The Hidden Storytelling Techniques Behind Taylor Swift’s Greatest Lyrics (TS 101 e4)

Taylor Swift isn’t just a songwriter - she’s one of the greatest storytellers of our generation. But how does she craft these compelling narratives in song after song, and why do they hit us so hard? What’s her secret sauce? 

In this episode of my Taylor Swift 101 series, we’re breaking down Taylor’s storytelling techniques piece by piece. We’ll dive into each of her narrative and literary elements, from point of view to metaphor to imagery to character building, dissecting some of her most potent lyrics as examples along the way. 

The secret of Taylor’s storytelling is all right here, in one video. And whether you’re a lit nerd already familiar with these concepts, or if you’re just learning the craft of writing, you’ll feel right at home here. 

📚 Subscribe for more Taylor Swift lyric analysis, literary breakdowns, and storytelling deep dives. 

Check out the full TS 101 Lesson Series, along with lyrical analysis of 250+ songs, close readings of all of Taylor’s prologues, lyric quizzes, and more on SwiftlySungStories.com. 

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
I say, I know you don't."
It's just one line.
One single line.
The first line of "You're Losing Me."
And on the surface it doesn't seem particularly significant, does it? But once you dig a little deeper, you realize that this line is a load bearing line.
It does a lot of work and it does it all at once.
And this line, like most of Taylor Swift's lyrics, does a million things simultaneously and they're all incredibly purposeful.

(00:28):
You say, I don't understand.
I say, I know you don't.
It starts by establishing point of view.
We have our protagonist, our narrator, and she's talking to someone in the middle of a conflict.
It gives us the setting.
They're together, they're talking about something significant.
We're in the present tense, and it feels like it's urgent.

(00:48):
It fleshes out this conflict.
The narrator is misunderstood and the subject doesn't understand her.
They can never understand her.
They're at an impasse.
It gives us backstory and sets the tone for the rest of the song.
They've been in this conflict for quite a while and they're just not making any headway.
She's surrendered to the fact that this person will just never understand where she's coming from.

(01:10):
It establishes characters.
Our narrator is yearning to be understood and frustrated that she isn't.
Instead of explaining herself again, she gives up and shrugs.
I know you don't, our subject is confused and might wanna understand, but we get the sense that they're just never gonna get it no matter how well she explains herself.

(01:31):
It gives us this depth and complexity, and it foreshadows the rest of the conflict to come.
We are immediately intrigued.
How will they resolve this? Will they resolve this? Are we gonna watch 'em fall apart or will they work it out? But most importantly, it makes us feel what this moment felt like, because we've all had conflicts like this with a loved one, where we're just never gonna be seen for who we really are.

(01:52):
We feel this frustration in our bones from just this single line of dialogue that on the surface seems like nothing special.
But this is the magic of Taylor Swift's storytelling.
She captures moments and emotions and portrays them so precisely and vividly that we can feel them too.
But how does she do this? How does she take these emotions that she's felt and translate them into universal emotions that we can all feel.

(02:17):
I'm a writer and a former English teacher, and today we're gonna dissect how Taylor Swift uses storytelling to make us feel it all.
If you've ever wondered what the secret sauce is in Taylor's songwriting, this is it, and we're gonna break it down piece by piece.
We're gonna look at why her songs are so emotionally impactful and explain exactly how she uses narrative and literary devices to pull us into her world.

(02:39):
And once you see these tactics that she uses that I'm about to point out, you won't be able to unsee them.
Let's get into it.
Welcome to swiftly sung Stories where we unpack the Taylor Swift Universe one era album and lyric at a time.
Think of it like English class, but it's all Taylor Swift and none of the boring stuff.
I'm Jen, your Swiftie English teacher and classes in session, so come on in and meet me in the margins.

(03:04):
Just a quick note before we get started.
All of these lessons are available in text version on my website, swiftly sung stories.com.
And if you're watching this on YouTube, you can also find an audio only version on Spotify, apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Okay.
First we need to look at the bedrock of everything that Taylor does, which is narrative storytelling.

(03:25):
You've probably heard people call Taylor a narrative storyteller, but what exactly does that mean? In simple terms, a narrative is a sequence of events that happen in a story while the storytelling is how those events are communicated.
Narrative storytelling is the art of telling a story with this clear sequence of events.
This happened and that happened, and this happened.
This is so effective because as humans, we are wired to connect events to explain our reality, we always need to know the who, what, when, where, why, to make sense of the stories that we hear every day.

(03:55):
So let's take a simple example.
One day you missed your train, you spent hours on the platform, cold, hungry, and disconnected.
Your phone died, the shops were closed, and you were just stuck in this miserable situation.
But from then on, you always arrive to stations, airports, meetings early.
You make it a point to be on time.

(04:16):
The narrative is you missed your train, your phone died and you had to wait.
But the story you tell yourself is being late leads to suffering and being early will make sure that you're never miserable again.
The events are what happened.
The story is how you interpret those events, the emotions you felt, the lessons you learned, and when you combine both, you create a complete emotional picture.

(04:39):
Taylor's genius lies in how she approaches both.
Both the narrative, the events themselves, and the storytelling, the way that she relays those events.
She builds her songs around real experiences, heartbreaks, triumphs, moments of vulnerability and crafts, a complete narrative arc around them.
She takes small, specific narratives, a scarf left behind after breakup, or a partner not showing up at a birthday party and spins them into these emotional vivid stories that we can all feel.

(05:06):
Take all too well.
For example, the 10 minute version.
She doesn't just say, I loved him.
We broke up and now I'm sad.
Instead, she walks us through the entire journey, how it began, the warmth of this early romance, the subtle cracks that she can see forming between them.
The devastating unraveling and the lingering memories that haunt her long after it's gone.

(05:28):
She zooms in on specific memories in this cinematic way, walking through the door, dancing in the kitchen, and zooms out to reflect on what they mean now, long after this romance is over.
All of these narrative techniques pull us inside the story.
We're there.
We're standing on the stairs.
We feel the chill of the autumn.
We're basking in the refrigerator light.
We're there when the love leaves, and we're there when the heartbreak settles in.

(05:51):
That is Taylor's superpower.
Taking small personal moments stories and painting them so richly that we see ourselves within them.
She doesn't just relay a series of events and she doesn't just recount her emotions, but instead she creates an entire world in which these events happen and shows us what they felt like.
She lives by the writer's first commandment, which is "show don't tell."

(06:15):
This means that in our writing, we should use descriptive language instead of just saying things outright.
We don't wanna say, I missed my train.
We want to describe the events that happened, yeah, but we also want to establish the setting and paint a world in which these events occurred.
And not just a physical world, but an emotional world.
But how do you do that? And how does Taylor do that by using these specific narrative and literary devices, which we're about to get into.

(06:42):
So let's break them down one by one.
Please note this is not an exhaustive list of every literary narrative device Taylor uses.
That would take forever.
This is just an overview of the major concepts, and we will dive into each one of these a little more deeply in future episodes.
We are gonna start off with point of view because this is really the one thing that lays the foundation for the rest of Taylor's storytelling and storytelling in general.

(07:06):
Point of view is simply who is telling a story? Is it told in first person with "I" or third person with "she"? Who is speaking? This is a very simple choice can have a big impact because as an audience, who is telling the story to us really matters.
The film Titanic, for example, is told from the point of view of older Rose narrating events from her time on the ship when she was younger.

(07:31):
The Shawshank Redemption is told from Red's point of view about his time in prison with his friend Andy Jane Eyre is told from the point of view of Jane herself, and all of these examples have one thing in common.
They are more impactful because the person telling the story was actually there.
Whether the story is real or not, it doesn't matter.
They were there and were getting their firsthand account.

(07:52):
This is the same reason that reporters seek out firsthand witnesses because we don't wanna hear a story through the grapevine.
We wanna hear it from the horse's mouth.
We wanna hear it directly from someone who is there.
We want the truth and stories are more impactful and believable if we hear it from someone who actually experienced it.
Taylor knows this better than anyone and that's why she usually uses a first person point of view to tell her stories instead of using the third person, she, she uses I I was there.

(08:25):
Using this point of view takes away any distance between herself and the story, allowing the audience to be drawn in more easily.
And this is incredibly effective because it's much easier to connect emotionally to a person telling a story about themselves versus a person telling a story about, I don't know, someone over there that you don't know.
"I was there, I remember it" is much more impactful than "she was there, she remembers it."

