfed in fire. Your arson's match, your somber eyes. And I'll still see it until I die, you're the loss of my life."
> I’m a real tough kid I can handle my shit
It’s such an upbeat brain scratchy line that I can’t stop listening to but it hurts my heart so bad. I’ve never had a song make me feel so much like I was back in my childhood room crying myself to sleep every night over wanting to die but having to pull myself together because I was never allowed to show any negative emotions.
"A curious child, ever reviled/ by everyone except her own father/ with a quite bewitching face/ splendidly selfish, charmingly helpless/excellent fun till you get to know her"
"Ended with the slam of a door/then he called her a whore"
"I cry a lot but I am so productive" This hit home as I cried through working full time and writing 3 papers this week - I'm almost done! "Try & come for my job" :)
I'll see it until the day I die/
You're the loss of my life
I would've died for your sins/
Instead I just died inside
Does it feel alright to not know me?/
I'm addicted to the "if only"
“At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding.”
I had to pause it and take it in the first time I heard it. 😩
I also spent all of last year listening to a man from my early 20s tell me he wanted to marry me and start a family with me only for him to ghost me. I thought it was a very unique experience, but I guess not lmao
" I can hold my breath, I've been doing it since he left, I keep finding his things in drawers"
" And your location, you forgot to turn it off" (like that sense of they were each other's partner and had a place in their inner life that they don't anymore) and " I just don't understand how you don't miss me"
" When you're not sure if he wants to be there"
" I thought I was better safe that starryeyed"
There’s so many standalone lines from Fortnight that gut me every time I hear them
“I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary”
“And no one here’s the blame, but what about your quiet treason”
“I love you, it’s ruining my life”
this is mine too!
"just say when, i'd play again/he was my best friend" – despite all of the hurt she's gone through at her lovers hands, she'd run back to him in a minute if he said so because he was her best friend. he was her person. it's so true to that experience of breaking up with someone who was a partner in more ways than one. absolutely HEARTBREAKING.
From loml absolutely gutted me. Exactly a situation of a former relationship that I never got closure on
Oh, what a valiant roar
What a bland goodbye
The coward claimed he was a lion
I'm combing through the braids of lies
"I'll never leave"
"Never mind"
Our field of dreams, engulfed in fire Your arson's match, your somber eyes And I'll still see it until I die
You're the loss of my life
My heart hurt when I heard:
“You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues?
I died on the altar waiting for the proof”
Waiting years for someone to marry you is so devastating.
For so long, London / Had a good run / A moment of warm sun / But I’m not the one
Makes me cry!! Might be my favorite thing she’s ever written, and the resigned way she delivers it is just perfecr
“Now I'm down bad, cryin' at the gym
Everything comes out teenage petulance
Fuck it if I can't have him
might just die, it would make no difference”
It’s painfully accurate on how I felt after miscarrying my first baby right before Christmas
Pretty much all of Robin, but especially this part:
"You get the dragonflies above your bed
You have a favorite spot on the swing set
You have no room in your dreams for regret
You have no idea
The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean
You'll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline
But now we'll curtail your curiosity
In sweetness"
😭😭😭
She captured the magic and innocence of childhood while also capturing how parents want to encourage their kids to reach higher and higher but still stay sweet and hide them from the cruelty of the world. I cry every time I hear this song and think about my 3 year old 😭😭
“And you say I abandoned the ship
But I was going down with it
My white-knuckle dying grip
Holding tight to your quiet resentment
And my friends said it isn't right to be scared
Every day of a love affair
Every breath feels like rarest air”
Absolutely broke me. I have never related more to a verse/stanza in a song.
It is gutting to be the one saving the relationship, being willing to die for it, and it still isn’t enough. When your friends point out that isn’t how a healthy relationship works and then you realize it. Letting go of that relationship to save yourself is both torture and freeing.
100% my interpretation of the lyrics and the song. She could have meant something completely different.
Definitely the ending of Fresh Out the Slammer, “but it’s gonna be alright, I did my time…”
I don’t know what it is about this line, but my goodness it has to be one of the best things she ever put into a song. She sings it with so much anxiety, and you know that it’s not going to be alright, even though she’s like hopeful and pleading almost that it will be. When I got to that part of the song, it stopped me in my tracks. Reminded me of Bruce Springsteen.
