The Swiftie and The Scholar - Betty – The Folklore Love Triangle Part 2

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

We’re back for the second installment of the folklore love triangle! Uncle Jerry really changed his tune on these lyrics, both as a poem and as a song, while Angela notices some “teenage diction�� that she’s never picked up on before. Come back next week to wrap this all up with us!Works Cited:Rashomon EffectThe Rashomon Effect: When Ethnographers Disagree – Karl G. HeiderDisnarration and the Unmentioned in Fact and Fiction – Marina Lambrou – Aff LinkDisnarration and the performance of storytelling in Taylor Swift’s folklore and evermoreThe Blind Man and The ElephantSplit Narratives or Fragmented NarrativesWinesburg, Ohio – Sherwood Anderson – Aff LinkSpoon River Anthology – Edgar Lee Masters – Aff LinkThe Flowers of Evil – Charles Baudelaire – Aff LinkFlipped (2010)ApophasisHyperboleBook of GenesisThe Swiftie and The Scholar Grading MatrixFollow Us:Patreon⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠Uncle Jerry’s Instagram

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Empea. Start your period of trial for a euro at month in Shopify.es bar records. Welcome to the Swifty and the Scholar. where we examine the lyrics, lore, and literary legacy of Taylor Swift. I am Angela McDowell the Swifty. And I am still Dr. Jerry Coates, the scholar. Hello, Uncle Jerry.

Hello, Angela. We're back for part two of the folklore love triangle. Part two of the trilogy, which today we learn is actually a quadrangle. Oh. Oh, there's a little hint of things to come. Oh, no. Yeah. Okay, I do want to say, because it is a little bit of a little hint of things to come.

Okay, I do want to say, because I didn't say this in the first episode, that the names, Betty, Inez, and James are the names of one of Taylor's best friends' children, and that is Blake lively and Ryan Reynolds. Really? I was going to ask because I was really curious. I mean, usually names mean something, you know. Yeah, so she just put them in a song, in songs, multiple songs. Well, poor Inez. Yeah, yeah, she gets the short end of the stick. there. Yeah, I think so. Okay, so today we're getting into Betty as part of the folklore love triangle. If you haven't watched last week's episode, maybe go do that because we talk a little bit in the beginning more about how these all talk together in Uncle Jerry's scholarly words.

Rush him on and stuff like that. Yes, I will review that. Okay, perfect. Okay. And then this is from, they're all three from folklore. This was written by Taylor and William Bowery, who we know is Joe Alwyn, and it was produced by Taylor, Aaron Dessner, and Jack Antonoff. So lots of people on this one. Yeah. Betty? Betty. Okay.

So just a review from last week, you remember that I mentioned all kinds of interesting terms like disnarration that we get portions of narratives, but we don't hear the entire narrative. It's something that especially is true in songwriting. where you get to hear parts, parts of events and songs, because you can't possibly fill everything up like you can in a novel. It's also a non-linear narrative, so that our three major narrators, the speaker in August,

the speaker in Betty and the speaker in Cardigan, are at different points in time of their lives. And it also is a split narrative. So you get the, you get the, you get the, the split description of events from three different people. And I mentioned that that's also called the Rishamon effect. From the movie Rishamon by Akira Kurosawa.

And I did print off a, if you're interested in disnarration, there's a really good book that is from 2019. I've not read the entire thing, but I've read chapters of, Marina Lambrose disnarration and unmentioned and the unmentioned in fact and fiction. Oh, and the unmentioned. I like that.

What is there that we know but is not explicitly said disnation. I'll link that below. Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit expensive. It's 45 bucks on Amazon. But, you know, you might find a library copy or something like that. It's really interested in it. And if you're interested in doing that kind of research,

which it would be a book you probably want to see. Like I said, I've just read a couple of chapters. And for those of you who want to know more about split narrative. Yes. So the split narrative is where you have, it's also called the Blind Men and the Elephant. And I talked a little bit about that with our last poem with August, where you have different people, blind men,

touching different parts of the elephant. And their perception, their truths are formed only by their perceptions. So the man grabs a tail and he says an elephant is a snake. And a man grabs the leg and a man says the elephant is a tree trunk.