(08:51):
But even though not all of Taylor's stories are about her own life, she still narrates them as if they are, and this is intentional.
In the stories that she has explicitly told us are fiction like the folklore of love triangle, for example.
She still uses first person.
"If I just showed up at your party", is easier to connect with than "if she just showed up at his party."

(09:13):
When I felt like I was an old cardigan" is more impactful than when "she felt like she was an old cardigan", and "you were never mine" resonates more than "he was never hers".
She's using first person tactically.
And what Taylor does in using this point of view allows us to feel more like it's our best friend, telling us stories about her life.

(09:35):
This works really well for her because one of the big draws of Taylor Swift's music is Taylor Swift herself.
We think we know her, which in reality we don't.
And a lot of it comes down to this use of point of view.
We assume all of her songs are about her because she uses the first person, whether it's accurate or not.
This builds intrigue and it fosters a relationship with her audience.

Think about a song like Delicate (09:59):
"My reputation's never been worse, so you must like me."
For me, that song wouldn't be nearly as relatable if it was, "her reputation's never been worse, so you must like her for her."
It would add this layer of distance between the narrator and the story, and therefore a layer of distance between the narrator and the reader.
Or in Betty, which Taylor has told us explicitly, is about a trio of fictional character, she says, "I'm only 17.

(10:24):
I don't know anything."
Taylor's obviously not 17 anymore and she knows quite a bit about life and love.
But what really allows us to connect with the song is her point of view, because it feels like it's from her perspective, since she usually uses the first person point of view, the natural consequence is that the subject of the song, and I use subject to refer to the person who she's speaking to in the lyrics.

(10:49):
This person is usually addressed grammatically in the second person using "you".
Very rarely it's "he" or "she", but most often it's "you".
So she uses it like, "were you sent by someone who wanted me dead?" "You put me on and said I was your favorite".
"You can tell me when it's over if the high was worth the pain".
This use of second person grammar, just like her use of first person point of view, is also deliberate.

(11:14):
It makes us feel like we're reading this private diary or we're privy to this private conversation between two people.
But what it also does is make it feel like she's singing directly to us.
We are all you, or we can all imagine the you who she's singing to.
It helps us take these emotions that she's singing about and apply them to our own lives.

(11:36):
It is deliberate and it fosters connection.
Now, does Taylor strictly use first person point of view? No, usually, but not always.
When she breaks the pattern, though, it is for a purpose.
Sometimes she'll start off in third person using she or he and switch up her point of view, mid song.

The last Great American Dynasty, for example, begins in the third person (11:55):
"Rebecca rode up on the afternoon train".
Most of the song is sung from this unknown narrator's point of view, telling us the story of Rebecca Harkness and her time owning Holiday house.

But by the climax, it's from Taylor's point of view and in first person, and there's this big reveal (12:10):
"and then it was bought by me".
Suddenly the story isn't about a historical person that we don't know.
It's about the narrator herself, and that's what allows us to connect to all of the emotions within this story.
She brought it back home, and in the end we understand that this wasn't just a story about some historic celebutante, it's the story of Taylor herself.

She also does this in when Emma falls in love, which is mostly told in the third person (12:38):
"when Emma falls in love, she paces the floor".

But first person pops back in when she reaches the chorus (12:46):
"and to tell you the truth, sometimes I wish I was her."
It brings it back to the narrator's point of view, and in both of these examples, it's for a purpose.
It lets us know why she's telling the story in the first place and why it's important.
Because as a, as an audience, we need to know to be able to connect.

(13:08):
So even if Taylor's not telling a story about her herself, it feels like she is, and that's what's important.
But what seems like a super simple choice to narrate in first person is really what has allowed her to create such intriguing and emotionally resonant stories and to build a relationship with her audience.
It lays the foundation for the rest of her storytelling, and it builds a really solid jumping off point for everything that comes later.

(13:35):
So Taylor uses point of view to draw us inside her stories.
But once we're inside and we know who's telling them and why, what makes us stay there, what helps us imagine it? What makes this world feel real? And a lot of that comes down to Taylor's use of imagery.
Imagery is simply descriptive language that conjures an image in our mind, and it's one of the most significant tools that Taylor uses to invoke emotions.

(13:59):
Imagery helps us visualize these worlds that she's building.
Makes them come alive.
So when you think of any Taylor Swift song, there are likely specific images that pop into your mind, and that's by design.
If I say all too well, you probably picture a scarf.
Or if I say, Ivy, you probably picture this invasive vine or a house of stone or an old widow in a graveyard.

(14:23):
These stories were designed to conjure those images in your mind.
And the imagery that Taylor uses is always purposeful.
But you also probably conjured a feeling when I said the names of those songs all too well.
You might have felt this devastating loss or missing someone with whom it never worked out with Ivy, you might have conjured this feeling of longing for someone you can't have.

(14:46):
This is why Taylor uses imagery to conjure both a vivid image and to conjure a feeling.
She doesn't just say 'it was autumn and the leaves were falling down'.
Instead, she says, "autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place".
Emotionally, that piece of imagery feels cozy, like everything is right.

(15:07):
But later on in that song, we learn that everything is far from right.
But to get to that contrast, we first have to learn why this relationship felt perfect.
She builds it up using imagery, and then later she'll tear it down with contrasting imagery like twin flame bruise, and the city's barren cold.

(15:28):
Let's look at a few more examples of Taylor's use of imagery, which all share the purpose of making us feel like we're inside this world that she's created.
A lot of these are also metaphors, which we will get into further in the next section.
In Speak Now, instead of saying a wedding, she describes it as a "white veil occasion".
This makes it feel stuffy and proper and formal, which really illustrates our narrator's fear that she doesn't belong there and she doesn't fit in in.

(15:56):
But Daddy, I love him.
Instead of saying, I'm carefree now, she says, "I'm running with my dress unbuttoned."
This conjures that feeling of liberation where no one can make her button herself back up.
She's baring her soul and her real desires.
In you're on your own kid, instead of saying, 'A long time passed and I grew up', she says, "from sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes".

(16:20):
This not only illustrates time passing as the seasons change from summer to winter, but it also feels like childhood moving into adulthood, sprinkler splashes feel like youth while fireplace, ashes feel like death, or even rebirth, like rising from the ashes.
In right where you left me, instead of saying 'I feel stuck', she says, "dust collected on my pinned up hair."

(16:45):
We picture her as this doll on a shelf who's never able to move or have any agency.
She's totally stuck, and even her hair is pinned in place and she can't move, not even to dust herself off.
In Dress, instead of saying, 'you've made quite an impression on me', she says, "there's an indentation in the shape of you."
This makes us think of two things.

(17:06):
One, an indentation on a mattress, which conjures these sexy vibes that proliferate the rest of the song.
But two, it makes us think that this person has impressed themselves upon her and left a mark that's indelible.
She'll never be the same because this person has changed her.
In You are in love, instead of saying, 'now you guys spend weekends together', she says, "morning, his place, burnt toast, Sunday".

(17:33):
We imagine this cozy, everyday world in which these two lovers are just going about their daily lives, but it's made magical by this connection that they share.
What she's saying with his imagery is that love isn't in the big grand gestures, it's in the small pedestrian moments.
All of these are really great examples of how Taylor uses imagery tactfully.

(17:54):
She's drawn us into this narrative world where we feel like we know the narrator, and then she populates this world with images that we can feel and that we can hold onto her.
Imagery, in other words, creates vibes, and the vibes are what we really remember when we think of these stories.
Next we need to talk about similes because similes, and then later we'll get into metaphors.

(18:16):
These are both really key ways which Taylor creates these vibes.
A simile compares something to something else.
Using the prepositions 'like' or 'as.'
You're like a rock" compares your behavior to something solid and moving and sturdy, "busy as a bee" compares you to this frantic insect always buzzing around and working hard.

(18:40):
"Grinning like the devil" compares your smile to something that has ulterior motives and is a bit of a trickster.
This isn't a happy smile.
It's a mischievous one.
While similes generally aren't as impactful as Metaphor, Taylor still uses them beautifully and they really help draw us into her world.
They help us imagine and feel the emotions she's trying to convey by giving us direct comparisons, by giving us kind of examples what might be sort of intangible emotions and situations become tangible because she gives us these concrete examples.

(19:14):
So here a few of my favorites.
In breathe, she says, "music starts playing like the end of a sad movie".
This paints the pictures of the credits rolling.
And you can imagine this score swelling over this sad, devastating ending of a relationship.
And it helps us feel like we're in that moment, in this dark theater just having watched this devastating story or lived this devastating story.

