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Is it valid to say that, on the original 1989, Taylor was trying to protect Harry from backlash (e.g., leaving Is It Over Now? and Say Don't Go in the vault)?

oh yeah. one of the reasons the katy drama kicked off is cause she was protecting him-- she said this in her 2015 gq interview:

You’re in a Rolling Stone interview, and the writer says, “Who is that song about? That sounds like a really intense moment from your life.” And you sit there, and you know you’re on good terms with your ex-boyfriend, and you don’t want him—or his family—to think you’re firing shots at him. So you say, “That was about losing a friend.” [...] I knew the song would be assigned to a person, and the easiest mark was someone who I didn’t want to be labeled with this song. It was not a song about heartbreak. It was about the loss of friendship.

but i also think a big part of it was protecting her own imagine. she was tired of the boy-crazy narrative, she was tired of people seeing her songs as comedy central roasts for preteen girls, she wanted to be taken seriously as a songwriter. so she took out some of the more angry, wounded songs

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thank you today’s merch drop of 9 $399 guitars that i feel no urgency to purchase

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oh so we're doing scooby doo crimes now

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Matty woke up and decided to remind everybody of Guilty As Sin? and Downtown Lights. I don't get this man's purpose but he sure does pick attention every so often.

he comes from the john mayer school of using swifties as an attention slot machine. which is already pathetic but the more you ignore it the more pathetic it becomes

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Mr Perfectly Fine/How's your heart after breaking mine?

or

Mr Steal Your Girl/Then Make Her Cry

confession. i don’t like either of these and when she first said “mr steal your girl” i went oh Fuck not this again

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When thinking of creativity I always remember a key phrase from Dress was a phrase in her notebook in her phone like a year before it became the wonderful song which it is which changed my life. I am not aware of timelines but that would possibly mean it was originally about Calvin or from her 'single on purpose-situationship with Matty and or Harry and or whoever' era. I like her live with phrases, images and ideas in my head and it's just finding the right place to put it. Creativity is fluid.

most of dress was written early! this is what she said about it:

"This song was one of those things where almost every line is something that I came up with like a year before, and then when I was writing the song, I just cherry picked, and I was like, 'Like that, like that, like that, like that.'"

jack's said dress was the first song they did together for reputation, probably sometime in early 2017. now, if i can take a quick break to talk about taylor not being the best judge of time for these things:

from the long pond studio sessions: "[August] started with the fact that I had written down in my phone, “Meet me behind the mall” years ago, wanting to write it into a song." from the zane lowe interview: That song coming from that line 'Meet me behind the mall', and that you'd had that line for a long time-- How long had you had that line for? "Uh, it was about six months old, probably"

so, when she says "like a year before," take it with a grain of salt. personally, i'm guessing the early end of the timeframe is early 2015, when she satrted dating calvin, though i'd guess most of it was jotted down sometime in 2016, when she was talking with joe as "friends", and also out of the public eye. which i think explains most of the lyrics, especially because her and calvin and tom were not exactly secretive or seemingly close. that being said there is No Fucking Way she wrote "everyone thinks that they know us" about joesph alwyn

but yeah! i would love to see the edit history of her lyrics page of her notes app, especially around the time of folklore when she just let herself go crazy with her favorite words

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In your reputation timeline you place Ready for it in 2017 (as speculation) have you seen that Taylor’s previous assistant said it was written on her plane on the 1989 tour in 2015 in the HBO Scooter documentary?

i have! i’ve been slowly working on an update for the rep timeline, but here’s the sneak peak (it’s a photo so don’t try to click on any of the links)

and here’s the link for the most through response i’ve given about it— tldr, i highly doubt anything super substantial was written, my main guess is it was just the prechorus/chorus. we do have video footage of her recording it in 2017 in miss americana— she’s got her post sep 24 2016 bangs and her j necklace that she (probably) got for her birthday in 2016

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it’s been said before but my BOOOOOOOOY only breaks his favorite TOOOOOOOYS

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On the other hand, i think peter is also fictional ?? The story of two young lovers agreeing to separate for a certain while, say graduation, promising to reunite after a while. Like those “if we’re still 25 and single we marry” vows. So she waits for him, he moves on.

i like that read of it, but i think the main fictionalization is merging the two guys into one. but overall i’d put it at the same level of fictionalization as like, innocent?

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I agree with your intepretation of Peter sounds about right

i put up with the chorus so i can get to that good good verse shit and thus i have much to say on them

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What is she thinking about?

