‘the lakes’ is a Romantic masterpiece
purple prose dislikers dni
So let’s start off with the fact that who doesn’t want to run away with their lover to the Lake District? folklore (stylized all lowercase), Taylor Swift’s surprise eighth album, is a noticeable departure from her previous work. The chamber pop / indie folk sound against her last pop albums truly showcased her range1 and allowed her lyrical abilities to shine even further. Swift’s last song on the deluxe album, the lakes, encapsulates the feeling of deep escapism, longing for the poetic past, and most importantly, romanticism.
The song starts with
Is it romantic how all of my elegies eulogize me? I’m not cut out for all these cynical clones These hunters with cell phones
Quick vocabulary! An elegy is “a pensive or reflective poem that is usually nostalgic or melancholy” 2(could also be a song). A eulogy is a speech you give at a funeral. In this first line, Swift is referring to her mainstream “breakup songs” as an elegy. While the public may tout her as the “queen of breakup songs,” she sees them as songs that capture a painful time in her life that she looks back upon with melancholy. With her usage of “eulogize”, she’s further cementing and having to come to terms with the fact that this is how the public perceives her; her breakup songs are going to be her legacy.
Her asking if it’s romantic is almost bitter. She knows that she’s most likely not going to be remembered for her deeper cuts. Not only that, it sets up a theme of Swift using the Romanticism movement as a mode for escapism. Romanticism, capital ‘r,’ was a movement in the late 1700s to mid 1800s and idealized irrationality, individuality, and imaginative…ality.
The cynical clones and hunters are likely in reference to her critics that exacerbate the narrative that she only writes break up songs3. The cell phones are a representation for industrialism, something that the Romantics heavily criticized as they recognized it as a distraction from what mattered most – nature, sensibility, etc.
Chorus time!!
Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die I don’t belong, and my beloved neither do you Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry I’m setting off, but not without my muse
The lakes where all the poets went to die is talking about the Lake District, a beautiful area in Northwest England, just East of the Isle of Man. The Lake District is also commonly regarded as one of the most romantic places in England. Swift is known to favor the region4. Some of the most prominent poets during the Romantic period, like William Wordsworth (more on him later), Samuel Coolridge, and Robert Southey, moved to the Lake District and eventually passed there.
I don’t belong, and my beloved neither do you – Pretty self explanatory, the narrator and her lover don’t belong in the world with the clones, the hunters and their cell phones.
The Windermere peaks is a reference to the mountainous area of the Lake District, where the Windermere Lake is. Fun fact, Windermere lake is the biggest in England! In a perfect place to cry is Swift calling back to the language that the Romantic era poets used. By calling it a perfect place, Swift is addressing the aesthetic factor that made everything “worth it” for the Romantics. cry is perhaps honing in on the sensibility (deep emotional response, sensitivity) that the Romantics loved.
A muse is someone or something (most often a young woman) who is a source of inspiration for an artist. Famous muses include Edie Sedgwick (for Andy Warhol), Anna Karina (for Jean Luc-Godard), and Jean Shrimpton (for primarily David Bailey)5. Maybe a touchy subject now6, but the muse is likely Joe Alwyn, her former (?) long-term boyfriend of six years. Alwyn collaborated on folklore under the pseudonym William Bowery.7
What should be over burrowed under my skin In heart-stopping waves of hurt I’ve come too far to watch some name-dropping sleaze Tell me what are my words worth
Swift’s usage of over and under is imagery! Imagery a literary device where one uses visually descriptive language to evoke a more solid idea of the acts being presented. By saying something as visceral as under my skin, Swift is exemplifying how uncomfortable what should be over is.
heart-stopping waves of hurt uses purple prose to a slight degree. Purple prose is characterized by an overly ornate and flowery way of writing, and was favored by the Romantics.
The name-dropping sleaze in question is very much likely to be Scooter Braun (and/or Scott Borchetta), who she has a strained relationship with considering he stole the masters to her music. This lyric also calls back to one in Swift’s 2017 song I Did Something Bad:
But if he drops my name, then I owe him nothin’
With this connection to who the name-dropping sleaze likely is, it’s clear that the incident that should be over is a direct response to the stealing of her master’s. Mind you, this was the first album to have come out after the news dropped.
words worth is a play on words, referencing the arguably most famous Romantic era poet: William Wordsworth himself. Even the official lyric video8 has the line as “Tell me what are my Wordsworth” Braun sold the rights to Swift’s music for $300 million dollars. Shortly after folklore’s release, Swift said in a statement that
these master recordings were not for sale to me9
To Swift, her words, her lyrics, her music, the ownership of her music is priceless. To Braun, it was $300 million. Even in her own statement there’s a double entendre of the fact that they literally were not for sale to her, she did not know the transaction was happening, and the fact that she would have never sold them in the first place.
Skipping over the already covered chorus, and onto the bridge of the song, we find the meat of the lakes.
I want auroras and sad prose I want to watch wisteria grow right out from under my bare feet ‘Cause I haven’t moved in years And I want you right here A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground With no one around to tweet it While I bathe in cliffside pools With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief
auroras, wisteria, grow, red rose, ice, frozen ground, and cliffside pools all evoke nature imagery, again, things the Romantics were fond of. William Wordsworth writes in his poem My Heart Leaps Up:
The Child is the father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.
Swift’s desire to watch wisteria grow right out from under her exemplifies the stagnant, maybe even simple life that she wants. She wants to finally put her roots down with the one she loves most, as seen in I want you right here.
Since red roses are a symbol for romance, the red rose growing out from the cold is her way of saying a love blossomed from a difficult time in her life. Mind you, Swift met Alwyn in 2016 – at the height of the backlash against her. With no one around to tweet it is more on the private nature of the relationship. Just two songs prior in the album, peace, Swift sings:
All these people think love's for show But I would die for you in secret The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?
There’s a lot in these few lines, and considering peace is one of my favorite songs of hers, maybe we’ll get to it one day. But for now, Swift is asking her lover if her hyper-sensationalized life is something that they can take. She desperately yearns for an intimate relationship not overtaken by the media.
Lastly, calamitous love and insurmountable grief is just pure purple prose. Vocab again, because purple prose just forces that, calamitous = disastrous12, insurmountable = too great to overcome13. In this line she’s furthering how, in this dark time in her life, her life really did feel top great to overcome, the romance that blossomed was a spark of hope.
As I’m writing this on my Google Doc it’s 12:30am on a Sunday so I’m afraid I can’t come up with a showy conclusion besides the fact that Swaylor Tift knows what’s she’s doing.
Even though I tell anyone within a 20 mile radius to “start a Substack!! it can be whatever you want!!” I’ve been taking it soooo seriously for a hobby so I’m likely going to be a bit more casual :) Thank you all for reading!!
still waiting on that rock album, blondie
via Merriam Webster
the most frustrating ones are where they say “oooh she has so many ex boyfriends… i wonder what the common denominator is” eye. roll. as rayne fisher-quann says in the pain gap, “for every ten-minute taylor swift song, there is a jake gyllenhaal confused by all the fuss around a decade-old fling”
forgive my intense penchant for 60s muses, but to my defense, artistic expression was everywhere and anna karina & jean shrimpton are some of my biggest style icons
wait wait wait, so if dislike is the opposite of like, would the opposite of disaster be aster? see, instead of things going wrong, they go right. (please someone get the yja reference)
alaïa, I live for your annotations and analyzations of t-swift, and this one was wonderful! I got a little history lesson and was simultaneously transported into her album, and I loved the way you described and poetically explained her lyrics :) long live purple prose!! <3
hi ily. thank you for existing <3