(19:40):
And when the lights come on, we have to face reality again.
In Mean, she says "with your words like knives," comparing the subject's words to weapons, which have wounded our speaker deeply.
These words felt like stab wounds, and deliberate stab wounds.
He was trying to hurt her and he did.
I'm gonna get you back.

(20:00):
She says, "lilac short skirt, the one that fits me like skin".
She describes this tight fitting skirt as skin, which really helps paint this picture of how she wants to look during this revenge plot that the rest of the song conveys.
She's gonna dress to kill.
She's gonna get him back even if it's just by looking hot.

(20:21):
In cruel summer, "I cried like a baby" compares her emotional state to that of an infant.
She's vulnerable and she's delicate, but when combined with the rest of the narrative, "I'm drunk in the back of the car," we get the sense that she's having this drunk, dramatic breakdown and we've all been there, right? Taking care of the friend who's drunk half the bar and has had an emotional meltdown.

(20:43):
But that's what she's trying to convey because it resonates with our own experiences.
She's crying like someone who has no control over her emotions because at this moment she really doesn't.
That's what similes do.
They compare an emotion or a situation that's similar to something that we can really feel and experience, but something that does this even more impactfully is metaphors.

(21:04):
So let's get into how Taylor uses those.
Well, assimile is something like something else.
A metaphor is something as something else.
So while "you're like a rock" is a simile, "you're a rock star" is a metaphor that compares your behavior to that of someone doing this incredible enviable job.
Taylor is well known for her incredible metaphors and the brilliant thing about metaphors is that they can be interpreted in so many different ways.

(21:32):
Her metaphors might mean something completely different to me than they do to you, but the common thread is that they help convey emotion.
She doesn't just tell us what she wants us to feel.
She helps us feel it with these really tangible examples.
Taylor has used metaphors in almost every song since the beginning of her career.
Think of "picture to burn", which is a metaphor for something you can easily forget.

(21:58):
"You're just another picture to burn" means you're insignificant to me.
I have tons of you.
You're easily forgotten.
Go away.
Or in Tim McGraw, "when you think Tim McGraw, I hope you think my favorite song."
She uses the iconic Country singer as a metaphor for memory.
He's the soundtrack of their relationship and he represents all the good times that they've had together.

(22:19):
But as her career has grown, her use of metaphors has gotten infinitely more complex and vivid.
So here are some of my favorites from more recent albums.
"The rubies that I gave up" in Maroon are a metaphor for something really valuable that she sacrificed.
What exactly rubies represents is totally open to interpretation, but what we know for sure is that she's lost something significant.

(22:46):
It's not 'the rocks that I gave up' or 'the dollars that I gave up.'
It's a gemstone.
It's something shiny, something special, something precious.
This was a big sacrifice.
Rubies are also red, which we'll connect to the color symbolism that we will get into later.
"In the cracks of light, I dreamed of you" in evermore, the cracks of lighter metaphor for hope.

(23:09):
It helps us imagine her in this dark emotional place, slowly moving towards a brighter frame of mind.
She gets these small little inklings of hope, and it helps you imagine this dark room, this dark frame of mind being slowly brightened by these cracks of daylight.
"I'm an Aston Martin, you drove straight into a ditch", one of my favorites from I'm gonna get you back, is a more complex metaphor because it tells us two important things at once.

(23:35):
The luxury car is a metaphor for her innate value and worth.
She's precious and something you should take care of.
But then the crash is a metaphor for how he emotionally ruined her.
This once shiny, valuable, perfect thing is now totaled by his carelessness and putting the two together.
It explains exactly what a messy breakup feels like.

(23:56):
It feels like a car wreck.
You were driving down this road of a relationship and then suddenly you're off the rails into this ditch.
It's painful and careless, and it'll take a long time to put the pieces back together.
"My house of stone, your Ivy grows, and now I'm covered in you" from Ivy is another complex metaphor.
The invasive vine is a metaphor for the subject's increasing grasp on our speaker's soul.

(24:23):
This person has crept in whether she likes it or not.
Then the House of Stone is metaphor for her impenetrable heart, which has been made cold and hard probably by past heartbreaks.
She's built this sturdy structure to keep people out, but this invasive person finds the cracks and sneaks in anyway.

(24:44):
It really helps you imagine how this person has slowly crept into her heart and put down roots and ground that normally isn't fertile.
This person is persistent and slowly creeps in until he engulfs all of her.
Just like it's nearly impossible to fully eradicate Ivy in your garden if you've ever had it.
It's a pest.
She can't rid her heart and mind of this person.

(25:08):
It's just not possible.
They'll always be there and they're all consuming.
In each album, Taylor truly gives us a masterclass and metaphor, and sometimes her metaphors are so memorable that they pop right off the page and enter our real world.

Think of cardigan (25:23):
"and when I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone's bed, you put me on and said I was your favorite.:"
This line starts with as simile and then extends that comparison into a metaphor.
This comparison, this metaphor inspired an entire line of merch.
Is that a marketing tactic? Absolutely.

(25:44):
But what else is marketing, if not to appeal to our emotions? Suddenly we were all that old cardigan under someone's bed and made to feel important and brand new.
And that's what the cardigans came to, symbolize, rebirth, and second chances in valuing yourself.
Or "make the friendship bracelets" from You're On Your Own Kid, which is a metaphor for savoring your friendships and valuing the people in your life.

(26:11):
Making a friendship bracelet might seem like a small thing that you'd normally do in childhood.
She's saying that these moments, no matter where or when in your life they occur, are worth memorializing and that they're worth paying attention to.
It's the small moments with people you love that count.
The single metaphor inspired the massive friendship bracelet, making craze of the Eras tour.

(26:32):
Has come to really symbolize the comeraderie of the Swiftie fandom.
It's brought us together and connected us in ways that we hadn't been connected before.
And it all came from the single metaphor metaphors like the cardigan and the friendship bracelets have hopped off the page and entered our real world, and it's really down to their emotional power.

