When we were given the track list, we all gasped. From London Boy to So Long, London made us all feel something. Again, it made most of us think this entire album was going to be about her 6 year relationship when it was most certainly not. So Long, London definitely deserved to be track 5. She really did handle this circumstance with a lot of grace and worded this heart break with such delicate words. Between threading this story in other songs, adding some of the narrative onto Midnights, Evermore and Folklore, she has said all she can say about it. When we get to How did it end? That is when we can all cry in relation. That song is so relatable to those of us who were in long relationships that just began to watch it fade out, and didn’t really know how it all happened, but it just… did.
Appropriately enough, I am in London for the Eras Tour June 22-24 so I decided to write this prior to this, and photograph my portrait for this blog while I am ACTUALLY in London! So that is why there was a bit of a break after Down Bad.
Lyrical Breakdown
First we need to discuss the introduction to the song – when I first heard it, I definitely thought about church bells, or the famous choir scenes that are typically around the historical parts of London. A play on the area, that wont be heard any longer. Although a different tune, the Westminster Chimes does go off every 15 minutes and also plays a longer tune every hour – which could also be a play on the ‘so, long, lon-don’ introduction we hear as the song begins. I heard the bells from Big Ben, and they sounded nothing like this introduction of the song – so I think its more so the idea of church bells and choirs rather than the copy of.
After this introduction passes we have this beat that begins that feels very fast paced and feels almost like a heart racing. It reminds me of the anxiety in The Archer or Cornelia Street/ You’re Losing Me. The same idea exists in both songs – there is no drop that ever happens – it leaves us anxious and waiting… just as you would in this situation.
I saw in my mind fairy lights through the mist
This line specifically calls us back to Snow On The Beach, and the idea of denial.
I saw flecks of what could’ve been lights
But it might just have been you
Passing by unbeknownst to me…
Now, I think that Taylor created her Spotify playlists as her reflecting back at the situation – but I don’t think she felt that way as she was going through these experiences. I believe she did really find love. I believe he really did love her. I do believe they just became different people and grew apart – as people do. People have reasons they are in our life, and sometimes that is temporary.
I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift
Pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away
Although she claims that Evermore and Folklore were fictional writings – I think a bit of her past did creep into these songs. The idea of pulling weight of a relationship, holding on as much as you can to something when you feel your losing it, and as we’ve discussed before the threads between Tolerate it and Bejeweled are so similar but are organized sonically in different ways. Peace is another song that I can’t listen to in the same light any more because it wraps up all of her fears that were proven correct, again.
My spine split from carrying us up the hill
Wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill
These two lines feel very theatrical to me. The idea of carrying something so heavy up a [mountain?] a large hill, as you are bracing a storm. You are enduring and trying to fight for something, for survival, for a heart beat – just like Cornelia Street
But also this is a direct call back to You’re Losing Me
Do I throw out everything we built or keep it?
I’m getting tired even for a phoenix
Always risin’ from the ashes
Mendin’ all her gashes
I stopped trying to make him laugh
Stopped trying to drill the safe
UGH THESE TWO LINES ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?
She discusses resentment in other songs – including this one – and that IS something that typically makes people stop listening, laughing, and engaging in conversation. It makes them close up and keep to themselves. The effort isn’t being received back, so why try?
Stopped trying to drill the safe …when someone is so closed off they just… wont say anything. You ask them what is wrong but they don’t respond with any helpful information. It’s a pointless question that gets you absolutely no where.
again a direct call back to You’re Losing Me, but this time, they lost her.
“Do something, babe, say something” (say something)
Thinkin, how much sad did you think I had
Did you think I had in me?
Oh, the tragedy …
There obviously is a lot of speculation on the ending of their relationship, but from these lines it really feels like he never thought she’d leave. That she would just deal because she did love him so much. But his endless sadness and resentment made her extremely sad and lonely. As she was writing Dear Reader I was so confused of why she ended the bridge saying she was walking home to an alone house. A few months later, we did get You’re Losing Me and I realized Midnights was the actual break up album camouflaged for her own sake as a blast from the past. Maybe some of it was the past past for sure, but she is very good and threading multiple circumstances into one narrative to heal herself.
So long, London
You’ll find someone …
This does hint to us that she was the one who did leave. She had so much sad – she couldn’t deal with it any longer.
I didn’t opt in to be your odd man out
Fighting in only your army
Frontlines, don’t you ignore me
I’m the best thing at this party
(You’re losin’ me)
I wont get into the speculation of her being left out but in her relationship this did happen. Taylor is a very emotionally attached person. She has desired true love her entire life. She wants to be the priority. Being with someone who treats you as an after thought just isn’t what will fulfill her in a relationship. It is insane to me that no man she has dated has recognized who they are dating until Travis Kelce came along.
I founded the club she’s heard great things about
oh.
Okay so – there is a true aspect here of Joe was NOT on the map until he began to date her. He had a private instagram with like 900 followers… and after they began to date he went public and it bumped up to a million. I am not sure if ‘she’ is a person, but I feel like it may just be a metaphor for being seen in the public, as an actor, and on the radar.
I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath
This song so far is the only one I’ve had to break down line by line because it is so loaded. I left all I knew, is really a call back to 2016/2017, Although she got out of the public eye for herself, she stayed out of the public eye for him, really. She continued that through 2019-2021 also because of Covid, but really even on Social Media she has kept us at arms length which she didn’t used to do prior. Even her Lover Tour had 3 main shows scheduled – which is insane to think about now. So.. I left all I knew, the public eye, the touring, the spotlight, but you left me alone at the house – The Heath is a village in the East Staffordshire borough of Staffordshire, England.