Right? So it is true from their perspective that that's what they think an elephant is. Right. So it calls to question the perspective and subjectivity of what truth is. The split narrative

is really fun because it creates levels of irony. And there are a number of works that you can take a look at if you're interested in the split narrative. Sherwood Anderson's Winesbury, Ohio. I read that a long time ago,

but it's set in this little town of Winesburg, and you get to meet different characters and each of the characters create their own story or their own narrative. My favorite is

Edgar Lee Masters Spoon River Anthology. Okay. So Spoon River Anthology is a book. It's a collection of poems, and it's dramatic monologues of dead people. So everybody's buried in the Spoon River Cemetery. Okay, that's fun.

That's a fun concept. It's really fun to read because it's a little bit of detective fiction as well. So in Spoon River Anthology, everybody's dead, and they get up and they narrate a short poem about their life. and you begin to realize that often the narratives are interwoven. So, for example, you have this young kid who was abused at school and he's dead and he says, you know, he had this favorite teacher and she was the only one who ever understood him. And then you find out that the teacher's dead and she gets up and has a narrative in which she said there was really only one student and I ever really loved and it was this student.

Oh, no. Yes. It's sweet, it's poignant, and you realize that there are multiple truths because there are lots of different ways of looking at life and events from your own perspective. So it's the perspective of all the dead people in the Spooned River Cemetery. Yeah, okay, that's fun. And the author is Eggerli Masters. Okay. A few weeks ago, I mentioned Laudatross by Baudelaire.

Yes. That's actually in his work, Le Fleur de Mall, the Flowers of Evil. Okay. And it shows a variety of, maybe not characters like we think of them as traditional characters, but perspectives on creatures, natural events, things like that, that create multiple truths. And Baudelaire is mid-19th century French writer. and always worth a look. If you're not into reading...

What are you doing here? Just kidding. You're not to be into reading to be here. I know. Then go to Netflix or something like that and see if Flipped is still on. Flipped. Yeah, the movie is Flipped.

F-L-I-P-E-D. And it's a Rob Reiner film. Okay. It's not one of his better-known films. But I really love Rob Reiner films. I feel like we've talked about Rob Reiner on this podcast before. Maybe. Flipped is about a boy moves into a neighborhood across the street from this girl.

And the girl falls instantly in love with the boy. Okay. And the boy could care less about the girl. Oh, no. Because he's like third grade. I mean, he doesn't care. And as the years pass, you find out that the girl sees, he's maybe got. got feet of clay

and as she begins to lose interest the boy flips and begins to have interest in her because he begins to understand she is really kind of extraordinary. Okay. And what's fun about flipped is it's split narrative.

So they'll tell you events from his perspective and then they will tell you the same events from her perspective. That's fun. And then they'll tell you more events from his perspective and then the same events from her perspective. And we go back and forth and they take turns and in which one's telling which side. And I love it. It's a really fun, flipped, split narrative that gives you multiple ideas.

So here we are in Betty, and that's where we begin to realize, as a reader, it's where I realize, this is a split narrative, right? We're listening to multiple voices. telling the same event and remembering it at different moments and time. And I'm just going to admit, like I did with our first one, that when I read through them the first time, I did not care for these poems. Right. I like Cardigan very much.

August was okay, and Betty really stank. But then I began to realize, wait a minute, no, this is cool. This is the ration on effect. It's a split narrative. It's also disnarration. It's also, you know, I began to see, oh, wait, we need to pay attention to James. I mentioned last time when I first started making notes, my very first note at the very top is James is a dork. I'm going to have to take a picture of that to post.

That's my academic analysis of this poem. James is a dork. But that was just my first impression. he's still a dork. Nevertheless, he is an important part of the split narrative. Absolutely. Okay, so I think I want to blame him, and I forgot what it's like being a 17-year-old boy.

And when I began to remember, I thought, no, we're all dorks, all 17-year-old males are jerks, and, you know, this is just his perspective. This is just exactly what it should. be basically. It's his hand on one part of the elephant. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And that's the only part he's touching right now.

And it's right up under the cardigan, apparently. So, you remember how I predicted what August is going to sound like? Uh-huh. I can predict what Betty's going to sound like. Okay, let's hear it. Okay. It's because of the rhythmic pattern. It's not going to be Betty.

