Taylor Has Literally Been Like:

🌋 when your reputation is not a pretty sight, i will tarnish my own image to match your frame; dust coated glass, speckles of stars filling into the cracks. i will meet you down at the bottom, my love.

🌋

Wait for the signal, and I’ll meet you after dark Show me the places where others gave you scars

Taylor Swift — Willow (2020)

Submission - Shamrock

Sometimes I wonder if Taylor has a “trick up her sleeve” and is secretly in the process of buying her masters from Shamrock. Or maybe buying out Sc**ter’s share (although idk how that deal is structured). I fully recognize that this is a crazy theory– pleaseeee don’t get your hopes up, everyone.

This entire Shamrock acquisition has always seemed weird to me. Taylor wanted to buy her masters. Taylor, at the very least, didn’t want Sc**ter to profit off her work. And if all else failed, Taylor was going to re-record her first six albums. None of these things were secrets– Taylor explicitly said as much. Shamrock would have known this beforehand. So why would they spend all that money, yet still let Sc**ter profit as part of the deal? If Taylor is going to do everything in her power to NOT let Sc**ter (and Shamrock) make money off her masters, why didn’t Shamrock just cut Sc**ter out? Then Taylor would have worked with them and they would have made more money. I have to think Shamrock had the upper hand here– Sc**ter needed money quickly. He needed to sell more than Shamrock needed to buy.

Something else about Shamrock: Abigail Disney is the Vice Chair, I believe. I would assume she’s involved in making decisions. Abigail Disney is interesting, because she’s super rich and a social activist. Like she thinks she and other billionaires need to be taxed more. She has a PhD, makes documentaries, is big on women’s rights, and even renounced her shares of profits from a company that has a factory in the West Bank (for ethical reasons). Abigail seems like the kind of person who would be on Taylor’s side and at the very least, not give Sc**ter a chance to profit off Taylor’s work.

So all of this was weird to me back in November, when we heard about it. Then I heard Ivy, and wondered if there was a connection.

“Clover blooms in the fields” – Shamrock literally means “young clover.“ 

"Spring breaks loose, the time is near / What would he do if he found us out?” – Maybe a deal between Taylor and Shamrock will be announced in the spring. Maybe the “he” is Sc**ter– maybe the reason nothing makes sense right now is because Taylor is trying to catch Sc**ter by surprise, so he can’t foil her plans again. More on this later.

“Crescent moon, coast is clear” – There’s a new moon on March 13th. Meaning there will be a waxing crescent moon from March 14th to March 20th. This coincides with the Ides of March (Spade riddle) and St. Patrick’s Day (shamrocks). Hmm.

“Spring breaks loose, but so does fear / He’s gonna burn this house to the ground” – Could the house be the Lover house? Where each room is an album? Is Taylor afraid that if Sc**ter finds out before her deal is finalized, he’ll ruin it?

Let’s think about the timing, for a minute. We know Taylor was in LA a lot last spring and summer. Shamrock’s office is in Burbank, an LA suburb. Spade left in July and Karlie got pregnant at some point in this timeframe. Idk if any of this is related, but that Spade riddle about the Ides of March haunts me. 9 months before March 15th is June 15th, which is right around the time Spade finished the THEY ARE FREE riddles. That’s also around the time we think Karlie got pregnant. Maybe this is all a coincidence, idk. 

Taylor posts about her masters on November 16th. Jerklie is also papped that day. On November 17th, Karlie confirms her pregnancy with a video. Evermore (and Ivy) come out a few weeks later. Again, just interesting how the timing aligned. 

November is ALSO when Kaylor’s PR gets weird. Taylor says Toe is WB in the LPSS, Karlie is pregnant and still stunting, Taylor is re-recording, we have no idea what’s going on.

