““Shake It Off” And “Clean” Were The Last Two Things We Wrote For The Record, So It Shows You

every anti-taylor swift tumblr post: she writes boring pop music with lyrics that paint her as a perfect girlboss queen

every time taylor swift writes a song: have i become one of your problems / you don't want to know me i will just let you down / the rain is always gonna come if you're standing with me / never take advice from someone who's fallen apart / you can't talk to me when i'm like this daring you to leave me just so i can try and scare you / i had the shiniest wheels now they're rusting / every single thing i touch is sick with sadness / they see right through me can you see right through me i see right through me / did i close my fist around something delicate did i shatter you / when i break it's in a million pieces / i broke his heart 'cause he was nice / there are so many lines that i've crossed unforgiven / put on your records and regret meeting me i bent the truth too far tonight / can't not think of all the cost and the things that will be lost / i drew curtains closed drank my poison all alone / do you miss the rogue who coaxed you into paradise and left you there / to a house not a home all alone 'cause nobody's there / why'd i have to break what i love so much / i wounded the good and i trusted the wicked clearing the air i breathed in the smoke / i should not be left to my own devices they come with prices and vices i end up in crisis / i miss who i used to be the tomb won't close / in my defense i have none / i'm a mess but i'm the mess that you wanted / here i sit alone behind walls of regret falling down like promises that i never kept / what will become of me once i've lost my novelty / everything that's mine is a landmine

My short ‘…Ready For It?’ lyric analysis and how it’s definitely about Harry:

The line about the girls he had loved and left fits her description of him in the 1989 vault songs, especially ‘Is It Over Now?’ with the models and Taylor clones he has been sleeping with.

The haunted and ghost line?!?! That is a 1989 staple line, on reddit I saw someone making a whole ass data sheet about the amount of times she says ghosts-related terms in all of the albums and 1989 had the highest ratio/percentage compared to the rest. Also, Harry’s ‘Two Ghosts’?!?!?

Ghosts = haylor.

“Some boys trying to hard, he don’t try at all” = similar to lyrics in ‘Slut’, “In a world of boys, he’s a gentleman”.

“Younger than all my exes but is such a man” = Harry is her youngest ex (let’s pretend she forgot about Conor Kennedy and it wasn’t a true ex anyway). Joe is older than Harry. Checkmate.

Wildest dreams tea, also I had this theory that they secretly went to an island in 2016, when they still had their situationship going on.

Idk about that robber and heist line but it’s definitely not about Joe lol. Sounds like she’s painting herself as a criminal and him gladly joining along. Like… eloping. Or running away from a crime.

Burton and Taylor is about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, known for their on-off intense relationship that spanned years. Is she talking about Joe, who she only knew at best for 6 months? (album was released Nov 2017 but she only got with Joe in Sept 2016 and she probably wrote the song earlier). OFC NOT.

The themes in this song does not match all the Joe-confirmed songs about him later too. We can only surmise, she’s singing about another dude.

‘Every love I’ve known in comparison is a failure, I forget their names now’ - Taylor’s being annoying and hyperbolic when she wrote this (don’t take her seriously) but yeah that’s why you are still writing about Harry in 2022 with Question..? and Maroon. Also I’m pretty sure she forgot about Conor, Calvin, Tom Hiddleston, and most of the dudes she dated before Harry.

Games = their on-off situationship. I said what I said.

There it is, my 5 minute song lyric analysis. Hope y’all are enlightened.

So it goes

So it goes tells the story of the 2014 Victoria Secret After Party: ''All eyes were on Harry and Taylor when they turned up. [...] The drinks were flowing until 3am, when they snuck out of a rear exit five minutes apart to avoid being pictured together." In context of the 2015 timeline 1989 (I know places established they wanted their relationship to go private) and 1D’s Four (with Stockholm Syndrome) had just been released. They were photographed the after party:

This was a pivotal night:

this outfit from that VS Show is also at 3 mins in I don’t wanna live forever (and cardigan refers to this sequin smile) and

In Only Angel Harry says he doesn't have eyes for the VS angels “She's an angel, My-my-my only angel”

So it goes has only been played live 8 times and not yet on the Eras tour. The last time it was played was in the last Rep show in Tokyo, (9:38) with 2 other rare songs for the Rep Tour: I Know Places and Wildest Dreams. Harry Styles was in Japan that month and wrote Little Freak before he left Tokyo.