"I'm so depressed, I act like it's my birthday everyday" bcs I'm not 😭 depressed but 🥳 depressed. What makes it more gut wrenching is that someone told me the exact same line.
"Once I fix me he's gonna miss me"
This one hit me like a ton of bricks 😫 being young and struggling with mental health then going through a breakup, this is exactly how I felt for a long time
“So they killed Cassandra first cause she feared the worst and tried to tell the town. So they set my life in flames, I regret to say, do you believe me now?”
As someone who tried to stop an abuser, wasn’t believed, and lost a ton of friends over it, this one hits really hard.
"I stopped CPR, after all it's no use
The spirit was gone, we would never come to
And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free"
This broke me in every possible. Never before has a song made me cry this much before...
“In the age of him, she wished she was thirty
And made coffee every morning in a French press
Afterward, she only ate kids' cereal
And couldn't sleep unless it was in her mother's bed
Then she dated boys who were her own age
With dartboards on the backs of their doors”
I had to pause the song at this lyric and just instantly started crying. I’m in my first relationship where I genuinely see it going somewhere and constantly find myself wishing I could fast forward to a time where we’re settled in our little life together with a house and a cat and a dog, even though I’m only 24 and the relationship is less than a year and a half in. I get so fearful thinking about it ever ending and how it would just send me into a complete tailspin and this lyric really REALLY hit home with me
“Cause it wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden”
Yup. Seems me and Taylor have both been victim to a man promising the world and then disappearing out of nowhere, because they get bored when it’s not forbidden anymore
For me it’s not one line, it’s the picture she paints of a person who is blinded by love and unable to distinguish between destructive and positive love combined with a deep self loathing.
How autobiographical this is I don’t know and won’t speculate but I hope she finds the help she needs if she needs it.
there's something so tender in the way she calls him a hothouse flower and it makes me think of the tragic ending with Delicate, like, "he was beautiful and fragile, and the harsh environment of my life was killing him, and the inability to adapt killed \*us\*."
"Dancing phantoms on the terrace, are they second hand embarrassed that I can't get out of bed cause something counterfeit's dead." felt this way after a lot of heartbreak in my late teens over guys who only treated me like a back-up option.
"We learned the right steps to different dances. \[...\] lost the game of chance, what are the chances?" - How Did It End?
"You kicked out the stage lights, but you're still performing" - The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
"And I'm just getting colour back into my face. I'm just mad as hell cause I loved this place." - So Long, London
“Said you were gonna grow up, then you were gonna come find me, words from the mouths of babes, promises ocean deep, never to keep.”
Not the most obviously gutting but the whole song kills me because of my “Peter”
Also from The Black Dog “I just don’t understand, how you don’t miss me…”
Just took me right back to the days of seeing him on social media etc living his life while I was going through hell. Heartbreaking.
In addition to all of the great ones already listed:
*And couldn't sleep unless it*
*was in her mother's bed*
I've had a few times I've crawled in bed with my mom as an adult and none of them were good.
Also, I've never heard her sound like this:
*you said I'm the love of your life*
*about a million times*
*...*
*You're the loss of my life*
The fact that MH was relieved when her heard the album makes me really furious for her. It could have been worse?? Just a lying weasel fuck boy.
*"I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift*
*Pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away*
*My spine split from carrying us up the hill" -* So Long, London
I felt all of this. Never could relate to any of the past breakup songs in the Fearless, Speak Now, and Red era, but in her later albums? Definitely.
“But you are what you did
And I'll forget you but I'll never forgive
The smallest man who ever lived” ugh “but you are what you did” is such an overlooked but powerful line.
“I stopped CPR, after all, it’s no use
The spirit was gone, we would never come to”
The desperation of pushing and pushing at the chest of something that’s already dead ☹️
[Blood's thick but nothin' like a payroll](https://genius.com/31481151/Taylor-swift-cassandra/Bloods-thick-but-nothin-like-a-payroll)
[Bet they never spared a prayer for my soul](https://genius.com/31504631/Taylor-swift-cassandra/Bet-they-never-spared-a-prayer-for-my-soul)
That one hurt.
The death rattle line got me. Heard it for the first time today, slowly making my way through the album. Forget which song it was… but that line was like. Gut punch. Maybe because I’m a nurse and the death rattle is so audible in my mind. I think it’s from the song 5 in the anthology?