(26:53):
It's because of their effectiveness and they can become symbolic. 290 00:26:57,352.6666667 --> 00:27:03,657.6666667 symbolism is similar to imagery and metaphor, but for something to become symbolic, it needs to do two things. 291 00:27:03,867.6666667 --> 00:27:10,662.6666667 One, it needs to be repeated over and over, and two, it needs to represent something larger than what's on the surface. 292 00:27:10,662.6666667 --> 00:27:21,282.6666667 Something can start out as only imagery or only metaphor, but it can morph into symbolism if it's used repeatedly and if it represents a larger idea or theme. 293 00:27:22,212.6666667 --> 00:27:24,72.6666667 So let's take my two previous examples. 294 00:27:24,72.6666667 --> 00:27:27,267.6666667 The friendship bracelets and the cardigan both started out as a metaphor. 295 00:27:28,17.6666667 --> 00:27:31,497.6666667 Then they became symbolic as they proliferated through the fandom. 296 00:27:32,577.6666667 --> 00:27:40,197.6666667 When Taylor uses a particular piece of imagery or a metaphor over and over, that's a cue that she's intending it to be symbolic. 297 00:27:40,617.6666667 --> 00:27:42,177.6666667 She wants it to be something bigger. 298 00:27:42,867.6666667 --> 00:27:45,507.6666667 The classic example is the scarf in all too well. 299 00:27:46,167.6666667 --> 00:27:58,137.6666667 On the surface, it's simply an image that sticks in our mind, but since it's mentioned both in the beginning and in the end of the song and it ties this narrative together, that's a clue that it means something more. 300 00:27:58,137.6666667 --> 00:28:04,257.6666667 In the beginning, it seems like she mentions it kind of in passing, like, oh, hey, you still have my scarf. 301 00:28:04,407.6666667 --> 00:28:07,377.6666667 Uh, can I have it back? But by the end. 302 00:28:07,812.6666667 --> 00:28:11,52.6666667 After we've gone on this rollercoaster of relationship, she brings it back. 303 00:28:11,532.6666667 --> 00:28:17,562.6666667 He still keeps it long after the breakup "'cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me." 304 00:28:18,822.6666667 --> 00:28:21,942.6666667 Now, whether the scarf actually existed or not is not the point. 305 00:28:21,942.6666667 --> 00:28:30,912.6666667 The point is what it became symbolic of: memory and regret and the only actual evidence that this relationship ever happened. 306 00:28:31,812.6666667 --> 00:28:39,432.6666667 She was real and they were real together, and though he might try to erase her from his past, the scarf proves that she was actually there. 307 00:28:39,702.6666667 --> 00:28:40,692.6666667 It actually happened. 308 00:28:41,622.6666667 --> 00:28:43,872.6666667 The scarf becomes symbolic of memory. 309 00:28:45,532.6666667 --> 00:28:48,472.6666667 Now, sometimes Taylor's symbolism is a one-off. 310 00:28:48,472.6666667 --> 00:28:49,282.6666667 It's one and done. 311 00:28:49,522.6666667 --> 00:29:01,132.6666667 Like in Tim McGraw, the country singer and his music, which started off as a metaphor, comes to be symbolic of the memory of their relationship, the good times they've spent together, the love that they share. 312 00:29:02,212.6666667 --> 00:29:08,107.6666667 In Getaway car, the car comes to symbolize serial monogamy, running away from a relationship by hopping into a new one. 313 00:29:08,677.6666667 --> 00:29:14,527.6666667 "Nothing good starts in a getaway car" means that nothing good will happen if you use a new relationship to leave an old one. 314 00:29:15,367.6666667 --> 00:29:19,717.6666667 In Cornelia Street, the street comes to symbolize their love and their relationship. 315 00:29:20,527.6666667 --> 00:29:25,357.6666667 "I'd never walk Cornelia Street again", means I'd never be able to get over you. 316 00:29:25,357.6666667 --> 00:29:27,817.6666667 If I lost you, the memories would be too painful. 317 00:29:28,207.6666667 --> 00:29:30,277.6666667 I'd probably never fall in love again. 318 00:29:30,277.6666667 --> 00:29:39,427.6666667 But sometimes Taylor's symbolism occurs over and over across albums, and it becomes this cohesive thread that ties together the entire Taylor Swift universe. 319 00:29:40,387.6666667 --> 00:29:43,837.6666667 Think of her use of colors, which began on her Red album. 320 00:29:44,587.6666667 --> 00:29:51,427.6666667 In that song, the color symbolizes intense feelings of romance, and infatuation: "Loving him was red". 321 00:29:52,267.6666667 --> 00:29:57,847.6666667 But then in her later album, Midnights, she uses a similar but more intense version of red: maroon. 322 00:29:58,807.6666667 --> 00:30:00,727.6666667 "So scarlet, it was maroon". 323 00:30:01,237.6666667 --> 00:30:04,297.6666667 Now, the red isn't just symbolic of passion and intensity. 324 00:30:04,717.6666667 --> 00:30:06,937.6666667 It's also regret and grief. 325 00:30:07,27.6666667 --> 00:30:10,747.6666667 It's like a bloodstain on her memory that she can never quite erase. 326 00:30:11,437.6666667 --> 00:30:14,677.6666667 It's all the good and the bad, all balled up into one use of color. 327 00:30:14,677.6666667 --> 00:30:20,167.6666667 These colors become symbolic of larger ideas, and it's something that she can build on as she goes along. 328 00:30:20,827.6666667 --> 00:30:24,457.6666667 And as she does this, we also get to see how her emotions change. 329 00:30:24,457.6666667 --> 00:30:29,467.6666667 As she tells her larger story, she adds layers to this larger narrative that she's building. 330 00:30:30,127.6666667 --> 00:30:36,517.6666667 So keep your eyes peeled for symbolism in the Swiftie fandom because it's everywhere and it's there to make us feel something. 331 00:30:36,637.6666667 --> 00:30:42,187.6666667 And it's there to portray these larger emotions and themes that we'll see over and over again in her work. 332 00:30:42,237.6666667 --> 00:30:50,7.6666667 So we've gone over how Taylor builds these narrative worlds using vivid and memorable language and using point of view tactically. 333 00:30:50,487.6666667 --> 00:30:53,997.6666667 But another tactic she uses is the anecdote. 334 00:30:54,40.037348 --> 00:30:58,225.037348 If you've ever felt like Taylor's storytelling has this cinematic quality, um. 335 00:30:58,990.037348 --> 00:31:00,10.037348 Number one, you're correct. 336 00:31:00,10.037348 --> 00:31:03,640.037348 And number two, a lot of it comes down to her use of anecdotes. 337 00:31:04,630.037348 --> 00:31:07,330.037348 Anecdote is just a little story within a story. 338 00:31:07,480.037348 --> 00:31:13,720.037348 It's just a short snippet of something that happened, but it has a point or a larger lesson. 339 00:31:14,470.037348 --> 00:31:18,490.037348 It's often used to give tangible examples of why you're feeling the way you're feeling. 340 00:31:18,490.037348 --> 00:31:20,680.037348 It's like citing your sources. 341 00:31:20,800.037348 --> 00:31:25,270.037348 You said this or you did this and it made me angry or sad, or whatever. 342 00:31:25,750.037348 --> 00:31:26,365.037348 And here's the proof. 343 00:31:27,445.037348 --> 00:31:30,325.037348 These little mini snapshots give us context. 344 00:31:30,325.037348 --> 00:31:34,70.037348 They give us backstory and they help explain the why of the story. 345 00:31:34,70.037348 --> 00:31:43,850.037348 Think of Out of the Woods: "Remember when you hit the brakes too soon? 20 stitches in the hospital room, when you started crying, baby, I did too, and when the sun came up, I was looking at you". 346 00:31:44,990.037348 --> 00:31:46,10.037348 This is an anecdote. 347 00:31:46,100.037348 --> 00:31:52,110.037348 It's an example of something that happened in this relationship that helps convey the central emotions of the song. 348 00:31:53,390.037348 --> 00:31:55,490.037348 They got into a crash, they got hurt. 349 00:31:55,550.037348 --> 00:31:58,580.037348 And it's just another example of how she's feeling. 350 00:31:58,580.037348 --> 00:32:01,700.037348 Like nothing is going smoothly in this situation. 351 00:32:01,700.037348 --> 00:32:04,550.037348 It's just one roadblock after another. 352 00:32:05,510.037348 --> 00:32:09,320.037348 And just when she feels like they're about to be okay, something else happens. 353 00:32:09,560.037348 --> 00:32:13,340.037348 It's this really powerful way to draw us in into her narrative where we're walking. 354 00:32:13,340.037348 --> 00:32:16,490.037348 This tightrope and the bottom could drop out any minute. 355 00:32:17,585.037348 --> 00:32:22,85.037348 Here are a few more examples of how Taylor uses anecdotes to help us feel what she's feeling. 356 00:32:22,85.037348 --> 00:32:31,595.037348 In all too well, which is chock full of little anecdotes from this relationship, she said, "you said if we had been closer in aged, maybe it would've been fine, but that made me want to die." 357 00:32:32,405.037348 --> 00:32:42,395.037348 This small snapshot of a conversation and the words that he said, show us just how belittled she felt and how careless this dude really is. 358 00:32:43,55.037348 --> 00:32:52,445.037348 He invalidated her and dismissed her as being too young or not mature enough for him, and it really fuels the emotions we feel in response to this older character. 