my-wildflwr

[my-wildflwr]

i’m just getting color back into my face i’m just mad as hell cause i loved this place for so long (london)

#oh the tragedy… #x

[my-wildflwr]

saying chloe et al for chloe or sam or sophia or marcus is insane and i love it. i will be saying that

#x

[my-wildflwr]

saying chloe et al for chloe or sam or sophia or marcus is insane and i love it. i will be saying that

#x

[my-wildflwr]

how much sad did you think i had?

#OH THE TRAGEDY #x

[my-wildflwr]

[my-wildflwr]

i’m just getting color back into my face….

#x

[my-wildflwr]

“you shit-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles, i wish i could unrecall, how we almost had it all” (loml) // “and you know that i’d swing with you for the fences, sit with you in the trenches, give you my wild, give you a child” and “are they second-hand embarrassed, that i can’t get out of bed because something counterfeit's dead?” (loml) // “nights are so starry, blood moonlit, it must be counterfeit, i think there's been a glitch”

the way she was convinced that it was a glitch and that it must be fake because how could it be true? how could this person light up my days and promise me the world and marriage and kids? but it is is true, and i’d do anything for him! he’s the love of my life! but oh wait… it was indeed counterfeit and it’s the loss of my life… believing in something truly and fully even though you didn’t want to, but you were convinced, and then seeing it be shattered right in front of your eyes

[my-wildflwr]

starting a song with “hand on the throttle, thought i caught lightning in a bottle, oh but it was gone again. and it was written, i got cursed like eve got bitten” is fucking insane btw.

#oh… was it punishment?

[my-wildflwr]

yuh

#yuh #x

[my-wildflwr]

COME ONE COME ALL ITS HAPPENING AGAIN

#the most heartbreaking lyric if you ask me #x

[my-wildflwr]

guess who we ran into at the shops walking in circles like she was lost didn’t you hear they called it all off *gasp* how did it end!?

#we hereby conduct this post morten #x

[my-wildflwr]

post nut clarity does not properly convey the gravity of the pre nut insanity. like truly.

[my-wildflwr]

so they killed cassandra first btw. she feared the worst

#x

[my-wildflwr]

i need to dramatically sing/scream the bridge of the smallest man who ever lived

#were you writing a BOOK were you a SLEEPER CELL SPY #x

[my-wildflwr]

YOU CRASHED NY PARTY AND YOUR RENTAL CAR

#x

[my-wildflwr]

religion is one of the most prominent recurring themes on the album, and it has been present in some capacity for quite a few records now. taylor previously compared love to religion: her saving grace, her belief system, and a fated divine intervention (false god, cornelia street, and cruel summer are the best examples of this). ‘sacred new beginnings that became my religion’ and ‘we’d still worship this love even if it’s a false god’ are two of the defining statements about her philosophy on the lover album.

taylor doesn’t want to leave all of that behind on ttpd, at least not at the beginning. the first supernatural force she mentions is the spaceship on down bad, which she compares to a skylight of freedom in the epilogue. *something* has finally come to save her from her life of suffering. she doesn’t care if it’s a force of good at first; if anything, she’s just fine being taken away by aliens. she views this man as her destiny. it isn’t until guilty as sin? that taylor starts to ponder the moral implications of what she’s doing. is she guilty as sin for wanting to leave her previous religion and relationship behind? she comes to the conclusion that, even if she rolls the stone away and gets resurrected/redeemed, she cannot avoid the fallout. she is okay with the thought of having to wait, as long as both lovers vow to be together forever, just as she once did with someone else in false god. ‘I choose you and me religiously’ finishes the bridge of the song in a direct callback to cornelia street.

the next mention of religion has murkier imagery. she claims that she does not need the Lord’s help to save this man. she sees the halo that he has, and she can fix him herself. now that she feels free of her prior cage, she isn’t looking for divine intervention anymore. she wants control. she is their route to salvation.

when the relationship falls apart, she retreats back into the position of a believer rather than a divine figure. she compares him to a Holy Ghost who promised to save her and take her to heaven. instead, she is in hell in every sense of the word: she’s down bad and feels guilty for digging up the grave. he was a jehovah’s witness who promised that she could break free of the cage imposed by love without changing her religion altogether; she would’ve just had to switch denominations. she could still have a marriage and kids! she could still have a blue tortured poet! the man was different, but not the dreams they had together. the story of the first part of the album ends here. her faith has been broken, and she has only found any semblance of sanity by refusing to mention these belief systems altogether.

side b/the anthology blends the christian imagery of side a with goddesses, sorcerers, and prophecies. she bargains with these powers to let her have the future she wants (the prophecy). she doesn’t sound like someone believing in salvation. if anything, she feels cursed. she decides that the concept of divinely ordained timing will never work in certain relationships (‘the goddess of timing once found us beguiling / she said she was trying / peter, was she lying?’). this disdain extends onto her perception of other people’s faith (‘bet they never spared a prayer for my soul’). she does position herself as a prophet in cassandra, but even then, she admits that the role has hurt her. perhaps the pain in thank you aimee was meant to be, or perhaps she was just strong enough to build a legacy in spite of it, boulder by boulder. is she a martyr? does she want to be? or did she save herself?

the only real love song on this half of the album makes no mention of fate or any divine forces. it wasn’t meant to be. it’s not a supernatural invisible string or lightning in a bottle. she is just in love.

the album ends with the manuscript, which revisits an old story of a defining, formative heartbreak. as she sings ‘at last, she knew what the agony had been for’ while describing the legacy of her writing, she seems to revert to thinking about the purpose of trauma. the only exception is that, in this case, she is the one who found meaning in her pain by turning it into a manuscript. writing is her belief system now, and she proselytizes by telling her stories and thus giving up the manuscript.

ultimately, her belief in destiny has chewed her up and spat her out. she so desperately clung to her existing belief systems that she was fooled by a conman, which left her feeling cursed. religion is supposed to be with someone even in their darkest moments, but the album explains that taylor often felt abandoned. the only constant in her life was, well, herself. she’ll be okay, but her pen will be her saving grace.

[my-wildflwr]

you know how to BALL i know ARISTOTLE

#x