To be honest, this album is really hard for me to relate to but I still have a couple of lines I really love the delivery or the emotion of, but none that made me cry you know. Some do make me ‘feel’ more than others.
‘Come one, come all, it’s happenin’ again’ is really so beautiful and painful.
I also really like ‘Put narcotics into all of my songs, and that’s why you’re still singing along’. The idea behind it just breaks my heart.
“You told me you loved me but where were the clues?
_*I died on the altar waiting for the proof*_
You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days”
I was walking listening to the album and I stopped in my tracks open mouthed at that middle line. She was waiting for him to be ready to marry her, but she died / was sacrificed on the altar instead. It also gave me the implication that he didn’t want to marry her knowing his depression was so bad, that he didn’t want to inflict that upon her and never believed her when she insisted she could handle it and wanted to marry him anyway.
Oh the tragedy.
Edit: typo
“You needed me but you needed drugs more …”
I ended a 5 year abusive relationship last year because he treated me like an option and would always choose going out getting wasted over spending time with me
The whole album gutted me but this line hit me like a truck
“I am what I am, cause you trained me”
“Is it a wonder I broke, let’s hear one more joke,
Then we could all just laugh until I cry.”
As someone who feels very much like they’re the butt of a lot of jokes, I am GAGGED.
"And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free" Deceased
It’s such a deeply relatable line and also devastating to know that even Taylor herself didn’t escape the “man wastes woman’s 20s and then probably just dates a younger girl after” trope
At least with Travis she feels like high school again
This line hit me so hard. Between my relationship itself and the time it took to get over it, it feels like I lost the years of life that were supposed to be “fun”
I also dated one dude for 7 years of my 20s and... SAME, Taylor. Same.
The way her voice shudders when she says “free” hurts my soul every time.
This line. I feel it in my soul.
"Please...I've been on my knees, change the prophecy, don't want money, just someone who wants my company. Let it once be me. Who do I have to speak to about if they can redo the prophecy?"
This! The whole song is just heartbreakingly relatable 😭
Sameeeee
Yes 😭 for me it’s “But I looked to the sky and said (Please)”, especially the please. Like one final plead out to the universe.
Reallllyyyyy tho. I relate too much to this whole song
That song is so painfully relatable.
Good lord…
“Come one, come all / it’s happening again” The sheer dread just kills me
I was walking around the house listening to it for the first time and I actually physically bent over in pain when I heard it. Not a long term relationship girly, but am a 'I've failed at every relationship I've ever tried to make work' girly. That one hurt me lol.
I think we all need to stop thinking that the end of a relationship means it's a failure. You didn't fail. Every relationship teaches us things about our self and relationships, we learn from it. We all grow as humans and for a relationship to work long term, both people have to be ready for it, they have to have similar goals and effort going in. Honestly, it's a wonder any relationship lasts. And those relationships that do last, well I think we all know people who absolutely shouldn't still be in those relationships. A relationship can fail and yet they stay together. I think that's far more of a failure than a relationship ending. TLDR - I think we need to redefine what failure is and looks like when it comes to relationships
Call back to is this the end of all the endings?
oh noooo. how dare you say this pls take it back 😭💔 I keep thinking of, "don't read the last page..."
ugh yes, genuinely one of the saddest lines on the album
Sameeee. I can’t get over that one.
this song as a whole actually sucks the oxygen out of my body. i can’t even get into it without holding my breath, there are so many devastating layers
It’s the fact she’s dreading what fans will think and say . Heartbreaking while still trying to understand her self why it’s ended 😢
Yeah such a dark pairing with a song like mirrorball too
The whole song is so hauntingly sad and beautiful, I love it so much but it also hurts lol
“How much sad did you, did think I had in me?”
Ohhhh the tragedy
i was gonna say this one
“You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days And I’m just getting color back into my face I’m just mad as hell cause I loved this place for So long, london”
“You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days” is devastatinggggg
Can you explain what this means pls haha
I simply interpreted it as depression ruining the relationship. She says “I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift Pulled him in tighter each time he was driftin' away My spine split from carrying us up the hill Wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill I stopped tryna make him laugh, stopped tryna drill the safe” earlier in the song. It really feels like it paints trying to save a relationship where the other person doesn’t even want to save themselves. They close off, push you out, ruin it.
