infinince

a cactus:

“One of the gentler moments of the film is Swift’s performance of “All Too Well,” from the album “Red,” from 2012. The song was never a proper single, yet it’s one of Swift’s most beloved ballads, and she plays it solo, on an acoustic guitar. The song is about being haunted by memories of a bungled love, maybe for a little longer than you should be. “I know it’s long gone / And that magic’s not here no more/ And I might be O.K. / But I’m not fine at all,” she admits—so go the scars of love. What’s most striking about “All Too Well” is how Swift validates and reaffirms her experience; when a complicated relationship ends, it’s easy to feel bewildered and betrayed, unsure of everything that happened prior to the moment of collapse. Were you swindled? Or, worse, did you somehow invent the whole thing? Swift’s repeated assertion—“I was there”—begins to feel like a kind of corrective to whatever unkind maneuvering her ex (in this case, the actor Jake Gyllenhaal, according to Swift lore) was up to. Though later in her career she would become more brash about broadcasting her own empowerment, “All Too Well” might be Swift’s most quietly feminist moment. ”