yourwoundbutmysutures cages-boxes-hunters-foxes
shouldntbeaskingmyselfwhy

in a way, taylor's whole discography is a negotiation between career ambition and personal relationships, right, like in the early albums there's so much about 'i never fit in, i didn't get the guy, but i found dreams much bigger in songwriting, people haven't always been there for me but music always has.' and then as she grows up there's so much about her partners belittling her art and the whole metatextual element of writing about her relationships affecting them, and her as the narrator trying to navigate what details to share for the sake of the art and what to keep to herself to protect. the idea of running away from the fame to seek out real human connection starts cropping up on RED and reaches a peak on Midnights, to me, where the central question really is 'what parts of myself have i cut away to serve my ambition? is there enough left to continue splitting myself in two?' and by the time we get to Poets, the predominant feeling is 'fine, that door is closed to me forever, i'm just this crazy monster, fame and success have made me something simultaneously divine and monstrous, but either way i'm not human anymore.' and then we get to showgirl where she is both immortal and dreaming of a driveway with a basketball hoop, with no tension between those two things. now tell me again there's nothing to analyze on this album lol

yourwoundbutmysutures wavesoutbeingtossed
longlivetv

Woke up this morning thinking about the fact that one of the recurring criticisms I’ve seen of Showgirl is that people don’t like the contemporary or internet language in songs like Eldest Daughter or Cancelled! and that’s so interesting to me because the existence of the internet and the language used on it is integral to the premise of both songs. Without the internet, the pressure to be apathetic and a bad bitch and savage and fire are all lower. Without the internet, mass cancellation on this scale just doesn’t happen, to public figures or to regular people. And she specifically talked about that in the release party, that the internet and social media can make regular people feel cancelled too, because it’s the only place this kind of mass pile on happens. As millennials Taylor and I both remember a time when the internet didn’t rule our lives, and I think we’re both a little nostalgic for it, when the gossip about you was either smaller scale for regular people - your school vs the whole world, or delayed by publication for celebrities. The internet speak is there because if there is no internet, the song is completely different.

prev!!!
yourwoundbutmysutures thisisctrying
thisisctrying

who covered up your scandals…. I take your indiscretions all in good fun….. I founded the club she’s heard great things about, I left all I knew you left me at the house by the heath … putting someone first only works when you’re in their top five … he was with her in dreams …. WHO COVERED UP YOUR SCANDALS…. hiss

thisisctrying

I died on the altar waiting for the proof, you sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days… I knew too much, there was danger in the heat of my touch, he saw forever so he smashed it up … foolish decisions that led to misguided visions that to fulfill your dreams, you had to get rid of me …. HISS

yourwoundbutmysutures thisisctrying
thisisctrying

the way that the visual that immediately comes to mind with “I died at the altar waiting for the proof” is of the bride withering away waiting for the groom never comes, and it totally encompasses that, but the follow-up of “you sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days” implies a brutal, violent murder

yourwoundbutmysutures heystephen
latenovmber

some of the most compelling stories to me are when you know how it ends but you stick around anyway on the off chance it’ll change. and you know it won’t change, and you know it’s out of your control, but that tiny sliver of hope worms its way into your brain and you can’t let the story go. (<- this post is about those ads where the king is about to die and the person has to connect three jewels and it seems like this time he’ll escape but they get confused and don’t connect them in time and he dies)

latenovmber

image

it’s the same story………………..

yourwoundbutmysutures skywalker-swift
alexschiesser

artists fuck better because we turn sex into art, masterpieces, mattresses become canvases where we can paint our love to someone with bodies.

zsnes

its like, impossible to come up with anything funnier than the experience of seeing this post

targuzzler

pharoahs fuck better because they ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh put the pussy in a scarmophogoghs

mens-rights-activia

Y’all be saying “world heritage post” to anything but this is actually what a a UNESCO world heritage post looks like

yourwoundbutmysutures thelasttime
Anonymous asked:

seeing so many people calling this album just fun and nothing more, and as someone who feels deeply connected to this album, i'd really like to offer an alternative impression:

something happens to a person when the rest of the world is constantly finding problems with you. whether you intend to or not, you make yourself smaller. usually subconsciously, but sometimes consciously, you cut out or tamp down on the pieces of you that they hated, until over enough time, there's not much left of you. because they all hated different things, created different wounds in different shapes. and then, you discover that it didn't even matter at all. the whole thing futile, because even the shell of you still isn't what they want and you've got nothing left to cut out of yourself for them. and there's a heartbreak there that's hard to describe, unless you've been there yourself (i'd actually never related to a taylor song on a personal level until I Hate It Here, which encompasses the emptiness fairly well. the idea of how you can only feel alive inside your own head).

while i know all of my own experiences that did this to me, taylor's can be easy to miss, despite the fact that she's put them in her music all along. not even mentioning all the bullying she went through prior to fame or all of the things that fans/haters/critics have said over the years, just about every man she's ever dated resented a different piece of her. john mayer, who she loved and idolized, turned out to just want a teenager to manipulate. jake laughed at her dreams, made sure she knew damn well he didn't think she was funny (think it gets three separate mentions on the red album?). high infidelity certainly suggests calvin didn't have great things to say about her, and how devastating that must have been after being so in awe that someone didn't hate her after a year together. every day we learn more about the things joe must've thought, and his resentment is clear.

ttpd ends up being more than romantic heartbreak, it's the slowly sinking realization that there's been a loss of self, while this album is a reclamation of self, alongside the death of ego. it's the undoing of trauma, now that there's a new lens to view it all through. it's the terrible associations with endearments, undone in honey. all the times people called her lame and cringe and annoying, undone in eldest daughter. the instinct to blame yourself for someone's unprovoked hatred, undone in actually romantic. the instinct to reflect your own pain back onto others, undone in cancelled. and a lot more (i could honestly go lyric by lyric on this, but i'll leave it there for now)

i have zero vested interest in travis specifically, but he showed her that she could actually do all of that. she could, as i saw someone else on tumblr phrase it, love being alive again, because it's almost impossible to truly love living when you're living as a shell. you only get glimpses of it, then. fleeting little moments.

so when i listen to showgirl, it genuinely feels like taylor said to me, "you could have this, too. the happiness that pours out of my voice. the freedom of self-acceptance. it's possible for you."

and my entire life has shifted since i heard that. my outlook is brighter, my anxiety lighter. it wasn't like a magic cure-all or anything, but for once in my life, i'm thinking that maybe i'm worth fighting for, even if it's my own poisonous instincts that i have to fight for it.

so it might be a silly little pop album to some people, but to me (and, as i think these interviews have shown, to taylor), it's a revelation.

thelasttime answered:

wait i love this anon!! thank you for taking the time to write this out because i think it’s a great explanation for how you can interpret the album. for me, my favorite thing about this album has been how she talks about creating your happiness and joy. in previous albums, it feels like she wishes for love to be a magical thing to descend upon her - almost like destiny (hence, “the prophecy”). but in this album she talks about how they make their own love and happiness - AND YOU CAN TOO!

also really love this: “you could have this, too. the happiness that pours out of my voice. the freedom of self-acceptance. it’s possible for you.”

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