Reading Between the Lines
To fully evaluate how Taylor Swift’s music can be interpreted as queer, it wouldn’t be complete without some analysis of a few select songs from both folklore and evermore. This comes from a more personal standpoint in which I will be doing my own breakdown of the songs and how I understand them.
From folklore —
"betty"
This is the song that put folklore on the map as a queer album. The overall storyline is about the narrator singing to Betty and apologizing for technically cheating on her by having a summer fling with someone else. It’s a love triangle where we can easily imagine it being about three girls in high school. It’s also a part of the trilogy within the album: cardigan/august/betty, in which all three songs are connected and have an ongoing storyline that splits up the perspectives of what went on for each person in the love triangle.
Since Swift sings “betty” from a first person perspective, it’s easy to imagine her—or at least a woman—addressing Betty throughout the piece. In the first two lines of the song, it opens with said narrator noticing that Betty has pulled away from them:
Betty, I won’t make assumptions about why you switched your homeroom
But I think it’s cause of me
From these lines, we can tell that there is conflict between the two girls, but we’re unsure if it stems from a romantic affair between them. It’s not until the chorus that we confirm it is:
But if I just showed up at your party
Would you have me?
Would you want me?
Would you tell me to go fuck myself
Or lead me to the garden?
In the garden would you trust me
If I told you it was just a summer thing?
I’m only seventeen
I don’t know anything but I know I miss you
As a queer woman myself, these lyrics really stir something in me. The specific line about “just” showing up at Betty’s party almost hints at how their relationship could’ve been a hidden one and no one would expect it. The entire chorus screams young angst and naivety, especially between two girls that are trying to figure out how to be in love. I would know—I experienced it myself when getting together with a girl for the first time. My gay awakening at the time left me in shambles due to all the nerves and new feelings.
Everything really picks up at the bridge and through the end of the song. The bridge shows how the narrator got caught up in the mistaken summer fling with another girl:
I was walking home on broken cobblestones
Just thinking of you when she pulled up
Like a figment of my worst intentions
She said “James, get in, let’s drive”
Those days turned into nights
Slept next to her but
I dreamt of you all summer long
While this part slips in the name James to technically have listeners acknowledge that this is being told from a male’s perspective, it’s easy to let it go since the song is devoid of he/him pronouns. The imagination can continue to run wild.
The ending of the song has the narrator finally deciding to just show up at Betty’s party anyway and is pleading for her love back. She sings: “Will you kiss me on the porch in front of all your stupid friends?” This line has such heavy queer tones of a mindset that says, “Forget about the rest of the world, we can kiss and love and be who we’ve always wanted to be!”
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I personally love Betty because of the storytelling and the first person perspective that allows me, and other queer women, to easily slot ourselves into the overall narrative. It gives so much room for queer interpretation and that’s really why it’s such a hit among Swift’s queer fans. With butterflies and nerves everywhere, we find ourselves hoping to get Betty back for ourselves as well.
"illicit affairs"
This song specifically holds that theme of being in the closet and hiding a relationship that wouldn’t be accepted within society. The beginning starts with the narrator addressing their partner and going over their routine of how to secretly meet up:
Make sure nobody sees you leave
Hood over your head, keep your eyes down
Tell your friends you're out for a run
You'll be flushed when you return
Take the road less traveled by
Tell yourself you can always stop
What started in beautiful rooms
Ends with meetings in parking lots
The line of being “flushed” when the other returns has a scandalous underlying to it. The overall emphasis in this verse about no one catching the person leaving to meet up with the narrator reminds us of how queer relationships often begin: As a secret from everyone else until they are ready to be out in the world. The last two lines in this verse also capture the struggle that comes with all the secret meet ups and having to find ways around situations.
By the first chorus of this song, it hints at the demise of the relationship that probably stems from the hardships of all this hiding just to be in love:
And that's the thing about illicit affairs
And clandestine meetings and longing stares
It's born from just one single glance
But it dies, and it dies, and it dies
A million little times
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The narrator is obviously contemplating the aspects of this secret relationship that quickly allows it to fizzle out. Being kept a secret eventually takes its toll—the sneaking around gets old and makes you feel almost dirty inside. This is also a struggle that many queer couples and queer people in general face. Sometimes one is out and the other isn’t, and while that really has less to do with the actual individuals and more to do with the judgement of society, it comes between them.
The bridge of the song, which also becomes the closing of the song, is what I love the most. It’s the kind that makes you want to scream along to it whenever it comes on:
And you wanna scream
Don't call me "kid"
Don't call me "baby"
Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me
You showed me colors
You know I can't see with anyone else
Don't call me "kid"
Don't call me "baby"
Look at this idiotic fool that you made me
You taught me a secret language
I can't speak with anyone else
And you know damn well
For you I would ruin myself
A million little times
This captures the heartbreak that comes along with being queer and having to keep it a secret. You get so invested with the one you love, but there is also a limit where you get fed up with hiding. Sometimes, it can be worked out and in other times, it eventually leads to the relationship being over. The ending of the song ultimately leaves me (and certainly others who listen to it) in tears with a heavy feeling at the pit of my stomach. While it’s incredibly sad, it is also a masterpiece that depicts the reality of many queer experiences—even if we wish that it didn’t have to be this way.
