#like i’m literally getting tired even for a phoenix always rising from the ashes mending all her gashes

[leninisms]

okay i wasn’t the biggest you’re losing me fan when it first came out but i have seen the light

[please-picturemeintheweeds]

How do you intepret Fresh Out The Slammer?

Obligatory disclaimer that I am not Taylor and can not possibly know what she was thinking when she wrote it! And also I will try to stick to the text and not stray into muse talk, because it’s Sensitive. TW: violence, abuse mentions. Also I’m not editing this like a full essay bc sleepy 🫶

First of all, this song is bleak. Maybe it’s just that my mind tends to go to the darker interpretations bc of my professional background and personal history, but I do think the lyrics here are explicitly Not Good.  The imagery is uh, violent… I’ve already talked a lot about “now pretty baby I’m running back home to you. Fresh out the slammer I know who my first call will be to” as the sentences that send chills down the spine of whoever’s receiving the call, but I will reiterate how downright sleazy it feels!! Pretty baby also feels sort of demeaning. 

Taking cover from rolling thunder paints the picture of someone cowering from a scary loud booming storm (yelling). Splintered is also an ouchie word, bitter is gross/unpleasant and winter (the endless February) is cold and miserable. Either in her dreams, they were together, or, he dreamed about being with someone else (maybe this is the thought crime she put him in jail for?)

Gray and blue - sickly, dead, bruised. Fights. Tunnels - underground, secret, dark, damp. Handcuffed to the spell I was under - she is unable to escape this situation because she is not thinking clearly, he is intoxicating, bewitching, confusing, and she feels trapped by the hope of seeing him briefly happy. It’s not always bad! This is the first clue that she is the one in the slammer - she’s in handcuffs. She’s toiled away for years in this prison, locked up and only able to dream about the outside world, staring at the ceiling. “In the shade of how he was feeling” is an absolutely brilliant line of poetry. She’s used the metaphors of painting a room neon or gray before to indicate mood, so maybe the prison walls are painted in the color of his mood. Or, maybe the colors on her face are based on how he’s feeling - could be the gray face from slowly dying, could be a metaphorical blue of depression. Or it could be literal blue bruising… pls don’t be mad at me for suggesting this!! She said it, not me, and the line is extremely ambiguous. It is not inherently offensive to consider equally this interpretation, in my opinion. 

But none of it matters, it’ll be okay, she patiently waited out the entirety of her sentence, and things will get better now (not sure on this- is the 6 years the sentence and marriage at the end of it a reward for suffering? Or at the end of the sentence, she’s free and the she is the one running to a new partner? I think both). Or, if it’s the subject who was in the slammer for his crimes, whatever they might be, it could be a quote “it’s gunna be alright. I did my time, now pretty baby I’m running back home to you”. I can see it either way! I think the end of that verse really opens up the ambiguity, and the rest of the song lives in the in-between realm of both possibilities. I truly adore the ambiguity all over TTPD, and the way that she casts herself as the villain and the survivor, sometimes at the same time because that is life! We are all both at different times and sometimes simultaneously!

Camera flashes - paparazzi and fans is the easy interpretation here. It also makes me think of the moment when a criminal is released and if the case was in the news, there’s usually a group of reporters at the exit waiting to take photos. Something too about the vulnerability and lack of privacy/stalking. Welcome bashes is a clever double meaning: a welcome home party (yay!), or “bashes” like bashing someone’s head in (boo!). Get the matches toss the ashes off the ledge (I’m getting tired even for a Phoenix always rising from the ashes mending all my gashes you just might have dealt the final blow… // I took your matches before fire could catch me). I interpret the matches to be that rekindling spark of lust that reconnects them (imgunnagetyouback) but leaves her totally burned out and feeling so worthless and spent that she might as well be flung off a ledge :( 

“As I said in my letters [from prison] now that I know better I will never lose my baby again” is either her or him speaking, or both. Some lesson was supposedly learned and the speaker will be altering their behavior in order to not break up again. Either way, this line makes me feel gross. If it’s her, she’s apologizing for something and promising to take on the responsibility for whatever happened herself (a common way to feel in control when your partner is chaotic and blaming you for their actions). If it’s him, it just feels like a gross lie (one that I’ve heard women talk about allll the time). Her friends tried to help her because they saw how fucked up this relationship was, and that she was isolating herself and shrinking smaller and smaller, but she wouldn’t listen. Due to the spell that was making her excuse behaviors in the hopes that he would smile again. (She reiterates that point twice in the song). the subject here led her on, she got caught up in the romance, and now that they’re together again they’re starting fresh. (The starting line is also a band i think? So this seems like a message in a bottle situation, but idk how we would know which song/muse she’s referencing) 

Okay vibe shift (I think this is why lots of people connect this song to a certain unsavory muse, because of the call back to “the great escape the prison break the light of freedom on my face” but I don’t really, at least not primarily but I agree it oozes into that situation)!! They’re off the pay phone, she’s running home where he is waiting for her - symbolically he’s letting the lamp burn. He’s telling her again that she’s the girl of his dreams (which is the actual definition of “love bombing…”). And this is where my handy theory that sometimes her songs are written like a conversation without the (he said she said): who is saying “and no matter what I’ve done it doesn’t matter anyway. Ain’t no way I’m gunna screw up now that I know what’s at stake here”? It could be either of them, or both. Same as in the prior verse with the letters. They’re reiterating that some lesson has been learned (though the tone this part is delivered with feels sort of sarcastic to me right? She knows the ending!) it’s giving squeeze my hand as I’m about to leave. The setting shift from porch to park confuses me but I will allow her the artistic license because the children’s swings line is genius. They used to just be kids playing house/dolls at the sandlot together (another song with lots of violent imagery), wearing imaginary rings. None of it was real to him, but she still did the time in his prison anyways, and it maybe cost her the future she was striving for and that he agreed to pursue with her. She was all in, but he viewed it as a game/fantasy. Will it actually be alright? Probably not. But she did the time (and/or he did)… 

So what is the slammer?? Who is in it?? What does freedom represent? I think for her the slammer is the relationship. For him, the slammer is the time apart when she broke up with him (or they were separated) because of whatever crime he committed. I also think it’s notable that the album is full of musings on what counts as a crime, particularly if nobody was physically touched/harmed. 

Basically, she felt incarcerated, and the imagery does not paint a gentle picture. I know others interpret it as her running to a new partner after leaving the last one, but I just really don’t see this (other than thematically implied at the end). I feel pretty strongly that it’s about reuniting with someone who’s hurt you, and the confusing icky emotions that come up when making the decision to get back together (and how that’s related to feeling worthless/like you don’t deserve better).

Bonus parallels: 

Another summer taking cover // I’ve loved you three summers now honey but I want them all

Fresh out the slammer // put you in jail for something you didn’t do

Gray and blue and fights and tunnels // don’t want no other shade of blue but you // turned around before I hit the tunnel 

Handcuffed to the spell I was under // even if it’s handcuffed I’m leaving here with you

Years of.. ceilings // staring at the ceiling with you // drew a map on your bedroom ceiling 

Ain’t no way I’m gunna screw up now that I know what’s at stake here // that child’s play back in school is forgiven under my rule, I haven’t come around in soo long but I’m making a come back to where I belong (yeah yeah football references blah blah blah the alchemy feels sinister to me and I think easily describes the inverse of FOTS- the chemistry and fire that happens when she and the Fots muse reconnect.)