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writingblackpink · 3 years

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If You Leave Now, You Lose Everything (pt. 4)

read pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3

genre: some angst and some fluff :)

word count: 2.3k

pairing: jennie x reader

You and Jennie have been together for two years now. While the relationship has been rocky as of recently, will you find a way to make it work before it’s too late?

A/N: FINALLY! The final chapter! Sorry it’s taken me so long, but it’s here now! Thanks for reading. As always, let me know what you thought of this series!

You drove home quickly, trying not to break down until you made it into the safety of your own home. Your mind raced with thoughts of what you just saw. Of course she’s moved on! She broke up with YOU. Tears threatened to spill out at the thought. You couldn’t focus on anything else besides making it home.

Maybe if you were paying more attention, you would have noticed the strange car that had been following you the whole time. You would have noticed the heavy steps against the pavement trailing you in the parking lot. You would have heard the quiet breathing on the other side of the door as you slid down with your back against it, letting out quiet sobs. You would have known Jennie was listening from the outside. She was there.

About five minutes passed like this before you heard a gentle knock against the door, sounding like it was coming from your level, like whoever was knocking was crouched against the door as well. You didn’t respond but you began to hear a familiar voice talk to you; quiet, gentle.

“Y/N?” She asked, barely audible to you. “I know you’re in there. Please open the door.” It was quiet in the room, but your thoughts had never been so loud. You began going through every scenario until you had enough and pushed everything away. Now left with the silence and only the door separating you from Jennie, no longer thousands of miles between, you didn’t want to miss the chance to have at least one more conversation with her to tell her how you felt.

You stood up, and before your fingers could unlatch the locks, you heard her let out a loud sigh before speaking up again.

“I’m sorry, Y/N, for everything, really.” Her breath was shaky and you knew tears were welling in her eyes. “I never should have left like I did. Please, just, open the door so we can talk about it.”

As soon as she stopped talking, you opened the door to reveal Jennie, crouched on the floor and looking up at you. Wordlessly, you stepped aside as you opened the door wider, signaling it was okay for her to come in. She got up and brushed off her jacket before walking past you, eyes trained to the floor. Realizing that she’d never been here before, she didn’t know this place, she waited for your direction on what to do next.

“Why are you here, Jennie.” Your voice had never sounded so cold, emotionless, and you made sure your eyes were focused on a spot over her shoulder, too afraid that seeing what she was feeling would break you down too.

You could see her turn to look at you in confusion, hurt.

“W-what?”

“I said, why are you here, Jennie? Weren’t you the one who said this would never work? Why waste a trip? Don’t you have your girlfriend to get back to?”

Your eyes moved to meet hers and it hurt you how hurt she looked. You were hoping that she felt as betrayed as you did in this moment.

“Excuse me? Girlfriend?” She pushed out, offended. “First of all, you came to me first, Y/N. Secondly, I don’t know what you think you saw or heard or whatever but the only girlfriend I hope you’re referring to is you,” she lowered her voice, sounding more hurt than before, “how could you think I could move on so quickly?”

You didn’t answer, instead stared blankly back at her. She didn’t really give you much time to respond before she was continuing, everything she was feeling over the last few weeks spilling out into the room, unfiltered.

“God, Y/N, leaving you that day was the worst decision of my life. I made a promise to you-we made a promise to each other, and I broke that, and I am so immensely sorry. I wouldn’t blame you if you never trusted me again.” She paused as her breath started to come in shaky, and you could tell she was trying to compose herself and her thoughts so she could get out everything she’s been wanting to say to you. “Ever since I left New York, everything has been a blur. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t even think of anything that doesn’t have to do with you. I thought that the distance would help, but it just made me feel so much more broken knowing you wouldn’t be coming back around. You know, I even almost answered your calls, but I was too much of a coward to actually do it. I was too scared of what you would say on the other end of the line. I was missing a piece of me, and that piece was you. It’s always been you.”

She surged forward, taking your hands in hers, tears now flowing freely down her face as she looked up at you. You took a deep breath, trying as hard as you could to not fall apart, to stay strong for both of you.

“I transferred back to Korea.” Was all you responded with, and you were hitting yourself internally for that being the only sentence your brain could come up with right now.

“What are you talking about?” Jennie asked as she sniffled away some tears, others falling onto the floor beneath you.

“I transferred back to the firm’s branch here. I felt the same way since you left. I could barely function. I’ve never been dependent on another person, but my life without you in it, without hearing your voice or seeing your face every day, it just felt empty. Everything felt so wrong. So I transferred back here because I wanted to give it one last shot. I couldn’t bear to accept things as we left them, but it looks like you’ve already-”

“Y/N, stop. You’ve got it all wrong.” And for the first time that night she smiled at you. She looked absolutely wrecked, but her smile made everything in the world feel right again.