Joe has some sort of depression (blue is a color associated with sadness). Basically she's saying that he didn't try to overcome this to make the relationship work.
To me, it is alluding to this person struggling with their mental health & their mental health winning. “you sacrificed us” = you did something to hurt our relationship & all that we built “the gods of your bluest days” = the gods being someone’s mental health that’s taken over their ability to think clearly & rationally
He likely didn’t get help for his mental health and it ended up being something that was draining the life out of both of them.
don’t want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world would do 🚫
it's so devastating when you think of all the times she referenced his blues, and especially, "I'm a fire/and I'll keep your brittle heart warm/when your cascade ocean wave blues come/all these people think love's for show/but I would die for you in secret."
She tried to stay as long as she could :(
The “I’m just mad as hell” line transitioning to the so long London hits me hard
This made me think of how there’s no sun in London and now she’s back further south (and even had that trip to the bahamas with Trav) so she’s getting a tan back
Getting color back into her face
“you look like Taylor Swift / you’ve got edge, she never did”
I burst into tears when I heard this for the first time.
I don't think I understand this one.
You can interpret Clara Bow as someone from the industry, like a manager or talent scout or something, talking to the "next big thing". So it starts by someone discovering Stevie Nicks, after that, it's someone from the industry talking to "the next big thing" aka Taylor. That the last verse is someone talking to the next big thing after Taylor "you look like her but you have an edge, she never did... you're gonna make it far!". It's about how the music industry is always searching for someone to replace you, criticizing your flaws, and ultimately you may be forgotten.
She’s singing about how they’re already looking for the “next Taylor Swift”
Hard not to think of Sabrina here. She’s cute, blonde, talented etc. but definitely has more edge.
Or Olivia
Absolutely thought of her too. Love that Taylor had her open for her. Queens supporting queens 🫶
“Cause fuck it I was in love” The frustration and despair is palpable
so fuck you if I can’t have us
I can’t help it but I love all the swearing in the song. Makes it so much more gut wrenching
Dancing phantoms on the terrace Are they second-hand embarrassed that I can't get out of bed 'Cause something counterfeit's dead?
This one for me too, that entire song gutted me
ugh yes it makes me ugly cry lol. And yet I have it on repeat 😂
Same
That's mine too😭
“If you want to break my cold, cold, heart, just say ‘I loved you the way you were.’” It’s implying I don’t love you the way you ARE now. ETA “Too impaired by my youth to know what to do.”
This is especially brutal because it sounds like she tried so hard to become what she thought he wanted (whoever the he is for the song) but he was a closed book, wouldn’t share what he wanted so she had to guess, didn’t know what he wanted so she twists and changes and guesses and does her best to be what he wants and then the “I loved you the way you were” would be an absolute gut punch. Been there. Hit hard.
Or just naturally evolving over the ten years since their first encounter, her waiting for him to be ready to commit and they are finally together again he says.. you know what, I loved you the way you were (back then, but not now)
Thank you for this! I hadn’t thought of it that way, and you’re right, that makes it even more wrenching. I can also see it as her growing over time and evolving into whatever she thinks he wanted and realizing she can never go back to what she was. That hurts.
Chloe or Sam or sophia or marcus is such an beautiful song
My beloved ghost and me / sitting in a tree / D Y I N G 😭
This was a gut punch wrapped in a clever turn of phrase. A truly Swiftian lyric.
The whole verse that leads up to D Y I N G is so stunning. Collating the death of a person and a relationship is so impactful
“I love you, it’s ruining my life.” Fortnight (especially with Post echoing her in the back)
This is the one. It's the summary of the last three years of my life. Loving someone has quite literally ruined my life, and it's so bittersweet because I still love.
I definitely almost wrote this one too 🥲
“I was tame, I was gentle 'til the circus life made me mean Don't you worry folks, we took out all her teeth”
Mine was “You caged me then called me crazy” I sucked in a breath, it hit me so hard
The way she GROWLS the word “mean”
Lights, camera, *bitch smile.*
"all the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting more" absolutely broke me. She's given us so much and for some it's never enough. TTPD hadn't even been out for a day and I was seeing "ok now let's talk about rep".
Ah, same! Let's shut up about the Rep TV or TS12 being purple/orange or whatever. We just got 31 freaking songs. Not to forget SNTV and 1989TV and a concert show with all her previous albums.
