I Really Think That They Still Had Something Going On In Early 2015, But It Stopped Just Before The Calcium

The Lakes

The lakes is about escaping the challenging aspects of Taylor Swift's life with her muse to form an artist community like Wordsworth and Keats had in the Lakes district in the 19th century.

Above, the Lyric video shows wildflowers, LK has referenced this song and Harry also has for a Pleasing campaign. In the vertical video Taylor is on a swing, reminiscent of the swing in Seven, possibly about Harry. Finally a photo with a swan in The Lakes District.

In the Long Pond Session Taylor said (I've shortened it)

'The Lakes is a testament of what I wanted to escape from and where I saw myself escaping to. We'd gone to the Lake District in England a couple years ago. In the 19th century you had a lot of poets like William Wordsworth and John Keats. There was a poet district. They had their own community of other artists, which I've always in my career.' Jack: 'it's not just I've found something worth escaping to it’s a person to escape with.” Taylor agreed "That's a huge sincere statement of hope, everything I'm naming is completely small compared to this love.” “Hoax as the ending song was interesting for a couple weeks but then I wanted the real last song. The Lakes shows you exactly what the overarching theme of the whole album of trying to escape and having something you want to protect, protect your own sanity and saying look they did this hundreds of years ago, I'm not the first person who's felt this way.

Taylor said they had gone to the lakes "a couple of years ago", and she described a poet district with an artist community, meaning fellow songwriters. She had been to the Lakes with a couple of years ago with on her first trip there with Harry Styles on her birthday in 2012. At the time Taylor said it was her best birthday since she was 6. Like Taylor, Harry has a similar experience of fame and is a lyricist. Harry has also sung about being in an artist community with Taylor, in Canyon Moon, which has a very similar idea as The Lakes.

I have seen people refer to the Invisible String Lyric "Our three-year trip / Getting lunch down by the Lakes" to point to Joe. While not photographed, their 3rd anniversary was October 2019, or 6 months before this song was recorded. 'A couple of years ago' rather than 'last year' implies the earlier trip. Joe is also not a lyricist, she spoke about an artist community. He is credited as a producer on Folklore. Taylor described how William Bowery wrote the melody's not lyrics.

Lyrics

Is it romantic how all my elegies eulogize me? I'm not cut out for all these cynical clones These hunters with cell phones

An elegie is the speech at a funeral, her songs, particularly those she is reclaiming are like diary. She lost her eulogie, the story of her life.

The last line refers back to 'I Know Places' "They are the hunters, we are the foxes" where she and Harry ran from paparazzi, now they hide from every person with a cell phone.

Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die I don't belong, and my beloved, neither do you Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry I'm setting off, but not without my muse

Taylor is saying she is not cut out for the music industry life, she lost the rights to her diary, constantly photographed. In the Long Pond she referred to having this plan for years, which she foreshadowed for Lover, and I think Harry's Peace ring. I think they may have shared this plan when they first visited for when she turned 30 and into 2020. Folklore is about communication and how life differs to what a 23 year old planned.

The final line is so lovely, her muse is Harry Styles. No other partner has inspired so much work or so much success, they have inspired and encouraged each other to do their best work. Even when they are with others for years they still write about each other. When they see each other they are prolific. Harry has even sung about how he writes too much about her. I could list what proportion of awards and hits are about this relationship, but let's stay in the Windermere peaks.

Despite their success Taylor does not think they are cut out for this life. Taylor has sung about Harry's anxiety in New Years Day and Now that we don't talk, it's also apparent watching him at award shows in his solo career. This song and many (Mirrorball, I know places, Slut!, You're on your own kid) are about how fame impacted Taylor.

What should be over burrowed under my skin In heart-stopping waves of hurt I've come too far to watch some namedropping sleaze Tell me what are my words worth

The first line I think could have 2 meanings, one that the relationship should be over but it is not and the waves are hurt of not being together. Or, and I think this because of the second half, Taylor cannot let her masters go. The last line is a pun on the worth of her words and the poet William Wordsworth.

I want auroras and sad prose I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet 'Cause I haven't moved in years And I want you right here A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground With no one around to tweet it While I bathe in cliffside pools With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief

I want auroras and sad prose, refers to Harry Styles. She describes his eyes as “aurora borealis green” in Snow on the Beach. She also describes him as sad boy in Question..?, he does write sad prose.

