Honorable Mentions:

Taylor started her countdown to this chapter release from the day that she announced the two bonus tracks being released digitally 1/8/21. Meaning this chapter came out 13 days after the bonus tracks.

For folklore she released the lakes digitally and then released 3 of the chapters 3 days after the previous. Meaning: the lakes digital release <3days> the escapism chapter <3days> the sleepless nights chapter <3days> the salt box house chapter. She then released the final chapter the yeah i showed up at your party chapter 26 days after the third chapter. Then 26 days after that she did the signed copies of folklore in local record stores rollout. 2+6=8

I dk if she’s going to follow the same theme this time around and release a new chapter every three days but we’ll see. I will note that the Grammys are 53 days away from today on 3/14. If taylor wanted to keep up the buzz and stay within her numerological 13 vibes she has room to release something 4 more times. Meaning 13 days from today then 13 days after that so on and so forth.

🤯

Rebekah Harkness- we all know her from folklore album.

I've just read that she sponsored The Joffrey Ballet...👀

Marry her, Taylor

so this sweater has been ID’d as Band Of Outsiders, Pre-fall 2014. naturally, i did the google 🥴

🥴 so it seems karlie has a bit of a connection to the brand, as the place that did her cookie collab also collabed with them. she also wore a dress from the brand to the 2014 CFDA awards.

just kinda interesting to think, you know, taylor chose to—for the cover of Wildest Dreams Taylor’s Version—wear a sweater from a collection of a brand that karlie was in and around, in and around the same time 🥴💕

august - taylor swift//wuthering heights - emily bronte// gone girl - gillian flynn//dancing in odessa; "musica humana" - ilya kaminsky// felicity; "the pond" - mary oliver// sunkissed - khai dreams// the unabridged journals of sylvia plath - sylvia plath// sue monk kidd// august moon - gregory and the hawk

y’all really weren’t listening when taylor said so i wander through these nights, i prefer hiding in plain sight, my fourth drink in my hand these desperate prayers of a cursed man, spilling out to you for free, but darling, darling, please, you wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking, if you knew where i was walking, to a house, not a home, all alone 'cause nobody's there, where i pace in my pen and my friends found friends who care, no one sees when you lose when you're playing solitaire.

Tea Time! There's something in the bridge of Coney ISLAnd you all are missing!

🍵

Coney Island 🎤

“New Romantics” is the queer anthem we need right now.

One of Taylor’s best songs ever is also one of her gayest: “New Romantics” employs some of her most brilliant lyrical tricks to construct a narrative that’s clever, moving, and, for lack of a better phrase, hella hella gay. First, let’s talk about the structure of the lyrics: The verses all end in couplets (ABABCC rhyme structure as opposed to the pre-chorus and chorus, which are both ABAB) – in poetry, you use a couplet to draw attention to something, to emphasize a point. Let’s see what she has to say: We’re all bored We’re all so tired of everything We wait for Trains that just aren’t coming

When Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone named this the second best song of 2014, he called boredom “the least Tay of emotions.” But if this is a song about breaking the cycle of bearding – as Taylor did in 2014 – this verse sets up the dreary monotony of being in the closet, pretending to be someone you’re not. She brings the point home in the couplet:

We show off our different scarlet letters Trust me, mine is better

What’s Tay’s scarlet letter? Her love ‘em and leave ‘em inability to keep a man? No – that’s the character she parodies in “Blank Space.” This song is about her real scarlet letter, the one we don’t know about: her queerness and all the lies that come with it. Let’s skip ahead to the third verse to see why:

We’re all here The lights and boys are blinding We hang back It’s all in the timing

Something is already off here: The rhyme structure is broken. Instead of the perfect ABABCC of every other verse, verse 3 gives us ABCBDD. This could just be sloppy writing, but that’s not Taylor – this verse is meant to undermine our sense of stability in the song, to prick up our ears. This works in the context of the lyrics – Taylor being blinded by the boys and lights (presumably media attention/camera flashes?) – but it also serves to make us pay close attention to her next couplet:

It’s poker, he can’t see it in my face But I’m about to play my Ace

What’s her Ace? Her scarlet letter, of course – her bright red A, the Ace of Hearts. And she’s about to tell us exactly what it is:

We need love But all we want is danger We team up Then switch sides like a record changer

“We need love, but all we want is danger” can read like she wants danger instead of love, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. What if we read the line like this instead: “We need love, but everything we want is dangerous.” That fits thematically with Taylor’s other work in songs like “Treacherous” and “Style,” and it also makes sense in the context of the next line. What exactly does it mean to “switch sides like record changer”? What even is a record changer? There’s a vague allusion to turning over a record on a turntable here, but Taylor is making up words because she’s telling us something else: that she’s teaming up with someone to change the record about her dangerous love life. And “record” here is a triple meaning – it also alludes to the songs on this record, which can literally change sides as you flip the LP over, but can also change sides in terms of who she’s singing about depending on whether you know the truth about her scarlet letter, her Ace.