It's not whispered. Even though there's a Sychira, a comma after Betty, it is heavily rhythmic, right? Betty, I won't make assumptions. This is going to be a chugging song. We're going to chug right along. Betty, I won't make assumptions about why you switched your homeroom, but I think it's cause of me. She's going to sing it like that. She's going to say, Betty, one time I was riding on my skateboard.

And I thought, really a skateboard? He's 17. And when I passed your house, it's like I couldn't breathe. Oh, that's so romantic. So, yes, I think because of the rhythmic pattern, which gives us one accent syllable, one unaccented, accented, and it chugs along like that, it's going to have kind of a little bit more rapid pace. and I wanted to try to fit it when I got to the pre-chorus

I wanted to try to sing it to the Yellow Rose of Texas like I had before you heard the rumors from and as you can't believe a word she says most times but this time it's true the worst thing that I did to you

okay that's a little further away but it's a step away from what she actually sings Not completely wrong. Okay, so the question we always ask about literature, if it's good, is why? Mm-hmm. Okay, why have this sort of chugging rhythm?

Well, in the context of this non-linear narrative, you know, we have a narrator who is telling events very nearly after they happen. Right. So I'm guessing our man James here is still about 17 years old, and he is immature. Yes. And this is the way James talks. Yes. This is how he speaks. Yeah.

He speaks in this sort of chugging, impulsive, 17-year-old manner. And so I'm going to give her credit, Taylor Swift credit, for writing a poem that reflects his sort of impulsive adolescent diction and discourse. Love that. Yeah, well, I did too. I mean, you know, I mean, just because I want to respect her as a writer. And I think that we can here. Yeah.

Also, you'll notice in the very first line, we've done a fairly complicated literary device. Oh, okay. Or I should say rhetorical device. He says, Betty, I won't make assumptions about why you're supposed to be. switched your home room. However. Oh, but he is making an assumption. He is making an assumption.

Yes, he is. That's called apophysis, or apophasis, depends on how you like to say it. Apophysis is when you say the thing that you think should be already implied. Or when you say the thing that you say,

you're not going to say. It's also lyotonic or latotis. Okay. The Romans love to use this, by the way, for those classical readers out there. In my very first, maybe it was my second year of Latin in high school, I think we had to translate Cicero's Catalinian oration. So there's a bad guy named Cataline, and he has attempted to overthrow the state. And Cicero, an attorney, is prosecuting him in what are called the Catalanian orations. Okay.

Cateline's the guy's name. And Cicero uses Latotis all the time when he says, you know, I don't have to tell you what an evil man, Cataline is. And then he tells you. Well, he just told you he's an evil man. I shouldn't have to tell you how wrong it is to try to overthrow the state.

I gotcha. Well, he just told you it's wrong to overthrow the state. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Which is, you know, when Cicero writes it, that's a complex. rhetorical device, implying that you and I already agree

on what is otherwise a debatable topic. Did Cataline actually try to overthrow the state? Cicero doesn't ask that question. He says, I shouldn't have to say that Cataline's attempt was evil. You know, he's...

Gotcha. Yeah. We're already pre-concluding you know, something about that. Well, our narrator here is pre-concluding. something about Betty. Right? She has switched

her home room because of him, because he's done something wrong. Okay, so, you know, immediately the question is, what is it that she did wrong? Now, the first time I read through these, I didn't know that James was the same boy in August.

Okay, I was just about to ask, like when, because you don't learn James' name until pretty far into this. So you don't know, like, who, who the narrator even is here. Right. And then you're, you know I gave you three songs for some reason, but you don't know exactly why. And then you're like, oh, wait.

Then you all of a sudden tie it back to August. Right. Yeah. You know, yeah, I read the first one and I thought, okay, I mentioned last time it just felt like summer nights from Greece. And then I read the second one, I thought, James is a jerk. And then I read Cardigan and I thought, oh, wait. This is an interwoven narrative. This is the Rishamon effect.

This is multiple narrators talking about and remembering the same event in three different ways. And suddenly, I am going to say, you know, I went into my wife and I said, oh, my gosh, this is really more interesting than I thought. And Leslie looked at me, why? Like, what are you talking about? I even called you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did. Because my first impression was, what?

Like, why? Danny. It's so bad. But, you know, it's so fun to make these, to discover something. Obviously, that probably you guys all knew that this was the trilogy. Yeah. Well, yeah. So she told us that there's, she started playing with being the narrator instead of being in her stories.