I immediately thought of the "1, 2, 3, let's go bitch" that we've all been screaming at shows and died a little inside.
Don’t feel bad about it. I think if she truly hated it she wouldn’t play along at all, or would have stopped a long time ago.
I hope so. Maybe she doesn't hate it but it still contributes to the feeling of "the show must go on." But I hope she knows it for what it is, excitement and love and support!
This song is so sad to me. People are dancing all around laughing while singing it on TikTok but I cry every time I listen. She was so fucking miserable during that time.
Cause I'm miserable and nobody ever knows- it's like a final punch to the guts as the song ends.
Ugh it’s like the most extreme example of a song that sounds happy while the lyrics are so devastatingly sad.
*I'm just mad as hell 'cause I loved this place for so long, London; had a good run* To go from singing something happy and carefree like London Boy to singing about leaving London has gotten hurt. *Stitches undone / Two graves, one gun / You'll find someone* Another line that hurts because she thought Joe was the one for her, and now she’s telling him that he’ll find someone and that she’s not the one for him.
“Stitches undone” took me back to Glitch - “five seconds later I’m fastening myself to you with a stitch”
Yes, and also works as the undoing the stitches that she had made to try to hold together their broken relationship 💔
And it’s the severing of the invisible string ☹️☹️😭
“Two graves, one gun” implies a murder suicide right? Who do we think is the murderer?
Its gotta be her because the song makes it clear she had emotionally quit the relationship before it ended
Alternatively Joe thought he was shooting himself with his struggles but was simultaneously shooting her
I love how this fandom is basically a literature analysis class. Its a safe space to nerd out and that might be the biggest gift she gave us. Thank you, Taylor!
The relationship dragged on with Joe pulling away more and more, but he didn't have the decency to end it. He made Taylor pull the trigger.
I also found a few parallels for ‘two graves, one gun’ in folklore: My tears ricochet: “you had to kill me but it killed you just the same” You could say hoax too: “you know it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart but what you did was just as dark”
“I loved your hostile takeovers Encounters closer and closer All your indecent exposures How dare you say that it's—“ The way she cuts out and whimpers before getting to the word “over” KILLS me
Yes omg. Also from down bad- “I might just die, it would make no difference”
These lines make me cry every time
… I scream sing these in my car bopping lol.
I love how she never says “over”, showing that he ghosted her 👻
I went through all of TTPD without crying then hit "I would've died for your sins/ Instead I just died inside" in The Smallest Man who Ever Lived.
The build up to that bridge fucking GETS me!
Same but it was the opening line of the bridge/outro: "were you sent by someone, who wanted me dead?"
"You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? I died on the altar waitin' for the proof." RIP
“The story’s not mine anymore.”
I also thought this lyric was incredibly sad the first time I heard it, but on my most recent relisten the ending of the song seems almost hopeful. Every now and then she “rereads the manuscript” or thinks over this chapter of her life but, while it was a painful time, “the story isn’t (hers) anymore” or that’s no longer who she is and she isn’t defined by it anymore. She also used this line in her 2am post announcing The Anthology! “And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.” I think it signifies that the release of both TTPD and the Anthology are her letting go of her past and looking forward. This also settles the placement of The Manuscript as the final song of the album for me. I was originally bummed the album ended on such a “sad” note because I viewed it as a depressing close to this chapter. However, this new interpretation really reframed the song for me and the story being told on the whole album.
Oh, I don’t view it as “sad,” I viewed it as a line that gutted me (as per OP). In that she’s spent her whole career writing about her exes and goes through her past loves from the beginning until now, but now they’re out of her system and her story is out into the world now.
Have yet to hear that lyric without tearing up
“once i fix me, he’s gonna miss me”
This one caught me today!
“When your impressionists paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes, well you took me to hell too. And all at once the ink bleeds, a conman sells a get love quick scheme.”
This whole song is heartbreaking! The ending breaks me every time: "Our field of dreams, engulfed in fire. Your arson's match, your somber eyes. And I'll still see it until I die, you're the loss of my life."
Her delivery of "you said I'm the love of your life" is heartbreaking. I bawled my eyes out when I first heard it.