359 00:32:52,865.037348 --> 00:33:00,935.037348 It makes us feel like we're sitting in this moment ourselves hearing this devastating bit of dialogue and just being crushed inside. 360 00:33:00,935.037348 --> 00:33:08,335.037348 In We are Never Getting Back Together, Taylor pulls in a small anecdote about a phone call: "So he calls me up and he's like, I still love you. 361 00:33:08,335.037348 --> 00:33:10,555.037348 And I'm like, I just mean this is exhausting. 362 00:33:10,555.037348 --> 00:33:12,715.037348 You know? Like we are never getting back together. 363 00:33:12,805.037348 --> 00:33:15,625.037348 Like," enter Kam, "ever." 364 00:33:15,675.037348 --> 00:33:18,495.037348 I can't even say those lyrics without Kam, like it's just not right. 365 00:33:18,495.037348 --> 00:33:27,230.037348 This really shows her frustration over his behavior, and it helps us see with a real example why they are never, ever, ever getting back together. 366 00:33:28,740.037348 --> 00:33:44,100.037348 In the tortured poets department, the title track, she tells us about this, this small moment that's really significant: at dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on and that was the closest I've to come to my heart exploding." 367 00:33:44,970.037348 --> 00:33:51,330.037348 She is so head over heels for this person that even the idea of marriage makes her want to explode. 368 00:33:51,990.037348 --> 00:33:59,820.037348 This little anecdote tells us more about how she feels for him than any other part of the story, and it also helps fill in the emotional gaps. 369 00:33:59,820.037348 --> 00:34:08,580.037348 In many parts of this song, he's elusive and evasive, but in this moment we see why she stays, because she still has those butterflies. 370 00:34:08,580.037348 --> 00:34:09,690.037348 She still has hope. 371 00:34:09,690.037348 --> 00:34:16,740.037348 All of these little anecdotes that she uses are incredibly persuasive in Taylor's writing, but they also do something else that's important. 372 00:34:17,490.037348 --> 00:34:19,380.037348 They foster a relationship with her audience. 373 00:34:19,965.037348 --> 00:34:25,95.037348 They help us to feel like we're really getting an inside look at her real life and things that may have happened. 374 00:34:25,905.037348 --> 00:34:29,55.037348 They help her connect because it feels like we're reading her diary. 375 00:34:29,925.037348 --> 00:34:38,930.037348 Whether or not these moments actually occurred in her life is beside the point because she makes us feel like they did and we get to know about them. 376 00:34:38,930.037348 --> 00:34:51,320.037348 So it feels like she's being incredibly candid and telling the truth about how she feels or about how other people have behaved, and it just adds another layer to this already stacked storytelling that Taylor builds brick by brick. 377 00:34:51,370.037348 --> 00:34:56,410.037348 So we've gone over the basic literary and narrative devices that Taylor uses to really draw us into her world. 378 00:34:56,860.037348 --> 00:35:13,760.037348 We've covered how she frames her stories using point of view, how she paints vivid pictures with imagery, how she uses similes, metaphors and symbolism to draw us further into this world and help us feel what it's like inside and how she uses anecdotes to give us concrete examples of these central emotions. 379 00:35:14,150.037348 --> 00:35:17,330.037348 But now we need to talk about something that might be a little bit more controversial. 380 00:35:17,750.037348 --> 00:35:22,970.037348 And that's how Taylor writes the people, the characters that populate this world. 381 00:35:22,970.037348 --> 00:35:24,260.037348 And yes, I said characters. 382 00:35:25,700.037348 --> 00:35:26,625.037348 Taylor Swift writes characters. 383 00:35:27,865.037348 --> 00:35:35,35.037348 Something that might be a little less obvious and a bit more abstract, but it's no less important in how Taylor creates these stories. 384 00:35:35,35.037348 --> 00:35:37,195.037348 They're highly effective and highly emotional. 385 00:35:37,945.037348 --> 00:35:42,745.037348 Taylor has a real knack for building complex deep characters with only a few lines. 386 00:35:42,805.037348 --> 00:35:44,95.037348 We immediately relate. 387 00:35:44,95.037348 --> 00:35:48,655.037348 We feel their feelings, and we are a passenger on their emotional rollercoaster. 388 00:35:49,435.037348 --> 00:35:50,395.037348 But that's easy. 389 00:35:50,425.037348 --> 00:35:56,815.037348 You might be thinking because the main character is always her, and we already know her, and she just writes about real things that happened in her life. 390 00:35:58,285.037348 --> 00:36:03,925.037348 Here's the controversial part, that's just simply not true, or at least it's not always true. 391 00:36:04,945.037348 --> 00:36:20,665.037348 One of Taylor's signatures is her autobiographical songwriting, but we cannot assume that every song she sings is from her perspective, and we can't assume that all of the characters that inhabit her lyrics are accurate depictions of people in her life. 392 00:36:21,445.037348 --> 00:36:22,495.037348 She's writing lyrics. 393 00:36:22,495.037348 --> 00:36:27,145.037348 She's not writing nonfiction, she's not writing an autobiography yet. 394 00:36:28,285.037348 --> 00:36:31,825.037348 Her stories and her characters might stem from real situations. 395 00:36:32,155.037348 --> 00:36:40,735.037348 And they might not, and sometimes it might be both fact and fiction, but one thing that's true throughout all of her songs is that they stem from real emotions. 396 00:36:41,95.037348 --> 00:36:48,85.037348 We can absolutely trust that she has using things that she has felt and that she is experienced to fuel her songwriting. 397 00:36:48,85.037348 --> 00:36:58,585.037348 In an interview early on in her career in 2008, she said, I've gone through breakups and the core emotions behind them, but it doesn't take much to get that sort of emotion out in a song. 398 00:36:58,885.037348 --> 00:37:10,285.037348 Luckily for me, what she's saying essentially is that she doesn't have to be smack dab in the middle of a situation in order to write an effective and emotionally resonant story about it. 399 00:37:11,275.037348 --> 00:37:15,175.037348 She just had to have felt something similar at some point in her life. 400 00:37:16,585.037348 --> 00:37:25,435.037348 Creative writing professors will tell you to write what you know, but that doesn't mean that you have to ex have experienced something firsthand in order to write a narrative about it. 401 00:37:25,485.037348 --> 00:37:30,795.037348 It just means that you need to have experienced those emotions in some way, shape, or form. 402 00:37:32,145.037348 --> 00:37:40,575.037348 If you're writing a narrative that's full of anger and resentment, you'll need to have personally experienced anger and resentment at some point in your life. 403 00:37:40,875.037348 --> 00:37:46,575.037348 This is what Taylor does, but it often gets overshadowed by the speculation over her muses. 404 00:37:47,205.037348 --> 00:37:51,345.037348 The clamor is always, who is this song about? Or this is probably about this person. 405 00:37:51,345.037348 --> 00:37:54,225.037348 She was dating X, Y, Z at the time, and about their breakup. 406 00:37:55,125.037348 --> 00:37:57,285.037348 But that the speculation always leans that way. 407 00:37:57,285.037348 --> 00:37:58,335.037348 Just proves my point. 408 00:37:58,575.037348 --> 00:38:04,605.037348 Taylor is incredibly talented at writing and developing her characters so that they feel real. 409 00:38:04,980.037348 --> 00:38:17,430.037348 They're so vivid that we feel like we know who they really are, but in the end, she's writing through the lens of emotion and builds her narrative so that they portray the emotions she wants them to portray. 410 00:38:18,120.037348 --> 00:38:25,230.037348 She's using these characters that she writes to play out the narrative exactly how she wants it played out like these little marionettes on a string. 411 00:38:25,860.037348 --> 00:38:41,75.037348 The characters in her stories are experiencing loss, big changes, insecurity, heartbreak, self-doubt, triumphs, deep, love, regret, and rumination, and you have experienced those things too, which is what makes it relatable. 412 00:38:42,405.037348 --> 00:38:48,735.037348 We can't relate directly to Taylor Swift with her private jet and massive mansions and celebrity friends with billions of dollars. 413 00:38:48,735.037348 --> 00:38:58,935.037348 We just can't, but we can relate to her feelings of vulnerability and grief and anger, and being scared and feeling empowered and losing love. 414 00:38:58,935.037348 --> 00:39:02,55.037348 So yes, some of her characters may be based on real people. 