“That girl in my apartment, she’s just a childhood friend from New Zealand. She hasn’t visited in over five years so you never met her, but I promise you there is absolutely nothing between us. I only want you. I told you I’ve only ever wanted you. You’re it for me, Y/N.”

Hearing her say those words made you immediately wrap yourself into her in the tightest hug imaginable. You nuzzled your head into her neck as she held you silently for several long moments.

“Stay with me tonight?” It came out muffled into her neck, but she heard you clear as day.

“I’ll stay,” she replied just above a whisper, softly into where her head leaned against yours. “I just have to make a call to my friend and let her know I won’t be back if that’s okay.”

You gave her a nod as you pulled back, “I’ll go get you something to change into.”

Making your way into your closet, you spotted the box labeled “JENNIE’S THINGS” where it sat on a shelf above you. You took it down, ripping the tape off and rummaging through it before you found what you were looking for. It was one of your old sweatshirts that Jennie used to wear so often, you dubbed it hers, hence how it ended up in a box of her things. You placed it on the bed, and went to go get changed yourself.

You walked out of your closet as she pulled the sweatshirt over her head, moving to the opposite side of the bed and sitting down, looking over your shoulder to ask if she needed anything else before settling under the covers. If she noticed what the sweatshirt was, she didn’t mention it. The tension was still thick, so much left unsaid between you. You felt suffocated by everything you wanted to say to her, and you weren’t sure what to get out first, so you said nothing, and she said nothing. You turned your back to her and when you felt her slide in on the other side of the bed, you reached up and clicked the lamp off on your bedside table as she did the same.

You were so close to each other, no more than a foot separating you, but you still felt like she was worlds away. This didn’t feel warm like it used to, falling asleep wrapped up in each other. This was different. You were facing opposite directions. It felt cold.

Your eyes stayed open in the darkness, and you saw the first snowflakes drop onto your window sill directly across from where you lay. The first snow of the season. There was some serenity in the snowfall. There was no breeze, just frozen flakes floating down from the sky before silently hitting the ground. The room was so quiet that if you listened close enough, you could hear each snowflake landing against your window. This served as an escape from your thoughts, no longer thinking about how to mend your future with Jennie, but focused on counting each snowflake as it fell from the sky, hoping it would help lull you to sleep.

The clock on your nightstand read 2 am, and you weren’t sure how long you had been watching it snow, but you could now see that it had started to build up on the ledge outside your window. You were pulled away when you felt Jennie tossing and turning, unable to find comfort in your bed.

Your body stiffened when she shuffled in closer to you, wrapping her arms around you as she spooned you from behind.

“Y/N? Are you awake? I can’t sleep.” You made sure to keep your breathing even as she waited for a response. You were curious to hear what else she had to say.

“I love you, Y/N. I hope you know that.” She punctuated that with a soft press of her lips to your shoulder before giving you a gentle squeeze. She went quiet again for a while, and you thought she had fallen asleep until she spoke again.

“We’re...um...we’re going to be okay, right?” At that, you turned in her arms, now facing her. You could tell her expression was worried, and you wanted nothing more than to take any of her doubts away. You took a hand and brushed the hair away from her face, placing a soft kiss on her cheek.

“Yeah, Jennie, I think we’re going to be alright.”

As soon as you said that, she looked over your shoulder and caught a glimpse of what was happening outside.

“Oh my god, it’s snowing? Y/N, we have to go outside!” She exclaimed louder than she needed to, given the small space between you. She shot up quickly, flipping on the lamp as she began rummaging around, putting on more appropriate clothing to go outside in. The earlier awkwardness seemed to have dissolved.

“What are you doing? Come on, get up! It’s the first snow of the season. We have to go outside!”

You followed her lead, throwing on some sweats and getting lost in the way she was so giddy over such an ordinary occurrence. Something you had come to love about her over the last few years. You grabbed her hand as she led you through your apartment and out to the front of the building, only letting go when you made it outside. You watched as she ran and jumped and you walked behind, laughing at how she could make you feel so childlike in this moment. You spent some time just admiring the untouched snow. It was almost as if you could see each individual snowflake shimmering under the streetlights. It was fresh, the air smelling crisp and clean. You couldn’t help but think that it was symbolic of how it felt to be with Jennie right now; shimmering and new. A second chance. A fresh start.

