Libby

Taylor Swift is always in her director era! 🎬

So the story started on Taylor’s 24th birthday: December 13, 2013. Harry tweeted this:

These are lyrics from Ryan Adams’ song My Winding Wheel. It’s important to note that Ryan Adams is one of Taylor’s favorite musicians, and by December 13, 2013, she had already even collaborated with him on an unreleased song.

Here are the complete lyrics:

Well nighttime let her throughYeah I’m talking to youI want to see herPrecious little thing

With eyes that dance around without their clothesSo buy a pretty dressWear it out tonightFor anyone you think could out do me

Or better still be my winding wheelCause I feel just like a mapWithout a single place to go of interestAnd I’m further north than south

If I could shut my mouth she’d probably like thisSo buy a pretty dressAnd wear it out tonightFor all the boys you think could out do meOr better still be my winding wheel

Be my winding wheelWell the children laugh and sing a song that ushers in her driving rain

And I’m standing in the station like some old record waiting on a trainSo buy a pretty dressWear it out tonightFor anyone you think could out do meOr better still be my winding wheel

Be my winding wheel

And here is a live performance:

Ryan Adams said that he used the metaphor of a winding wheel to describe the “ultimate soulmate”.

I change my mind occasionally about the meaning of the lyrics that dare her to go out and find someone better than him. Is the bravado stemming from a real fear that they will come and go from each others’ lives even though they are soulmates? Or is he being purely playful because he knows that they are soulmates and she will never leave him?

Fast forwarding over a year, and My Winding Wheel appeared again when Harry posted this on Instagram in February 2015, following the Brit Awards (when the first pictures of Calvin and Taylor were taken and the romance rumors started):