Paige Young

Are you ready to be hurt? Welcome to the analysis of How did it end?

This song is probably relatable to every human in the world. This idea of watching something you built up slowly fade out of your life. This song is very relatable to me with friendships. People we let fade out – and in the end you really don’t know what specifically went wrong… it just.. did.

Lyrical Breakdown

We hereby conduct this post-mortem
He was a hot house flower to my outdoorsmen

So we open an investigation to examine why this relationship died [ended].
He was a hot house flower to my outdoorsmen – is a line I have fixated on for hours lol.
I guess the use of outdoorsmen throws me off- because it’s not man, it’s plural.
I do see this opposite comparison of a tropical flower compared to outdoorsmen being outside and finding nature in the wild. But she says my outdoorsmen. While breaking this down we can assume my outdoorsmen is plural because it is characteristics of her in many different ways, and her need to be outside is different than his preferred stationary state, inside for protection. Its a beautiful way to say “he wanted to stay safe and private but I needed to be out in the world.”

Our maladies were such we could not cure them
And so a touch that was my birthright became foreign

Our disease or illness could not be cured, it was too far gone or infection –
So something that she held on for so long – something that felt like her home, her birthright, something that for so long felt so comfortable it didn’t need thought – was now not hers any more. Even if a relationship break is mutual – it is so damn hard to get away from comfort and habits.

I do love the metaphors of their love A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground, With no one around to tweet it, being associated with disease that killed the plant they grew together. And although before Joe’s time – it makes me think of clean – the flowers that we’d grown together died of thirst. Which shows the next line of this was not just a first time circumstance.. but a repeated one.

Come one, come all
It’s happenin’ again

This is actually the most heartbreaking line in the song. It’s happening again. It’s going to break news stories, it’s going to be a display and presentation to the media – her love is falling out again. Here comes the speculation. On this same instance – MGK actually has so many cross over narratives that align with Taylor. In his song God Save Me – he references being a celebrity – and how breakups are entertaining. It means nothing to those making news articles, clickbate, or mean fans or not fans, speculating that ‘here they go again’ instead of knowing the people themselves.

The empathetic hunger descends
We’ll tell no one
Except all of our friends
We must know
How did it end?
(Uh-oh)
(Uh-oh-oh-oh)

The outside world wants inside to her pain. She wants to keep it private what really happened because they’ll read it and speculate, pass on without seeing them as humans but as a way to engage social media, likes, clicks and follows with her information.

The question of but we must know how did it end – can mean two things. 1. How can you tell others what happened when you can’t really define specific moments it became ill. 2. It is actually a quotation stated by those she is around, “but we have to know – how did it end??” It can also be the invasive fans that constantly demand answers that she sings about earlier in the album.

We were blind to unforeseen circumstances
We learn the right steps to different dances (ohh)

All relationships can’t predict the things they’ll go through as a couple. Not only did they go though her switching her career in Rep, isolation from COVID19, but also the amp up of her career again and beginning to discuss touring. They learned the right steps to different dances – such a beautiful way to say they navigated through some bull shit Lavender Haze and made it out ok but they had to adapt many different times to each others’ needs as well as the speculation that comes from the outside.

And fell victim to interlopers’ glances
Attention that was not wanted; privacy that was invaded. I feel like this is a direct shot at the media and people causing him to be uncomfortable.

at the time of this video I thought it was cute how he held her hand and they ran together – but as time went on and I listened to midnights, and TTPD, I can see that this was probably not something she needed, but he did. That hot flower inside, Joe.

Lost the game of chance, what are the chances?
Soon they’ll go home to their husbands
Smug ’cause they know they can trust him
Then feverishly calling their cousins (ohh)

Those around them, rather overhearing conversations, or nosily picking at either of them – going home to their significant others and spilling the tea, even perhaps when Taylor and Joe asked them not to. “Oh I can tell my husband he wont tell any one, he doesn’t care.” But the secret becomes further away and more estranged to them – so they tell whoever they want because they lose the need to hold the secret.

Guess who we ran into at the shops?
Walking in circles like she was lost
Didn’t you hear?
They called it all off
One gasp and then
How did it end?

This is a full on conversation Taylor is painting of those people. Circling around gossip and information. One telling they other they broke up, the other person being so surprised and asking but how?!? More information, that isn’t their own, but someone else’s life, being discussed.

Say it once again with feeling
How the death rattle breathing
Silenced as the soul was leaving

This bridge is pure poetry. But also.. so so sad. As people talk back and forth about information that is so easy for them to share, Taylor is exhausted and saddened by having to repeat the story of her slow death and the death of their relationship – the hardest decisions she had to make, leaving her speechless and lifeless for some time. The death rattled breathing is her holding on, the soul leaves and the body dies and becomes silent.

The deflation of our dreaming
Leaving me bereft and reeling
My beloved ghost and me
Sitting in a tree
D-Y-I-N-G

They aren’t happy and kissing in a tree any more – their dreams withered away, left her feeling robbed of what could have been and angry. The relationship and him – the ghost of the soul that left the body, dying, and no longer happy. I do love the change of this nursery rhyme to the end of something. The beloved ghost could mean what he left, it could mean her own self that died, or it could mean the relationship and the ghosts of the past. Either or all could definitely be applicable in their own ways.

It’s happenin’ again
How did it end?
I can’t pretend like I understand
How did it end?

Come one, come all
It’s happening again
The empathetic hunger descends
We’ll tell no one
Except all of our friends
But I still don’t know
How did it end?

The end is where we really get the information that she also can’t really summarize what happened. I can’t pretend like I understand any of it, or where it actually went wrong. It happened again, we just told a few people when it actually did [hey jack 2021 you’re losing me] – but she cant talk about it or tell any one else, because she doesn’t have an answer for them. It just faded out.

You know there’s many different ways that you can kill the one you love.
The slowest way is never loving them enough – High Infidelity

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