Jennie brought you out of your thoughts as she jumped into you, giving you no time to react as you both fell back onto the ground, only the small layer of fluff breaking your fall. You both were laughing heartily.

“Are you okay, baby?” She got out in between laughing fits, and you realized you were more than okay. You wanted this forever. Jennie’s laughter was addicting, and you didn’t want to go another day without hearing it. It was a culmination of all of the little things you loved about her from the last two years rushing back at you all at once that overwhelmed every one of your senses. Your brain was clouded with everything that was Jennie. You might’ve also hit your head on the ground, but you didn’t want to think about that right now.

“Marry me.”

The laughter died down as Jennie’s eyes came back to focus on yours, looking for an explanation.

“W-what?”

“Marry me, Jennie,” the way she was looking at you made your confidence waver a bit so you continued, “I mean, well, not right this second obviously, and I don’t have a ring or anything yet, and this isn’t even how I planned to ask, but one day, I mean some day, will you–”

She cut your rambling off by pressing her lips to yours in a long, slow kiss.

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, I’ll marry you. Some day. One day. Whenever. I’ll marry you.”

Making your way to bed much later, you waited until you heard Jennie’s breathing deepen before letting yourself doze off. You knew there was still much to talk about in the morning, but for now the only thoughts running through your mind were that you were happy. That Jennie was happy. You were happy you didn’t lose everything after all. You didn’t even lose anything, really.

#sorry I keep dropping these at weird times I'm most productive after midnight #blackpink #blackpink writing #ifyl yle #blackpink scenarios #gg scenarios #gg writing #kpop fanfic #kpop writing #blackpink jennie #jennie kim #jennie x female reader #blackpink jennie x female reader #blackpink imagines #gg imagines #jnk #angst #fluff

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stateofgrace-acoustic · 6 years

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Why Speak Now is a lyrical masterpiece: an essay.

//it’s here!! i really wrote a 6000 word essay on Speak Now. yep, I’m a nerd and also slightly crazy. have been working on it for the last two weeks. i am really proud of this and i’m excited to share it, even if not many people read it.

Special thanks to @bridgesburn-i-neverlearn who encouraged me to write this and also is an angel in general. Thank you for being excited about it as much as I am - I hope you enjoy! //

Speak Now is a fan favorite among Taylor Swift’s albums, even though it has always been painfully overlooked in the mainstream. It is undoubtedly amazing on more than just one level - musically, it is diverse, uniting not only country and pop but bringing rock into the mix as well; the songs are confessional, heartfelt, each one telling a different unique story. They feel almost theatrical at times, which the Speak Now tour with its musical appeal - the elaborate stage design, background dancers, and dramatic performances incorporated into the songs - capitalized on in captivating fashion.

What has made me fall in love with this album most of all, though, has always been its storytelling - and I’m sure most fans will agree with me here. In this essay I want to highlight what I believe to be a central reason behind the charm of Speak Now: its thematic cohesion, exploring the intricacies of confessions through songwriting, and of speaking - or not speaking - in the right moment. I will go through the songs on the album looking for these thematic ties, while highlighting what makes each song special in my eyes, pointing out subtle subversions and added subtext that make the songs more complex than they might seem on the surface. I’ll argue that these little subversions are what situate Speak Now in an in-between stage between naivety and maturity - between idealism and realism. It is this space of being in-between, on not quite having arrived at a specific point, but trying to make sense of the world through storytelling, that make the album so compelling.

Taylor talked about the central idea behind Speak Now being confessions. ‘Each song is a different confession to a person.’, she stated before the album came out. ‘In the past two years, I’ve experienced a lot of things that I’ve been dying to write about. A lot of things I wanted to say in the moment that I didn’t.’* In the album prologue, she mentions specific, crucial moments where the decision between speaking or not speaking up can make or break a situation - situations in which she could have spoken up, but didn’t, and so she wrote songs about them. Songs that are, by nature, retrospective - confessions kept past the time that they should have been said, emotions bottled up from the moment they were felt. And retrospection always has something wistful about it, the knowledge of not being able to turn back time, even if your reflections may have made you wiser in time.