And she said there was a teenage love triangle. Wow. But she didn't say which songs were part of the teenage. age love triangle. So that was like a fun exploration to like figure out, you know, what she was talking about. But now she has since confirmed in the Long Pond sessions that we'll watch. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. When, you know, when you sent the three of them to me, I thought that was a little unusual because you usually only said one or two. And so I got three. And when I read through them by the time I finished cardigan, I thought, oh, interwoven narrative. And suddenly I went back and started rereading them.

more voraciously because I was kind of excited about how fun it became for me. What I really like about the first verse is are the multiple ways that she attacks the task of showing his age.

Okay, yeah. Because she mentions in line two switching to the home room. Uh-huh. So we have kind of an adolescent drama there. She mentions him writing the skateboard, which on my first reading I thought was almost silly and stereotypical, but now I'm thinking, oh, no, she's using it to characterize James

because James is one of the voices in this interwoven narrative, right? In this rationa narrative. Yeah. So, and then thirdly, he says, it's like I couldn't breathe. And that is not a simile, right? Even though it uses the word like. Different. Yeah, you have to compare two dissimilar things.

He's, you know, this is adolescent diction. Like, they use the word like all the time. Yeah, I haven't grown out of that yet. Like it, okay. So it's like I couldn't breathe. So it, there's no, no noun antecedent for the word it in the line. And like, there's no need for the word like. Yeah, it's just, sorry, I was going to say, he's just trying to say, I couldn't breathe.

Yes, yes. he could just say, I couldn't breathe. And even that would be hyperbolic, right? I mean, it may be a little bit metaphorical, you know, but I'm not going to credit James with the metaphor. You know, why can't he breathe? Can he not breathe from love of her or can he not breathe from guilt or remorse of his actions? Right? So it may show a little bit more complicated side of his emotional demeanor. But we're not exploring that really at all.

Yeah, crediting him with a deep emotional demeanor maybe a bit much. But it's also part of the disnarrative effect. You remember, disnarrative is the idea that we're leaving things out of the story that either the character doesn't know or we don't know or both. Okay, yeah. And so maybe he has trouble assessing his own emotions. Yes. And because of that, I think it underscores his adolescence.

And as the mature readers that we are, I think that we're supposed to see that. Right. So, yeah, what's really nice about the opening verse is, well, the rhetorical device, but also the three ways that she chooses with homeroom skateboard. and it's like I couldn't breathe. Yeah. To underscore his adolescence and his inability to assess his own emotions. Interesting.

Yeah. Yeah, you really, it really, she's really setting up the scene, the scene in this, what's it called? What kind of narrative is this? Fractured narrative. Yeah, fractured narrative. She's setting up the scene by like, this is a teenager. She's like kind of screaming it at us. She is.

Yeah. But that's okay. We need to hear the teenage voice. Yeah. Because later on we're going to get the mature voice. We get the developing voice in August. We get the teen voice in Betty, and we get the more mature voice in Cardigan.

So we need all voices. So, you know, to take one last look at verse one, no particular rhyme scheme, assumptions, but me, skateboard, I try to look through and I'm going, oh, where are alliteration? Where's assonance? But it's cause of me one time I was writing on my skateboard.

Very monosyllabic. Yeah. Look at the verb choices. It's cause. I was. It's like. This is so interesting because we know what Taylor can do. And it feels like a deliberate, I mean, I think we can, we can.

can confidently say it's a deliberate choice for how she's writing this. Yes. And that feels kind of masterful that she's able to get into these different characters and say, okay, I need to take out, I need to take me out of it. I need to take the Taylor Swift out of this

and write this as if I'm a teenage boy. That is perfectly well stated. Yes. That's crazy. It's really fun. Yeah. She erases herself from the text and she voices the teenage boy. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And she does it by eliminating all those fun little tools that she has in her poetic tool. Yeah, the typical tailor that you talked about in the August episode. Yeah. In the August episode, yeah, the typical tailor, the use of alliteration and assonance and metaphor and simile and nope, nope, nope, and no. Interesting. That's fascinating.

Yeah, it is fun. It is clearly voiced as an immature male. So, and, you know, sometimes when you do literary analysis, you want to notice all the literary elements, obviously, you know, you're as many as you can find. But one of the things that you ought to always do is do a diction analysis. So I did that. Look to the words. I thought, oh, look at the simplicity, the monosyllabism of many of these words.

