We're all mad here

the thing is that this easter egg is so fucking obvious if you're even remotely familiar with anything taylor-related, but saying to a normal person "yeah no taylor swift is about to announce a new album and we know that because she just posted 12 pics of her wearing orange on instagram" makes you look. well. in need of medical attention to be honest

someone said taylor swift treats the grammys like an office christmas party and I've never seen a more accurate description.

I know this is pointing out the obvious but goodness gracious the contrast between Taylor at the ihearts last year (exhausted/devastated/sore/not wanting to be perceived at all) vs. this year (glowing/smiling/tan etc) is just a brilliant reminder that the worst parts of our lives will eventually pass and we will know joy again even if only softly at first. Our broken hearts will mend and we will meet new people that make us feel alive and show us what we wanted was never too much. there will be new memories and chapters and you won’t be just sad now until the end of time. turns out the pain really wouldn’t be forevermore

its just soooooo interesting to watch how, with every new project, her entire discography is recontextualized and seen in a new light not just by her fans but by HER too. different pieces of art are going to mean something different to you at different stages of your life, and its just really cool to see that is true for the artist herself as well. it doesnt discount what a song meant or what it was about when it was written: it can both transport you back to how you felt at the time AND give you clarity on how you ended up where you currently are and the challenges you were blind to then that seem obvious in hindsight. both can be, and are, true and completely valid. its just endlessly intriguing to watch her be in constant conversation with her younger selves, and by virtue of having grown up with her, doing so myself.

the “i’m so in love that i might stop breathing” to “as she was leaving it felt like breathing” pipeline 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

the beauty of this album is that it really fully encapsulates what it’s like going from the devastating loss of a long term relationship, to the rebound you think is gonna fix it all, only to ultimately realize that you were using the latter to process your feelings about the former. the songs are so muddled, and the lyrics are relevant to both muses because her feelings were muddled and she had no idea where to put them or what to do with them. the rebound promised her everything she couldn’t get from the ex-love and she fell for it because she was so desperate to be really seen.

‘and sometimes it gets me when crossing your jet stream, we both did the best we could do underneath the same moon in different galaxies’ is so fucking devastating bc not only does it allude to call it what you want, but also all of the references across her work implying that what they had was fate, sent to her by the universe, divine intervention. all the imagery of ‘starry eyes sparkling up my darkest night’ and ‘once upon a time the planets and the fates and all the stars aligned’ and ‘he’s passing by rare as the glimmer of a comet in the sky’ come crashing down into the reality that they were always just outside of each other’s orbit