#so. apologies swifties in my phone you have to deal w/ the first part to get to the analysis

[mastermindmp3]

If you just want the song analysis, skip to the next banner. However, I do think the context added by my rambling is at least interesting.

Hey, so remember how yesterday, I opened my analysis post with a comment about how I try to analyze the songs without analyzing Taylor Swift's life, because I feel it's limiting to my ability to understand the song. It's not a form of analysis I'm very good at either, frankly.

I feel like that comment goes especially so for But Daddy I Love Him. Because I was certainly there for the rat-filled fortnight, as in, he literally played guitar for Phoebe Bridgers at my show. And there's a lot I could say that has already been said, more eloquently and by people far more qualified.

I'm a biology student, not a sociologist. But as an Indigenous woman, there is a level of hurt that comes from the people we admire tolerating racism within their spaces, and how that can often play into revealing a pattern of behavior. On the opposite hand, I can see the annoyance (and indignation) that she was held more accountable for his actions than he was. Indeed, I believe that this is what the line "[My good name] is mine alone to disgrace" refers to. On the other, other hand, the whole situation leaves a powdery, bad taste in my mouth.

And now to never talk about that again, because I don't feel qualified to give you a conclusion on it. I'm still listening to the music, after all. The rest of my analysis will be from the perspective of the song as a story, not as diary, my preferred modus operandi.

I wanted to say all that as set up in: I didn't know what to think about this song. I was unsure what angle I wanted to talk about this song from, because divorcing it from the backlash was hard. She literally says "Scandal does funny things to pride," and we'll talk about that later.

Initially, I thought about covering against the grain readings. Recontextualizing the song completely, giving it a new meaning. I thought about maybe covering the history of forbidden romance as a genre (and its many evolutions, from ironically, interracial love stories to queer romance.) I even thought about talking about the Little Mermaid, tying the song into one of the pieces of iconic fiction, and tying that back into the idea of forbidden romance as a queer reading of straight fiction (Howard Ashman, the lead lyricist for Disney, ostensibly the heart of the Disney Renaissance, was a gay man whose partner accepted his Oscar after he had passed due to AIDs.)

And... none of that worked. There are like, five versions of this post in my google docs that will never see the light of day.

Sitting in standstill traffic trying to leave last night's Hozier concert, I finally came to a conclusion. Well, I didn't. Jean, who's previously helped me on both Little Tortured Poet's Department and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys, made a comment that "Without the rest of the album, [But Daddy I Love Him] reads like any 2003 emo song about a sleazy bassist. Sure, we know better, but the singer doesn't."

And that got me thinking: TTPD is an album that is very much in conversation with itself, and Taylor's discography as a whole. I said, "How much does not knowing that wider context change the song?" That's an angle to analyze, baby!

alternative title that wouldn't leave my mind: Dark AU!Love Story, don't like don't read

But Daddy I Love Him is, out of the whole album, the song that benefits from context the most. It is petulant, petty, the speaker digging in her heels on the subject of true love. Indeed, Scandal does funny things to pride. I jokingly referred to it as "Dark Love Story," but the songs are foils ( and likely intentionally, since both songs have to the singer begging "Daddy" to let her have her lover. It also makes sense to foil one of her most popular songs, so that general audiences are likely to make the connection. )

We, the audience, know that the Speaker's romantic interest isn't good for her. We don't like him, because likely, we've already listened to the previous songs on the tracklist, and he's already clearly hurt the singer. The prelude (in the CD and Vinyl booklets) refers to the album as one story, which helps set up this framework in the listener's mind.

However, even in the context of the song, there are scant hints of this. The Speaker, with her rose colored glasses firmly on, still refers to her lover as "crazy."

There's also an interesting tie to her older works, known affectionately on Reddit as Car Lore in the use of cars as metaphor for romance. To quote the seminal essay by u/Alex_Demote, "But for Taylor, being in a car is often the same thing as being in a relationship."

Here, the speaker's lover "[floors] it through the fences" at her request and they only hear "screeching tires and true love" His actions are incredibly dangerous. Even if she's told him to slam through the fence, anyone who actually loves her would say no. A joy ride isn't worth risking your life.