And then secondly. you want to notice what's not here. Right? So you, you know, because sometimes it's just as important what the writer leaves out as what the writer puts in. And what she leaves out is the maturity of the text. Yeah.

Yeah. So, nice. Pre-chorus. Yes. You heard the rumors from Okinawan. Yeah, again, very rhythmical. You heard the rumors. rumors from Inez, you can't believe a word she says.

You know, again, your first read-through may or not, may not always be a good measure of the work. Right. Yeah, what was your original thought here? My original thought here was too rhythmical, too rhymed, right? That it was almost silly. Yeah. But what it does reflect is the sound of a nursery rhyme. Yeah.

And who are we dealing with? Yeah. Kids. We're dealing with this kid. Yeah. Yeah. So it feels right. You know, oh, you heard about what Inez says.

Don't believe her. You can't believe a word she says. Again, surely Inez has spoken a truthful word at some point in her life. Probably. This is hyperbole. You know, what is a 17-year-old pleading his case going to? do? Yeah, hyperbole. It's going to be hyperbolic. I also haven't grown out of that yet either. I can't breathe. You can't believe a word she says. Yeah, at this time, it was true the worst thing

I ever did. Well, is it really the worst? It's hyperbolic. So the one literary device that we see consistently in the first two stanzas is going to be hyperbole. Which is appropriate for a teenager. It's appropriate for a teenager. Everything is either terrible or wonderful. Yeah, the worst thing ever, the best thing ever. Exactly. It's always hyperbolic. And so she's going to reflect that use of hyperbole.

In the pre-course, we also get the introduction of another character. Yes. I found particularly interesting. Okay. Okay. And again, my first comment in my notes was, well, he blames Inez for his, for the imperfect perception. It's not the truth.

But remember, taken together, these three works are an examination of the truth. You know, we've already seen August's truth. Now we're getting James's truth, but we're also getting a third person's truth who's not really a narrator in any of the poems. It's Inez's truth. And Inez's truth, which we do,

not hear, it's a disnarrative. Okay, yeah, yeah. We don't get all parts of the narrative. Yeah, we don't know what Enaz is saying. We don't know what she says, but whatever it was, it is not James's truth. The question we should be asking is, is it Inez's truth? Is it August's truth? Is it the narrator of Cardigan's truth?

Or is it functionally a lie? And we don't know. Interesting. We can't know. Yeah. And that's the nature of truth. Ugh. No.

Tell me me get existential again. I knew you would like that. I'm not going to be able to. Scholar, Cap, I'm keeping this around. Yeah, I was going to say that needs to stay in here now. Yeah, I don't, I can't. All of the multiple truths and the one truth and the one-worldly truth, it just really stresses me out. If life were simple, we'd just all be mice, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. I really like the introduction of this third character, and it is. You know, I really, I don't, you know, maybe she did it because the guy had three children, but. No, but I, you know, I always wonder, like, I remember thinking, knowing that, okay, there's a love triangle and first hearing folklore and trying to figure out which songs it was and who the character. characters were in thinking, okay, is Inez the one that's in August? Like, is she the narrator of August? But then I was like, oh, no, that's not true.

That's not right. And then it's like, well, who's narrating cardigan? And then it's like, oh, is that Betty or is that someone else? And then it's just like, I don't know, it's just fun to like, it's such a fun puzzle to put it all together. That's why I finally came, you know, after the first reading. Yeah. After my initial, I came to, oh, wait, this is really fun.

It's like a puzzle. Yeah. And, you know, the other thing that's, I think, true about adolescent romance is you always have your friends that you talk with. You know, and so I haven't mentioned Valentina in a while. My junior high school crush. Valentina had a best friend, and Valentina would go back and forth between me and Valentina. And I would have to deal with what the best friend told Valentina I said. Yeah.

It wasn't always my truth. Sometimes it was. And then I would hear something she would say that Valentina said, and I don't know, maybe that's what she said. I wasn't listening. I don't know. Anyway, yes, the introduction of Inez, and just the fact that he has that reaction that he wants to blame Inez, and he wants to declaim that she is not truthful. You know, this is going to be a pattern throughout the remainder of the poem.

