mom, i am a rich man

i’ve seen a few people make fun of the “and you were tossing me the car keys, ‘fuck the patriarchy’ keychain on the ground” lyric, but i actually think its a really interesting and deep lyric, and it comments a lot on the persona of taylor’s partner in this song. he puts up this pretence as the feminist guy who respects women, but we learn from the rest of all too well, and other songs on the album, that he has manipulative and disrespectful tendencies towards women: he dehumanises taylor into some trophy to reflect better onto him (all too well, ten minute version), ignores her needs and emotions and makes her feel ‘needy’ (all too well, ten minute version), the likelihood is that he also cheated on her (babe), and he lied to her as well (the moment i knew, all too well, ten minute version), not to mention the whole thing with younger women (“i’ll get older but your lovers stay my age”, all too well, ten minute version). the keychain being on the ground is pretty significant too — he dropped his façade and revealed who he truly was to taylor, and it led to the destruction of their relationship. idk i think its a pretty loaded lyric, actually.

no bc the “fuck the patriarchy keychain” line is so genius bc its always the men who advertise their wokeness that end up treating the women in their lives the worst in my expirence. like they think by doing the bare minimum or going to one protest that its then okay to turn around with their superiority complex and emotional berate the woman close to them. it just proves once again that straight white men often times use women’s rights as tool to prevent getting called out for their shit and protect themselves instead of actually caring.

The fact is that every gaslighter ever says "you're misremembering things" or "you remember things that never happened" or "you remember things wrong." Now that we saw the ATW short film and know that, yes, the J/T relationship involves a lot of gaslighting, the phrase "I remember it all too well" hits SUPER hard in a place that I didn't even know I could be sucker-punched. I'm in awe. Mad respect for you Taylor. Thanks for showing us what the song was really about 10 years later.