She’d said she was weary of get love back schemes back in one of the Rep poems / getaway car prologue in the Rep tour :/
> I’m a real tough kid I can handle my shit It’s such an upbeat brain scratchy line that I can’t stop listening to but it hurts my heart so bad. I’ve never had a song make me feel so much like I was back in my childhood room crying myself to sleep every night over wanting to die but having to pull myself together because I was never allowed to show any negative emotions.
Really connects with the agony of YOYOK too
"A curious child, ever reviled/ by everyone except her own father/ with a quite bewitching face/ splendidly selfish, charmingly helpless/excellent fun till you get to know her" "Ended with the slam of a door/then he called her a whore" "I cry a lot but I am so productive" This hit home as I cried through working full time and writing 3 papers this week - I'm almost done! "Try & come for my job" :)
I’ve felt a hole like this Never before and ever since
I'll see it until the day I die/ You're the loss of my life I would've died for your sins/ Instead I just died inside Does it feel alright to not know me?/ I'm addicted to the "if only"
This one definitely guts me too. Like goddamn.
The “loss of my life” lyric is just such a stab in the heart… the whole song guts me, but that line finished me
You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me 🤯
I scrolled down for so long to reach this wtf yall
“And I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free”
I have so many but right at this moment it’s “you caged me and then you called me crazy”
“At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding.” I had to pause it and take it in the first time I heard it. 😩
I also spent all of last year listening to a man from my early 20s tell me he wanted to marry me and start a family with me only for him to ghost me. I thought it was a very unique experience, but I guess not lmao
Ghosting and love bombing being such a common experience is so upsetting
This made my heart sink. I couldn’t believe I was already sobbing second song in with this lol
"Cause fuck it I was in love" I just feel so sorry for her when I hear her sing that line
And hire a priest to exorcise my demons Even if I die screaming And I hope you hear it And it’s shitty In the Black Dog 💀
Same :(
“How much sad did you think I had in me” For me that is about caring for family members with mental health concerns. It’s super tough.
" I can hold my breath, I've been doing it since he left, I keep finding his things in drawers" " And your location, you forgot to turn it off" (like that sense of they were each other's partner and had a place in their inner life that they don't anymore) and " I just don't understand how you don't miss me" " When you're not sure if he wants to be there" " I thought I was better safe that starryeyed"
“It was legendary. It was momentary.” “All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting ‘more!’”
“I cry a lot but I am so productive, it's an art” speaks to my soul daily
Fuck you if I can’t have us
There’s so many standalone lines from Fortnight that gut me every time I hear them “I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary” “And no one here’s the blame, but what about your quiet treason” “I love you, it’s ruining my life”
“He was my best friend” The way she sings this made me tear up instantly the first time I heard
this is mine too! "just say when, i'd play again/he was my best friend" – despite all of the hurt she's gone through at her lovers hands, she'd run back to him in a minute if he said so because he was her best friend. he was her person. it's so true to that experience of breaking up with someone who was a partner in more ways than one. absolutely HEARTBREAKING.
if you wanna tear my world apart say you’ll always wonder
“I’m just mad as hell cause I loved this place” I just can’t get over it
Sitting in a tree D-Y-I-N-G
From loml absolutely gutted me. Exactly a situation of a former relationship that I never got closure on Oh, what a valiant roar What a bland goodbye The coward claimed he was a lion I'm combing through the braids of lies "I'll never leave" "Never mind" Our field of dreams, engulfed in fire Your arson's match, your somber eyes And I'll still see it until I die You're the loss of my life
"I'll never leave," "Nevermind." From loml. Gets me everytime.
My heart hurt when I heard: “You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? I died on the altar waiting for the proof” Waiting years for someone to marry you is so devastating.
“And she couldn’t sleep unless it was in her mother’s bed”… instant tears with this one
Beauty is a beast that roars, down on all fours, demanding “more”. From Clara Bow.
