Part 2!

this photo is so absolutely gorgeous (cardiff on june 18, 2024)

♫ But now that we’re done and it’s over I bet you couldn’t believe When you realized I’m harder to forget than I was to leave And I bet you think about me ♫

I am dusting off my little blog here because TTPD has my mind absolutely reeling. I am really wondering if anyone else listened to this and had this feeling that the album confirmed everything that they were thinking was going on with her. I know we talk so much about reading her songs beneath the surface of muses or certain details used to craft a story, but to me, TTPD reads so strongly of her reckoning with her life in the industry. like, it's so much more than the relationships. it's the comp het, it's the religious trauma, it's the being exploited as a child star, it's deep wound of abandonment and neglect when she as a person got split off from her brand and both could not thrive, it's giving everything to this brand and career and fandom and that still never being enough. it's her codependency with the very people that exploit her. it's the fact that she is bigger than she ever imagined and none of it feels how she wanted. it's the simultaneous love and resentment she has towards her family, and relationships, and career, and yes, even her fans.

the rawness of this album, the unrefined feel, the summation poem talking about this as mania, the continuation of the cage imagery and themes of escaping to her mind/fantasy, the coping with criticism, numbing it all with alcohol, the willingness to burn it all down and disgrace her name because none of this is what she wants or at least not how she wants.

I have seen so many criticisms of the album and honestly, I understand where they are coming from, but I also think the things they criticize make the exact point of what this body of work is - something that exists for it's own sake to turn things back on the people that made her into what she is now. art created not to be acclaimed but because it demands to be expressed. it is an exorcism, an expulsion. it is something that erupted from her. and it's so meta because this fandom and the industry are voyeurs in an echo chamber so desperate to see what they want that they miss that this is about them. that is what makes it brilliant to me - it is self-indulgent and metaphorical, and complex, and so direct, but yet still masked just enough that people miss it. her entire life has become performance art. it is a play within a play. and I fear the audience has not caught on.

it feels like she is reclaiming it all. I feel like this could either be a hint at a new beginning or a signal that she has broken and this is the end. this felt like the tell-all memoir written in code that everyone else will finally understand when she really leaves this spotlight. it's the lucky one come to life. she is daydreaming about fucking it all and leaving this life behind so she can finally have some goddamn peace.

I love this album for it as art. it is so expressive. it is so heartbreaking. it's messy and nuanced, and I think it is going way the fuck over most people's heads, especially when you really dig into poetry being the theme and the specific works she references. it's only been a week and I am just starting to really dig in but talk about a fucking iceberg.

can’t wait to hear this song called Love Story bet it’s gonna be a real hit

In my Eras era. 💅

Chely Wright, Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer / Taylor & Karlies Big Sur Trip

Just a reminder because apparently people don’t realize this, but the rainbow gay pride flag isn’t like…a gay male pride flag? it was literally meant as a pride flag for everyone in the community. not that there’s anything wrong with specific identities having their own flag, but i keep seeing ppl post flag sets as if the rainbow ride flag only represents gay men and saying that not including every single other flag known in existence means you’re excluding people when no it’s not the rainbow flag is for everyone

it’s nice to have a friend is not about having a different best friend during different stages of your life and is instead a progression of an imaginary friendship into a lifelong partnership, because after the school bell rings, sidewalk chalk is covered in snow and later when the church bells ring after she marries her best friend, the rice on the ground looks like snow, connecting the final verse to the first verse and therefore confirming that the same friend that that taylor passes notes with and sleeps in tents with and plays 20 questions with is the same friend she later on marries and the song sounds lonely and desolate like a still winter morning when the windows are frosted with snow but the chill hasn’t let itself into your bedroom just yet because it speaks to the inherent loneliness of growing up as a girl who falls in love with her best girl friends, but that lonely girl finally marries her best friend and that is why the song sounds lonely like a grey winter morning but at the same time comforting like a friend/love of your life running her fingers through your hair in bed on a grey winter morning, in this essay i will-

Taylor Swift by Annie Leibovitz, Nashville 2010

This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen

..HOW MUCH I MISS HER!!

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