From evermore —
"'tis the damn season"
This song is one that captures the longing through a queer perspective in which you don’t know if the other person also feels the same, but there’s this huge feeling of temptation that looms over the both of you. What’s great about this song is that it is also from a first person perspective, making it easy for queer audiences to align their experiences with it.
The beginning of the song opens with lyrics that acknowledges the tension between you and the other person:
If I wanted to know who you were hanging with
While I was gone I would have asked you
It's the kind of cold, fogs up windshield glass
But I felt it when I passed you
There's an ache in you put there by the ache in me
But if it's all the same to you
It's the same to me
The line that says, “There’s an ache in you put there by the ache in me,” is very clever and I personally can’t get over it. Taylor has always been good with playing with words, but this one really gets to me. I read it as two queer people who have wanted to be with each other, but haven’t found the courage to do so. Instead, they’re left wondering what it would be like if they could just finally give in.
The chorus shows the exasperation and build-up that’s been happening for years, in which you finally just confront the other person and set up the proposal to just be with one another:
So we could call it even
You could call me babe for the weekend
'Tis the damn season, write this down
I'm stayin' at my parents' house
And the road not taken looks real good now
For me, the queer tones in this part come from the line, “And the road not taken looks real good now.” I see it as not being able to come to terms with your sexuality when you used to live in that hometown. But now that you’re older and feel more secure with knowing who you are, you are ready to go down that path.
The overall song continues around that storyline and how the yearning eventually catches up to you. The line in the second verse depicts that inability to escape it: “You can run, but only so far.” Although another melancholy tune, it scratches that itch in the brain, especially with the space it gives for queer interpretation.
"ivy"
This song is the counterpart for folklore’s “illicit affairs.” It has similar themes of hiding and overall infidelity. It has a narrative of a clearly married woman who falls in love with someone other than her husband. Although the song does use a bit of he/him pronouns, it’s not used to in a way that can hinder a queer interpretation. I love this song for its storytelling style and heart-wrenching lyrics. It begins with the narrator clearly torn about being in both love and awe of meeting someone that gives them a feeling of warmth that they can’t find with their husband:
How’s one to know?
I’d meet you where the spirit meets the bones
In a faith-forgotten land
In from the snow
Your touch brought forth an incandescent glow
Tarnished but so grand
The second to the last line about a touch that brings “forth an incandescent glow” signals a spark between the two forbidden lovers. By the chorus, it shows how the narrator is struggling because they legally belong to another and yet, that’s not who they wish to be with:
Oh, goddamn
My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand
Taking mine, but it’s been promised to another
Oh, I can’t
Stop you putting roots in my dreamland
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I’m covered in you
I find the queer elements in the part that talks about how the narrator can’t stop the other from “putting roots” in their dreamland. It suggests that it’s a feeling they can’t fight—it continues to grow and flourish in them.
The third verse of the song is when the panic really sets in of what would happen if the two were caught together by the husband:
Clover blooms in the fields
Spring breaks loose, the time is near
What would he do if he found us out?
Crescent moon, coast is clear
Spring breaks loose, but so does fear
He’s gonna burn this house to the ground
How’s one to know?
I’d live and die for moments that we stole
On begged and borrowed time
So tell me to run
Or dare to sit and watch what we’ll become
And drink my husband’s wine
This part of the song allows me to imagine a scenario between two women in which the husband begins to suspect that the relationship between the two seems too close for comfort. The narrator of the song is clearly enamored by her woman lover and wishes that she would give her the assurance she needs to hear in able to leave this married life behind.
The last part that I really want to focus within the song is the bridge, which shows how this love between the two has taken up all the feelings the narrator could possibly have:
So yeah, it’s a fire
It’s a goddamn blaze in the dark
And you started it
You started it
So yeah, it’s a war
It’s the goddamn fight of my life
And you started it
You started it
In my queer interpretation with the made up scenario I have for this song, the narrator realizes that it’s different to be in love with another woman and she knows she’ll never be able to go back. This is the kind of yearning and passion she’s been looking for and now that she found it in this affair, it's all she'll ever want. Once again, the first person perspective is what really allows listeners like me to align queer scenarios with the overall story.
The Power of Queering Text
As seen through these several analyses, one can definitely queer Taylor Swift’s music. While it does require effort to look deeply into the meaning of something and alter it to be your own, it’s worth it when attempting to fit one’s queer self in mainstream media. Susan Driver puts this best into perspective in her book Queer Girls and Popular Culture: “…Growing up and coming out queer is not merely a personal process of identity, but involves a cultural process of reassessing, embracing, refusing, and combing media representations ‘for better or for worse’” (2). Being able to do this is a power in itself.