Our best friend Taylor Swift is a mastermind, and we’ve become pretty good at figuring out the rules of her little games, but this era, we have failed pretty miserably thus far.
After Taylor released Gorgeous, my dash went crazy. To be expected when a new song is released, right? But this time, it wasn’t so good. Everyone needed to know if Taylor cheated on Calvin or Tom and when she met Joe – including me.
It took a few listens, but then it clicked. Here’s what I think:
Taylor wrote each song of reputation with clues – but not the kind we’re used to looking for; on reputation, Taylor uses each song to twist her truth with her reputation. She’s so good at it, we didn’t even really notice.
I think that every song on reputation is going to be this way, except, probably the last one. Taylor has to include a purely Taylor song on the album, so it makes sense that it would be at the very end.
The media doesn’t care about getting their facts straight, so Taylor is done with it too. That doesn’t mean she’s lying; she’s just playing the game better than they do.
This is the New Taylor’s idea of revenge. Instead of giving us sweet clues like Maple Lattes (RIP), she’s telling the stories of the past two years in her own way from the power position. If Taylor had given us the literal story of how she met Joe, the media would have found a way to rip her to shreds… so why not take what they are already saying about her and run with that?
For each song, Taylor takes a different rumor and makes it part of her story:
Ready For It: “She’s a heartbreaker”
Look What You Made Me Do: “She plays the victim” (+ more, if you count the music videos)
Gorgeous: “She cheated on Calvin”
Instead of writing a song about how she didn’t cheat on Calvin with Tom, Taylor wrote a song about how she wanted to cheat on Calvin with Joe, even though it’s highly unlikely they had even met.
The clues in this song affirm my suspicions. Sunset and Vine are the cross-streets for the theater where she saw Joe’s movie. That was obviously after they met.
This song IS the story of how they got together, but it’s more than that. It’s the story of how she FELT when they met but TOLD through the lens of her reputation as a cheater.
When you think about it that way, it clarifies a lot from the other two songs we’ve heard.
This is Taylor’s way of speaking her truth, facing the criticism, and being vulnerable. Because Taylor chose to write the album this way – which is more like a musical or novel than the diaries we’re used to – we get to totally focus on her happiness with Joe while still seeing how the rumors of the last few years affected her.
Please reblog, spread the word, and tell everyone what we already know.