This idea is central in Back to December, an apology to a lover she mistakenly let go. The progression of the relationship, but also her different states of mind associated with it, are symbolized by the different seasons - starting off light and sweet with ‘then i think about summer, all the beautiful times’, turning to the realization of love in fall, until ‘the cold came, the dark days when fear crept into my mind’. Here she directly references her fear keeping her from holding onto the relationship. Now, the constant urge to relive the mistakes she made keeps her from moving on: ‘staying up, playing back myself leaving’. But she pushes the message of the song further than regret and apology - she knows that, as much as she would want to, she can never ‘go back in time and change it’, and as much as she loves daydreaming about it, that will never make it real. With that in mind, she tells him, ‘so if the chain is on your door, I understand’. She accepts that her apology might not be enough, that she might not be forgiven; she knows she needs to make her peace with that. This sense of acceptance not only shows maturity, but gives the song an undercurrent of sincerity; otherwise it could have been perceived as manipulative, an apology constructed to win back someone’s heart. Instead, it expresses an earnest sense of regret, and at the same time, the heartbreaking realization that regret is not always enough, and fixing the past is something beyond our control.

The pain of reflections bringing back detailed memories of something that is forever lost is also a central focus on Last Kiss. One of Taylor’s biggest strengths in her songwriting is her focus on detail - rather than talking about the relationship in general terms, she evokes specific images of ‘the smell of the rain, fresh on the pavement’ and ‘that look on your face, lit through the darkness at 1:58′. Playful moments in the relationship and traits of her former lover that she found endearing earlier - ‘you’re showing off again’, ‘you kissed me when i was in the middle of saying something’, have now become bitter as she misses not only the big emotions, but the little quirks and small moments that made her fall in love. The chorus shows the pain of having to face dreams shattering; ‘I never imagined we’d end like this’. The way she continuously recalls beautiful moments from the point of view of her naive, lovestruck side, and crushes them with questions - ‘why did you go?’- and pain from the present, gives the song a structure that parallels the repeated, sinking feeling of heartbreak. This is brought to its most unfiltered expression on the bridge, where his current life and distance from her is directly contrasted with the intimacy they used to share: ‘so I watch your life in pictures, like I used to watch you sleep. And I feel you forget me life I used to feel you breathe.’ As in Back to December, she also dedicates the bridge to a central message to the person the song is about - but it is ultimately not only one of hurt, or even anger, but of being lost: ‘I never planned on you changing your mind’. The central idea of the song is that she feels deeply insecure because she does not understand why she was left. It becomes clearest when she expresses the hope that he might feel the same longing for their times together as she does: ‘I hope it’s nice where you are [...] and something reminds you, you wish you had stayed.’ This is not the scathing goodbye to an old lover that she can master just as well on many of her other songs; its heartbreaking nature lies in the simple, evocative way it talks about the pain of being left alone without knowing the reason.

If the communication on Last Kiss is one-sided, as her former lover is long gone, on The Story of Us, it is dysfunctional and characterized by the growing divide between two people - another variation of the topic of speaking and confessing that ties together the album. Besides the many metaphors related to stories themselves - ‘i don’t even know what page you’re on’ - the clear structure stands out here the most. The first verse recalls the effortless chemistry they had at the beginning - ‘we met and the sparks flew instantly’ - and the dreams of the time when everything seemed stable. But soon the distances are too far to cross, at least for one person alone - ‘so many things that I wish you knew, so many walls up I can’t break through’. She now desperately wants to know how the other person feels, but has no way of knowing: ‘I’m dying to know, is it killing you like it’s killing me?’ The disconnection is illustrated in the second verse as the actions of both people are separated and contrasted - “see me nervously pulling at my clothes [...] and you’re doing your best to avoid me.’ and ‘how I was losing my mind [...] but you held your pride’, unlike the first verse where the ‘we’ was central. In the middle of the isolation, she feels the weight of the things that are unsaid: ‘I’ve never heard silence quite this loud’, and perhaps also the weight of her own inability to articulate her thoughts and emotions: ‘I don’t know what to say since the twist of fate when it all broke down’. The song illustrates the difficulties of communicating once misunderstandings and emotional walls are built between people. She realizes that to break down these walls, both partners would have to put in effort - “I would put my armor down i you said you’d rather love than fight’, and recognizes that she is likely not the only one who has things to say that she cannot put into words: “There’s so many things that you wish I knew’. At the same time, the issue can never be resolved if her partner is not willing to take a step forward, and so, the relationship is breaking apart without either of them finding a way back to each other.