It was most likely recorded in September 2016 with Shellback in Sweden along with other reputation tracks. Shellback had the melody and Taylor addd lyrics:

Fun fact: Taylor's only lyrics "so it goes" are in Haylor songs, the very first night, So it goes, Style and You are in Love.

Lyrics

[Verse 1] See you in the dark All eyes on you, my magician All eyes on us You make everyone disappear, and Cut me into pieces Gold cage, hostage to my feelings Back against the wall Trippin', trip-trippin' when you're gone

The first verse sets the scene, similar to the articles Harry and Taylor are the focus of many, drawn to each other and wanting to keep their connection secret.

In Hoax, Taylor has a similar lyric to magician "Your sleight of hand"

'Gold cage, hostage to my feelings' refers to being trapped by love. Similar to Stockholm Syndrome, which was released only 2 weeks before the VS party, Taylor is trapped in a gold/gilded cage (a luxurious prison) by love.

[Pre-Chorus] 'Cause we break down a little But when you get me alone, it's so simple 'Cause, baby, I know what you know We can feel it [Chorus] And all the pieces fall right into place Getting caught up in a moment Lipstick on your face So it goes I'm yours to keep And I'm yours to lose You know I'm not a bad girl, but I Do bad things with you So it goes

So it goes is a lyric in Style. In the chorus Taylor lets us know that when they are away from others they have great chemistry. She also refers to lipstick, referred to in many 1989 songs. Taylor is described as a 'bad/good girl often, she talks about it in Miss Americana and also in:

Style: And I got that good girl faith and a tight little skirt

Question...?; Good girl, sad boy

Only Angel: That she's gonna be an angel, just you wait and see, When it turns out she's a devil in between the sheets

[Verse 2] Met you in a bar All eyes on me, your illusionist All eyes on us I make all your gray days clear And wear you like a necklace I'm so chill, but you make me jealous But I got your heart Skippin', skip-skippin' when I'm gone

The afterparty was in Basement bar. The illusionist/magician references are enjoying knowing that she and her muse will leave together without others knowing. 'Make all grey days clear' tells us the muse is British.

[Bridge] You did a number on me But, honestly, baby, who's counting? I did a number on you But, honestly, baby, who's counting? You did a number on me But, honestly, baby, who's counting? Who's counting? (One, two, three)

The bridge tells us more about her relationship with her muse, they have a history, have hurt each other before and are wanting to move on. Though she says she is letting it go she is also keeping score. At this point the events of Red, 1989 and most of the one direction songs about TS had transpired between them.

There’s this one color that defines a lot of the emotions that I’ve been writing about lately, really great emotions like frustration, anger, jealousy, falling in love, falling out of love, heartbreak, all that good stuff. and you know I read about that stuff so much that I even named an entire album after it and I even went so far as to name an entire WORLD TOUR after it, because ladies and gentleman boys and girls colors that define the emotions that shape up and teach us things, I think there’s one color that represents the most important ones, and that color is RED

"everyone wanted him, that was my crime"/"you were so magnetic it was almost obnoxious, flushed with the currency of cool"

the whole song of is it over now/"you had people who called you from unmarked numbers"

"I can't be your friend" "I can't pretend it's platonic"/"I didn't come here to make friends"

"I broke my own heart cause you were too polite to do it"/"I walked out and said I'm setting you free" "when she said it was too much, do you wish you could still touch her"

"this love came back to me" "i watch us go round and round each time" "is it over now"/"when you told me we'd get back together"

like idk how to explain it guys but suburban legends is literally so consistent and easy to understand

“Swift often sings of alienation and yearning. She has an unusual number of songs about being left behind. Not by the culture—though I think she worries about that, too—but by someone she cared about who couldn’t countenance the immensity of her life. In her world, love is conditional and frequently temporary. (‘You could call me ‘babe’ for the weekend,” she sings on ‘’tis the damn season,’ a line I’ve always found profoundly sad.) On the chorus of ‘The Archer,’ she sings, “Who could ever leave me, darling? / But who could stay?” Toward the end of the song, she adds a more hopeful line: “You could stay.”As she sang that “you” on Saturday, she raised an arm and pointed directly to the audience. Swift has written many songs that describe her devotion as a punishment to be endured. ‘I love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?’ she bellows on ‘Cruel Summer.’ She believes that the force of her affection will push people away. But her fans have remained. They have buoyed her; in turn, she has given them everything.”