415 00:39:02,55.037348 --> 00:39:10,275.037348 She may have written these songs to give directly to these people that they're about, but we may never get to know. 416 00:39:10,275.037348 --> 00:39:14,745.037348 These are the universal emotions that she uses to build her characters. 417 00:39:15,150.037348 --> 00:39:20,940.037348 Brick by brick and why these characters feel so familiar and feel like us. 418 00:39:22,80.037348 --> 00:39:24,60.037348 So let's talk about exactly how she does it. 419 00:39:24,180.037348 --> 00:39:30,90.037348 And there are three major things that Taylor does in building her characters that I wanna talk about. 420 00:39:30,150.037348 --> 00:39:31,650.037348 Let's start with backstory. 421 00:39:31,650.037348 --> 00:39:35,760.037348 Character backstory is simply giving us context to what your characters are going through. 422 00:39:36,50.037348 --> 00:39:54,380.037348 why are they where they are? What's the central conflict? How did it arise? You have to give us the beginning in order to get to the middle and the end backstory is crucial to explain early on if you really want your reader to understand the why of what's happening in your narratives, and if you really wanna make your stories relatable. 423 00:39:55,520.037348 --> 00:39:58,490.037348 That's why Taylor usually begins her narratives with backstory. 424 00:39:59,0.037348 --> 00:40:02,180.037348 That helps us imagine what her characters are really going through. 425 00:40:03,440.037348 --> 00:40:22,850.037348 I'm gonna get into Taylor's specific use of narrative structure in a later video, but for now, all you need to know is her stories usually have a beginning, middle, and end, and she usually gives us backstory in the beginning to really lay the foundation and to build the emotional stakes, we need to know the baseline before it can go up or down. 426 00:40:22,850.037348 --> 00:40:29,60.037348 So instead of just throwing us in the middle of this sticky situation, she explains how they got there. 427 00:40:29,450.037348 --> 00:40:35,750.037348 She paints the entire emotional picture, and that begins with telling us why they are where they are. 428 00:40:35,750.037348 --> 00:40:38,990.037348 Here's just a couple examples of how Taylor builds backstory. 429 00:40:39,650.037348 --> 00:40:42,170.037348 That helps draw us in and helps keep us there. 430 00:40:42,170.037348 --> 00:40:46,610.037348 Bad blood is a great example because it gives us a lot of backstory very early on. 431 00:40:46,700.037348 --> 00:40:51,890.037348 First the song starts with a chorus, which Taylor rarely does 'cause baby. 432 00:40:51,890.037348 --> 00:40:52,850.037348 Now we got bad blood. 433 00:40:52,850.037348 --> 00:40:54,320.037348 You know, we used to be mad Love. 434 00:40:55,445.037348 --> 00:40:58,835.037348 This chorus is placed there strategically to lend backstory. 435 00:40:59,195.037348 --> 00:41:06,515.037348 Our narrator was previously close with this person, but that's no longer the case because some big conflict emerged that ended their relationship. 436 00:41:07,205.037348 --> 00:41:09,155.037348 She's framing it as this person's fault. 437 00:41:09,725.037348 --> 00:41:12,485.037348 They are the villain in this story, and she's introducing the villain. 438 00:41:13,325.037348 --> 00:41:16,655.037348 Then we get more backstory with the first verse. 439 00:41:16,895.037348 --> 00:41:20,615.037348 Did you have to do this? I was thinking that you could be trusted. 440 00:41:20,825.037348 --> 00:41:24,5.037348 Did you have to ruin what was shiny? Now it's all rested. 441 00:41:24,635.037348 --> 00:41:28,565.037348 Did you have to hit me where I'm weak, baby? I couldn't breathe and rub it in. 442 00:41:28,565.037348 --> 00:41:31,505.037348 So deep salt in the wound, like you're laughing right at me. 443 00:41:32,375.037348 --> 00:41:37,775.037348 This gives us even more backstory and helps us understand exactly what happened in this major conflict. 444 00:41:38,405.037348 --> 00:41:43,715.037348 This was a trusted person, but they breached her trust and they breached it in a big way. 445 00:41:44,435.037348 --> 00:41:46,835.037348 It wasn't just a small wound that this person inflicted. 446 00:41:46,835.037348 --> 00:41:48,575.037348 It was hitting her where it hurts. 447 00:41:49,325.037348 --> 00:41:55,115.037348 This person exploited a vulnerability and they knew they were doing it because they knew where she was vulnerable. 448 00:41:56,225.037348 --> 00:42:00,425.037348 This villain is intentional and calculated and manipulative. 449 00:42:01,145.037348 --> 00:42:03,105.037348 Then this character rubs salt in the wound. 450 00:42:03,125.037348 --> 00:42:04,445.037348 They make it worse. 451 00:42:04,505.037348 --> 00:42:08,135.037348 They continue causing pain with no regard for how it makes our narrator feel. 452 00:42:08,705.037348 --> 00:42:09,995.037348 And this is a huge betrayal. 453 00:42:10,955.037348 --> 00:42:17,615.037348 But without this backstory, we wouldn't understand why this relationship is over because we wouldn't have understood what happened at all. 454 00:42:18,545.037348 --> 00:42:26,205.037348 We have to get to know the narrator, and we have to get to know the villain in order to resonate with the rest of the lyrics In Begin again. 455 00:42:26,205.037348 --> 00:42:28,905.037348 She starts with, took a deep breath in the mirror. 456 00:42:29,85.037348 --> 00:42:32,110.037348 He didn't like it when I wore high heels, but I do. 457 00:42:33,645.037348 --> 00:42:34,845.037348 We see that she's nervous. 458 00:42:35,505.037348 --> 00:42:42,465.037348 She's taking a deep breath, and we also learn why she's just come out of what sounds like a controlling relationship. 459 00:42:43,215.037348 --> 00:42:44,925.037348 It makes us hungry to learn more. 460 00:42:45,345.037348 --> 00:42:52,965.037348 Will she find love again? Will she trust again? It makes us curious and it really makes us root for this main character. 461 00:42:53,595.037348 --> 00:43:03,45.037348 It also paints the ex as a controlling and probably insecure character, which helps us understand why she's so nervous. 462 00:43:03,135.037348 --> 00:43:09,405.037348 Will this new person that she's going to meet be the same way? One of my favorites is, this is me trying. 463 00:43:10,455.037348 --> 00:43:12,135.037348 I've been having a hard time adjusting. 464 00:43:12,315.037348 --> 00:43:13,755.037348 I had the shiniest wheels. 465 00:43:13,845.037348 --> 00:43:14,775.037348 Now they're rusting. 466 00:43:16,125.037348 --> 00:43:17,715.037348 This is pretty obvious backstory. 467 00:43:18,45.037348 --> 00:43:21,465.037348 Our protagonist is in a rough emotional space. 468 00:43:21,465.037348 --> 00:43:27,555.037348 They once had this brilliant life compared to shiny car wheels, and they were going places. 469 00:43:27,615.037348 --> 00:43:28,455.037348 They were driving. 470 00:43:29,145.037348 --> 00:43:38,475.037348 But now they can't move forward because their wheels or their motivation and drive to live a fulfilling life has rusted up the leaves. 471 00:43:38,475.037348 --> 00:43:39,705.037348 That's really invested. 472 00:43:39,705.037348 --> 00:44:02,820.037348 Will they get to a more stable place? Will they be okay? Will they ever become shiny again, or will their emotions stay rusted in this depression and hopelessness? With all of these little chunks of backstory that Taylor provides, we get to see how these conflicts have begun for her characters and we're therefore invested in how it ends. 473 00:44:03,660.037348 --> 00:44:12,805.037348 But it's not only at the beginning that Taylor builds her characters, she also makes them incredibly deep and complex by adding to them throughout her stories. 474 00:44:12,805.037348 --> 00:44:19,645.037348 So if a character is lacking nuance or lacking dimension, we just won't relate to them at all. 475 00:44:20,215.037348 --> 00:44:21,385.037348 We won't care about them. 476 00:44:21,445.037348 --> 00:44:25,675.037348 We won't root for them because they just don't seem quite human. 477 00:44:26,485.037348 --> 00:44:33,55.037348 That's why making your characters deep and complex is crucial in the overall effectiveness of your narratives. 478 00:44:33,655.037348 --> 00:44:38,485.037348 So backstory is like the first layer of a pyramid and it allows you to build up from there. 479 00:44:38,485.037348 --> 00:44:52,315.037348 So after she establishes the basis for her characters and the conflicts she goes on to really flesh them out, Taylor has an incredible way of doing this, of painting these complete, believable characters with very few words. 480 00:44:52,855.037348 --> 00:44:54,925.037348 Her characters aren't just one dimensional. 481 00:44:54,925.037348 --> 00:44:59,545.037348 They're not only sad, they're not only angry, and they're not only in love. 482 00:44:59,575.037348 --> 00:45:02,350.037348 They're all of these things rolled into one. 483 00:45:03,790.037348 --> 00:45:08,590.037348 We can't relate to characters that are only one thing because humans aren't only one thing. 