By literal laws of physics, screeching tires are tires that aren't moving. Whether the speaker knows it or not, this romance won't go anywhere, or if it does... well.

I'm an Aston Martin that you steered straight into the ditch (imgonnagetyouback) / Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street (Red) / You were driving the getaway car, we were flying but we’d never get far (Getaway Car)

Though, do we know it's a car? Obviously, this is Car Lore I'm applying here, but our only other references to a land vehicle (aside from the Aston Martin, which is The Speaker) are in So High School, which has it's own parallels to But Daddy I Love Him, see below, and in imgonnagetyouback:

Whether I'm gonna be your wife or / Gonna smash up your bike, I haven't decided yet

And here comes my main point: Driving a car through a fence is reckless, yes, but not likely to be fatal. A bike? A bike? It's only with the context of the rest of the album that the danger our speaker was in comes into clear view. In the song itself, the Speaker only knows he's a bit of a troublemaker, but doesn't mind. She is either blind to the truth of the matter, or looking past it. After all, my boy only breaks his favorite toys. She'd rather burn her whole life down.

But, at the end of the song, her parents "came around" and while the "wine moms are still holding out," the Speaker seems quite happy to be "his lady." Time does give some perspective, but this song doesn't: though the final chorus could be reframed as about a new lover (as she says "Fuck 'em, it's over,") it still reads like everything worked out with her "wild boy."

Like I said on Down Bad, the songs on TTPD are slices of time. This song is the Speaker in a state of blind love, a poisoned honeymoon phase, and without the rest of the album of hindsight, the song just reads... Mean. The teenage prank of "I'm having his baby," refusing to "come to [her] senses," and even referring to herself as "not growing up at all," slamming through fences that someone else will have to fix. It's the exact kind of pettiness that a sixteen year old might pull.

Hey, speaking of sixteen: So High School. If But Daddy I Love Him is a dark take on forbidden love, So High School is its antidote, is that quintessential Boy Meets Girl, and plays deeply into high school cliches. It's also the only other mention of a land vehicle, to my knowledge. The speaker's infatuated with how her lover, "Got [her] car door, isn't that sweet?"

The other, very teenager-y love song on the record is so opposite. It's cheerful, and most importantly, the singer realizes it too. So High School serves to further contextualize But Daddy I Love Him as the speaker's attempt at a rebellious stage, and the rest of the album is her showing how it all crashed and burned.

Conclusion? Her daddy might love him, but he does NOT have land vehicle proficiency. And context can give far more perspective than time ever could.

also hey WDYM GET BACK HERE—

[religionsinyourlips-archive]

apologies for being so cheesy/obnoxious, but I wanna put this out there.

okay, so I know she (being @taylorswift) will most likely never see this because I’m a small account that hasn’t doesn’t have any friends on here and hasn’t been around for long (my old Taylor account is 4 years old and I haven’t been able to sign into it for about 2 years, RIP), but I just wanted to share this after thinking long and hard about my life so far.

this is really long and I apologize, but I hope it’s worth reading. if not, I apologize.

also, trigger warnings for those who get triggered by mention of self harm, eating disorders, and suicide attempts.

my 21st birthday is a week from tomorrow and I realized while walking my dog earlier this evening that Taylor and her music have been in and such a big part of my life for 11 crazy years. like, I know quite a few of y’all are older than me, but I don’t think I ever really thought about how much of an impact she’s made on me and how I’ve acted about certain situations until now. I know I’m not anything special because so many people have gone through worse things than I have, but I just wanted to share my story. maybe it might help someone, I don’t know.

we’re gonna go through by how each record has impacted my life and helped me through certain shit.

HERE WE GO, Y’ALL.

anyways, Taylor’s music has almost constantly been in my life since Tim McGraw was released as a single. I heard that for the first time in 5th grade because my best friend at the time was (and still is) obsessed  with country music. now, I know Taylor’s not really considered country anymore, but we’ve all heard the debut album, so we know why my best friend at the time (Emily) was obsessed with it. anyways, I wasn’t quite smart enough to truly appreciate Tim McGraw (I was literally nine years old) like I do now, so I just kinda listened to it and lived my life as best as I could. 

