Taylor didn’t incorporate her tour outfits …AGAIN to be veeery similar with the ones karlie wore for me to be a weak kaylor
so real, i’m damned if i do give a damn what people say
taylor swift is famous for the easter eggs, hidden codes, and secret symbology she leaves for fans, giving them clues as to who her songs are about (or supposed to be about), when new music or content is coming, and other insights into her life and what her art represents.
she posted red shoes on her 22nd birthday in 2011 as a clue to let people know the title of her next album - red:
she posted a picture of herself playing scrabble in the fall of 2018 as a clue that the count down to her new single would start on national scrabble day six months later:
so this brings us to the lover era
taylor hid so many clues in this era that she was not straight and we know taylor hides clues because of examples like the ones i provided. she’s maniacal and unhinged but it is 100% what she does.
the first big thing is she released her single me! on LESBIAN VISIBILITY DAY:
i don’t even think taylor is a lesbian 😭i think she’s some brand of bisexual but this still feels like a signal that she isn’t straight. we know taylor knows about which national days are what because she keeps up with it all enough to easter egg national scrabble day plus this is her big “lgbt ally era” (🙄) so you would think she would be keeping up with the days of awareness for members of the lgbt community.
and whether you think taylor was trying to come out that way or not, a lot of the internet did, and they went and wrote articles about it (lots of articles) (more on that later).
then there was the bi flag colored “proud” bracelet she pictured on her wrist and posted to ig:
turns out a fan made this for her because they were bi and proud about it but i don’t understand why she pictured that bracelet, she didn’t have to, she could have turned it so you couldn’t see the word proud. regardless more articles got written about how people thought taylor was coming out as not straight.
then there was the straightest gayest clusterfuck that was the yntcd music video in which taylor basically made herself the center of a gay pride riot in a gay trailer part. in the music video she represented all the gay pride flags and she posed with two herself:
the bi pride flag (yeah some people say there’s green at the top of her hair, i don’t care the colors are there):
and the pansexual pride flag:
both these pride flags were not represented anywhere else in the music video - just those scenes with taylor.
this prompted more people to wonder if taylor came out
it also prompted a lot of people to accuse taylor of queerbaiting, appropriating and infringing on gay culture, and overstepping her bounds as an ally. all responses to yntcd were loud
are you noticing a pattern? the lover era was just: taylor does something gay. people write articles about how they think she just came out/otherwise comment on her sexuality.
now you know taylor, who is obsessed with the media’s perception of her would have known about this. you know her publicist would have been duty bound to let her know, “hey taylor, all this gay stuff you’re doing? it’s making people speculate that you’re gay.”
and you would think that maybe if taylor didn’t like or appreciate this speculation around her she would have toned down the gay for her next project. instead she aired miss americana in which she listed gay pride as one of the things that made her, her.
as if that weren’t enough the next album she dropped was extraordinarily gay:
in folklore you have betty in which taylor sings about wanting to kiss a girl and yeah maybe it’s “from a male perspective” but 1. that’s a gay thing to do anyway and 2. the character that is the supposed male is named after an irl girl. we also get seven in which taylor sings to a childhood love who is a girl and she says they’ll have to hide in the closet. taylor isn’t stupid. she knows what being “in the closet” means. she is a writer and a brilliant one at that. she could have said anything- hide in the corner, hide in the cabinet, she very specifically chose the phrase that means to hide the truth about your sexuality.
and lest we forget about illicit affairs in which taylor sings to a lover who is cheating on a man with her.
and that’s just the explicit stuff, the entire album is laced with queer themes and coding other than just those songs.
many people wrote about and commented on how gay folklore was.
so the next thing taylor does? drops another super gay album including another love song canonically about a woman.
so antis, take note. taylor is not stupid. she doesn’t mind the speculation about her sexuality. i’m not saying she’s for sure gay. but if she’s not she absolutely is leaning into stirring on speculation anyway. and tbh if she’s ok with baiting this heavily and she’s not gay she might just be a terrible person? so reconsider your hetlor stance because a straight taylor = a baiting and unhinged taylor. so you don’t need to keep policing gaylors and telling them not to speculate about taylor’s sexuality. she is signalling to us that she is not straight which she 100% does not have to do. no one made her pose with the pan flag, no one made her write seven, no one made her include gay pride in a list of traits that define her in a documentary that she produced. this is purposeful on her part. it doesn’t mean she’s for sure gay but it does mean she wants people to wonder if she’s not straight.
The inspiration behind ‘Don’t blame me’, aka she is obsessed.
Yes, Taylor clearly sampled. This is not the point though. The point is what inspired her. Not only the lyrics but her muse as an angel that falls from grace. The fact that the commercial came out right after they met makes it all the more interesting. Now I want a mashup of both songs.
TAYLOR'S VERSION (coming soon)
1989 World Tour Live Part 3
folks...