484 00:45:09,250.037348 --> 00:45:11,170.037348 Taylor's characters are multifaceted. 485 00:45:11,170.037348 --> 00:45:16,690.037348 They have goals and dreams and flaws and motivations and challenges they need to overcome. 486 00:45:17,500.037348 --> 00:45:22,0.037348 This helps us to really imagine them and root for them and feel their emotions that they're feeling. 487 00:45:22,450.037348 --> 00:45:25,330.037348 It makes it feel more real and it makes it feel more personal. 488 00:45:26,20.037348 --> 00:45:30,940.037348 So here are some of my favorite examples of how Taylor builds deep and complex characters. 489 00:45:30,992.0708013 --> 00:45:35,522.0708013 In Dear John, both the speaker and the subject are fully fleshed out. 490 00:45:35,582.0708013 --> 00:45:40,592.0708013 The speaker isn't just this young girl who fell for this older manipulative guy. 491 00:45:41,402.0708013 --> 00:45:42,692.0708013 She's not just a victim. 492 00:45:42,962.0708013 --> 00:45:45,782.0708013 She's also optimistic, but she's in denial. 493 00:45:45,812.0708013 --> 00:45:47,852.0708013 She blames herself for falling for him. 494 00:45:47,852.0708013 --> 00:45:48,602.0708013 She ignore. 495 00:45:49,277.0708013 --> 00:45:52,337.0708013 Red flags and ignores important advice. 496 00:45:52,397.0708013 --> 00:45:55,817.0708013 And in the end, she finally finds the courage to take a stand. 497 00:45:56,627.0708013 --> 00:45:59,537.0708013 The subject, John, which yes, is probably creepy. 498 00:45:59,537.0708013 --> 00:46:03,437.0708013 John Mayer is older, but he's not more mature. 499 00:46:03,647.0708013 --> 00:46:04,937.0708013 He's mercurial. 500 00:46:04,937.0708013 --> 00:46:05,867.0708013 He holds grudges. 501 00:46:05,867.0708013 --> 00:46:12,707.0708013 He gives these empty apologies, and he has a pattern of seducing and manipulating young girls. 502 00:46:13,217.0708013 --> 00:46:19,277.0708013 She's painted this entire emotional life by portraying these characters as fully human, warts and all. 503 00:46:20,837.0708013 --> 00:46:23,267.0708013 In ours, the speaker is super self-aware. 504 00:46:23,267.0708013 --> 00:46:24,557.0708013 No one seems to like her boyfriend. 505 00:46:25,517.0708013 --> 00:46:28,37.0708013 Seems like there's always someone who disapproves. 506 00:46:28,97.0708013 --> 00:46:30,617.0708013 They'll judge it just like they know about me and you. 507 00:46:31,757.0708013 --> 00:46:37,997.0708013 She can list all of his red flags, but she ignores them, insisting that people throw rocks at things that shine. 508 00:46:39,197.0708013 --> 00:46:42,167.0708013 We can see her delusion, but she's so hardheaded. 509 00:46:42,497.0708013 --> 00:46:43,607.0708013 This love is right. 510 00:46:43,787.0708013 --> 00:46:44,927.0708013 She's insistent. 511 00:46:44,927.0708013 --> 00:46:48,737.0708013 But we can kind of read between the lines of her naive optimism. 512 00:46:48,737.0708013 --> 00:46:52,992.0708013 If everyone is telling you that your boyfriend sucks, he probably does. 513 00:46:53,74.8910091 --> 00:46:59,104.8910091 But because she's painted this protagonist as resolute, we absolutely know how it will end. 514 00:46:59,254.8910091 --> 00:47:06,184.8910091 And we feel this underlying doubt and fear in a song that's otherwise happy because we've all been there. 515 00:47:06,184.8910091 --> 00:47:12,94.8910091 In exile, we get to hear from not one, but two very three dimensional characters. 516 00:47:12,604.8910091 --> 00:47:19,24.8910091 The male narrator is jealous, which could be portrayed as this trope of a jealous ex, but it's not. 517 00:47:19,864.8910091 --> 00:47:24,124.8910091 We learn that he's jealous because he just hasn't had any closure or answers. 518 00:47:24,619.8910091 --> 00:47:29,839.8910091 He can't stand to see her with another man because he feels like there's so much between them that's unfinished. 519 00:47:30,589.8910091 --> 00:47:36,19.8910091 But the female narrator, on the other hand, sees this jealousy and she just doesn't care. 520 00:47:36,409.8910091 --> 00:47:40,759.8910091 She feels like she gave him a thousand chances to really see her, but he just never did. 521 00:47:41,569.8910091 --> 00:47:42,379.8910091 He never could. 522 00:47:43,129.8910091 --> 00:47:46,69.8910091 This isn't just the typical story of a jealous ex. 523 00:47:46,69.8910091 --> 00:47:50,299.8910091 It's so much more than that because in life it usually is. 524 00:47:50,644.8910091 --> 00:47:55,294.8910091 We feel this tension between them and we get the feeling that it'll just never be resolved. 525 00:47:55,984.8910091 --> 00:47:59,194.8910091 They'll both have to move on because they're at a stalemate. 526 00:47:59,314.8910091 --> 00:48:08,164.8910091 They'll never be able to understand one another, and we know that because both of these characters have been portrayed so vividly and with so much depth. 527 00:48:08,164.8910091 --> 00:48:11,764.8910091 So Taylor begins to build her characters with a strong backstory. 528 00:48:11,824.8910091 --> 00:48:22,774.8910091 Then she continues to build them into these three dimensional beings that are incredibly relatable, but her characters don't just then stay stagnant and exit stage left. 529 00:48:22,804.8910091 --> 00:48:24,994.8910091 They change and they grow and they learn. 530 00:48:25,234.8910091 --> 00:48:30,634.8910091 They might start in one frame of mind and end up in a completely different one, and by the end. 531 00:48:31,24.8910091 --> 00:48:33,874.8910091 They're usually somewhere not near where they started. 532 00:48:34,864.8910091 --> 00:48:39,94.8910091 This is a character arc, and it's the final tool in Taylor's toolbox that we'll cover today. 533 00:48:40,294.8910091 --> 00:48:47,614.8910091 The number one thing that really makes her characters come alive and the thing that makes them most relatable is that they grow and change. 534 00:48:47,824.8910091 --> 00:48:48,754.8910091 They don't stay the same. 535 00:48:49,54.8910091 --> 00:48:55,504.8910091 They have realizations or they heal or they let go, or they move from one mindset to another. 536 00:48:56,419.8910091 --> 00:49:01,969.8910091 Throughout the length of a song, Taylor often shows us exactly how these characters evolve. 537 00:49:02,689.8910091 --> 00:49:09,799.8910091 We see them in the middle of this central conflict, and through their responses to that situation, we get to see how they grow and change. 538 00:49:10,459.8910091 --> 00:49:16,484.8910091 So after she builds them up with backstory and adds depth and dimension, she also shows us how it ends for them. 539 00:49:16,544.8910091 --> 00:49:18,584.8910091 And it's often a different place than they started in. 540 00:49:19,769.8910091 --> 00:49:24,449.8910091 In the beginning of 15, which seems to be a song that she's written to her younger self. 541 00:49:24,899.8910091 --> 00:49:25,829.8910091 She's nervous. 542 00:49:25,889.8910091 --> 00:49:33,389.8910091 She's trying to steel herself to start at a new school, hoping that the older boys will notice her and she'll finally feel special and desired. 543 00:49:34,559.8910091 --> 00:49:41,399.8910091 But by the end, she realizes that that's not what it's about at all in your life, you'll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team. 544 00:49:42,509.8910091 --> 00:49:47,849.8910091 She realizes everything will be all right, and being 15 is just something you have to get through in order to get. 545 00:49:48,149.8910091 --> 00:49:49,859.8910091 To the bigger moments to come. 546 00:49:50,819.8910091 --> 00:49:55,559.8910091 She realizes that all of this teenage angst and self-doubt is normal and it will pass. 547 00:49:55,789.8910091 --> 00:49:59,869.8910091 She changes, she grows up in the beginning of daylight. 548 00:49:59,869.8910091 --> 00:50:03,259.8910091 Our narrator is focused on all the things she's lost. 549 00:50:03,439.8910091 --> 00:50:09,349.8910091 She's focused on all these mistakes she's made and these very dark aspects of her past. 550 00:50:09,949.8910091 --> 00:50:13,969.8910091 But as the song goes on, she comes to see that it was for a purpose. 551 00:50:14,419.8910091 --> 00:50:19,879.8910091 All of those tangents were leading her to where she is now, and she steps out into the light. 552 00:50:20,989.8910091 --> 00:50:24,409.8910091 In the outro, our narrator says, you gotta step into the daylight. 553 00:50:24,934.8910091 --> 00:50:25,414.8910091 Let it go. 554 00:50:26,644.8910091 --> 00:50:33,514.8910091 She's changed and her outlook on life and love has morphed into something new, something more grown up. 555 00:50:35,164.8910091 --> 00:50:44,554.8910091 These are Taylor's character arcs, and it's usually in the narrator or the protagonist that we see the most pronounced arc from beginning to end, and that's on purpose. 