What do you think is the actual deal between Harry and Taylor? Because they seem to be each other's muses- and with the lyrical back and forth that's been going on, EVEN AFTER A DECADE- it can't be nothing. They give off major soulmates vibes (musical-wise) and even relationship-wise (although they could also be star-crossed lovers) with such shitty timing everytime đ i've supported joe and taylor for years, but I've got this inkling in my mind like someway and somehow, H and T might still find their way back to each other. Joe just seems meh :/ tbh.
i almost feel like i shouldn't answer this because it's a bit loaded, but it's 3:30 am so why not đ đ
i'm going to first defer to my friend @cowboylikedean who said:
"they can be soulmates, but not romantically. Consider: their whole relationship has been leading to a friendship which was always destined, but needed a contextual foundation that only an ill defined on again off again/only communicating through sex then song could create. Consider that. Joe is Taylor's forever person. doesn't mean Harry has to be nobody."
we don't know if they've forged a friendship behind closed doors or not, and whether we ever know anything about that is up to them. their interaction at the grammys was warm and familiar, which at the very least speaks to their feelings of respect and kindness towards one another as artists and people. taylor's support for him was clearly genuine (though you could say that of her support for basically everyone in that room). i think it's really important and meaningful to acknowledge that there are a vast array of dynamics that can be considered a soul connection - not only romantic, but familial, platonic/friendship, artistic, those can all be transcendent and vibrant relationships too. i personally feel there's a soul element and connection within their music that needed to exist as a spark to get them where they are today. (had they not been what they were to each other, what would their careers even look like? what would 1989 be? what would hs1 be? etc) and they were also, in many ways, peers when they were together, and in unique positions of fame at a young age that most other people couldn't understand. their timing was consistently wrong/off, but that connection in their hearts and art still came through clearly. to me, it's part of the invisible string - they had to meet and have that complicated on/off thing and have love for one another to be on the paths where they were supposed to go, in different ways, and to be able to stand in a room together where they're both succeeding and both feeling gratitude for what all of that meant.
i think it's a disservice to joe to...not pay attention to what taylor has explicitly said about him, and why that relationship is so different and profound for her. i've seen a LOT of commentary lately about him being boring and not "getting" their connection, and it strikes me as somewhat unfair because we don't see it, we're not privy to it, and we shouldn't be, that is very much by their design. (she did say romance isn't dead if you keep it just yours!) but because someone like h is sparkly and charismatic and a musician, and joe is somewhat more reserved and less obviously visible and an actor, there's this sense that we "know" him less, which can easily seem less interesting, but keep in mind that how any fan sees him and how taylor herself sees and describes him are totally different. he's home to her, he's that gorgeous dream to her, he's the daylight to her, and that's what matters. he's who she's built her life with and found her peace with for many years now, and vice versa. h hasn't found that yet, but i hope he does. but that doesn't necessarily mean harry has to be nothing to her. whether that's fondness and recognition of their influences on one another and gentle nods to the past, or whether that comes in actual friendship, i think it's really important and valuable to acknowledge that the soul connection can happen and NOT be romantic, or initially be romantic/sexual and then transform into something else later, and it's no less of a cosmic pull. in one way or another, they'll always be connected, even if it remains in lyric and melody - and that's also always going to keep having a life of its own.