James is going to blame people. You know, I'm sorry, 17-year-old boys do not step up and say, yes, Dad, I was driving too fast, I wrecked the car, I will work at the sonic drive-in for the next several months, and I will have the fender repaired. Yeah, that is not. That's not how it goes. No, no, it's going to be the weather, it's going to be somebody else, it's going to be a distraction in the backseat, it's going to be a distraction in the backseat, it's going to be dad for not maintaining the car. It's going to be anybody but me. So Anez becomes, in effect, a kind of scapegoat in the chorus as well.

The worst thing that I ever did was what I did to you. So he's willing to own that as a bad thing. But worst from whose perspective? Is it the worst from his perspective? Or does he think it's the worst from his girl? friend Betty's perspective? Or is it really the worst thing that he could

have done from August's perspective? Because he abandoned her. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, because he's saying was what I did to you talking to Betty. But like there was another

person involved. That also was probably hurt. Or is it the worst thing as Inez has character underized it, right? Maybe Inez wants to get inroads into Betty's friendship and thinks that

getting in between she and James is going to draw her closer to Betty. So we in fact have two triangles. Yeah, or is Inez trying to break James and Betty up? Right. Because she wants James

for herself. So she's telling half-truths. We don't know. Oh, man. It's the nature of a disnarrative. The drama. We don't have all the narrative elements. It is drama.

But it's so fun. I mean, you know, this, it's, and I keep characterizing it as an adolescent story. Come on, these things happen at work, too. Oh, absolutely. Right? I mean, there are work disputes where people go and run to your boss and tell them something about you, and why would they do that? You know, they might have multiple reasons.

I just felt my blood pressure rise up a little bit when you said people at work. I was like, Yeah. You know who you are. Yeah. This could be a people slash person at work who also does it. So, you know, again, we don't see a lot of complex literary devices in the pre-chorus, except that the, you know, dominance of hyperbole tends to run on.

The chorus. Yes. But he does like to kind of interject. But if I just showed up at the first. party. So now he's going to be a party crasher. And did he is he going to crash the party? Is

this a metaphor? Probably not because James isn't that smart. There's an actual party because James isn't a metaphor is. No, is the party her life and is he busting up her life? Is he crashing her life? Okay, yeah, yeah. I would credit Taylor Swift was writing that. I would not credit James

was saying that. Okay, fair. Yes, agree. Would you have me? Would you want me. So he's sort of pleading here with his questions, would you tell me to go fuck myself? Or maybe August. Yeah. Yeah.

Or lead me to the garden. Okay, so you know, again, the garden has a couple of different meanings here. It could be a literal garden at the party. She's got a garden out in the back of her house. Would you take me outside where we can be alone? Mm-hmm. Okay, I think that's what

James means. Yes. What does Taylor mean? Uh-huh. Oh, gosh. Oh, no. So meta. Yeah. I think we're talking about the Garden of Eden. I think we're talking about the garden, a garden as a symbol of, you know, flowers, fecundity, sexual imagery.

I think with the Garden of Eden imagery or allusion, the snake is there. Yeah. They recognize their nudity there. They transgress against God there. Yeah. Right. So I think we have two very different levels and two very different speakers. So I think we have James who just says, hey, can we go out back and be alone? And I think we have Taylor, who is reminding the reader, oh, remember, I am a poet.

And I really do mean the garden in a fairly complex way through allusion and through metaphor. So both. But I think we have to separate the speakers. That's a fun thought. In the garden, would you trust me? Well, in the Garden of Eden, can you trust the snake? No. You know, when God comes and says, you know, why did you eat the apple to Adam in the book of Genesis? Look it up.

He immediately blames her. Right. Yeah. When Eve hears this, he says this. Eve hears this. Eve immediately blames a snake. And in fact, it was God who put the snake in the garden. So maybe we should blame God.

God wants us to experience free will. And so sets up circumstances by will through which we experience free will. But what happens in the garden is a blame game. And the blame game itself would be highly typical of adolescent interchange. So, you know, would you trust me? Uh-huh. She hasn't been able to so far. Okay.

If I told you it was just a summer thing. Okay. I mean, rhetorically, again, James is not the most adroit speaker. I'm just going to let that phrase happen in the air for a minute. I like it. Not the most adroit speaker. Yeah. Is it a good rhetorical advantage to look at the girlfriend whom you have just cheated on and say, you know, can you trust me if I just said it was just a summer thing?