In the Long Pond Session Taylor said "I could see this you know you you live in a cottage and you've got Wisteria growing up the outside of it and you just why you know of course they escaped like that." William Wordsworths cottage (below) has wisteria growing on the side, which is a slow growing purple plant, almost a lavender haze!

I love the imagery of 'Red rose grew out of rose in frozen ground', because it refers to Rose, which is a Haylor theme. But also because it refers to the track before Hoax: "My winless fight, this has frozen my ground" It also refers to a theme of hiding their love, "I would die for you secret" in Peace, that something beautiful and no one needs to know about it.

The last lines are so poetic and dramatic I love them. Calamitous love refers to a love that’s “built to fall apart (and back together)” in OOTW or "a crooked love in a straight line down” in IWYW. Taylor used a similar word discussing SOTB, calling it cataclysmic love. Taylor describes her dramatic and passionate relationship with Harry rather than staide and safe one described with Joe.

Her insurmountable grief is all she’s lost, her masters, the things she gave up in your own your own kid and things she has to pine about.

Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die I don't belong, and my beloved, neither do you Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry I'm setting off, but not without my muse No, not without you

Love this chorus, such beautiful poetry about poets and love.

Their whole timeline this year is confusing. TR came into the picture end of June and TK end of July/beginning of Aug (around the time TS/HS seemed to be having issues?). It's also suspected HS/TS could've met up or had something sometime in the Summer. Before that the MH thing was crazy too.

Oh it's all very organic.

Backstage at the Capital Fm Jingle Bell Ball 8 December in London. (link) Capital Fm article. In the interview before the show the band is asked Cats or Dogs, Harry says love the cats with a proud look to someone off screen.

You can see Taylor on the side during One Thing (0:51). She left before WMYB, Harry was looking for where she went throughout.

Columbus, 8/18

reddit. com/r/TaylorSwift/comments/16igrdk/fall_out_boys_pete_wentz_on_taylor_swift_really/

"Taylor is the only artist that I’ve met or interacted with in recent times who creates exactly the art of who she is, but does it on such a mass level. So that’s breathtaking to watch from the sidelines. The way people traded bracelets, I don’t know what the beginning of it was, but you felt that everywhere. We felt that, I saw that in the crowd on our tour. I don’t know Taylor well, but I think she’s doing exactly what she wants and creating exactly the art that she wants to create. And doing that, on such a level, is really awe-inspiring to watch. It makes you want to make the biggest, weirdest version of our thing and put that out there.”

!!!

i truly do think that this is why her music speaks to her audience in the way that it does, because it's so authentically her. taylor's personality, vulnerability, emotions, perspective are all very alive in her writing and that touches people. this is interesting because i'd say that pete's writing has always been a raw, expressive reflection of himself too - and that inspired taylor, after all! - but it can be harder to see that in yourself or to recognize that genuineness when you feel more like you're pulling yourself apart. there's very much an energy that resonates in both of their work, and even though they don't personally know each other that well, the mutual professional respect and admiration is such a cool thing to see. it must be so wild and fulfilling to her to now be an inspiration to the very artists she herself found that in when she was starting out

Not justifying the dickhead guy in the slightest but this is also why calcium hated harry so much!!!! He knew about their hookups and was probably aware how much she loved harry. Also wondering if she threw herself in that relationship because that would mean she won't go backto h

oh yeah I know why calvin hated harry. and i do fully believe that a part of tayvin's publicness was aimed at harry. harry was SUPPOSED to be hurt at the bbmas. that's why she mentions it in question... cause she was trying to hurt him. showing up your ex who you have unfinished business with is a thing and taylor was playing the game. and yeah i think a part of it was to tell herself not to go back and a part of it was to tell harry it was over.

tayvin started about haylor, there is kind of no doubt in my mind. and that's why calvin hated harry so much... cause he knew that he was a tool, a means to an end. but then it got to the point where harry was no longer a threat and he had won and he was just being a dick. like blocking fans with harry icons or going through the haylor hashtag on twitter (or unfollowing people here, which i still think he was responsible for) was just being a dick. harry wasn't going to win taylor back at that point, and those fans were not pushing her to him. he was just throwing power around.