things started to change, however, when Teardrops on My Guitar came out. that came out at the beginning of my 6th grade year and as soon as I heard it on the radio, I was hooked. like, 1500000% obsessed. I had this cheap flip phone at the time (yeah, I know, a ten-year old with a phone) and I used it to record that song whenever it came on the radio. since iPods weren’t super popular with the kiddos back then, I listened to it on literal repeat on my phone’s memos when I wasn’t at school or in church or sleeping. I was literally so obsessed. I didn’t really realize until now, but Teardrops on My Guitar really helped me get through this heartbreaking failed crush I had between 5th and 6th grade, so thanks for that Taylor. ANYWAYS. as her other singles from her debut album came out and were played on the radio (Our Song, Picture to Burn, Should’ve Said No), I became more and more obsessed. that was mainly because I didn’t have many true friends and was bullied quite a bit all throughout grade school, so I felt like someone who didn’t even know me by name was there for support. 

again, ANYWAYS. after being content with being a Taylor Swift fan through that debut era, I moved from where I was born and raised (southwestern Illinois) to Missouri (the Kansas City area/the western side of the state) because of my dad’s job. I went from having a couple good friends and not feeling like I had to try too hard to fit in to having no friends and wanting so badly to fit in. well, in doing so, I went into that trademark emo phase and the friends I made at that time made me think Taylor Swift made the worst music ever. that didn’t last long, though, because my choir teacher in 7th grade had us sing Love Story right after Fearless was released, so I was back to being hooked. but this time around, I had to keep quiet in order to maintain my not super great but I thought it was better than what I had in Illinois reputation (LOL I’m sorry, I had to).some of hiding that part of my life (the happy part of my life) got me so down and upset that I started self harming. it was bad. like, really bad. I managed to keep it a secret, though. anyways. the debut album and Fearless helped me through some tough times in seventh grade, including my cat of my whole entire life at that point dying, starting to discover my sexual orientation, and my parents not living together for four or five months.

we’re doing this again, but ANYWAYS (it’s obnoxious, I know). after being in Kansas City for about eight months, my dad broke the news to us that we were moving across the state of Kansas and halfway through the state of Colorado. I was absolutely heartbroken because I had to start that process all over again and knew it was going to be hard on me. I don’t know why, but Fifteen, Fearless, and Change got me through a lot of that when I moved here. anyways. by the time I moved here and got settled, Speak Now had come out (that was the end of the first half of 8th grade). I was still kind of in my emo phase, but people were a lot nicer about Taylor Swift here than they were in Kansas City. I had kind of settled back down to being “normal” and Speak Now, again, helped with a lot. I started really dealing with depression and anxiety in eighth grade due to some bullying (again), so Long Live and Mean got me through that. did I mention that I was bullied into working on changing my slightly hick-ish accent in middle school? no? WELL IT HAPPENED. ANYWAYS! as eighth grade rolled into high school, my Speak Now obsession continued.

okay, now into high school. the best years of my life, but the worst years of my life. LET’S GET INTO IT. I was in marching band all four years of high school and when I first started, I met who I though was the love of my life. she (yes, I said she) was great and supported me and whoever I loved/whatever I was obsessed with, and she was a swiftie, so that was a plus. anyways, as the second half of my freshman year rolled around, my dad lost his job he’d had for a looooooong time (the one that moved us out to Colorado) and my depression got worse. my girlfriend tried to be there for me as much as she could and kept reminding me that Taylor was there, too, but it didn’t help much. I started self harming almost constantly and my multiple suicide attempts started. after freshman year was over and sophomore year began, my dad was still unemployed and I was still severely depressed. my relationship started growing into an emotionally abusive one and I thought my life was pretty much pointless until the Speak Now World Tour dates were released and I saw that Taylor was going to be in Denver three weeks after my fifteenth birthday! unfortunately, my family wasn’t able to afford any kind of tickets and all I got from the concert was a bunch of girls around my school bragging about it and wearing all the merchandise the next day. the next few months of my life were like that until Safe & Sound from The Hunger Games soundtrack was released. I bought that the day it came out because we had Christmas a day late and I got an iPod touch with an iTunes gift card, so of fucking course I would.

okay, let’s just move into the next era because I am going on and on and on here. so between the time Safe & Sound and Red were released, I had attempted suicide multiple times through extreme amounts of self harm and attempting to overdose, but clearly, none of them worked. I also marched in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade my sophomore year and tried killing myself and started starving myself after we got back for lord knows what reason. the only good thing about that trip was being in Time’s Square at the same time Taylor posted a picture of her in a taxi in Time’s Square. like, that’s it. anyways, the only thing that helped me through my sophomore year was the fact that I had Safe & Sound and The Hunger Games to make me feel like life was like, the least bit worth living. 

