The Bolter. I’m not going to lie, I’m writing this blog in a time where my brain has zero peace. I am coming down from an 8 day illness. Today is MLK day but also a day that I fear is a start of a hard morning [mourning] of many. For me? Maybe, but for some of my friends? Definitely. So maybe this song is about having a hard time trusting again, and once you see a small red flag, you run due to the previous pain you have endured, but also, Taylor lives in the same complex times we do – so I cannot imagine that some of these current events DO NOT make it into her songs [we know they do… you need to calm down.]
Lyrical Analysis
By all accounts, she almost drowned
When she was six in frigid water
And I can confirm she made
A curious child, ever reviled
Now there is speculation that when she was a child she fell through the ice, but I feel this is good storytelling and a metaphor of her six year relationship, when her face turned grey, lifeless, and cold. The death of a relationship where the heartbeat couldn’t be brought back to life.
Waiting by the door like a little kid, using my best colors to draw your portrait. A curious child, ever reviled to find new love. Everyone was sparked by her, except for her own father. She always paints her father to be ‘careless father, careful daughter’ and like he lacked giving her attention so she sought it elsewhere. So I’m not sure the main story of that – many questions for miss Taylor.
By everyone except her own father
With a quite bewitching face
Splendidly selfish, charmingly helpless
Excellent fun ’til you get to know her
She paints herself in the similar way she painted herself as the anti-hero. Endearing, pulls you in like you want to get to know her. Just enough selfishness to intrique you, just enough ‘helpless’ to make you want to take care of her, and a lot of fun but will play the game. Her closest friends know her moves, and they know that she’ll pull out of the race because of her bruises and scars that have left her with the inability to truely trust and fall in love again. Did she ever fully let Joe in because of his unwillingness to commit?
Then she runs like it’s a race
Behind her back, her best mates laughed
And they nicknamed her “The Bolter”
Started with a kiss
“Oh, we must stop meeting like this”
But it always ends up with a Town Car speeding
Get away car ???? What ???
However this makes me think of recurring instances and run ins, that are kind of.. on purpose? Like how you plan on going places that you hope or know that one person will be there. And then the temptation explodes and it ends up like it always does.
Out the drive one evening
The couple leaves and gets away, but it ends up in a disagreement, someone states they can’t do this and then he namecalls her
but just like when you leave any abusive or toxic situation, it’s hard, but damn, is it liberating.
In the terms of today and the time of our country – this is a bit how I feel. I am walking away from this idea of being nice or playing by the rules of people who are hateful or hurtful to other people. I am walking away from the idea of sheltering people who are offended by the ideas of others simply just existing in their bodies. And for that, It does feel like breathing and freeing.
Ended with the slam of a door
Then he’ll call her a whore
Wish he wouldn’t be sore
But as she was leaving
It felt like breathing
All her fuckin’ lives
Flashed before her eyes
It feels like the time
She fell through the ice
Then came out alive
Love it when Taylor says fuck.
I see this as almost a time reel. When you are walking away from something toxic, you see all of the memories you had with this person play in your head. The metaphor of being frozen in time, or being stuck in something that you feel you cant get out of – you’ll be stuck there forever – but you do get out – you do see color again – you do live – and you’re ok.
He was a cad, wanted her bad
Just like any good trophy hunter
And she likes the way it tastes
Taming a bear, making him care
A man wanting a woman just for show – she can fix him, really she can, she can tame him, but she finds out it’s carnations and not roses, thats us.
Watching him jump then pulling him under
And at first blush, this is fate
When it’s all roses, portrait poses
Central Park Lake in tiny rowboats
everything is presentably fake, it seems real, it seems perfect but too perfect?
What a charming Saturday
That’s when she sees the littlest leaks
Down in the floorboards
The littlest of redflags – but it may be valid enough from the past? But is it? or is it fear?
And she just knows
She must bolt
She’s been many places with
Men of many faces
Been with many men who are two faced, who say one thing and mean the other – or said one thing and then simply did another after the fact
First, they’re off to the races
And she’s laughing drawin’ aces
she’s laughing drawin’ aces, I love this. She is making money, she’s growing sucess, she is not letting them define her, But something is missing? She is making money, it’s business as usual?
But, none of it is changin’
That the chariot is waitin’
The chariot is still waiting, hearts are still hers to break if she wants, as she leaves situationships, it’s freeing because she is free to go as she chooses, but, but what?
Hearts are hers for the breakin’
There’s escape in escaping
Started with a kiss
“Oh, we must stop meeting like this”
But it always ends up with a Town Car speeding
Out the drive one evening
Ended with the slam of a door
But she’s got the best stories
You can be sure
That as she was leaving
It felt like freedom
She’s seen a lot of things, she has been in many situations, but she has lived and learned, she has a lot of stories, good and bad, funny and sad, but she is free from sadness, from grey skies, from the ice [metaphor].
All her fuckin’ lives
Flashed before her eyes
(And she realized)
It feels like the time
She fell through the ice
Then came out alive
If she can handle her biggest heart break and moment she was frozen in time- she can handle this.
Image Representation
The beautiful thing about art? If it’s about love, it’s not always about love. There have been a lot of music or movies in the past that are written about one thing… or sound like it, but are directly linked to a metaphor about war, politics or things happening in current events. Bambi was written about the Jews running from the Nazis, Hitler burned all of the books but the few that escaped. America got ahold of it and made it a Disney production. It’s still a dark movie… but to read or watch it in the original lens it was created.. we’ll you can connect a lot more dots then simply just hunter dogs and foxes becoming friends.
We have been through hard things, but we have overcome them. We have walked away from people, bolted from people, and it has been hard, but it has been freeing. Bolt situations, or people – but in this case- for these next few years – keep your headspace healthy. If those around you are being harmed, stay healthy for them so you CAN help them. Maybe the toxic relationships aren’t romantic, maybe the faux perfect relationships or the ones that have cracks in the seams are friendships you’ve been holding onto just simply because you’ve been scared to let them go. But maybe, it might be freeing, when you start to leave them.