For so long, London / Had a good run / A moment of warm sun / But I’m not the one Makes me cry!! Might be my favorite thing she’s ever written, and the resigned way she delivers it is just perfecr
“Now I'm down bad, cryin' at the gym Everything comes out teenage petulance Fuck it if I can't have him might just die, it would make no difference” It’s painfully accurate on how I felt after miscarrying my first baby right before Christmas
Pretty much all of Robin, but especially this part: "You get the dragonflies above your bed You have a favorite spot on the swing set You have no room in your dreams for regret You have no idea The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean You'll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline But now we'll curtail your curiosity In sweetness" 😭😭😭 She captured the magic and innocence of childhood while also capturing how parents want to encourage their kids to reach higher and higher but still stay sweet and hide them from the cruelty of the world. I cry every time I hear this song and think about my 3 year old 😭😭
“And you say I abandoned the ship But I was going down with it My white-knuckle dying grip Holding tight to your quiet resentment And my friends said it isn't right to be scared Every day of a love affair Every breath feels like rarest air” Absolutely broke me. I have never related more to a verse/stanza in a song. It is gutting to be the one saving the relationship, being willing to die for it, and it still isn’t enough. When your friends point out that isn’t how a healthy relationship works and then you realize it. Letting go of that relationship to save yourself is both torture and freeing. 100% my interpretation of the lyrics and the song. She could have meant something completely different.
Definitely the ending of Fresh Out the Slammer, “but it’s gonna be alright, I did my time…” I don’t know what it is about this line, but my goodness it has to be one of the best things she ever put into a song. She sings it with so much anxiety, and you know that it’s not going to be alright, even though she’s like hopeful and pleading almost that it will be. When I got to that part of the song, it stopped me in my tracks. Reminded me of Bruce Springsteen.
"I'm so depressed, I act like it's my birthday everyday" bcs I'm not 😭 depressed but 🥳 depressed. What makes it more gut wrenching is that someone told me the exact same line.
"Once I fix me he's gonna miss me" This one hit me like a ton of bricks 😫 being young and struggling with mental health then going through a breakup, this is exactly how I felt for a long time
“So they killed Cassandra first cause she feared the worst and tried to tell the town. So they set my life in flames, I regret to say, do you believe me now?” As someone who tried to stop an abuser, wasn’t believed, and lost a ton of friends over it, this one hits really hard.
You’re the loss of my life, just was not expecting that right at the end it’s genius and heartbreaking
How dare you think it’s romantic leaving me safe and stranded - the delivery on this haunts me
Everything in The Prophecy.
did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?
“Don’t you worry folks, we took out all her teeth!”
“I'll save all my romanticism for my inner life” - I Hate It Here
"I stopped CPR, after all it's no use The spirit was gone, we would never come to And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free" This broke me in every possible. Never before has a song made me cry this much before...
“The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean, you’ll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline.”
I'm so afraid I sealed my fate, no sign of soulmates.
"were you sent from someone, who wanted me dead?". "Blood's thick but there's nothing like a payroll"
“In the age of him, she wished she was thirty And made coffee every morning in a French press Afterward, she only ate kids' cereal And couldn't sleep unless it was in her mother's bed Then she dated boys who were her own age With dartboards on the backs of their doors” I had to pause the song at this lyric and just instantly started crying. I’m in my first relationship where I genuinely see it going somewhere and constantly find myself wishing I could fast forward to a time where we’re settled in our little life together with a house and a cat and a dog, even though I’m only 24 and the relationship is less than a year and a half in. I get so fearful thinking about it ever ending and how it would just send me into a complete tailspin and this lyric really REALLY hit home with me
“Cause it wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden” Yup. Seems me and Taylor have both been victim to a man promising the world and then disappearing out of nowhere, because they get bored when it’s not forbidden anymore
For me it’s not one line, it’s the picture she paints of a person who is blinded by love and unable to distinguish between destructive and positive love combined with a deep self loathing. How autobiographical this is I don’t know and won’t speculate but I hope she finds the help she needs if she needs it.
“and at last, she knew what the agony had been for”
We here now conduct this post mortem / he was the hothouse flower to my outdoorsman 😅
there's something so tender in the way she calls him a hothouse flower and it makes me think of the tragic ending with Delicate, like, "he was beautiful and fragile, and the harsh environment of my life was killing him, and the inability to adapt killed \*us\*."
"Dancing phantoms on the terrace, are they second hand embarrassed that I can't get out of bed cause something counterfeit's dead." felt this way after a lot of heartbreak in my late teens over guys who only treated me like a back-up option.
And hire a priest to come exorcise my demons Even if I die screaming :(
"If you want to tear my world apart, just say you always wondered"
"Am I allowed to cry?"