Instead of real life issues with communication, the idea of speaking up in a crucial situation is taken to the realm of daydreaming where situations play out perfectly on the title track, Speak Now. It presents itself innocently - the speaker being an uninvited guest at a wedding, secretly having a crush on the groom. And in fact, at the beginning, the speaker illustrates herself as the total opposite of trouble: ‘I am not the kind of girl who should be rudely barging in on a white veil occasion’. However, from verse one, a sense of cheekiness runs through the song - ‘her snobby little family all dressed in pastel’ doesn’t make the bride look too appealing, and ironic remarks like ‘it seems that I was univited by your lovely bride to be’ makes her seem quite a bit more feisty than she makes herself out to be. And indeed, at the end of the second verse she directly tells him , ‘You wish it was me, don’t you?’ It is still sweet, but also slightly taunting - he is the one who should have known better, and he picked the wrong girl. The part of the wedding ceremony where guests are allowed to speak up one last time, gives the song, and the album its name: ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace’. Even in a song as generally lighthearted as this one, the sentiment itself is quite serious, and runs through the sadder songs on the record as well - the fleeting nature of chances and opportunities to speak up, and the possibilites of regret if you let it pass. It is a challenge, in the moment, to raise your voice, but - as Taylor says in the album prologue - ‘if there’s something you should say, you’ll know it. I don’t think you should wait.’ In her daydream, she doesn’t wait, and speaks up despite of her nervousness to a happy ending - and the guy in the song eventually thanks her: ‘so glad you were around when they said speak now’ - suggesting that he was actually unhappy with the situation as well and was too afraid to speak up himself. Even though it is, of course, not a line that is supposed to be taken too seriously and is simply the fulfillment of her romantic fantasy, him echoing her words, it can also be seen as a reaffirmation of raising your voice, as you might not only change your own life to the better, but effect others with your courage, too.

Even when Taylor sings about stories of love in a light of positivity and liberation, she inserts more complex emotions into it than obvious on the surface. On the opening track Mine, she recalls the classic narrative of two lovers meeting, falling in love, fighting and finally reconciliating with a happy ending, but gives it a few subtle but meaningful twists that sets it apart from her earlier, more simple and naive stories in the like, as Love Story. Suggestions that the speaker of the song had to witness love breaking apart in her childhood and grew up not believing in ideals of happily ever after are woven through the song - lines like ‘wondering why we bother with love if it never lasts’ seem upon focused listen, quite dark and uncomfortable in a song this upbeat and optimistic, even if the story does get a happy ending. And the central fight that occurs in the bridge of the song is directly followed by the insecurities boiling back up and threatening to end what both of them have built. At the end, the song is about the power of love to set you free and make you believe that stories of happily ever after are possible - but it does not happen on its own. The repeated mentions of ‘hold on, make it last’ at the end of the song suggest that only if both partners continuously put work into it, the happy ending is truly possible. A subtle sense of maturity that the simple ‘baby, just say yes’ at the end of Love Story does not carry.

Enchanted may be seen as the most straightforwardly romantic song on the album, but there are undercurrents of darkness here as well: the entire first verse speaks of being in a situation of loneliness and alienation from all the people in a room: ‘walls of insincerity, shifting eyes and vacancy’. It is a deeply sad image that is relieved by meeting the one person the speaker does have a real, intimate connection with. And while it is sweet and beautiful, the loneliness from the beginning of the song never vanishes entirely, as the entire song is a daydream - it is left open how the person that she has caught feelings for actually feels and responds. The sense of agitation that comes with overwhelming happiness is never really resolved - she expresses it in ‘dancing around all alone’ and daydreaming about a happy ending - but the song is never grounded back into reality, which gives it its momentum - it exists and stays in its own sphere of joy and hopefulness.

In this song, as in so many others, the important, revealing emotions occur at specific nighttime hours - here it is the anxious reflection on who the other person might love, in Mine it was the crucial fight between the lovers, in Last Kiss a remembered moment of intimacy. It is at these hours that emotions are most raw and unfiltered - which ties into the confessional nature of the whole album.

Taylor explores the intricacies of love further on songs like Sparks Fly, which, in its lyrical themes, can be seen as a predecessor to her album Red, as she talks about falling for someone that might not be the best choice, infatuation taking away her capacities for rational thought - ‘my mind forgets to remind me you’re a bad idea’, a recurring idea on her fourth LP. As happy and liberating as the song is, there is a certain danger to the attraction that Taylor is aware of - it could all end up badly, but she is too caught up to care. She paints herself as helpless to the feelings at first - comparing herself to a house of cards and saying ‘you’re the kinda reckless that should send me running, but I kinda know that I won’t get far.’ However, this simple image of total helplessness that does not give her any agency in instigating the relationship is subtly challenged on the bridge: ‘Just keep on keeping your eyes on me, it’s just wrong enough to make it feel right’, she sings, suggesting that in some capacity she simply does not want to think about the possible results of giving into her feelings - she is aware there is something off, but prefers not to follow the thought further. It is a moment of almost conscious self-denial that not only draws strong parallels to songs such as I Knew You Were Trouble, but to another song on Speak Now that dramatizes the opposite of falling in love: a relationship falling apart - Haunted.

