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Taylor Swift / Vanity Fair April 2013

i’ve noticed a lot of people lashing out in response to the posts celebrating and being positive towards men lately and it’s… not great.

in the past few days alone, i’ve seen lot of “wow men are so weak they can’t take ANY criticism or stand posts not praising them” and “in the real world men don’t see women as humans so i don’t care.”

look. i get it. i’m a queer woman who was abused by men. i used to say “all men,” too. but then i got older and met more people and stepped back from my trauma to realize that viewing all men as a single, malevolent group with inherent traits and equal power over women is a broken mentality.

it’s dangerous to say all men have inherent traits and values. that rhetoric reinforces the gender binary, gender norms, and gender essentialism. it prevents all people from being themselves and pursuing life choices while perpetuating the idea that all men are preprogrammed for things like violence. it also allows misogynistic men to absolve themselves with “well, boys will be boys.” posts saying “men can be soft” and the like are fighting this.

oppression is complex. it is not simply “men bad, women good.” race, class, disability, sexuality, etc. all complicate power dynamics. ex: a white woman can exert power over a black man.

certain groups of men—black men, mentally ill men, etc.—are particularly demonized. they are framed as violent and dangerous, which enables their systematic oppression. they deserve to be assured that this is not the case.

a lot of positivity posts are specifically for trans men and trans masc people. they tell them “your gender is not evil. you are not doing a bad thing by transitioning. you do not have to be like X to be a man.”

a lot of these posts are also to let people attracted to men know that their attraction is not a dirty mistake. for years, i felt i had to apologize for being a bisexual woman attracted to men, like it was a flaw.

some of these posts are for younger users here. boys who need to be told they have the power to defy patriarchal values and determine what their gender means and who they are, that they’re not doomed to be misogynistic abusers.

latimesent via Twitter: T-Swift stopped by the Los Angeles Times Studio @RBC House while she was in Toronto promoting "All Too Well" (Photo by Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Taylor at Toronto International Film Festival 2022✨

Miss Americana Analysis: Why she REALLY disappeared.

So. This song is a whole bag of sandwiches! The first time I heard it, I cried. Granted, I pretty much cried nonstop throughout my Lover first listen. But I digress. We need to talk about Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince! 

Let’s go:

 Okay, so first thing’s first. Taylor has said this about the song:

Of course, we have to acknowledge that she’s telling a very similar story to reputation here. Taylor said reputation is “an album about finding love throughout all the noise.” So it’s clear there is a connection.

Miss Americana would not have been out of place on reputation, with its melancholic and disillusioned themes. But it appears Taylor was not ready to show her political cards yet on reputation, at least not in any outward or obvious way. 

I’d argue that Taylor hinted heavily about how the election affected her on Call It What You Want. In fact, I think of CIWYW and Miss Americana almost as sister songs telling the same story but from different angles. 

IMHO, Miss Americana actually precedes CIWYW in the timeline. It focuses on Taylor’s experience of going through the election and taking herself and her lover underground to protect them. CIWYW is a reflective song, looking back on the election and how she and her lover stuck together through the storm. 

I’ve always felt that the CIWYW lyric “all the jokers dressing up as kings” referred to Trump, and that the storm referenced the election, not the Kimye feud (more on that later). 

“I recall late November holding my breath // slowly I said // you don’t need to save me // but would you run away with me?” has always struck me, since reputation’s release, as a post-election plea. And it mirrors Miss Americana’s lyric: “voted most likely to run away with you” (voted… cuz it’s an election, get it?! She never stops, I swear.)

Side theory: Perhaps Taylor and her lover ran away to the UK to be out of the USA for a bit after the election; hence the diary entry from London in Jan 2017. 

 Before I jump into the full lyrics analysis, I should say: I believe this song is very much referencing and calling back to a few past songs, namely: Call It What You Want, The Lucky One and Change.

We see heavy themes from all three of these tracks in Miss Americana: 

1. Holding tight to her lover throughout all the noise (CIWYW)

2. Disillusionment with fame, pageantry and the American Dream (TLO)

3. A political awakening in the midst of a battle being lost (Change)

So without further delay, let’s look at the lyrics:

You know I adore you I’m crazier for you Then I was at sixteen Lost in a film scene Waving homecoming queens Marching band playing I’m lost in the lights

Taylor has been playing the part of America’s sweetheart for so long, she has become lost in her performance. “I’m lost in the lights” clearly calls back to TLO: “another name goes up in lights // you wonder if you’ll make it out alive.” 

