For each of the songs in this collection, I’ve written an inspiration section to explain the lyrics and how I interpreted them to tell a story about our favorite couple. There are no spoilers.

WAYS TO LISTEN: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Music

Inspiration

When reading the lyrics for “The Black Dog” I really took away this idea that someone you once knew so well could move on without you. That they can just move about their everyday life while you’re drowning in the memory of them. She can’t stop thinking about him and wondering why he doesn’t miss her and the way they were together. That moving on is difficult — she still watches for his location the way she did when they were together (“old habits die screaming“). It’s a really gorgeous song about heartbreak after breaking up and being stuck in one place while you watch someone move on.

When I thought about Jason & Elizabeth, I was also just struck by the deep and intimate friendship they’d had up until 2002. Some of that was missing in 2002, probably because they immediately were miscommunicating over Zander and never getting back on track really. I wrote a short for folklore, inspired by “the 1,” where Elizabeth challenges him on claiming paternity of Sam’s baby for Sonny and Carly, walking him back through all the things he’s done for them.

And I started to play with the idea of Jason being stuck in that place in the spring of 2004, not able to move forward with his life. Courtney has left because of his job, Sonny and Carly are imploding around him, and I think he claimed paternity really because he was desperate for something in his life to fill the loneliness, and anything would do. But what if he had the opportunity to “unstick” himself? What if something/someone came into his life that belonged there and could fill that space with real love and genuine warmth? A healthy place for Jason to take all the tremendous love and loyalty he has to offer? Could he “unstick” himself and break those old habits? Would they fade away, or would he “die screaming“?

I know that feels like a long way around to get where we are, lol, but one of the things I really wanted to do with this album that I didn’t do on folklore is really break down each song. These lyrics have so much depth — despite being really personal and specific to Taylor Swift’s experiences, the emotions are universal.

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