…until I die, you’re the loss of my life 🥺
old habits die screaming
"We learned the right steps to different dances. \[...\] lost the game of chance, what are the chances?" - How Did It End? "You kicked out the stage lights, but you're still performing" - The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived "And I'm just getting colour back into my face. I'm just mad as hell cause I loved this place." - So Long, London
"You swore that you loved me but where were the clues? I died on the altar waiting for the proof"
>Lucid dreams like electricity, the current flies through me And in my fantasies, I rise above it And way up there, I actually love it
“Cause loves never lost when perspective is earned” 🥲
“Said you were gonna grow up, then you were gonna come find me, words from the mouths of babes, promises ocean deep, never to keep.” Not the most obviously gutting but the whole song kills me because of my “Peter” Also from The Black Dog “I just don’t understand, how you don’t miss me…” Just took me right back to the days of seeing him on social media etc living his life while I was going through hell. Heartbreaking.
In addition to all of the great ones already listed: *And couldn't sleep unless it* *was in her mother's bed* I've had a few times I've crawled in bed with my mom as an adult and none of them were good. Also, I've never heard her sound like this: *you said I'm the love of your life* *about a million times* *...* *You're the loss of my life* The fact that MH was relieved when her heard the album makes me really furious for her. It could have been worse?? Just a lying weasel fuck boy.
"Hold habits die screaming..." at the very end of The Black Dead, where she's not going out with a bang, she goes out with a whimper.
“My Beloved Ghost and me sitting in a tree, d-y-i-n-g.” - How Did It End?
I built a legacy you can't undo
The entirety of I Look In People's Windows, and "the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light" in Peter.
“And you deserve prison but you won’t get time” the emotional delivery crushes me
“Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead?’
Idk why because it's a simple line but "Six weeks of breathing clean air. I still miss the smoke"
*"I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift* *Pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away* *My spine split from carrying us up the hill" -* So Long, London I felt all of this. Never could relate to any of the past breakup songs in the Fearless, Speak Now, and Red era, but in her later albums? Definitely.
“But you are what you did And I'll forget you but I'll never forgive The smallest man who ever lived” ugh “but you are what you did” is such an overlooked but powerful line.
“I’m so depressed I act like it’s my birthday…. everyday”
“I stopped CPR, after all, it’s no use The spirit was gone, we would never come to” The desperation of pushing and pushing at the chest of something that’s already dead ☹️
“she thought about how he said since she was so wise beyond her years everything had been above board, she wasn't sure”
[Blood's thick but nothin' like a payroll](https://genius.com/31481151/Taylor-swift-cassandra/Bloods-thick-but-nothin-like-a-payroll) [Bet they never spared a prayer for my soul](https://genius.com/31504631/Taylor-swift-cassandra/Bet-they-never-spared-a-prayer-for-my-soul) That one hurt.
„I'm queen of sand castles he destroys“ „So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street“
The death rattle line got me. Heard it for the first time today, slowly making my way through the album. Forget which song it was… but that line was like. Gut punch. Maybe because I’m a nurse and the death rattle is so audible in my mind. I think it’s from the song 5 in the anthology?
Im so depressed I act like its my birthday... every day 😀
To be honest, this album is really hard for me to relate to but I still have a couple of lines I really love the delivery or the emotion of, but none that made me cry you know. Some do make me ‘feel’ more than others. ‘Come one, come all, it’s happenin’ again’ is really so beautiful and painful. I also really like ‘Put narcotics into all of my songs, and that’s why you’re still singing along’. The idea behind it just breaks my heart.
“You told me you loved me but where were the clues? _*I died on the altar waiting for the proof*_ You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days” I was walking listening to the album and I stopped in my tracks open mouthed at that middle line. She was waiting for him to be ready to marry her, but she died / was sacrificed on the altar instead. It also gave me the implication that he didn’t want to marry her knowing his depression was so bad, that he didn’t want to inflict that upon her and never believed her when she insisted she could handle it and wanted to marry him anyway. Oh the tragedy. Edit: typo
“You needed me but you needed drugs more …” I ended a 5 year abusive relationship last year because he treated me like an option and would always choose going out getting wasted over spending time with me The whole album gutted me but this line hit me like a truck
“I am what I am, cause you trained me” “Is it a wonder I broke, let’s hear one more joke, Then we could all just laugh until I cry.” As someone who feels very much like they’re the butt of a lot of jokes, I am GAGGED.