I stopped CPR, after all it’s no use
The spirit was gone, we would never come to
And I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free
She stopped trying, she couldn’t bring them back to life
I can’t find a pulse
My heart won’t start anymore – You’re losing me
And for her ending years of her 20s she was with someone who it sounds like didn’t value her as she should have been valued.
For so long, London
Stitches undone
Two graves, one gun
I’ll find someone …
I think about the lineage of Invisible String:
A string that pulled me
Out of all the wrong arms right into that dive bar
Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire
Chains around my demons, wool to brave the seasons
One single thread of gold tied me to you
Tolerate it:
While you were out building other worlds, where was I?
Where’s that man who’d throw blankets over my barbed wire?
I made you my temple, my mural, my sky
Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life
…and then
For so long, London
Stitches undone
The man who originally protected her and ‘you drew stars around my scars’ and now I’m bleeding.
Now some of these songs are intertwined with other story lines, but the idea of gashes being mended and torn open again is a very direct narration we see in these songs.
With this one ending of a relationship – it killed two people with a different type of heart break for each – and it hurts like hell – but they will both be ok.
And you say I abandoned the ship
But I was going down with it
My white knuckle dying grip
When you leave a relationship people will say that you gave up, but if they don’t see all of the internal battles you face to make it that far they have no idea what you have conquered to get to that spot in the first place. She tried to resuscitate the beat of the relationship, she tried to carry the weight up the hill, she tried to pull information out of this person, but got nothing back.
Her hands were tightly clenched onto the ‘ship,’ going down with it for as long as she could, trying to steer it to safety.
Holding tight to your quiet resentment and
My friends said it isn’t right to be scared
Every day of a love affair
These lines hurt a bit too. Because of her being so quiet and out of the public eye, our fandom had a lot of questions about this part of the song, and also when she was going through it. These lines also tie to the anxiety of the beat in the song. He had resentment for her [for her success? we don’t know] and wouldn’t really ever explain to her out loud. She was panicked about him leaving her daily or worried she would upset him, but that isn’t love.
Every breath feels like rarest air
When you’re not sure if he wants to be there
There are complicit feelings in relationships and then there are toleration feelings. The idea of being comfortable and complicit can be a beautiful thing. The idea of tolerating and feeling like a burden at all time is not. This ensues more panic, more anxiety, more uncertainty in the future of your relationship.
So how much sad did you think I had,
Did you think I had in me?
How much tragedy?
Just how low did you think I’d go?
Before I’d self-implode
Before I’d have to go be free
You swore that you loved me but where were the clues?
I died on the altar waiting for the proof
SHE’D MARRY YOU WITH PAPER RINGS 3 ALBUMS AGO!!?!?
You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days
There are so many cross references to mental health in this album. And although everyone attributes it to Matty – we don’t know anything about Joe. We don’t know if he smokes, if he does drugs, if he is severely depressed – though from some of her other songs I think he is. This line specifically shows he struggles with depression. Which could tie in to all of this really. When you are in these moments, you can love fully but sometimes it can be so hard to show. You can’t really show it the way you want, your communication of it also is limited because you just don’t have the energy. It’s not an excuse but it is a reasoning. With that, sometimes people don’t have empathy outside of themselves. I’m sad — I face these things — you can’t possibly understand. Just how low did you think I’d go?
And I’m just getting color back into my face
I’m just mad as hell cause I loved this place
How can you say that you love someone you can’t tell is dyin’?
I sent you signals and bit my nails down to the quick
My face was gray, but you wouldn’t admit that we were sick [you’re losing me]
She loved London. She LOVED being with him. The idea of place isn’t just Europe. It’s everything it stood for and what it represented. The who’s, what, where. The memories, the friends made along the way, the feeling of Normalcy outside of the United States. The places listed in London Boy, the dreary monday’s in Paper Rings, she loved all of those things. But it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t notice she was losing who she was – the relationship was dying and so was she.
For so long, London
Had a good run
A moment of warm sun
But I’m not the one
but it would have been fun…
So long, London
Stitches undone
Two graves, one gun
You’ll find someone …
This ends so empathetically. In this moment, she is writing this about him. She isn’t concerned about herself though you can tell she is in pain. She is letting him know that he will find someone. She isn’t the one for him. This is her last letter to him directly.
Image Representation
I wanted more street imagery for this since I was in London, but didn’t get too much time to actually position it the way I wanted. I tried of a few images but none of them really stood out for me. So I did some in my Flat while staying there and felt the vibes were more melancholy how I felt – and how the song feels
Packed up, taking one last glance out the window – leaving it all behind.
Who would I be also, If I didnt show you some of my Night 3 Eras images. Guys, I saw Travis walk on stage and preform with Blondie [hard launch], I saw, sobbed, shaked as Gracie Abrams walked on stage [just as I told my mom I would travel to see her internationally because I cannot attend any of her US dates], and I finalllyyyy got Clean [and Is It Over, Out of the Woods] as surprise songs. I ordered 4 of Gracie’s Signed Vinyl for ‘The Secret of Us’ So it was such a special treat to see Gracie and Taylor sing ‘Us’ so close to this released Album.
My seats for this Show were the best I ever have gotten AND I got to spend those precious moments with my mom.
13/10. I still can’t believe I got to see this show. I wont stop talking about it for some time.
So many videos and Photographs I have but these were my favorite videos
Stay Tuned for Track 6 <3