— The New Yorker on the Eras Tour (x)

haylor being a thing again in 1989 era 2.0 but it’s the “wrong” haylor is actually so on brand for them 😭🫠

Rebecca Fergusonas Chrissy Eriksson in Episode 09 of ‘Ocean Ave’ (2002)

tbh i can see this being the way haylor ended but i think they broke up and didn’t try again because they never found the right timing and always went in circles with no improvement. i think they both gave up because of outer circumstances and they were at their wits end the last time they “tried”/crossed paths again. i think the song “two ghosts” explains pretty much how it ended and how they were both exhausted from trying to make it work and how they didn’t feel like “them” anymore. they both felt the same way but it’s clear that deep down, taylor wished harry fought harder for her, even if she also gave up.

well i have settled on a full story of haylor’s end. like not a “here’s a couple ideas but we’ll never know the full story.” question gave me the whole story

in january after the party, she asked him to try again. for real. because she was in a better place and she wanted to try, she didn’t want to live her life the way she had resigned herself to only having casual hookups.. she wanted to try something real again. And he basically said that he couldn’t. that he was willing to be her “good time guy” (stealing phrasing from private practice). And she was like “I want more than that” and he was like “I can’t,” which is where we get Perfect. He might never be the guy who is there for something real, but he can be the guy who can deal with the camera flashes and the songs for some troubled fun confined to the liminal spaces of hotels. And then she was like “okay well no” and then he didn’t think she would move on………… but she did. and fast, even. and that’s why calvin was so devastating for him. Because he genuinely thought he was calling her bluff. and then there’s this song where she’s like “you know what you little twerp. you healed something in me for half a second and I saw colors I’d never seen before and not seen since. I thought we had something. but when it was too much for me, you let me walk out, and then you never fought even when I wanted to try again so where do you get off getting upset that there was no bluff to call? I hope it feels nice to settle, because you chose this.”

regarding h/t parallels. Last day when t talked about us accepting red and how that was her being experimental and curious it instantly reminded me of fine line. How he was experimenting a lot of sound which made it all over the place same as red. They both showed their messy self in that albums. It became an instant fan favourite but received moderately by critics. How they both got their first no1 with that albums. But those no 1 songs never defined those albums for fans. A song ignored by critics(ATW and FL) became fan favourites. How those albums led to the 'cohesiveness' of 1989 and HSH. The height those albums got them. But red/fl still being fan favourites and them sharing that love for those albums with us. How after giving time these albums flourished (red moreso because of time and rerecordings). I would never get tired of talking about them(platonic artistic)

happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time are really the themes of red/fine line. taylor saying last night that she really wanted to experiment on that record and, "Over time I've learned that trusting you to be open-minded has always been the best thing I could ever do, is trusting that you would accept me trying to do new things," and the other night when she talked about how us embracing red was also us embracing the scattered, fragile, changing person that she was, i think there are a lot of elements of fine line that speak to that as well. (remembering harry saying: "the album is yours. i am yours" and why he delivered it to the audience that way.) something i think is quite striking is this idea of "cohesiveness" - the sonic cohesiveness, the slick precision of 1989 and harry's house, got them a lot of critical acclaim and then awards attention, but the beautiful messiness and the narrative journeys of red and fine line, the exposed hearts of them, made them meaningful to fans. it's interesting how that ends up being SUCH a different perspective - critics are looking for elements that are so different than what we're holding onto at times. their respective awareness of how valued and beloved those records are to the fans, and the connection those albums have between us and them, i really believe will always be there.