#music incites

[capricandoitall]

Freddie Forever

That's my job.

— Freddie Mercury

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

One day I’m going to finish that essay or whatever it was in my drafts that’s about the themes of womanhood/relationships/thirtysomething stuff and TTPD but since part of this discussion has been revived on the dash but also it’s Saturday so this won’t ruffle as many feathers, I think one thing that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle in the conversation about the muses and stories in the lyrics is just why the recurring theme of the broken dreams pops up all over the album, and why they permeate the discussion of both muses, if not *all* the muses in the album.

Not to project things on Taylor, but it feels pretty clear to me* that the dreams she’s talking about specifically are about having a family, and that is the through line in the album, and why the successive blows devastated her. (*I don’t want to presume that anyone else feels this way and this is just my interpretation etc.)

The suburban gothic allegory in Fortnight depicting a miserable, lonely marriage. The ring on the ring finger in TTPD making her explode with joy because it was a shorthand for lifelong commitment. “He saw forever so he smashed it up” in My Boy. “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free” and dying on the sacrificial altar in So Long London. Marrying her wild boy in But Daddy. “Get the matches, toss the ashes off the ledge” in Fresh Out the Slammer (as in, she burned her life down). “You shit-talked me under the table talking rings and talking cradles” in loml. “The deflation of our dreaming leaving me bereft and reeling” in How Did It End. “Promises ocean deep and never to keep” in Peter. The allusion in The Manuscript that the man in question made her think he was in it for the potential of a serious commitment only for her to feel used when he moved on. And there are probably more examples I’m not thinking of off the top of my head here.

But what I’m trying to get at delicately is that from what she’s put down in TTPD, as well as what she’s put down in previous albums (“give you my wild, give you my child,” Paper Rings, Lover, renegade, YLM, etc.) building a life and a family with this person (Joe) was not only something she wanted, but seemingly deliberately planning and working towards. So in the death throes of the relationship, her grief was not just about things like losing someone she once loved, the breakdown of this relationship that was once comforting to her, what she gave up to make their life work, etc. but about this important thing she had dreamed of and what she seemed to feel was on the horizon. What I think I’m trying to say is that it had likely shifted at some point (even just based on the album pipeline) from a hypothetical “one day we’ll have ten kids and teach them how to dream” thing you wonder about with a partner to something that felt a lot more… tangible. (Again trying to be sensitive in my word choice/not project or assume things etc.)

I don’t want to make any accusations or assumptions on main, but I think those kind of life plans feeling within reach not only makes it understandable as to why someone would stay in a relationship whose cracks were turning into fault lines, but on the flip side why giving up on something that felt like it was on their doorstep would be so wholly devastating.

But it’s also why what happened in the two successive relationships *was* so devastating in the songs on the album, and why the Matty thing specifically was so twisted. He’d reentered her life and he’d insinuated himself back into her circle and gained her confidence which in turn led her to confide things in him (the “hostile takeovers” of it all, the whole bridge of The Smallest Man with its honey pot spy mission imagery in which like a mark he sweet talked her into sharing her most vulnerable, compromising “secrets” only to then turn it around to use her and ghost her like a trained operative). And given the way the family thing appears in both presumed storylines, it’s again because Muse #2 used the info gleaned about the life with Muse #1 to sell her a con about an alternate path to what she was mourning so deeply. (And why it’s such an unconscionable act because it’s manipulation, at least going by her own words about her experience of it. It’s as cavalier as the organ donor line in The Manuscript, with the same effect.)

The shittalking about rings and cradles is both of them (if not all of them) because in all cases, they ended up raising her hopes only to not plan on following through. One because he maybe couldn’t commit, one because maybe he was never serious about it. (And the one who did it first who was both 🥴.)

If I had to guess (because I am not Taylor so I will obviously never know any of this for sure besides picking up context clues), the dream was like a carrot dangling in her mind, feeling like this is what the “agony” to quote another one of her songs was for — like, things may be hard, but life is hard, and at least they were building towards *something* she felt they both wanted. And as that dream slipped through her fingers, it created a cascading series of events that crippled her emotionally for a time. So when she mourns that life in her songs, it’s almost like it’s the same dream, just in shifting contexts. The conman selling her dream back to her is comforting at first, but hits doubly hard and leaves her broke when it disappears.

The story throughout the muses on the album isn’t “she jumps to the person who promises her these things,” it’s that it’s a whole life she’s built that crumbles under the weight of reality knocking at the door and a foundation that shifts until it disintegrates. And losing that foundation and the dreams built upon it leaves her searching for answers in the wreckage — and looking elsewhere for clarity for a time. And it’s why it’s so hard to remove one muse from the other (or again, all of them), because that central driving force is used by each of them in different ways to build her up and take her down. And why working through the pain of one situation bleeds into that of another.