Haunted with its deeply dramatic presentation gives the impression of Taylor being caught up in memories and feelings she cannot escape or move on from. More straightforwardly than on Sparks Fly, however, she states right at the beginning that she could see the damage coming: ‘I have known it all this time, but I never thought I’d live to see it break’. A small part of her held onto the hope that is might still work out. However, after everything is inevitably broken, she cannot find consolation or a sense of stability anywhere: ‘It’s getting dark and it’s all too quiet and I can’t trust anything now’. Her sensation of having lost her partner to a mysterious force that made his ‘eyes go cold’ perfectly fits the gothic atmosphere of the song, and the chorus shows that she is still to a certain extent in denial and shock as she pleads to him to come back to her - ‘something’s gone terribly wrong’ she sings, completely lost as to what caused him to turn away after she thought she knew him so well. The amount of shock she is still in is powerfully illustrated in the second verse as well: ‘Something keeps me holding on in nothing’. She is self-aware enough to know that it is senseless to keep coming back to a broken thing, but her emotions keep pulling her in. Finally, denial takes over again during the bridge as she repeats to herself: ‘I just know you’re not gone, you can’t be gone’. The song illustrates the precise state between realizing something is over, and dediding to move on. It’s the state of lingering for a while longer, being pulled from either side and being unable to let go - being ‘haunted’.

These same emotions of denial and helplessness are central in the next song as well, but it discusses many more emotional states, too- Dear John, which might be the center point of my analysis, as I consider it to be one of the most complex and impactful songs Taylor has ever written. It is a song about the dynamics of an abusive relationship and about heartbreak that gradually turns into self-empowerment.

Taylor uses a wide array of images to convey her feeling of being trapped in the relationship in the first verse, always feeling like the weaker partner at the mercy of the other - she compares herself to a chess figure being rendered powerless by constantly changing rules, and evokes the image of a blue sky being turned into rain. At the same time, she discusses the anxiety that comes with being so powerless and being the subject of constantly changing moods - ‘counting my footsteps, praying the floor won’t fall through again’, as well as bringing up the already mentioned self denial that she is now aware of and that her worried mother brought to her attention.

In the prechorus she frames the song as an explanation as to why she walked away from the relationship: ‘This song is to let you know why’. Then the chorus turns reflection of her emotional states into accusation, the first step on the song’s way toward empowerment. ‘Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with?’, she asks her partner to evaluate his own consciousness. But eventually, the chorus ends on a somber note as the accusation is directed not at him, but herself: ‘I should’ve known’. She regrets her denial in retrospect and blames herself for the way he treated her, a common reaction in emotionally abusive relationships.

The second verse, then, takes the next step: she examines the reasons behind the relationship not working out, and explicitly incorporates both partners into the conversation. However, while she accuses herself of naivety, the majority of the blame lasts on him this time, presenting him as having ‘a sick need to give love and take it away’. She further disects his personality, stating that he would not actually listen to her criticisms - or anyone else’s -, but simply think of her as misunderstanding him, refusing to see any position but his own- everyone else is on his ‘long list of traitors who don’t understand’.

Finally, on the bridge, she takes the crucial step up: instead of remaining a passive marionette in his hands, she takes back her agency, escapes his influence and therefore takes away his power: ‘took your matches before fire could catch me’, and, with her life back in her own hands, she is not only free, but a better person with a brighter life than his will ever be: ‘I’m shining like fireworks over your sad empty town’. It is the central climax of the song, but I would argue that it has a second, just as important one, as the central moment of subversion is reached at the end of the song. She turns the last lines of the chorus on its head: ‘cried the whole way home’, an image of humiliation, sadness and brokenness, is turned into the triumphant ‘wrote you a song’. And instead of the self-accusing ‘I should have known’ comes one small, but immensely weighted comment that not only makes him look like the naive fool instead of her, but places her in a position of strength on the basis of her songwriting: ‘You should’ve known’. It carries a double meaning - he should have known not to mess with her that young, but he also should have known that she would fight back by writing a song. She uses her own public image as a weapon in a line that manages to both be slightly self-deprecating, and ridiculing her former lover for underestimating her. He might have broken her heart, but she can write about it and find protection and self-worth through her art - here, Taylor discovers the power of the song as a weapon, a concept she would later bring to heights of success on mega hits like Blank Space.

Thus, Dear John takes the journey from a place of complete helplessness to strength and empowerment through art, and it chronicles the variety of emotional states on the way with captivating precision.