This is something I wondered for awhile. Do you think taylor would have taken harry back pre-joe if he fought hard enough? In all of 1989 he is the one who makes the move but she takes him back almost immediately no matter how many times she says no. This is present in HYGTG("I dont want you to go) and IWYW(that entire song). She also implies he knows how to get under her skin("you always knew how to push my buttons") and it is later proved in style when she chooses him over her rational self(" I should just tell you to leave cuz I know exactly where it leads but I watch us go round and round each time"). In question Taylor asks whether he wishes he put up more of a fight(a similar sentiment "if you wanted me you really should have showed" is in 'the 1' but that still feels like a speculation). In HS1 he explicitly says he wants her to apologise and therefore he wasn't making any moves this time( I also saw someone saying him constantly apologising probably made him powerless). I know he wrote songs but that isn't as same as fighting for them. We also know she was putting up with CH and really wanted to leave him. Plus considering how he was still threatened by H I think even some part of him probably suspected it. So do you think they had any shot pre joe if h fought?

this is really impossible to gauge without feeling like projection because we don't know what taylor's life would've looked like had joe not been there, and personally i think he really was meant to be there for her at that precise moment in time, when everything was falling apart, when she was in a such a fragile and dark place. some people don't like to hear this, but she clearly believes he saved her life. she's expressed that in lyrics repeatedly at this point - it doesn't diminish her strength or what she did for herself to recover and forge a path ahead, but the fact that she didn't have to do that alone, or bear everything alone, is monumental, and her life has completely changed, shifted, and blossomed around that. none of that would've been possible with harry, and it has nothing to do with who harry is as a person, and everything to do with both of their careers and their high pressure positions. he couldn't have grounded her and given her the sense of stability and normalcy that joe did. it puts us into a bit of an AU what-if, because there was overlap with ch, and because we'd have to presume things like snakegate didn't happen (which! i wish it hadn't for every possible reason). if he'd been willing to fight at a time when she was desperately trying to find her way OUT from how bad things got with ch, she might've been tempted to grab hold of him as a lifeline (which would've been understandable), but i worry it still would've been a getaway car situation where they both got extremely hurt because she was not in a good place, and harry at that point wouldn't have been equipped to give her the support she needed. and you're right that writing songs isn't the same as fighting for someone or reaching out, it's an artistic catharsis, but not a direct one - which is why he called it unspoken dialogue, because it was expressed, but not between them, rather through their music. i'm not sure i'd necessarily call the songs or the apologies powerless, but there is a causal distance. i do think they had a real connection and love for one another, and some unique understandings of each other because of their fame at young ages, their fast rises, and their connection to their music/songwriting too, there's a certain symmetry between them. actually this makes me think of something that was in daisy jones: "it's easy to confuse a soulmate with a mirror." they shared such potent mirrors with one another. in a different world, maybe that could've become a twin flame, but that's not how it was supposed to play out for them. i truly don't know if there was a chance for them in there at any point, if anything in their lives could've been less hectic. if they had reunited, the crash down might've been worse the next time - and having already experienced the paradise, the colors, and the pain of the burning flames, it probably would've made them cautious to reignite it, so they healed and moved forward. the one thing i do hope is that they have some measure of a friendship (and from their very warm interactions, i don't think it's far-fetched to believe they do), and i'd rather them find their way to that than have been caught in an acrimonious split. taylor found the person whose hand she was meant to hold (and i hope someday harry does too!).

Beautiful ‘Red’ Album Things:

The guitar slide right before the chorus of State of Grace where the sound amps up and how it all resembles the described relationship which starts out beautiful and then suddenly falls apart and explodes in heartbreak

The background vocals singing “uh oh” in State of Grace to symbolize how the seemingly beautiful relationship is heading for compete disaster

Taylor repeating the second verse of State of Grace as a background vocal right before the song ends 

Ending the first song with “love is a ruthless game unless you play it good and right” as a warning of things to come

How the mini guitar solo in “Red” almost sounds like someone in hysterics

The gradual build up of instrumentals and vocals throughout Treacherous that works off the metaphor of the relationship being a dangerous slope/path to travel, as if the further in the song she gets, the steeper the path becomes and more she has to exert to keep going

The build up of the beat right before the bass drops in IKYWT just like how the relationship suddenly exploded

How the beat and instrumentals stop in IKYWT when she screames “Hey!” right before the chorus like a sudden realization that she’s all alone or it’s all her fault

How the pre-choruses and choruses in IKYWT get more beat and vocals as the song goes on and as she becomes more helpless and angry

All Too Well

“Maple Lattes”

How the “hey!” and “it feels like one of those nights” in 22 have a lot of vocal layers to give the feeling of a big group of friends yelling

“Who’s Taylor Swift anyway? Ew!”