Harry Stylesâ mum just tweeted a buzzfeed article filled with pictures of harrys head on taylors body that is so funny what the fuck lmao
whatâs with m4ylors wanting m4ylor to be like haylor so bad đ first trying to steal our songs and now twin flame
A few comments (with some likes) on that reading you posted about TF are saying it's ratty. what's with all the maylor shippers đ¤˘
Heâs not an air sign lol
i just have to disagree with anon about ayhtdws and wonderland being the saddest songs out of 1989. ootw at the grammy museum personally crushed me. thatâs when you realize the song stripped bare from its heavy production, is actually a very sad song about somehow sensing that this love you held was doomed from the start. trying to protect something you hold so dear and that could break at any moment due to its fragility and then it finally breaking because outside forces ultimately won and you had to give up what you were fighting for because it was too hard. it makes me so sad :(
Sorry about the haylor in your asks but if it is atleast partly inspired by him that means that there must've been more to it than we knew. Like I still can't believe AYHTDWS was the saddest song she could come up with in 1989. I think that she locked her sad songs in vault because she wanted a fun pop album. Especially after people dragging her for red aka heartbreak album in that era. Even wonderland (arguably the saddest one in 1989) is bonus that didn't get much attention. Man I can't wait for 1989 tv
from what we've heard of his side, there was definitely strong emotion, and the fact that she addressed that situation on midnights (and potentially folkmore) at all lends itself to the idea that there could be more beneath the surface there. we know they went back and forth for quite a while. as you mentioned, something i feel is important to recognize about 1989 era is that she was projecting a polished, perfected image on purpose. she had exposed real devastating heartbreak before and been dragged through the mud for it, as far as the media goes, and the response to red back then was quite different than it is now, and we also know about her then making that conscious decision to pivot - into pop, into a "cohesive" sound, into sort of glossing depth on the album in order to seem more...assured and effervescent. she suppressed her romanticism and she attempted to hide how she was struggling. i know i've mentioned that era was really hard for me and i stepped back for a few reasons, but it's more clear now how she was grappling with a lot of difficult things. this is totally subjective, but i've always thought the most emotionally vulnerable song on the record was this love (or at least it's tied with clean), and it's telling it was originally a poem written earlier. she tried to shed that signature heart on her sleeve (even in interviews, 1989 taylor was often at her most cynical), and the sadness and struggles and pressure she locked up tight. it's still good writing, it's fundamentally a perfect pop album, but it's at a bit more of a remove, layered with the slick production, and more weighted with anxiety than sadness. and you're right, some of that was to keep it fun - if you strip AYHTDWS or IWYW or OOTW or I Know Places or Wonderland down to bare acoustics, they'd sound a LOT more sad. i am very curious if the 1989 vault has any of the more vulnerable writing, or if she didn't really lean into that aspect of her pen at the time because of what she was focused on creating. we don't know anything about the songs that could be there, i don't think? it'll be so cool to hear what she held back from that time, and interesting if it illuminates/redefines any of the album the way Red TV did!
whats your take on the first verse of is it over now? i donât really get it
it's her listing all the moments that the relationship should have/could have been over! once the flight flew, once the flowers died, once she slept alone...all of those could have been relationship enders, but they weren't. this comes back in the second verse too: when he lost control, when they both got hurt, when she was all alone on that boat, when his new s/o looked exactly like taylor. but it isn't over! there's takeout coffees, she sees him everywhere, he dreams of what it was like before she got mad about the fucking around, he's sleeping with everyone to get past her, they're going on blind dates with other people, she's sleeping with other men, he's still sleeping with more other women, he's dreaming of her and yet......still not done. and she's mad about it! she's mad that he's doing the same thing she's doing and getting away with it while she's getting shamed for lessâand making her watch this. she's mad that he's looking everywhere for an answer when the answer is her. she's daydreaming about doing crazy fucking things to get his attention because her matching his sleeping around isn't working. what a good song.
the thing about haylor is i dont want them together i dont think they were the pinnacle of a perfect relationship i just find their dynamic and the way they write about each other SO ENDLESSLY INTERESTING. like i am a fan of the art of haylorism not shipping these two humans together as actual end game. does this make sense?
idk if yâall know this or not but Taylor Swiftâs fourth studio album Red is one of the best albums of all time regardless of what small-minded âcriticsâ may say it told a beautiful, compelling, heartbreaking, and cohesive story about losing an intense love at a young age and it conveyed every individual feeling associated with heartbreak perfectly from the way the drums and the guitar in state of grace spell out a warning to the way treacherous has you on the edge of your seat with goosebumps to the unparalleled heartbreak the bass drop in ikywt says âthis pain i feel isnât just your fault, itâs my fault tooâ to the beautiful story that you can see play out in your head in all too well to the determination of keeping a toxic relationship out of your life and feeling good about it in wanegbt to the feeling of looking back on a love and realizing what you had was beautiful in holy ground to the feeling of pure, real, unadulterated sorrow that comes with the finality of ending something that was beautiful in sad beautiful tragic to the hopeful ending of the album when you realize that love can come back into your life when youâre ready to let it in in begin again and then the tragically forgotten bonus tracks the moment i knew that tells the story of the singular moment you realize the person you want the most isnât coming back to you and come back be here that describes with painful conviction the feeling of being separated from the only person you want to see i mean no offense but if you donât understand how amazing this album is then you donât understand what it means to feel
After Taylor's whirlwind trip to Kansas City the one detail that was said that lifted my spirit was Taylor packed a candle to take with her. I remember Harry saying one time that he takes a candle with him on tour. So Haylors, it's been a long road, but our Twin Flames are still burning. I feel re-energized.
Yes they are always gonna be linked. They are both going through a healing process. They need to finish healing from the past before they can be in union.
Iâve seen some debate about this matter so Iâm posting some of the things Iâve noticed from Taylorâs interviews / Listening Sessions just to clarify this matter. Reposting from my old post with some added quotes.