real talk
whose eye praytell
whose eye is it
honestly
she’s tr👁ing to tell you
One of Taylor’s best songs ever is also one of her gayest: “New Romantics” employs some of her most brilliant lyrical tricks to construct a narrative that’s clever, moving, and, for lack of a better phrase, hella hella gay. First, let’s talk about the structure of the lyrics: The verses all end in couplets (ABABCC rhyme structure as opposed to the pre-chorus and chorus, which are both ABAB) – in poetry, you use a couplet to draw attention to something, to emphasize a point. Let’s see what she has to say: We’re all bored We’re all so tired of everything We wait for Trains that just aren’t coming
When Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone named this the second best song of 2014, he called boredom “the least Tay of emotions.” But if this is a song about breaking the cycle of bearding – as Taylor did in 2014 – this verse sets up the dreary monotony of being in the closet, pretending to be someone you’re not. She brings the point home in the couplet:
We show off our different scarlet letters Trust me, mine is better
What’s Tay’s scarlet letter? Her love ‘em and leave ‘em inability to keep a man? No – that’s the character she parodies in “Blank Space.” This song is about her real scarlet letter, the one we don’t know about: her queerness and all the lies that come with it. Let’s skip ahead to the third verse to see why:
We’re all here The lights and boys are blinding We hang back It’s all in the timing
Something is already off here: The rhyme structure is broken. Instead of the perfect ABABCC of every other verse, verse 3 gives us ABCBDD. This could just be sloppy writing, but that’s not Taylor – this verse is meant to undermine our sense of stability in the song, to prick up our ears. This works in the context of the lyrics – Taylor being blinded by the boys and lights (presumably media attention/camera flashes?) – but it also serves to make us pay close attention to her next couplet:
It’s poker, he can’t see it in my face But I’m about to play my Ace
What’s her Ace? Her scarlet letter, of course – her bright red A, the Ace of Hearts. And she’s about to tell us exactly what it is:
We need love But all we want is danger We team up Then switch sides like a record changer
“We need love, but all we want is danger” can read like she wants danger instead of love, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. What if we read the line like this instead: “We need love, but everything we want is dangerous.” That fits thematically with Taylor’s other work in songs like “Treacherous” and “Style,” and it also makes sense in the context of the next line. What exactly does it mean to “switch sides like record changer”? What even is a record changer? There’s a vague allusion to turning over a record on a turntable here, but Taylor is making up words because she’s telling us something else: that she’s teaming up with someone to change the record about her dangerous love life. And “record” here is a triple meaning – it also alludes to the songs on this record, which can literally change sides as you flip the LP over, but can also change sides in terms of who she’s singing about depending on whether you know the truth about her scarlet letter, her Ace.
The rumors are terrible and cruel, But honey, most of them are true
Taylor punctuates this verse with a wink to those of us who’ve heard the rumors about her: She’s heard them too, and she wants to tell us they’re true.
This brings us to the second pre-chorus and chorus, and to the essential question of the song: Who is “we”? Is this a platonic song about Taylor and her girlfriends (and, by extension, single people everywhere), or is this a romantic song about Taylor and her girlfriend (and, by extension, queer people everywhere)?
Baby, we’re the new romantics Come on, come along with me Heartbreak is the national anthem We sing it proudly We are too busy dancing To get knocked off our feet Baby, we’re the new romantics The best people in life are free
We’re too busy going out with our friends to fall in love, we sing proudly about our heartbreaks, the best people in life are single. Yep, that works! But it ignores the broader context of the song – let’s take a look at the bridge, where everything slows down a LOT (again, Taylor is telling us to pay attention):
Please take my hand and Please take me dancing and Please leave me stranded It’s so romantic
The rhyme structure here (AAAA with lots of word repetition and proximate rhyme, a trick often used by noted lesbian Emily Dickinson) is like a big flashing sign: HEY, THIS IS WHAT THE SONG IS ABOUT. And it doesn’t sound platonic at all – it sounds like dancing with your girlfriend in public, only to have her leave you alone lest she confirm those terribly cruel rumors. (This bridge is also a prelude to “Dancing With Our Hands Tied” as surely as “Every day is like a battle, but every night with us is like a dream” is a prelude to “…Ready for it?”.)
The song is called “New Romantics.” She’s telling us, as clearly as she can, that this is a song about romance. Taylor has taken all the bricks people have thrown at her – at this point, still largely about how boy-crazy she is – and built a castle where she can be free with her girlfriend. Read this way, we can see a new meaning for the first verse of “Call It What You Want”:
My castle crumbled overnight I brought a knife to a gunfight They took the crown but it’s all right
This verse reads like it’s about the Kimye controversy, but I think it’s also about kissgate. Taylor built a glass castle of safety for herself and Karlie, and when it collapsed, her crown (i.e. the king of her heart) was taken from her. They had to go back into hiding (“nobody’s heard from me for months”), but they found a deeper, truer love all on their own.
“New Romantics” is one of Taylor’s best songs ever – not just because the melody is amazing and the lyrics are killer, but because it takes the language of heartbreak and turns it into an anthem of strength for Taylor and for every queer person who has ever had to hide who we are. She opens 1989 by telling us we can want who we want, and she closes it by telling us the same thing: The best people in life are free.
Oohh maybe that's why Taylor used the phrases in her latest ig reel "Fluffy toe beans" and "Overstuffed floof feet" (and not "paws" usually for the cats), because she was referring to their son's toes and feet 😭
Noooo... Taylor can't be talking about those fluffy little feet.
No way are these sentences about that! 😻
And that! 🥰
It's just another Koincidence. It's not?! 😏
🌼☀️🦁❤
So aside from this being one of my favorite moments on the album (I was not a swiftie when og fearless was first dropped so I’m late to the party on how fantastic this outro is), I’m surprised I haven’t seen anything about this (maybe I’m late on this too, but I’m surprised that this wouldn’t be some of gaylor 101 introductory evidence):
1) female pronoun that is not even couched in the “male POV” and
2) this parallel to an iconic sapphic interpretation of Tim McGraw?!?
This outro from Other Side Of The Door is a call back to TM and with its female pronoun it corroborates the theory that in Tim McGraw, Taylor isn’t listing memories (one night when she’s wearing a little black dress and another night when she is wearing a pair of jeans), but rather describing one single scene, where she is wearing blue jeans and resting her head on the chest of the other person (a girl), in a little black dress.
This is an important puzzle piece?!
Rebekah Harkness- we all know her from folklore album.
I've just read that she sponsored The Joffrey Ballet...👀