How no other vocals but Taylor’s are present in I Almost Do, which is also shown in the song credits in the album booklet

The background vocal at the end of chorus of I Almost Do sounding like a ghost or a fading voice, which echoes how she is haunted by the relationship but can’t quite get herself to go back to it

The entire fact that WANEGBT is a pop song because the person it’s about looked down upon pop music 

“With some indie record that’s much cooler than mine”

The sound of a record being suddenly stopped on a record player at the end of the bridge and how that relates to the last bullet point

“That’s so fun” at the end of Stay Stay Stay

How Taylor puts extra syllables in the rhythm at “now you carry my groceries and I”m always laughing” in Stay Stay Stay which resembles how the relationship goes beyond her expectations

How she put The Last Time right after Stay Stay Stay 

The two point of views in The Last Time

The difference in urgency and volume and emotion between Gary Lightbody’s and Taylor’s voices to signify the dynamics of the relationship and break up

How Taylor’s voice lasts a little bit longer than Gary’s at the end of The Last Time to show how she was holding on longer

How the Last Time builds up and then suddenly drops everything but their vocals and one chord on a piano to convey the loss

How the background vocals of Holy Ground sound like they’re saying “hooray” even though Taylor has said they’re just ‘sounds of joy’

The urgency of Holy Ground like a memory that comes out of nowhere and fills you with a burst of happiness

How the main guitar line throughout Sad Beautiful Tragic carries the same rhythm as a train on a track and then “I stood right by the tracks and “this train runs off it’s track” and the secret message ”while you were on a train”

How, following that, the secondary guitar line pops in and out whenever she sings important lines like the memories coming back to her

The Lucky One/how it’s track 13/”wouldn’t you like to know”/ “hell”

The fact that The Lucky One was recorded in LA and Taylor never toured to Madison Square with Red or 1989 and then admitted to making us believe TS5 was going to be about roses with pics of her rose garden, like that’s some next level shit

“Good to go?”/Ed Sheeran

How Everything Has Changed sounds like an Ed Sheeran song with Taylor Swift lyrics

How the bridge of Everything Has Changed drops everything but Ed’s guitar and Taylor’s voice to give the feeling of intimacy but then explodes with full instrumentals and more vocals like a sudden burst of joy when the love interest shows up

The change to 1940′s vocabulary in Starlight to tell the story from Ethel’s point of view

The guitar at the beginning of Starlight sounding like stars glistening and then that being echoed in the background by the piano in the chorus

The calmness and softness of Begin Again after the wild ride you just went through

REFERENCING THE MAN/MUSICAL LEGEND/NOW FRIEND SHE WAS NAMED AFTER IN BEGIN AGAIN WHO SHE THEN BEATS FOR A GRAMMY 4 YEARS LATER

“But I do” 

“I wear heels now”

How the album takes you through the entire deconstruction of a relationship but brings it full circle with a new love interest at the end and an echoing of hope and begins with an explosive pop rock song about wild love and ends with a gentle country song about easy, childlike love

The deconstruction of the idea of “fate” throughout the ‘story’ of the album and how it leaves you with the message that true love happens but it’s up to you to make it work and to play love “good and right” and that love should be easy and built on a solid foundation

Every lyric on this album

The Grammys fucked up

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?

One of my fave bits in Question…? Was how she called them a meteor strike. It was a before and after moment in their lives.

It’s a deep thing when a person does that to you, because life moves on, you move on and yet there are these moments when one little thing takes you back and you reminisce and you wonder..

I always find it interesting that after 1989 when songs were no longer about Harry there were songs that made me think of him so strongly even if they were about someone else… because the way she describe the spark or the heartbreak was one that had a taste of Harry and their story. I always thought that was just me being a Harrie but now… i guess some feelings hit you so strongly that they change you…and color how you see the world after.

And she said it all in Question a year ago. It ended up being one of her more telling songs… 10 years in the making

Meteor strike indeed