As multifaceted as Taylor’s songs about love on Speak Now are, it is not the only topic she sings about, so for the last section, I’ll take a look at the songs that illustrate topics of empowerment, revenge, and forgiveness, as well as the overarching theme of growing up.

Mean might be seen as just one of the many Taylor songs about getting back on a hater, but it is a truly special one, as she grounds the song in different emotions that all play together; a confronting attitude, making her critic responsible for his words and actions, a sense of the cheekiness from Speak Now, and genuine expression of the effect his words had on her wellbeing. She is not afraid to call out his behavior as hypocritical and unfair - ‘switching sides, wildfire lies, humiliation’, the accusatory ‘you’ hanging over the beginning of every verse. At the same time, ‘you have knocked me off my feet again, got me feeling like a nothing’ opens up a complete insight into the devastating effect his comments had on her. At the end, ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ is her way of telling him that as long as he does not actually know her and makes up accusations, his words do not have legitimacy at all. She even searches for roots to his actions - ‘I bet you got pushed around’ before stating that she will not stoop so low to use his own methods: ‘the cycle ends right now’. Following up on this idea, the chorus is her big, triumphant refusal to further engage with him at all, saying that some day, she will be so big, he will not even be relevant enough to hurt her. It is a much more scathing comment than actually directly getting back at him would be, completely stripping him of any relevance. Toward the end of the bridge, she seems to leave it at ‘all you are is mean’, but then fires off some more accusations: ‘and a liar, and pathetic, and alone in life...and mean’ It is intentionally slightly petty, playing with restraint before she gives into her desire to express herself honestly and to get a bit of revenge, after all. She is having her fun with the rebuttal as much as she is genuinely expressing her emotions and making a mature statement about taking the higher road. She proves, on the song, that these do not have to be exclusive attitudes - you can send an important message while still having fun with the song.

But as effective as Taylor can be at balancing revenge and forgiveness, she can dive deeper into either side of the scale as well if she wants to. On Better than Revenge, she fully embraces her anger and fury to call out both her ex boyfriend and his new girfriend. She paints him as a possession of hers that was unrightfully stolen, and equates her rival to a child that hasn’t learned proper manners when she lectures her that ‘stealing other people’s toys on the playground won’t make you many friends’. Thus, in the word choice alone, she takes the conflict to a childlike level. Taylor shows herself as a person with mature attitudes who has to teach the other girl about proper behaviour - and she does have real points to make: ‘sophistication isn’t what you wear or who you know’ - but at the same time, her wilingness to engage in the battle and her desire to ‘always have the last word’ reveal her own motivations which come from a place of impulsive emotions and wounded pride, too. The triumphant and gratified way she sings ‘Let’s hear the applause, come on, show me how much better you are’ shows her taking pleasure from the fact that her rival was, after all, not worth it anyway - an attitude that is very much not mature, but she knows it, and she embraces it fully in the song, which no doubt felt cathartic to write. And here, again, we have the function of songwriting reflected in an actual song. It is only implied, but after all, the titular revenge she gets is the song itself - even if she could not win him back, she can make sure that she has the last word.

Innocent can be seen as the opposite twin of Better than Revenge - even though they are about different issues - when it comes to attitude. The song is all about giving a person who slighted you a second chance, the reasoning for it being that stumbling at a point in life is an experience everyone shares, and so everyone deserves a fresh start at one point with no past baggage keeping them down - ‘who you are is not what you’ve been’. She expresses sympathy in the verses, comparing adult life to easier days of childhood when a sense of safety and security was taken for granted, and you had people to look up to and guide you in life - ‘always a bigger bed to crawl into’. The line ‘wasn’t it beautiful when you believed in everything and everybody believed in you’ expresses both a sense of disillusionment that comes with adulthood and the loss of the support structure that seemed completely self-evident for all of childhood - being left alone, knowing that no one will be there to catch you once you fall, is a terrifying situation. Adulthood is the time when ‘the monsters caught up to you’, a simultaneously sinister and sad image for everything that caregivers cannot shield from us anymore after a certain age. And as this is an experience we all share, Taylor implies, we need to look out for each other instead, and give each other second chances when needed. She talks about regret, too, an idea that was already discussed in other songs: ‘Did some things you can’t speak of, but at night you’ll live it all again.[...] If only you had seen what you know now, then.’ This part not only incorporates the album theme of speaking into the song - in the form of words you won’t even admit to yourself - it also calls back to the idea of knowing a better route to past events upon reflection, but the wistful knowledge that turning back time is impossible. As Taylor herself relates heavily to this experience, as she has illustrated on songs like Back to December, she can apply the feelings to others and empathize with her supposed enemy. The song in that way shows itself to be about the power of empathy to remind us of experiences we all share and are bonded by, and, at the same time, it is just as much about growing up as it is about forgiveness. The key to dealing with the fleeting nature of life and the possibilites of missteps and missed opportunities, as is suggested in the bridge, is to keep reminding yourself that changes also bring chances, and as humans we are capable of constantly renewing ourselves: ‘Today is never too late to be brand new’.

