Taylor wins the pronoun game. I’m not even going to try to untangle the speaker/recipient/changing characters in this song. It was written so convoluted that I haven’t even seen a satisfactory answer to this yet. Instead, I took lyric snippets from other songs featuring the same word, to get a feeling about Taylor’s sentiment and even subject. Don’t get overwhelmed with the length of this post. The word I’m trying to point-out from the Question… lyrics is highlighted.
Does it feel like everything’s just like second-best after that meteor strike?
There are no other meteors in Taylor’s songs, but the word seems significant. We already talked about the stars in the eyes of Dorthea and Cowboy Like Me, but there are other celestial words from Taylor’s catalog. I’m not including “sun” because there is such a strong tie to Karlie Kloss. Paper Rings uses moon to talk about friends, and we know Taylor relegates her lover’s friends to the background so I omitted that song as well. Let’s see what the other words tell us about how Taylor regards space stuff.
The Moment I Knew
The million stars aligning are used to show something sublime and ethereal occurs if Taylor’s lover makes it. But instead she says, it’s The Moment I Knew the relationship was over.
Today was a Fairytale
Untouchable
Mary’s Song
The word “planet” is used in Today was a Fairytale to proclaim how extraordinary this person makes Taylor feel. She says everything made sense after she saw this person (because they were a gal). I think Taylor’s perplexing (gay) feelings were put into context when she felt considerably more for this person compared to other crushes she’d had. This revelation is continued in Untouchable. Taylor doesn’t know why she’s so caught up in this girl. But she uses words like diamond sky, sun, and a million stars spelling this person’s name to show how they are unattainable. This girl makes Taylor feel like she’s coming undone because she has this strong attraction, but knows she shouldn’t act on it, that it wouldn’t be reciprocated, or it would be forbidden. Taylor appraises the girl as precious and impossible to get near like the pretty stars in the sky. And the adults notice the love between the two.
The song starts, “SHE said I was 7 and YOU were 9.” She = Mary, You = Taylor. In this fantasy of Taylor’s, the daddies never believed they would really fall in love (because they’re both girls). The end of the song says, “And I’LL be 87 and YOU’LL be 89.” And I’LL still look at YOU like the stars that shine. Taylor is tricky with pronouns, and she never gives the love interest a gender or name. I think it could be the girl with the braids from Seven. I hypothesize the arc of this song is young Taylor wishing she could live heteronormative milestones with a girl. She wants to love, fight, marry, have children, and grow old with someone (a female) she loves. Taylor sees the mothers as knowing, and wishes the entire community would celebrate their love (even though they are both female).
I’m Only Me When I’m With You
Seven
We know from before that Taylor uses the word “paint” to show being encapsulated by a feeling. Painting pictures in the sky is both stargazing and the way Taylor’s love feels enormous and vast to her. It’s why Taylor feels like I’m Only Me When I’m With You. She is all-encompassed by this person who she knows everything about and can’t live without. Seven talks about this childhood love too. Taylor uses moon and Saturn to try to put into words the magnitude of love she feels for her girlfriend. Interestingly, the moon is the mother of the zodiac (the sun is the father).
Taylor says the love is substantial, and denotes the individual she loves has feminine, yin energy like the moon. She even says that she currently still has love for this girl she was so close to as a child.
Tim McGraw
Remember the line “If you asked me if I loved HIM… I’d lie” in the song, I’d Lie? I think Taylor is telling on herself again in the 1st and last verses (notably the only verses this nameless, faceless HE is mentioned) of Tim McGraw. She tells the audience that she made up a fictional moment with some boy to create plausible deniability and wrap the real verses of the song in heteronormativity. We have no description of this guy, except the dismissive “just a boy.” Heck, we know more about the truck–it’s a Chevy, it drives backroads frequently, it gets stuck often–then we know about the guy. And all the way back to Taylor’s first single she was using he vs you. She had a throw away make-believe boy talking romantically about eyes as stars, but he’s just a red herring. The actual subject of the song is this third (female) person, YOU who is wearing a little black dress. Taylor reminisces about how she (wearing faded old blue jeans) had her head on this girl’s chest. It’s the girl Taylor is missing. It’s their memories Taylor brings up hoping the gal will remember her by them. The boy under the stars–that’s a lie.
Cardigan
I know we’re inside the Question… lyrics looking for words contained in other songs to try to get an understanding of Taylor’s meaning. I’m going to complicate it further by bringing yet more songs into it to try to put “you drew stars around my scars” into context. I will right-align them so these songs don’t get confused with the celestial lyrics we’re interpreting. Bear with me.
The entirety of Look What You Made Me Do speaks to Taylor’s problems, issues, and drama. Snakegate, celebrity beefs, people using her–Taylor’s image was taking a beating. In Delicate Taylor sings,
Even though Taylor was being drug through the mud during this time, this person she met didn’t listen to all that negativity. And Taylor knew for certain that this person wasn’t just someone trying to gain clout by being with her. At that time, it would be seen as negative to be involved with her. Taylor was seen as problematic, boy-crazy, playing the victim. Hoax also talks about this time when the media, the general public, even “fans” were “pulling her apart.” It was a very painful time.