The rumors are terrible and cruel, But honey, most of them are true

Taylor punctuates this verse with a wink to those of us who’ve heard the rumors about her: She’s heard them too, and she wants to tell us they’re true. 

This brings us to the second pre-chorus and chorus, and to the essential question of the song: Who is “we”? Is this a platonic song about Taylor and her girlfriends (and, by extension, single people everywhere), or is this a romantic song about Taylor and her girlfriend (and, by extension, queer people everywhere)? 

Baby, we’re the new romantics Come on, come along with me Heartbreak is the national anthem We sing it proudly We are too busy dancing To get knocked off our feet Baby, we’re the new romantics The best people in life are free

We’re too busy going out with our friends to fall in love, we sing proudly about our heartbreaks, the best people in life are single. Yep, that works! But it ignores the broader context of the song – let’s take a look at the bridge, where everything slows down a LOT (again, Taylor is telling us to pay attention):

Please take my hand and Please take me dancing and Please leave me stranded It’s so romantic

The rhyme structure here (AAAA with lots of word repetition and proximate rhyme, a trick often used by noted lesbian Emily Dickinson) is like a big flashing sign: HEY, THIS IS WHAT THE SONG IS ABOUT. And it doesn’t sound platonic at all – it sounds like dancing with your girlfriend in public, only to have her leave you alone lest she confirm those terribly cruel rumors. (This bridge is also a prelude to “Dancing With Our Hands Tied” as surely as “Every day is like a battle, but every night with us is like a dream” is a prelude to “…Ready for it?”.)

The song is called “New Romantics.” She’s telling us, as clearly as she can, that this is a song about romance. Taylor has taken all the bricks people have thrown at her – at this point, still largely about how boy-crazy she is – and built a castle where she can be free with her girlfriend. Read this way, we can see a new meaning for the first verse of “Call It What You Want”:

My castle crumbled overnight I brought a knife to a gunfight They took the crown but it’s all right

This verse reads like it’s about the Kimye controversy, but I think it’s also about kissgate. Taylor built a glass castle of safety for herself and Karlie, and when it collapsed, her crown (i.e. the king of her heart) was taken from her. They had to go back into hiding (“nobody’s heard from me for months”), but they found a deeper, truer love all on their own.

“New Romantics” is one of Taylor’s best songs ever – not just because the melody is amazing and the lyrics are killer, but because it takes the language of heartbreak and turns it into an anthem of strength for Taylor and for every queer person who has ever had to hide who we are. She opens 1989 by telling us we can want who we want, and she closes it by telling us the same thing: The best people in life are free. 

the subtle and not so subtle gayness of folklore

the 1

You know the greatest films of all time were never made

And if my wishes came true, it would’ve been you

You meet some woman on the internet and take her home

It would’ve been fun if you would’ve been the one

cardigan

Chase two girls, lose the one

I knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss

I knew you’d come back to me

seven

THIS FULL SONG

And though I can’t recall your face, I still got love for you, your braids like a pattern

And I think you should come live with me, and we can be pirates, then you won't have to cry, or hide in the closet

And though I can't recall your face, I still got love for you, pack your dolls and a sweater

august

And I can see us twisted in bedsheets, August sipped away like a bottle of wine, 'cause you were never mine

I remember thinking I had you

illicit affairs

Leave the perfume on the shelf that you picked out just for him, so you leave no trace behind

You showed me colors you know I can't see with anyone else

You taught me a secret language I can't speak with anyone else

betty

THE ENTIRE SONG JUST GO LISTEN

Betty, I won't make assumptions about why you switched your homeroom, but I think it's 'cause of me

Betty, one time I was riding on my skateboard when I passed your house. It's like I couldn't breathe

Would you have me? Would you want me? ... Or lead me to the garden? In the garden, would you trust me?

Slept next to her, but I dreamt of you all summer long

Will you have me? Will you love me? Will you kiss me on the porch

peace

All these people think love’s for show, but I would die for you in secret. The devil’s in the details but you’ve got a friend in me

family that I chose

I’d give you my sunshine, give you my best

Did you ever realize how in the Lover video Taylor 'lassoed' her lover like a cowboy would do? And then how Karlie posted on IG 6/25/19 "My Cowboy" (wyoming stunt that had a bunch of rich business people there, not friends), and then the Lover video came out on 9/22/19 so Taylor was nodding to that? How Karlie's a cowboy like her, conning all the rich folks? I swear to god these women! They've got some tricks up their sleeve, takes one to know one! Bandits riding away into the sunset.

😳 Remember on the Wyoming trip when Derek posted that video of Katy singing ‘one of these things is not like the other’ in a country voice and then panning to Karlie on a horse? Then the YNTCD video with Katy and Taylor coming out days prior on June 17th?