556 00:50:45,34.8910091 --> 00:50:50,434.8910091 She's relaying the lessons that she's learned by going through the central emotions that she's portrayed in the song. 557 00:50:50,434.8910091 --> 00:50:56,464.8910091 A character doesn't change or doesn't learn anything or do anything differently within the span of the song. 558 00:50:56,944.8910091 --> 00:51:00,64.8910091 It's a good hint that it was never about that character in the first place. 559 00:51:01,114.8910091 --> 00:51:08,494.8910091 It was always about the character who has a big realization or a big epiphany, and that's exactly what she's trying to portray in the lyrics. 560 00:51:09,544.8910091 --> 00:51:16,684.8910091 Crafting her characters to change and grow makes them dynamic, which reflects how people are in real life. 561 00:51:17,554.8910091 --> 00:51:24,424.8910091 This helps us to see ourselves within her characters and makes her songs infinitely more relatable and real. 562 00:51:25,744.8910091 --> 00:51:27,544.8910091 Here are just a few more examples. 563 00:51:27,544.8910091 --> 00:51:39,574.8910091 Never grow up narrates a complete character arc with the speaker talking to her younger self as the subject in Act one, and we'll dive further into the three act structure in later videos. 564 00:51:40,804.8910091 --> 00:51:46,324.8910091 In Act one, the subject is innocent, where everything's funny and you've got nothing to regret. 565 00:51:46,324.8910091 --> 00:51:54,364.8910091 In the second act, she's grown into this petulant teenager who's embarrassed by her mom wanting nothing more than to be independent. 566 00:51:55,204.8910091 --> 00:51:59,644.8910091 But by the third act, she's being dropped off to live on her own for the first time. 567 00:52:00,754.8910091 --> 00:52:09,694.8910091 She learns exactly what it's like to be without the comforts of home and family and realizes that growing up is not all it's cracked up to be. 568 00:52:11,14.8910091 --> 00:52:16,864.8910091 She's just narrated the character arc that we all experience in our lives from childhood to adulthood. 569 00:52:17,584.8910091 --> 00:52:23,74.8910091 We've all learned this lesson that you shouldn't try to grow up too fast, and that's why it resonates. 570 00:52:23,674.8910091 --> 00:52:26,884.8910091 Why the song feels so personal and so meaningful. 571 00:52:26,884.8910091 --> 00:52:29,254.8910091 It's not just Taylor's lessons in life. 572 00:52:29,314.8910091 --> 00:52:33,4.8910091 It's our lessons in life in Clean. 573 00:52:33,4.8910091 --> 00:52:34,954.8910091 We also get to see a complete character arc. 574 00:52:34,954.8910091 --> 00:52:39,454.8910091 In the beginning, our narrator is in withdrawal from this lost love. 575 00:52:40,114.8910091 --> 00:52:43,864.8910091 You're still all over me like a wine stained dress I can't wear anymore. 576 00:52:44,614.8910091 --> 00:52:49,624.8910091 He's like a stain on her soul that she just can't scrub out no matter how hard she tries. 577 00:52:50,734.8910091 --> 00:52:55,234.8910091 In the middle, she learns that she has to take action to kick her habit. 578 00:52:56,254.8910091 --> 00:53:05,14.8910091 So I punched a hole in the roof, let the flood carry away all my pictures of you, and by the end, she's learned that withdrawal is messy. 579 00:53:05,284.8910091 --> 00:53:13,234.8910091 And just because you're clean don't mean you don't miss it, but it's way better than being addicted to something that's bad for you. 580 00:53:14,194.8910091 --> 00:53:16,894.8910091 She's kicked her habit and that's her character arc. 581 00:53:17,704.8910091 --> 00:53:35,659.8910091 She's come to this big realization that just because you want something really badly and it feels really good in the moment, doesn't mean that it's good for you and that the grownup thing to do is to go through the painful withdrawal and come out the other side all the better for it because you have to take care of yourself first and foremost. 582 00:53:36,199.8910091 --> 00:53:39,709.8910091 That's why this song hits so hard and that's why it's so effective. 583 00:53:39,709.8910091 --> 00:53:42,889.8910091 These character arcs don't only occur song by song either. 584 00:53:43,39.8910091 --> 00:53:48,589.8910091 They also occur across albums and across Taylor's entire discography and career. 585 00:53:49,399.8910091 --> 00:53:56,659.8910091 In later videos, we're gonna talk about Taylor's own character arc, which I am fascinated by and can honestly talk about for. 586 00:53:58,69.8910091 --> 00:53:59,389.8910091 So make sure to stay tuned for that. 587 00:53:59,509.8910091 --> 00:54:04,969.8910091 But for now, it's time to wrap up our dissection of Taylor's storytelling tactics. 588 00:54:05,239.8910091 --> 00:54:09,199.8910091 And I'm gonna leave you with one final nugget that I want you to think about, and it's this. 589 00:54:10,174.8910091 --> 00:54:12,964.8910091 Taylor Swift is inherently unrelatable. 590 00:54:13,654.8910091 --> 00:54:17,254.8910091 We can't imagine being in her shoes for even a moment. 591 00:54:17,704.8910091 --> 00:54:19,444.8910091 She's a billionaire boss. 592 00:54:19,474.8910091 --> 00:54:22,924.8910091 She owns and operates several mega corporations. 593 00:54:23,344.8910091 --> 00:54:32,644.8910091 She could buy literally anything and go anywhere, wherever she wants, but she can't go out in public safely ever without security. 594 00:54:33,874.8910091 --> 00:54:41,284.8910091 But most importantly, she's one of the most talented singer songwriters and one of the greatest musical talents the world has ever seen. 595 00:54:42,964.8910091 --> 00:54:52,604.8910091 So how do we relate to her so much? Her life and her heartbreaks and her struggles are so foreign to us in the way that she experiences them. 596 00:54:53,444.8910091 --> 00:55:00,944.8910091 How does her music resonate so deeply within us? Mere mortals, mere civilians. 597 00:55:01,364.8910091 --> 00:55:16,229.8910091 How do we feel like we know her and we know her struggles when we can't even comprehend what they must really be like? The answer lies in her storytelling and the way that she tells her stories. 598 00:55:16,709.8910091 --> 00:55:18,119.8910091 That's what makes her relatable. 599 00:55:19,979.8910091 --> 00:55:22,439.8910091 We don't know what a mega celebrity breakup feels like. 600 00:55:22,439.8910091 --> 00:55:26,189.8910091 We can't even imagine it, but we do know what a regular breakup feels like. 601 00:55:27,269.8910091 --> 00:55:31,889.8910091 We know what devastation and loss and self-doubt and anger feels like. 602 00:55:31,889.8910091 --> 00:55:33,329.8910091 So she pulls on that thread. 603 00:55:33,749.8910091 --> 00:55:40,829.8910091 She takes the central emotion of whatever experiences she's had, and it doesn't matter how she felt it originally. 604 00:55:40,829.8910091 --> 00:55:42,629.8910091 That's not the part that we relate to. 605 00:55:42,989.8910091 --> 00:55:45,419.8910091 We relate to the emotion itself. 606 00:55:45,839.8910091 --> 00:55:54,809.8910091 So then she builds this narrative world around it brick by brick, using all of these storytelling tactics that we just talked about to make it come alive and feel real. 607 00:55:55,394.8910091 --> 00:56:02,294.8910091 She tells us these stories so vividly and so beautifully that we feel like we are in that moment with her. 608 00:56:03,344.8910091 --> 00:56:20,684.8910091 We can't relate to Taylor's physical world, but we can relate to her emotional world, and that's what she uses to write these incredibly relatable and powerful stories, and it's all of these building blocks that we just discussed that allow her to draw us in and keep us there. 609 00:56:21,794.8910091 --> 00:56:26,289.8910091 Her stories are so powerful and so resonant because they were built that way. 610 00:56:27,779.8910091 --> 00:56:34,199.8910091 And in the rest of this series, we're gonna dive even further into Taylor storytelling exactly how it works. 611 00:56:34,349.8910091 --> 00:56:38,699.8910091 And if you really just wanna geek out about Taylor Swift with me, please like and subscribe. 612 00:56:39,389.8910091 --> 00:56:44,429.8910091 If you're seeing this on YouTube, you can also find the audio only version wherever you get your podcasts. 613 00:56:44,459.8910091 --> 00:56:46,769.8910091 And please check out swiftly sung stories.com 614 00:56:47,99.8910091 --> 00:56:49,889.8910091 where all of my lessons are available in text format. 615 00:56:50,609.8910091 --> 00:56:52,349.8910091 Thank you so much for joining me. 616 00:56:52,679.8910091 --> 00:56:53,429.8910091 See you next time. 617 00:56:53,429.8910091 --> 00:56:55,739.8910091 That's it for this chapter of Swiftly Sung Stories. 618 00:56:55,799.8910091 --> 00:56:59,519.8910091 If you enjoyed this deep dive, please don't forget to follow, subscribe, or leave a review. 619 00:56:59,579.8910091 --> 00:57:01,619.8910091 It helps other Swifties find their way here. 620 00:57:01,769.8910091 --> 00:57:04,589.8910091 I'm Jen and I had a marvelous time reading everything with you. 621 00:57:04,709.8910091 --> 00:57:05,219.8910091 See you next time.