GLAMOUR UK, NOV 2013 INTERVIEW
Interviewer: So âHarry Styles: The Truthâ album is on its way? Taylor: âWell, an album is supposed to be a chapter in a musicianâs lifeâŚAnd sometimes you have to wait for the book to be written.â
âI was on a boat once and I came up with the line âso its going to be forever, or its going to go down in flamesâ and I didnât use it for about a year until I was writing Blank Space and I was like âOH!â - She was talking about that time she broke up with Harry on a cruise in British Virgin Islands.
âThereâs âI Wish You Would,â about an ex who bought a house two blocks from hers (whom she implies was Styles)â - Rolling Stones interview, 2014.
âOkay so this is an idea called âI Wish You Wouldâ. Itâs kind of about this guy whoâs like, heâs driving down the street at the middle of the night and he passes his ex-girlfriendâs house and itâs like, he thinks she hate him, but sheâs still in love with him, very dramatic. This track is sick, hope you like this.â - Taylorâs voice memo in the 1989 Deluxe album
âoh, some extra info on IWYW. cant remember if ive already shared this, if i have im sorry, if i havent then here. taylor wrote that after a couple of months after her and harry broke up, and they decided to become friends again, and she said this was the first time she had become friends with an ex to the point where they were comfortable enough to talk about why the relationship didnt work out. and he said how, after they broke up, he bought a house literally one road adjacent to hers. and every day he would drive home, and accidentally turn into her street, and told her how he just wanted to stop at her house and see her, but he never did. and she said this song is about while he was in the car making the decision to get out the car and see her, she was sitting in her bedroom, wishing he would make the move and go back to her and just pitch up at her house. she compared it to a classic movie where both parties want the same thing but neither has the guts to say anything. and thatâs why the song has the lyrics of âdriving straight aheadâ, opposed to taking the left turn to see her.â - Â Taylorâs 1989 listening party
Harry bought an LA mansion in March 2014, which is near Taylorâs house (about 7 minutes away). However, he was already staying in LA in 2013 with Jeff Azoff.
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Taylor once said this about Style, a song she definitely wrote about Harry:Â âI talk about in another song on the record a crooked love, which is kind of like never quite synced up right.â
The other song that she meant was âI Wish You Wouldâ in which one part of the lyrics of the song says: âWeâre a crooked love in a straight line down.â
Therefore both âStyleâ and âI Wish You Wouldâ are about the same person, which is about Harry Styles.
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Harry has also referenced IWYW lyrics in his song âPerfectâ, written about Taylor:
âAnd if you like midnight driving with the windows downâ to Taylorâs âWindows down, you pass my street, the memories startâ.
She tweeted âBack In the studioâ days after she broke up with Harry. Taylor then later confirmed on tumblr that she wrote âAll You Had To Do Was Stayâ at that studio session.
It is hinted that she wrote it when she was still with Harry.
âabout how a guy broke up with his girlfriend because he is afraid of how in love he is and he wants to experience the world and date around but then he realizes what he lost and came back for it six months too late; also she said her friendsâ boyfriends come and ask her from help when they do this kind of thing, and she says to follow the steps of this songâ - Taylorâs 1989 secret sessions, hints at Harry.
ââHow You Get The Girlâ is a song about how, you know, when weâre young, which most of my friends and most of my peers are, a lot of the time youâll take for granted a really good relationship and let go of it and go out into the world and then realise you want it back, and this song is kind of an instruction manual for a guy who has broken up with his girlfriend and let six months go by and the lengths heâll need to go to to get her back, and itâs not gonna be as simple as just sending a text message. Itâs like, âSâup?â âMiss you.â Thatâs not gonna work (laughs). You need to do all the things in this song.â - GLAM interview, 2015, hints at Harry
This song is the oldest song on the track, and the linear notes described the song with the words âTiming is a funny thingâ.
Harry wrote a song about Taylor called âI Love Youâ around the same time, where he also wrote âMaybe if I got my timing right, I wouldnât end up aloneâ. Coincidence? I donât think so.
âthis is the oldest song on the record and is co-produced I believe with Nathan Chapman, and is about how she was kinda with someone who wasnât ready so they split up but they ended up back togetherâ - Taylorâs 1989 secret sessions, hints at Harry.