And in Dress Taylor describes how this secret relationship has left a mark on her that’s indelible.
This person came into Taylor’s life when she was at a low point, but saw her for who she is. The lover treated Taylor with warmth and got under Taylor’s skin (like a golden tattoo). And the feelings go both ways. Karlie(? I’m assuming is the person) shares her perspective in Peace and in Ivy:
Peace
Ivy
These lyrics show Karlie is just as serious about the relationship as Taylor. It’s not clout-chasing, phony, or a fling. In both songs Karlie even says she would die for Taylor. That’s heavy. And to sum up what I think “you drew stars around my scars” means to Taylor is Death by a Thousand Cuts:
Karlie came into Taylor’s life at a low point and offered emotional and physical love, gaining Taylor’s trust. There was mutual adoration and devotion for every part of the other–in private. All the sadness, all the drama of 2016, was rectified and regaled to the background by the intense romance these two shared. The stars in Cardigan symbolize positivity, warmth, and love. The scars are still there, but those positive feelings were able to supersede the pain.
OK, back to the words relating to sky for Question… dissection:
Ivy
Ivy speaks to an affair Taylor had with a married woman (your husband’s wine). The song starts with “in from the snow” telling the audience that Taylor met this person in the winter. Probably the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show which was in December. The affair lasts into the spring, as the clover signifies:
Clover also signifies something invasive and difficult to eliminate (like Kaylor’s impact on each other):
Like this love affair. It’s another way of talking about the metaphor of the golden tattoo. Forever. Clover spreads quickly, like the love affair that took Taylor by surprise and grabbed every piece of her in no time. Clover puts down roots. But it is considered a weed. Taylor put roots in Karlie’s dreamland (her arranged marriage/bearding contract with a billionaire man) and Karlie can’t emotionally extricate herself from the situation. This beautiful love that so easily blooms is a weed to both parties’ life program. It creates complications.
Ivy is an escalation of the intrusiveness of clover. Ivy is aggressively imposing. Taylor gets increasingly desperate to save her relationship with Karlie, even though the “time is near.” This is a known prearranged event on a date foreshadowed by spring. Karlie feels torn by the love she would die to keep, and the urgency of her imminent premeditated engagement.
Ivy blocks the sunlight. It chokes trees. Trees could be both ruining Kaylor and exposing or jeopardizing Karlie’s straight marriage. Something is approaching that causes everyone involved to feel tension and act audaciously.
Here, “Crescent moon, coast is clear” indicates it’s night, but darkness is illuminated by the moonlight. They are sneaking behind the husband’s back, because they cannot stay away from each other. The moon is mentioned as a light source, but it’s not a random choice in Ivy:
The crescent speaks to the changing phases of the moon that show time has passed in this affair, it shows the affair must change with time, and the moon phase shows the end of this romance is imminent due to the upcoming event. It ties to the changing seasons Taylor is already pointing out. Changing heart and vacillating resolve are also perfect descriptors of the characters in this song.
Crescent is one phase from being away from the sun. In darkness. The song Ivy takes place in the spring, one phase away from the summer event that spells the end of Taylor and Karlie’s romance. Taylor will be away from sunshiny Karlie, in the dark depths of depression.
The looming event? This “second wedding” or “celebration of the Oct wedding” seems pivotal. Was it the final contract being signed? A covenant? This is what spring presaged, and this June date is when the affair would be in jeopardy:
Very Cowboy Like Me. It’s a little on the nose, in my opinion.
Interesting choice of movie. Gay. Cowboys??!
Reminder of the Question… lyrics:
Does it feel like everything’s just like second-best after that meteor strike?
Karlie’s life with Jo$h can’t compare to the Kaylor affair.
Together, Taylor and Karlie are otherworldly. The love makes Taylor who she is, and gets into her being, permanent like a tattoo. And the love was reciprocal. Karlie would die for Taylor. And like clover and ivy, the love covered everything, impacted both of their lives.
Coney Island
Taylor knows she left her lover (Karlie?) hanging. She knows Karlie used to be happy, but she made her depressed. Even though this is the central person in Taylor’s life–it’s Karlie she pictures in a crucial moment–she never acknowledges Karlie as her soulmate publicly. Taylor uses “universe” to show how far away she seems to her lover. Taylor’s priorities are misaligned pertaining to Kaylor, and that hurts Karlie. It makes Karlie feel depressed, neglected, lonely, awkward, and forgotten when Taylor does her celebrity thing (and the closeting that goes with it).
That’s what helped Karlie make her decision. Not only was there a prior obligation, but Taylor’s closeting was making Karlie heavyhearted. So the prior obligation won out in the end. Karlie “married” the guy or commissioned this heteronormative life. Now both Taylor and Karlie are dead inside, cold lifeless hands reaching out (“do you wish you could still touch her?”) grieving for the living.
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