It’s hard not to see the subtext here that Taylor has been closeted her entire career. She has given America the image it demands of its young pop stars: Wholesome, straight, a good role model, obsessed with prom, football players and fairy tales.

And on some level, for her efforts, she’s been rewarded with fame, success and more money than she could ever possibly know what to do with. 

But the price she paid is having to hide who she really is. And she’s clearly getting fed up with playing this exhausting role. 

American glory Faded before me Now I’m feeling hopeless Ripped up my prom dress Running through rose thorns I saw the scoreboard And ran for my life

The 2016 election has Taylor feeling disillusioned. Her image of America as this amazing place worth celebrating with a massive party every 4th of July is crumbling. 

What I find most interesting here is the lyric “ripped up my prom dress running through rose thorns.” This imagery really sticks out. It calls back heavily to The Lucky One. Let’s look at those lyrics: 

It was a few years later, I showed up here And they still tell the legend of how you disappeared, How you took the money and your dignity, and got the hell out They say you bought a bunch of land somewhere, Chose the Rose Garden over Madison Square, And it took some time, but I understand it now

In Taylor’s world, the rose garden is a symbol of escaping public life. 

So, coming back to Miss Americana, Taylor actually chooses to rip up her prom dress (symbolic for her reputation as America’s sweetheart) to get the hell out. She runs for her life. She disappears, knowing she is helpless to change the results. She views herself as damaged goods and doesn’t feel like she can be effective (she has said as much in recent interviews).  

Interestingly, this shows that Taylor chose to go underground because of the election, NOT snakegate. I saw the scoreboard, and ran for my life indicates that the election results actually pushed her and her into hiding, not her feud with Kimye, as is the public narrative. 

Ah, ah, ah No cameras catch my pageant smile I counted days, I counted miles To see you there To see you there It’s been a long time coming but

This lyric is extremely sad and telling. Taylor has said in the past that she smiles even in her sleep because she’s so used to being photographed: “There’s a dream that, any time I’m ‘paparazzid’ out, which is a lot, I have dreams that night that they’re in my room taking pictures of me while I’m sleeping! So I’ll find myself smiling in my sleep, because I think there are people in my room taking pictures of me. Not smiling because I’m happy, smiling because I think people are taking pictures of me!”

No cameras catch her smiles because she now smiles even when she’s out of the limelight. She has trained herself to put on a pageant every day of her life, even when she doesn’t need to. And she’s exhausted with it, trying to find some semblance of privacy and inner reflection in her life.

Meanwhile, as she retreats from the limelight, Taylor and her lover cover miles to see each other to work around their hectic schedules. 

It’s you and me That’s my whole world They whisper in the hallway, “she’s a bad, bad girl” (okay!) The whole school is rolling fake dice You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes It’s you and me There’s nothing like this Miss Americana and The Heartbreak Prince (okay!) We’re so sad, we paint the town blue Voted most likely to run away With you

This is when we really start to see the underlying love story of this song. Preserving her relationship is all that matters to Taylor now. They’ve already lost so much that they need to hold onto each other. 

The lyrics “they whisper in the hallway she’s a bad, bad girl” are twofold: of course, they reference Taylor and snakegate. But they also reference Hillary Clinton. People were so quick to demonize Hillary Clinton during the election, and blame her for everything that went wrong. 

Taylor could not help but relate to that narrative: “The summer before that election, all people were saying was, She’s calculated. She’s manipulative. She’s not what she seems. She’s a snake. She’s a liar,” Swift said. “These are the same exact insults people were hurling at Hillary. Would I be an endorsement or would I be a liability? Look, snakes of a feather flock together. Look, the two lying women. The two nasty women.”

