Catch! / new to owning a tumblr / always trying to keep up with Taylor
172 posts
And you knew what it was… People are so blind smh.
Taylor Swift / Vanity Fair April 2013
Taylor Swift leaving a gym in New York City June 2014
I mean... self explanatory.
Frankly I don’t see the point in fussing over the precise gender identities of historical figures and what they would hypothetically describe themselves as were they alive today. They’re not fictional characters—they’re dead people whose opinions on a continuously evolving topic are largely unknowable, but are part of a shared history nonetheless.
For example, whether a historical figure lived secretly as a man because she was a woman in a society where that was her only option to actually do the things she wanted to do, or because he was just more comfortable that way and wanted to be recognized as a man... how can we know? How can we determine that it was not both? How can we look back through history to a world so different from ours and come to conclusions about things that are often complicated and indistinct in our own time?
I just don’t see what is accomplished by trying to sort and separate trans history from GNC history based on factors we can’t truly be certain of. In an earlier generation, I think I may have lived and presented quite differently based on the choices available to me and the ease with which I may have pursued them. The world changes so much in so many ways and I can barely make sense of myself in my own time—it seems more practical to simply say, “Ah. Relatable. I can see much of myself in the record of your life.” and leave it at that. Our history is cultural, not ancestral, and in a hundred years we may be the source of just as much confusion and consternation even if we believe ourselves clear today.
I obviously second that
Its Nice to Have A Friend is the gayest song ever. Like ever. Who is out there listening to it and finding a way to give it a straight explanation? They must be so creative.
Not any of us that’s for sure! INTHAF is a gays only event. Seriously that song is it for me. It brought back so many feelings for me as a very young person having a ‘friend’ like that. Innocent and then getting older with that person and the friendship turning into something more. Anyways it’s one of Taylor’s most meaningful songs.
The spring queen
taylor swift + winks 😉
when taylor dipped her two fingers in the champagne flute?!?!??!!?!?!!!?
Observations since the red “wedding” that make me still believe that Kaylor are still together.
Thank you to everyone in this fandom for there contributions, posts, observations and secret government agency level clue finding skills. (X = links to relevant posts).
Oct 22nd 2018 - Taylors forget me knots flower t-shirt while in OZ..X
Oct 31st 2018 - New Video in Karlie’s Kitchen and she still had the Kaylor photos up.. X
Nov 9th 2018 - Tay sings out of the woods on Tour and Karlie and co post photos in the woods.. X
Nov 16th 2018 - Taylors matching Karlie Clutch at the AMA’s.. X. also kinda matching outfits..X
Jan 15th 2019 - Karlie’s Astrology post with Sagittarius book shown underneath.. X
Feb 25th 2019 - Karlie rocking a Tye Dye t-shirt at Paris Week with Gigi in tow, hello lover merch and also similar to a shirt Tay was seen in also another PR episode themed tye dye (in 2020).. X X X
March 3rd 2019 - Karlie was in Paris for fashion week - Off White walk on 28th Feb then mysteriously posts that she was passing through NY on the 3rd of March before appearing back in Paris for the Stella McCartney show on the 4th March. Where did she mysteriously fly to and why point it out that she was back in America for some unknown reason - plus we know beginning of march is significant for them aka Big Sur or Love locked down…X X X X
March 14th 2019 - Taylor leaving/disappearing early from the Iheart awards the same night Project Runway Premiered..X
March 14th 2019 - Watch what happens live - Karlie getting asked about Taylor - there is a smirk..X
March 14th 2019 - Interesting anon telling Kaylors not to give up.. X
March 31st 2019 - Tay and KK liking the same Ciara post - X
April 2019 maybe??- The i need to make a phone call when filming ME when adopting Benjamin..X
April 16th 2019 - The Lover Butterfly Mural - 2 lady birds, giraffe print, similar previous to karlie VS wings..X X