To try to tie this all together… I wonder if Taylor is tricking us. Maybe there won’t be any re-recordings beyond Love Story, because she’s been working with Shamrock behind the scenes to oust Sc**ter. Maybe all the buzz she’s created about her re-recordings is to throw everyone off, including Sc**ter and all his people. Maybe this is why the All Knower account on Twitter is still up– because Taylor’s team is involved and feeding them the info they want to get out. Maybe this is why Taylor’s PR is weird– steer the conversation to “Toe is WB” etc. to give everyone something totally unrelated to her masters to talk about. Maybe this is why Karlie is still bearding– either to cover for Taylor or trick Sc**ter. Maybe the reason Taylor wouldn’t sign Sc**ter’s NDA is because she’s going to come for him the moment he’s not profiting off her masters.

Anyway, I know this is wild. I don’t expect this to happen, as much as I want it to. I only bring all this up because of the discussions tonight about whether the “masters case” is closed. I thought I was the only one who has been wondering if maybe it isn’t. Realistically though, I expect to be completely wrong.

———————————————————-

Pro: I think I saw that all her albums were registered with copyright. Good theory though!

The New Year midnight is nearly upon us.

As we March into the sunset, 2022 is not the only thing that will expire at midnight.

A fresh page…a new chapter.

Au revoir, à bientôt en tournée.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Taylor and Karlie at Terminal 5

Interesting Kaylor connection I found that deserved it’s own post👇🏻

So we all know how Karlie Kloss was named after Carly Simon and Taylor Swift was named after James Taylor. Carly Simon and James Taylor were MARRIED together and they have a son Benjamin. ☺️

Benji🐱

I just wanted to include Benji but that is not what this post is about I just love him🫶🏻

Anyway.. Vogue 73 questions with Taylor she said this👇🏻

And I was wondering why she chose this song and this line so I googled it and… “I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee ... the man who inspired her hit "You're So Vain" - her target was gay record label boss David Geffen.”

mind blowing 🤯

i just can’t get over it

Hey kids! Vegas is fun! 🎶😘🎶

“betty”, queer literary theory, and too much time on my hands: an essay

a.k.a., i’ve been out of school for a month & i miss in-depth literary analysis.

I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff about how we shouldn’t think too much about the queer implications of “Betty”, and as an aspiring queer literary studies phd I just… cannot vibe, u guys. Cannot vibe. So here is me, in my academic chaos, discussing the queer literary history of what Taylor Swift does in “Betty”. I’m going to start with the assumption that James is male. You may disagree with this - maybe I even do - but Taylor Swift’s pattern of speaking as a guy to a girl in her songs is what I’m considering here; “Betty” is the most blatant example of this.

In literary theory, there is something called “the triangulation of desire”. Rene Girard is considered one of the pioneers of this, and he explains it as three roles: the subject, the model, and the object. The subject does not desire the object directly, as this is, for some reason or another, non-normative desire. This can mean that the subject desires the model, who desires the object (think of a woman desiring a man who desires another woman; she obsesses over their relationship because her real desire is the woman.) This can also be a way to create a boundary between subject and object - the subject is not queer, the model is queer and the subject is merely paying attention.

One of my favorite examples of this is Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself, XI. In this poem, a woman watches twenty-eight men bathe from inside her house. The woman is hardly mentioned; the poem is focused on the erotic and sensual details of the male body. Whitman uses the woman as the model, so as to not directly describe his non-normative desire. It is a kind of defense so he is exempt from judgment for expressing this desire.

Considering “Betty” on its own, outside of the other two songs, it is the perfect example of a triangulation of desire. Taylor is the subject, James is the model, and Betty is the object. While James might be male (thus making the relationship a normative one), Taylor is not. She is singing/writing from his point of view, yes, but it is still Taylor singing/writing. If we take the song as “from her imagination”, she is telling a fictional story from the point of view of a guy who wants to kiss a girl – this is still a triangulation. Taylor is singing about kissing a girl and James as a male voice is not the subject, but a defensive model so she can safely desire the object.

Taylor has done this throughout her career, by switching the pronouns in the final stanzas of her songs: “she is the best thing that’s ever been mine” / “marry me juliet” / “man i didn’t kiss her and i should have”, or by making the whole song from a male point of view in “How You Get The Girl”. (I’d argue that “Betty” is more direct than HYGTG, because the former is speaking to a woman, whereas the latter is aimed at “you”.)

