Dancing with our Hands Tied- Dance is Uninhibited Associations [Part Q]

Logistical Info:

Remember we’re looking at words in the lyrics of Question… to try to decipher who and what and when.

We’ve almost gone through the entire song, pulling lyrics containing the same words to get a sort of consensus or feeling about Taylor’s intention.

Now that we’re toward the end of Question… lyrics, we need to address the central part of the song: Kiss in a crowded room. And the kiss really brings to mind Dancing with our Hands Tied and maybe Kissgate.

We will analyze Dancing with our Hands Tied to see if it parallels Question….

Except this particular line within Dancing with our Hands Tied got a bit long because I really don’t know for sure and there was no solid direction to take the analysis. I will go into it in detail in this post so the guesses don’t overwhelm the analysis of the song as a whole.

And I’ll spell out my conclusions from this post in the full analysis of Dancing with our Hands Tied. But that post was getting very long and I was afraid nobody would read it. So to make things even more confusing each line in DWOHT is going to be its OWN post. But then I’ll do a main DWOHT post with just links to each different post. It’s a whole big thing.

Then we’ll get back to the end of Question…

Was that explanation as confusing as trying to guess who Taylor’s songs are about?

If I could dance with you again

This is a regretful thought after the fact. Taylor and her lover have stopped dancing.  It’s the literal dancing of Kissgate, but “Dance” is also being unbothered and happy-go-lucky in her queerness. It’s a state Taylor enters only with this specific person per Holy Ground (Question…  [Part 17]).  In other songs, Taylor uses the word, “dance” to show intimacy between two people.  In Dancing with our Hands Tied, Taylor is telling her ex-girlfriend what she would do if they could resume dancing.

Taylor knows she left her lover hanging, and it’s her fault both of them are depressed.  Even though this is the central person in Taylor’s life she never acknowledges them publicly.  Taylor uses “universe” in other songs to show how far away she seems to the lover. 

Fear causes Taylor’s priorities to be misaligned.  Her lover feels neglected, lonely, awkward, forgotten, and depressed when Taylor does her celebrity thing (and the closeting that goes with it).  Taylor’s closeting relegated her lover to the background.  Since that is her gay-panic default behavior, the lovers aren’t surprised, but it ruins the relationships nonetheless.  

Taylor can’t let go of her soulmate–she’s a hostage to her feelings.  Despite her anxiety about gay-stigma, she does love this woman. But Taylor is torn:  Her back is against the wall in regards to maintaining her public image–she must beard to be seen as straight and make money.  Taylor never makes her secret sapphic love her centerfold, thus her lover is a flight risk. 

Even with the threat of losing her beloved, it always comes back to Taylor’s career (Question…  [Part 9]).  The shades of gray surrounding Taylor speak to a situation so complex it has to be deciphered with nuance (Question… [Part 13]).  Taylor had confusion, indecision, and doubt, letting her fear drive her actions.  She fears for her image and how being LGBT might jeopardize business, so Taylor pushes her lover away, despite wanting to hold onto her.  It puts their relationship in this gray area too.

And she loses these relationships to internalized homophobia and the closet time and time again (Question…  [Part 10]).  During the break-ups Taylor is emotionally raw.  She oscillates between sadness, reminiscing, empathy, and anger.  Drinking and getting drunk mark Taylor’s journey of grief after the split (Question… [Part 11]).  Without her lover, Taylor is in the gray of sadness, loneliness, and isolation (Question…  [Part 13]). 

That’s why Taylor is thinking about what she would have done if she could do the whole thing again.