ANYWAYS, I’m pretty sure it was my first week of my junior year, but Taylor had her livestream when she announced Red and that was the beginning of my life turning around. I was finally able to end my super emotionally abusive relationship with my ex girlfriend by playing We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together on Skype and then hanging up on her. thanks, Taylor, by the way! it made me feel so empowered and the countdown for the album gave me something to look forward to. I also remember coming home from school two days after my sixteenth birthday, watching Taylor sing Ronan, then hating my life. A N Y W A Y S. Red coming out was the best thing that ever happened to me, even though I couldn’t buy the physical copy until after school the day it came out. I did buy it on iTunes the night before and I’m pretty sure I posted it on Facebook, but you know, whatever. by the end of my junior year, I was doing a lot better in school than I had been doing my previous year and my mental health got quite a bit better. my last week of school, two of the local country radio stations (The Wolf and KYGO) started giving away tickets for the Red Tour concert in Denver, and after calling The Wolf THIRTEEN times on my cell phone on my last day of school, I won two tickets to see her (click this link to listen to it because my good friend recorded it and put it on SoundCloud). it was a definite turn around to my life. my ex, who was going with her friend, tried to get me to take her with me, but I took my best friend instead and texted her the lyrics to WANEGBT during WANEGBT because I was too savage for my own good. I also saw Mama Swift and cried, and Grant tried throwing me a guitar pick and it made it NOWHERE NEAR ME. but he tried. and it was great.

okay, senior year. sorry this is so long. I continued being obnoxiously obsessed with Red and the last two digits of my locker were 22 and the last number of my locker combo was 13, so I though the Taylor Swift gods were blessing me for sure. ANYWAYS. I graduated from high school, which is something I never imagined I would be alive to do, but I made it through because Taylor made me feel so empowered with songs like IKYWT and WANEGBT and kept me away from my toxic ass ex girlfriend. BUT I GRADUATED. AND IT WAS GREAT. I WAS AND AM STILL SO PROUD OF MYSELF.

I’m just gonna long story short the rest of this because this is going on way too damn long. 1989 was announced and Shake It Off was released on a day I worked a night shift the night before, so I was like, wiped the hell out and actually asleep, but I partied hardy as soon as I woke up and ended up meeting someone who changed my life immensely because of it. I almost dated her, but I screwed that up and honestly, it’s probably for the better. the 1989 world tour rolled around and I didn’t win/couldn’t afford to buy tickets, so I just sat at home and read about it. I lived through the drama and the music videos, which made me feel like I had something to live for (again, I know that’s probably stupid), but at that point, I needed anything I could grasp onto. then I started therapy and antidepressant meds and started dealing with some gender dysphoria, which Taylor’s presence helped me through, until August. then I stopped my medication voluntarily and my self harm got bad. that was during the drought. it was fun. it was hard to find things to be happy about. 

okay, fast forward to this year because I need to finish this. Taylor was basically nowhere to be seen and my depression and anxiety had gotten so bad, I had to do something about it myself. I found the courage and strength to put myself in an intensive outpatient program at a local behavioral health facility and while Taylor’s sexual assault trial triggered some very upsetting PTSD and guilt/shame, I graduated from the program two weeks ago. then, shortly after, this new era started.

okay, to make a long story short, I just realized I’ve been able to stay alive during all of her eras and all of the drama she’s been attached to and if you would’ve asked me five years ago, I would’ve told you I wouldn’t have been alive to do that. I realized that I have survived crushes, heartbreaks, love, breakups, depression, anxiety, self harm, suicide attempts, loneliness, confusion, and pain with and mainly because of @taylorswift and I can’t begin to thank her enough for that. 

again, I know she’ll probably never read this or see it on her dashboard or anything of that nature, but I just wanted to let everyone know that Taylor is not only a musical legend, but a lifesaver.