I’m not saying you have to believe that Taylor Swift is queer, or that this is definitive proof. I’m saying that if her lyrics were studied, outside of any context of who she is, in any kind of academia, it would be assumed that she’s queer. So maybe, before you dismiss this, consider what exactly you’re bringing to the table that makes you certain she isn’t.

if u actually read all of this… holy shit. thanks. ily

so you know how the main Lame Guy from the ME! mv is clearly supposed to be a caricature of skint poor cheater… well now i’m thinkin about how you can read almost all of that song as a fuck you to him

e.g. “I know I never think before I jump / And you’re the kind of guy the ladies want” as a direct throwback to the final chorus of fifteen when she says “Cause when you’re fifteen and somebody tells you they love you / You’re gonna believe them. / And when you’re fifteen, don’t forget to look before you fall” — just in general i’ve been listening to fifteen a lot lately and reading it through the lens of her signing her contract with sc*tt and bmr at 15. so we have this idea of being a young girl with big dreams of making it as a singer (“when all you wanted was to be wanted”), and because all the ladies want for a producer or music executive or whatever to notice them, when he says you’re gonna be a star, kid, you’ll trust him enough to not think before you jump / look before you fall. and like… “I never think before I jump” has always been kind of weird for her to say about herself now because 30-year-old taylor is the queen of meticulously planning everything, but if you consider her thinking about 15-year-old taylor + “wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now” … it’s a reflection on the naivete of her youth, and it’s a warning [cut to her vogue 73 questions interview where her advice to young artists was “get a good lawyer”]

and then of course we have “But one of these things is not like the others / Like a rainbow with all of the colors / Baby doll, when it comes to a L♡VER / I promise that you’ll never find another like ME!”

when you think about the fact that big machine records IS taylor swift, and that Lover is her first album that is not with bmr and that they won’t be able to profit off of, and the fact that they’ve obviously been searching for The Next Taylor Swift™ for years but haven’t been able to find one because there is no one else like her… it just makes so much sense??? honestly i like it so much more now reading it this way bc tbh thinking about these lines in the context of a romantic relationship is Not The Healthiest Outlook. but her saying fuck you sc*tt, you’ll never get another one of my albums, you’ll never find another taylor swift… OKAY MISS SWIFT!!!!!! GO OFF!!!

AND add on top of that, all of this is because “one of these things is not like the others / like a rainbow with all of the colors” i.e. she’s gay and all you misogynistic homophobic assholes kept her closeted for literally half her life in order to make more money off her, so let’s make it CLEAR that THIS is why you fucking lost her, and why when it comes to a songwriting juggernaut who cranks out record-breaking albums like she was fucking born for it, you’ll never find another like her.

also sidenote, calling a man who has objectified and belittled and controlled you for years “babydoll” as a dig at his clearly very fragile masculinity? POWERFUL.

i mean i should probably mention the apparently necessary disclaimer that songs can be about many things at the same time and ME! is still overall a lighthearted gay bop that’s mainly meant to be about positivity, and taylor singing “babydoll” is still very gay and cute when you take the sc*tt angle out of it, but there is absolutely an undercurrent throughout it of this being a direct response to the whole bmr debacle.

Even in the way she talked about it in interviews, saying it’s a song “that reinforces the fact that we’re different, and obviously there are a lot of songs about ‘I’m special,’ but I hadn’t heard one recently that was about ‘I’m special because of who I am’” … this distinction of I’m special because of who I am really resonates if you think about her losing her masters, i.e. the thing that made her special and Valuable to all the lame guys out there, (and if you think about this alongside her speech at the Time 100 Gala where she talks about how specifically writers have the power to turn their lessons into their legacy), she’s reiterating the idea that it’s not the recordings she’s created in the past or all her awards or success or whatever that made her special, it’s not the fact that some man ~discovered~ her 15 years ago that made her special—she is special because of who she is, because of her goddamn mind and this ability to write that she has inside her, and that is something that no one can ever take away from her.

tl;dr i’m a ME! stan now thanks for coming to my tay talk