It’s hard to delve into this more without crossing boundaries or whatever, but it’s just such a palpable open wound in the album, but also why working through the pain in different contexts on TTPD brings to light all these different kinds of hurt but also the emotions that go along with them.

Anyway. That other essay will write itself at some point idk.

[moreespressoformydepresso]

It’s so funny to me how people hate on Eurylochus for opening the windbag and say Polites wouldn’t have done that because like-

Polites is the reason they needed the wind bag in the first place, because he convinced Odysseus to listen to the Lotus Eaters who sent them to Polyphemus’s cave

Just throwing it out there yk

[skitskatdacat63]

Credits to @ayceeofspades, she was the director behind this, I was just the editor.(There's a full version of this, which I shall not be posting on main out of self preservation, but dm if you want to see it bcs I think the full version is truly a masterpiece :] )

[awakefor48hours]

Please consider reblogging for a larger sample size

*Edit, now that this poll is dead, please read tags

[crimeboys]

“he’s using you to get back at the gods!” “good!” songs that make you vomit over cwilbur

[thiefofhope555]

Odysseus: Starts the entire Epic Musical series off by murdering a baby.

Odysseus: Taunts Polyphemus, the cyclops, as they sail away, kicking off literally the entire chain of misery that follows. Does so for no reason except to flex.

Odysseus: Betrays the trust of his crew by sacrificing six of them to a monster, without even trying another avenue (like, oh, idk, bringing six of those sirens along as the sacrifices), without getting their input, nothing. Is unable to defend the morality of this action in the slightest when confronted. ("Say something!" "I can't!")

People here, for some reason: Odysseus did nothing wrong and his crew deserved to die. They shouldn't have been mean to him :( How dare they raise their voices at the man who got them onto this mess and sees them as nothing but sacrificial animals. They should learn their place, he's their captain and their king and he can do whatever he wants forever.

[daincrediblegg]

Nothing wrong with me

[appreciate-your-bones]

How bad would it be if I got into taking back Sunday because of rpf

[juhnkit]

Motivational Music in the Morning … Billy Morrison x Corey Taylor x Steve Vai, Incite the Watch (Official music Video) … from the Album: Single Release 09/10/2024 (2024) #MMitM1

[yellow-faerie]

So I went to go see Wicked yesterday, as a birthday present, and anyway, Glinda and Elphaba are like those two male leads who are apparently straight but who everyone ships together

That is to say, I came out of the theatre and came to the conclusion that they are deeply in love

[livvyofthelake]

people who hate taylor swift literally must have some kind of parasite or worm inside their brain. you can just not care about her like a normal person you don’t have to be a passionate hater because you think it’s like. activism to hate taylor swift online…

[goldandlights]

"O Elbereth Gilthoniel! We still remember, we who dwell In this far land beneath the trees The starlight on the Western Seas"

[just-a-simple-dyke]

VENGEANCE BLOOD MURDER KILL KILL KILLLLLLLL

[juuheizou]

Throwing this concept @ you (age swap igggg????) imagine if Mutsuki was Juuzou’s mentor 🤭🤭🤭

This isn't the first time I've thought about or started and not finished something of a role-reversal in this way, and let me tell you: mentor!Mutsuki that poor, poor fool. I give him 11 minutes, not just to mentor, but to survive.

Like he would have the beautiful kind heart to see a human being behind the bad things his fellow investigators say about junior investigator!Suzuya and specifically want to give him a chance, but I mean, think about where he would be at Suzuya's age without Suzuya mentoring him. Assuming he continued to be an investigator that long without him. Paired with Suzuya where he was at Mutsuki's age at that time? That Suzuya would eat that Mutsuki alive.

[slrmagazine]

Billy Morrison, Corey Taylor and Steve Vai Join Forces For “Incite The Watch” Track And Video

Billy Morrison, Corey Taylor and Steve Vai Join Forces For “Incite The Watch” Track And Video. #billymorrison @BillyMorrison

BILLY MORRISON, COREY TAYLOR, and STEVE VAI have joined forces on “Incite The Watch,” the new single and cutting-edge animated video from Billy’s recently released solo album THE MORRISON PROJECT via TLG | ZOID | Virgin Music Group. Today (September 10), a striking video for the song has been released. It depicts “flying superhero rockstars fighting against the corporate hordes and freeing music,…