April 2019 - Berlin video of karlie playing piano with “a interesting” female voice laughing at the end and saying you always.. X X
May 18th 2019 - Tays ‘we’ slip on the Ellen show then saying its just me and the cats.. X X
May 30th 2019 - Karlie using ME! and 2AM in a story.. X X
June 3rd 2019 - Tay wearing a yellow T-shirt with her Wango Tango rainbow outfit.. X
June 6th 2019 - Karlie using a BBF vogue video gif.. X X
June 17th 2019 - THE HAND in the YNTCD teaser video - no one can convince me this isn’t Karlie’s hand.. X X X X X
June 17th 2019 - Lover straw in the YNTCD video similar to Karlie’s bride straw. Also the Mint mojito it’s sitting in linking to Karlie’s 73 Question video where she says Mojitos are a favourite..X X
June 2019 - YNTCD with Taylor carrying out a Daisy from her burning trailer plus Daisies making a number of appearances.. X X X X
June 25th 2019 - KK’s Dad liking certain comments on the Wyoming stunt..X
July 4th 2019 - Abigail liking a KK insta post after the SB drama started.. X
Aug 3rd 2019 - Tay posts Lover Heart crispies pic on KK’s birthday.. X
Aug 16th 2019 - Release date of Lover Track being 13 days after KK’s bday and also track 3 aka KK birthday day also its 3.41 long (3+4+1=8).. X X X
Aug 16th 2019 - Lover lyric video with the kaylor sparklers video plus potential daises and big sur falcon pic.. X X
Aug 22nd 2019 - Lover video fishbowl scene X
Aug 23rd 2019 - Lover release date may coincide with a certain date range where Kaylor may have gotten engaged.. X X
Aug 23rd 2019 - Lover album in general - Cornelia street, Lover, False God etc etc we all know it plus the release letters all over NY..X X
Sept 10th 2019 - Lover Paris Concert Mural ummm a polaroid, locket..X X X
Nov 14th 2019 _ Karlie’s off the wall post during when SB was not letting Tay perform her songs - which i think is her being off the wall angry.. X
Nov 14th 2019 - Selena liking a Hung Vanngo post of Karlie..X
Nov 13th 2019 - Lover remix released on the anniversary of their first meeting VS2013 - “the girl in my story has always been you”..X X X
Nov 21st 2019 - The orange girl In YNTCD along with the Karlie Vogue cover in orange with cactus jewellery.. X X
Nov 25th 2019 - Use of a ballerina for her Lover AMA performance and then karlie also mentioning said ballerina months later in a insta story.. X X
Dec 4th 2019 - Taylor Wearing the VS angel ring on the kiss gate anniversary X X X X X
Dec 6th 2019 - Christmas Tree Farm song lyrics and happiness
Dec 12th 2019 - Taylor posting a pic of her with the huge cats door and then low and behold the following PR episode Karlie walks through a giant door for a Cats promo episode.. X X X X
Jan 2020 - PR episode with Cyndi Lauper aka photo with Taylor at Billboard Women awards and also having Laverne Cox as a guest too..X X
Jan 2nd 2020 - Martha liking KK’s post celebrating her vogue covers which includes the Kaylor one..X
Jan 23rd 2020 - The use of the song Karlie what you want, (karlie would you want to) song in Miss Americana when talking about her partner also the home video.. X X also this X
Feb 6th 2020 - The song release of the Man and KK having a suits themed PR episode..X X X
Feb 12th 2020 - KK’s Daisy coat X
Feb 18th 2020 - The drawn Bethany Richards picture of the rainbow dress Taylor wore to the NFL draft on KK’s Galantines insta story..X
General - Karlie continuously latergraming and the Fiordland spelling mistake incident plus always periods of days where she is MIA aka christmas and coming back looking a bit sun reddened and wearing jumpers, posting dark pictures.. X
OTHER posts to note..X X X X X X X X X
Let me know if i have missed any other obvious big observations.
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-
♡The sweetest girl in the world♡
Thank you for saying that
Feminists: What Were They Thinking? (2018, dir. Johanna Demetrakas)
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.
much to think about
So I merged the two Dress performances videos from Nashville show with Taylor singing the first part on the b stage where Karlie was standing.
Honestly the implications of Taylor turning 30 on a Friday the 13th, at the end of the decade while being named woman of the decade.......... fate is strong