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What are your thoughts about Peter? At the beginning I thought it was a very Matty coded song, but on further reflection I think it got the mbobhft treatment, starting about one muse and then including also the other. I’m not saying that because I’m denial of it being Matty coded, I arrived to that conclusion because if she wanted to be more direct like she was in other songs throughout the album she would’ve done that, instead Peter has references that I believe could be applied to both Joe and Matty.

One last thing: I know that people use the argument of her telling him that she was waiting for him to comeback because he was only 25 when they met, but if we bring Chloe et al into the equation, a song that I consider very Matty coded, then the 2 songs would sorta tell a different and contradictory story imho (if tu want I can explain myself in a longer ask about this topic)

so i think peter is pretty simple— the first verse is about matty, the second is about joe

as for the 25 detail, they were both 25 when she met them! which is just crazy. i also don’t think the bridge is saying she wanted him back, i think it’s more expressing a desire for him to be okay. “i hoped you’d return with your feet on the ground, tell me all that you’d learned, cause loves never lost when perspective is earned” speaks to me more as her wanting/wanted him to be safe and healthy, and not be consumed by their various struggles. i also don’t think it’s out of the question for matty, in response to her breaking up with him, to respond by saying something along the lines of ‘im going to clean up and win you back’, or when they reconnected for him to have promised her that he had cleaned himself up and was going to win her back, only to love bomb her and sink in stoned oblivion once again

but anyways onto a dissection of verse one and verse two being about two separate scenarios

verse one:

my lost fearless leader

“the coward claimed he was a lion”— loml

“you said i need a brave man, then proceeded to play him until i believed it too”— the black dog

and just as a funny aside, mattys favorite song of hers is hey stephen, a song on fearless

preserved from when we were just kids

“he was my best friend down at the sandlot”— my boy only breaks his favorite toys

“at the park where we used to sit on children’s swings”— fresh out the slammer

“we embroidered the memories of when i was away, stitching ‘we were just kids’”— loml

is it something i did?

there is way to many lyrics questioning of why matty left her on ttpd than i can reference here, but the biggies are on the smallest man and the black dog

i didn’t wanna come down

it’s a textual parallel to pretty much the entirety of down bad

also saying that she didn’t want the relationship to end

i thought it was just goodbye for now

i think this is a pretty direct reference to him ghosting her

verse two:

are you still a mind reader, a natural scene stealer?

“you should think about the consequence of your magnetic field being a little too strong”— gorgeous

“and i’m highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you”— lover

“i was playing around with the idea of quiet confidence. there’s something so sick about […] somebody who, they’re not arrogant, they’re not cocky […] but there are certain people who just walk in and they don’t need to be arrogant because there’s something beaming from within them. and when you meet a person like this, you’re like, ‘why do i want to walk over there and talk to this person?’”— taylor talking about i think he knows for iheartradio

joe is an actor harhar

when crossing your jet stream

“my baby’s fly like a jet stream”— call it what you want

we both did the best we could do underneath the same moon, in different galaxies

“nights are so starry, blood moon lit”— glitch

“we learned the right steps to different dances”— how did it end

“resentment rotting away/ galaxies we created/ stars places and glued/ meticulously by hand/ next to the ceiling fan/ tried wishing on comets./ tried dimming the shine./ tried to orbit his planet./ some stars never align.”— ttpd epilogue, 'in conclusion'

i didn’t want to hang around

“i didn’t opt in to be your odd man out”— so long london

“my white knuckle dying grip holding tight to your quiet resentment”— so long london

“every breath feels like rarest air when you’re not sure if he wants to be there”— so long london

implies she was willing to leave

we said it was just goodbye for now

there is somewhat of a timeline anomaly in articles about joever— some point to a breakup in february, and some in late march. there are more articles that mention them having gone on breaks before, and how their friends were expecting them to get back together before the big breakup was announced. looking at the articles (with a grain of salt because idk the accuracy of any one article), i think taylor and joe went on a break in february, and then taylor made it permanent in late march, and this line would be consistent with that

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sorry what is the taylor with braces and glasses addition to the poll? like I don't know the reference/quote

it comes from an ‘ew’ sketch on jimmy fallon, which is/was (idk i don’t watch him) a long running sketch where he and one of his guests dress up like preteen girls and make all the jokes you would guess based off that premise.

i wasn’t specifically referencing anything in the sketch, i was just making a joke because uh. there was in fact never going to be an unplayed song slut. so like.

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i’m your favorite mutuals most boring mutual

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my white ass is not immune to the nostalgia of viva la vida by coldplay