My team is losing Battered and bruising I see the high fives Between the bad guys Leave with my head hung You are the only one Who seems to care

American stories Burning before me I’m feeling helpless The damsels are depressed Boys will be boys, then Where are the wise men? Darling, I’m scared

Taylor was feeling helpless, knowing she couldn’t speak out about her true political beliefs. And with LGBTQ+ rights in question, and a sexual predator-in-chief at the helm of the nation as she simultaneously dealt with a sexual assault trial, things were super bleak. Like, run away to another country for awhile level bleak. 

These desperate MAAHP lyrics also mirror the lowest moment in “Change”: 

So we’ve been outnumbered Raided and now cornered It’s hard to fight when the fight ain’t fair

But unlike in “Change,” Miss Americana has no true hope to offer, other than running away. Sure, there’s the dark “GO, FIGHT, WIN” chant, but there’s no light at the end of the tunnel in this song. It doesn’t give us a positive note to finish on. “And now the storm is coming” indicates that Taylor and her lover are bracing themselves for a dark night and a long fight. Hope will have to wait.

All of this is to say: this song is an expression of unbridled fear and angst. Of knowing all the best laid plans are now undone (”paper cut stains from my paper thin plans”) and that Taylor and her lover must run away and protect what they have at all costs. 

Ah, ah, ah No cameras catch my muffled cries I counted days, I counted miles To see you there To see you there And now the storm is coming, but

Notice the “storm” here (“and now the storm is coming”) mirrors CIWYW (“windows boarded up after the storm”). And again, we see that Miss Americana came first in the timeline. The storm coming versus windows boarded up after the storm. 

So why did the election drive Taylor underground? Many still argue that Taylor went underground after snakegate. But that’s not really true. Yes, she stepped back from the public eye a bit, but she was still seen out partying. She was pap’d in late October (24th, 2016) going to Drake’s birthday party with Karlie and crew. The infamous golden tattoos night. 

So it’s not like Taylor was fully underground after snakegate. On the contrary, she really disappeared after the election.

Why?

Many Kaylors speculate that Taylor and Karlie decided to go blackout with their relationship because of Karlie’s ties to the Kushner family. Taylor couldn’t stomach the bad PR of being tied in any way to the Trumps. And further, as a wlw couple, their situation and their rights became precarious in a Trump presidency. 

No matter the reason, the election clearly set off Taylor’s anxiety and threw her plans for a loop. But maybe it didn’t need to be that way. She protected her love. But at what cost? All the hiding and secrecy and sneaking around and anxiety about how to tackle coming out and reintroducing them to the public no doubt put a strain on the relationship. Hence all the references to fighting in Lover. 

I have a feeling Afterglow may allude to Taylor wondering in retrospect if they made the wrong choice going into hiding: I blew things out of proportion, now you’re blue // put you in jail for something you didn’t do. 

Perhaps Taylor gave the public opinion of her being a Trump supporter too much weight, and overcorrected by cutting Karlie from her public life. Or perhaps the privacy was necessary at the time, but Taylor went too extreme, obsessing over protecting her love to the point where she suffocated it. Pure speculation, but it’s something that jumped out to me. 

Finally, we’ve got the lyrics:

And I don’t want you to (go) I don’t really wanna (fight) ‘Cause nobody’s gonna (win) I think you should come home

In these last lyrics, I see a separation of sorts. Taylor’s lover is going away, leaving their home. Yet the song doesn’t indicate a breakup (just listen to the “after” in CIWYW). It’s really a parting of ways, at least in public. They’ll still be together, but no longer to be seen in the public eye. 

There are notes of hope later on the album that Taylor and her partner will one day step into the daylight and reunite publicly. But Miss Americana is a long way from that sunshine. Miss Americana sets the stage for the blackout, the secrecy, the self-protection, and in many ways, Taylor’s anxiety-ridden self-sabotage that she laments throughout Lover. 

TLDR: This song is a sister song to CIWTW, about Kaylor going underground in the painful aftermath of the election; a decision that protected them for the time, but set up a series of challenges in their relationship that play out over the course of Lover. 

One last note: Since this song takes place during the election of 2016, it’s damn near impossible it could be about a 2-month old relationship like the public narrative would have us believe. The lyrics “It’s you and me, that’s my whole world” and “I think you should come home” indicate a long-term relationship where two people are living together. 

In my Eras era. 💅