The topic of growing up is not left to Innocent alone to reflect; in fact, it has its very own song dedicated to it, titled Never Grow Up. The wistfulness of remembering the safety and effortless happiness of a childhood long gone takes center stage here, as she talks to a young child who stil has her entire life in front of her - yet, over the course of the song, Taylor gets lost in her own reflections and reminisces on what she has lost of her own childhood. The child’s innocence makes her think - in a heartbreaking way - of the inevitable time when this carefree nature - ‘to you, everything’s funny, you’ve got nothing to regret’ - will be lost and disillusionment will replace wide-eyed optimism. Having experienced it herself, Taylor wants nothing more than to shield her from the same fate - ‘I’d give all I have, honey, if you could stay like that’, but she knows that it is impossible. And so the chorus with its repeated mentions of ‘oh, darling don’t you ever grow up’ is steeped in a deep sense of sadness, as it’s clear that this wish can never be fulfilled. On the second verse, Taylor flashes forward to the teenage years and once again, recalls an image of naive, boundless joy, struggling to hold onto it - ‘don’t lose the way that you dance around in your PJs getting ready for school’. At the same time, she never loses sight of the fact that everyone shares the fate of growing up, and struggles with it, which might help us understand other generations’ struggles, too: ‘Remember that she’s getting older too’. The central idea of the song is the tragedy behind the constant wish to grow up as a child - ‘you can’t wait to move out some day and call your own shots’ - just to want to go back to the simpleness of childhood once you actually get there. Thus the mantra of the chorus can also be seen as a wish to hold onto childhood just a little longer, or preserve what is possible from it. But at the end of the song, when Taylor relates her own experience to the rest of the song, she comes to a rather defeating conclusion: ‘I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone:’ The only thing that is possible to do is hold onto the memories, they will hold on to you - ‘keep pictures in your mind of your childhood’ - and try to keep them safe in your heart.

Finally, the song that is left is the last song on the album, Long Live - and this song, too, is a reflection, but it is a much more hopeful, enthusiastic one that celebrates the people that helped Taylor get to where she is and all the memories that were made on the way. She consistently uses plural ‘we’ on the chorus of this song, illustrating the fact that it is not about her own success and story only, but about the community she has built along the way - with her band, her entire crew, and most importantly her fans, and just how much this community means to her. The song is a celebration of the things that can be moved when people come together - the way it can make the seemingly impossible come true - ‘long live all the magic we made’, and the way it can make seeming underdogs the ‘kings and queens’ of the world for just a night. She feels like she can take anyone on in this situation - ‘bring on all the pretenders, I’m not afraid’. This momentum, this power and beauty is something she wants to keep safely stored so that the memories can never be lost. At the same time, she takes a wider look into the future on the bridge, breaking her celebration for a while to think about the consequences of the fairytale ending, of things falling apart - and all she wants in this situation is the magic of the memories to be remembered, and felt even by people who were not directly there. It is, at the end, a love letter to her fans, for all that we have achieved together with her and that is yet to come: ‘I had the time of my life with you’. Thinking back on the album topic, it illustrates the wonderful things that can happen if you do take chances - if you take the courage to speak now. It leaves the album on a note of joy and a sense of magic the belief that even the highest dreams can be achieved, and everything is possible - when we find a way to connect with each other and fight for it together.

At the end, with Speak Now we are left with an album that examines love and life in all its complexities; incorporating fantasy and reality, regret and denial, revenge and forgiveness, loneliness and connection, wistfulness and hope into fourteen songs, each painted in muliple shades of emotion, all of them tied together by the topic of confessions and speaking up. It is an album that is both deeply personal and universal, and I have loved it for all of that for many years - I hope this love came through in this piece of writing, and I hope that I could make you relive your own love for Speak Now while reading it.

(If you’ve made it all the way to the end, thank you so much!! I don’t really expect anyone to read this, so if you did, I really really appreciate it. I hope you could get something for yourself out of it. And to Natasha, thanks to you more than anything - without you I never would have written this!)

*https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-announces-third-album-speak-now-186288/

#taylor swift #speak now #vanessa talks #for a very long time #vanessa has never talked this much #she is currently questioning her sanity #she loves speak now way too much

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