The song that hurts the most.
Hand on the throttle
Thought I caught lightning in a bottle
This line is interesting to begin with because 4 songs earlier we have a ‘full throttle’ reference in So High School. Which references this idea that she did have something full throttle before [or so she thought], and after so high school, we know it has returned again, however I find it strange that she didn’t sequence these songs oppositely.
Oh, but it’s gone again
And it was written
I got cursed like Eve got bitten
Oh, was it punishment?
Written in the stars, the story, the narrative that she is constantly cursed to not find the one. Eve was the one punished, not Adam, in the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden. Was this punishment for her sins? For her crimes? For Florida?
Pad around when I get home
I guess a lesser woman would’ve lost hope
A greater woman wouldn’t beg
But I looked to the sky and said
In this scenario Pad around is basically pacing around, walking endlessly, unable to sit still.
To a house, not a home, all alone ’cause nobody’s there
Where I pace in my pen and
My friends found friends who care
She didn’t lose hope, but she wasn’t too proud or scared to beg. She is begging to the gods, sky, to the author of her story to change the ending and how she currently feels.
Please
I’ve been on my knees
Change the prophecy
Don’t want money
Just someone who wants my company
Let it once be me
Who do I have to speak to
About if they can redo
The prophecy?
I love this chorus and this song for many reasons. Taylor constantly references not needing to be impressed, she just wants to be seen. She sings a lot about this in Reputation and Lover. Paper Rings, King of my heart, are just two songs off the top of my head, and I know there are many more.
Cause all the boys and their expensive cars
With their Range Rovers and their Jaguars
Never took me quite where you do (where you do)
This song and her previous songs, are a good reminder that money can never buy happiness. She just wants someone to love her, see her, she wants to be the one chosen and given the time of someone else besides all of the effort being placed on her. The internet took this as her lovers ‘couldn’t afford’ these things, but that’s an immature, young and bad take. All of these things means, honestly, she can buy that shit on her own. She doesn’t need wealth to fill her cup – she needs love, affection, and we know she is an affirmation girlie, so she needs that support.
Cards on the table
Mine play out like fools in a fable, oh
It was sinking in
This verse is about the realization that she is alone, again. She thought she had a royal flush, and instead she realized she got played by the con man selling a get love quick scheme. It begins sinking in that she was the fool in the situation – of a man promising her love and saving her from a long relationship she needed to leave.
Slow is the quicksand
Poison blood from the wound of the pricked hand
Oh, still I dream of him
Both of these things are a slow death. Poison doesn’t happen quickly in the body – and it is extremely painful to die from. The pace of the quicksand she is in is also slow, both of these end results, we know what is going to happen, we know our fate, but we don’t want to acknowledge it. We see the ending – we see the result but unfortunately there is nothing we can do about it now. But although the pain was there, she still dreams about him. Wishes it was changed.
Please
I’ve been on my knees
Change the prophecy
Don’t want money
Just someone who wants my company
Let it once be me
Who do I have to speak to
About if they can redo
The prophecy?
In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or preternatural knowledge, for example of future events. This is the first time that we have seen Taylor ‘on her knees’ for prayer in quite some time. Up until this point it’s been referencing another person, or even body parts as worth worshipping or being a stand in for religion. The last time we had a true on my knees is within the Speak Now album. This time we are actually desperate like we were in soon you’ll get better – yet we are still praying to Orange Bottles and Jesus that medication works.
Holy orange bottles, each night I pray to you
Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus too
And I sound like an infant
Feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen
A greater woman stays cool
But I howl like a wolf at the moon
Sound like an infant = crying, whining
This relationship really did bring out the worst in her, because in Down Bad we were throwing teenage temper tantrums, and now we are wailing like an infant.
Feeling like the last drops of an ink pen, used up, worn out, unable to fulfill it’s duty.
She is not too shamed to admit that she is screaming, crying out, begging for mercy in her life. She has success, she has money, but she doesn’t have any one that is truly hers. Our hopeless romantic – romance-less.
And I look unstable
Gathered with a coven round a sorceress’ table
A greater woman has faith
Looking unstable I feel is this idea of obsession and not being able to let things go. She is willing to do whatever it takes, witchcraft, prayer, but she admits here that although she is pacing with hope, she truly doesn’t have faith. She’s on her knees but it isn’t truly to religion – it is to whatever works.
She is falling apart and is aware. Even the strongest people fall when they have been hurt over and over, and deeply.
But even statues crumble if they’re made to wait
I’m so afraid I sealed my fate
No sign of soulmates
I’m just a paperweight
In shades of greige
What a sad set of lines. This to me references many things. If all you want is grey for me, in but Daddy I love him – the idea that people ruin her relationships, her fame is so big that she really can’t [or feels like she cant] have it all. She cannot have a successful career without people budding in and taking what she wants. She cannot have a soulmate – she cannot have love, she is stuck on a man who broke her heart.
A paperweight can be moved, it’s light, but it does do something. In this case we see that she is ‘temporary’ just like her relationships. She can hold down something for a bit of time but not forever – she can have lovers, but not soulmates. In shades of greige, boring – mundane – lack of romance. If all we want is average for her – she doesn’t want this at all. She feels like a colorless paper weight just unable to experience what she truly wants.
Spending my last coin so someone will tell me
It’ll be ok
Please
Please. Now we are going to presumably fortune tellers, therapists, any one that will reassure her. That this isn’t the end. Her life isn’t doomed with a lack of love.
I’ve been on my knees
Change the prophecy
Don’t want money
Just someone who wants my company
Let it once be me
Who do I have to speak to
About if they can redo
The prophecy?
Who do I have to speak to
To change the prophecy?
Hand on the throttle
Thought I caught lightning in a bottle, oh
But it’s gone again
Pad around when I get home
I guess a lesser woman would’ve lost hope
A greater woman wouldn’t beg
But I looked to the sky and said
Please
The ending is pretty rough. The idea of repeating please over and over, repeating these verses again and again, feels like the constant cycle of her past, too. Empty promises, lovers leaving or cheating on her, over and over. The times she felt the most hope, are the moments that become hopeless.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if she was writing this and knew the outcome of the following months.
Visual Representation
And I sound like an infant
Feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen
A greater woman stays cool
But I howl like a wolf at the moon
And I look unstable
Gathered with a coven round a sorceress’ table
A greater woman has faith
But even statues crumble if they’re made to wait
I’m so afraid I sealed my fate
No sign of soulmates
I’m just a paperweight in shades of greige
Spending my last coin so someone will tell me it’ll be okay
Black and White Ilford Film – 400 ASA