ââThis Loveâ is a song that I wrote fairly early on in this process, and it was the first time I started experimenting with different vocal recording styles. In this case I wanted it to sound kind of haunting, and so I sang this song differently than Iâve sung most of my other songs. I recorded it differently. You have multiple vocals going throughout the entire song. Itâs about kind an experience I had where if you truly care about someone and you know theyâre not ready to be in a relationship you will let them go, and it sucks to be the one has to let something go and cut someone loose when you donât want to, but I think you have to be selfless in relationships when you know that itâs not the right time, and if you make that decision and that person is supposed to be in your life theyâll come back, and this was the way that I felt when that came back around.â - GLAM magazine, 2015. This is the only song she wrote alone and it also hints at HarryÂ
âShake It Offâ and âCleanâ were the last two things we wrote for the record, so it shows you where I ended up mentally. âCleanâ I wrote as I was walking out of Liberty in London. Someone I used to dateâit hit me that Iâd been in the same city as him for two weeks and I hadnât thought about it. When it did hit me, it was like, Oh, I hope heâs doing well.â - Taylor in Elle magazine interview, 2015
âco-written with Imogen Heap (written when she was in London for the Red Tour and she went to her house which is two hours outside of London and is a single castle turret in the middle of this town with lots of horses and small town) and anyways it is about when she was in London and realized her ex was also there but she didnât feel the usual sense of uneasiness and instead she felt fine and this is what this song is aboutâ - Taylorâs 1989 secret sessions.
Harry is British, he lives in London.
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Harry has also referenced âCleanâ lyrics in âOliviaâ, a song he wrote about Taylor:Â
âThis isnât the stain of a red wine, Iâm bleeding loveâ to Taylorâs âYouâre all over me like a wine-stained dress I canât wear anymoreâ
âThe summertime and the butterflies all belong to your creationâ to Taylorâs âWhen the flowers that weâd grown together died of thirst, when the butterflies turned to dust that covered my whole room.â
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My short ââŚReady For It?â lyric analysis and how itâs definitely about Harry:
The line about the girls he had loved and left fits her description of him in the 1989 vault songs, especially âIs It Over Now?â with the models and Taylor clones he has been sleeping with.
The haunted and ghost line?!?! That is a 1989 staple line, on reddit I saw someone making a whole ass data sheet about the amount of times she says ghosts-related terms in all of the albums and 1989 had the highest ratio/percentage compared to the rest. Also, Harryâs âTwo Ghostsâ?!?!?
Ghosts = haylor.
âSome boys trying to hard, he donât try at allâ = similar to lyrics in âSlutâ, âIn a world of boys, heâs a gentlemanâ.
âYounger than all my exes but is such a manâ = Harry is her youngest ex (letâs pretend she forgot about Conor Kennedy and it wasnât a true ex anyway). Joe is older than Harry. Checkmate.
Wildest dreams tea, also I had this theory that they secretly went to an island in 2016, when they still had their situationship going on.
Idk about that robber and heist line but itâs definitely not about Joe lol. Sounds like sheâs painting herself as a criminal and him gladly joining along. Like⌠eloping. Or running away from a crime.
Burton and Taylor is about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, known for their on-off intense relationship that spanned years. Is she talking about Joe, who she only knew at best for 6 months? (album was released Nov 2017 but she only got with Joe in Sept 2016 and she probably wrote the song earlier). OFC NOT.
The themes in this song does not match all the Joe-confirmed songs about him later too. We can only surmise, sheâs singing about another dude.
âEvery love Iâve known in comparison is a failure, I forget their names nowâ - Taylorâs being annoying and hyperbolic when she wrote this (donât take her seriously) but yeah thatâs why you are still writing about Harry in 2022 with Question..? and Maroon. Also Iâm pretty sure she forgot about Conor, Calvin, Tom Hiddleston, and most of the dudes she dated before Harry.
Games = their on-off situationship. I said what I said.
There it is, my 5 minute song lyric analysis. Hope yâall are enlightened.
âSwift often sings of alienation and yearning. She has an unusual number of songs about being left behind. Not by the cultureâthough I think she worries about that, tooâbut by someone she cared about who couldnât countenance the immensity of her life. In her world, love is conditional and frequently temporary. (âYou could call me âbabeâ for the weekend,â she sings on ââtis the damn season,â a line Iâve always found profoundly sad.) On the chorus of âThe Archer,â she sings, âWho could ever leave me, darling? / But who could stay?â Toward the end of the song, she adds a more hopeful line: âYou could stay.âAs she sang that âyouâ on Saturday, she raised an arm and pointed directly to the audience. Swift has written many songs that describe her devotion as a punishment to be endured. âI love you, ainât that the worst thing you ever heard?â she bellows on âCruel Summer.â She believes that the force of her affection will push people away. But her fans have remained. They have buoyed her; in turn, she has given them everything.â
â The New Yorker on the Eras Tour (x)