So he's admitting to the transgression. Yeah, that he's not trustworthy. No, he's not trustworthy. And he's not apologizing. Is there an apology here? No. Oh, that's so funny that you said that because when we get to the, when we watch them talking about this song in the Long Pond sessions, she said it sounded like an apology. Yes.

And I've been writing songs from my perspective about wanting an apology from a man or from men. And so I decided to write this from the male perspective as an apology. But it's the worst apology anyone's ever. It's terrible. ever said, written. That's why it's so delicious. It's a bad apology. James is not capable of a well-phrased apology.

You know, again, show me a 17-year-old boy who is. Yeah. You know, who is so self-aware enough and has the majesty of language to really command an appropriate apology here. It gets worse. I'm only 17 I mean he admits to being young and stupid I don't know anything and then what does he say

immediately after I don't know anything but I know I miss you okay put those two statements together for us I don't know anything but I know I love you but you just said you don't know anything Well, yeah, but I know I love you. But that is paradoxical.

Uh-huh. Right? So she is, she is using paradox. James is using stupidity. Yes, yes. You know, it is at this point I'm going to pause. Okay. Take a drink.

Mm-hmm. And say, you know, this is a very famous trope. Right. Right. the 17-year-old love triangle, especially the 17-year-old love. You can think of any number of songs that are written about this. I mean, The Beatles, well, she was just 17, and you know what I mean. Fleetwood Mac.

Fleetwood Mac. It's a very old trope. Oh, my goodness gracious. What is this? This is the sheet music to. Wait, I think it's upside down. The sheet music to when you and I were 17, written in 1924. Whoa.

I know. So I do play the piano, as you know, and I collect old sheet music. I like to just sit and play along. Yeah. You know, people have been writing about the beauty, the sincerity, the insincerity of young love for as long as long as there have been. young lovers. Right, right. So when he says, I'm only 17, you know, I thought, oh, this is such such a fun trope. It's such a fun motif to look into the life of the young lover. Uh-huh. And she does it so well. I love that he says, I don't know anything. And then he says,

I know I miss you. But I know. I know. I don't. I'm young and I'm stupid, but I'm not that stupid. Yeah. Interesting that now then I'm looking at this through Taylor Swift trying to embody a teen boy, I feel like if Taylor was saying this, just this one line, it was just a summer thing. Taylor would have made it more fun, but even just saying summer thing instead of summer fling.

Yeah, that's good. You know, like summer thing is like how you talk as a young person, but you don't talk about flings when you're 17, you know. Right. It's just a thing. Yeah, but it rhymes exactly the same. It works exactly the same. But using thing there is just so much more like casual and conversational and teenage to me.

That is great. Yeah, I had not underscored that, but that's a good point. Yeah, I just, it just came to me. Yeah, well, it's a simplistic monosyllabic adolescent word. Yeah. You know, it's a thing. Yeah. It's just a thing.

So the repetition of the word no, you know, here's a forewarning or a remembrance for those of you who know all three of these so well, we're going to see that word in cardigan. Indeed. Yes. And so you remember if this is an examination of what we know and how we evaluate truth, then, you know, we're going to see a more mature assessment of what knowing is. And I think something much closer to what Taylor Swift herself knows. Absolutely. I mean, I think that's what the voice of Cardigan is. It moves much closer to her life.

To Taylor, yes. Yes. But back to James. Verse two. Betty. Yeah, it starts, verse one starts Betty too. He's pleading, right? You know, and again, is he feckoned with a floral use of language?

Does he say, my beauty is flower? No, it's like, Betty. I know where it all went wrong. Okay, what verb do we see? I know. Oh, my gosh. Right. Yes.

He says, I don't know. And then he says, I know. And then he says, I know some more. I know some more. Oh, no. Yes. Wow, he's real. Yeah, it's a very clever, the way.

she manipulates the word. Yeah. So Betty, I know where it all went wrong. But wait, he doesn't know anything. He's already admitted that. And in fact, I don't think he knows himself. That's the nature of an unreliable narrator. So in this split narration, we have one, August,

who's trying to examine herself and trying to assess what happened to her at the end of summer. And we have a second narrator who's clearly unreliable. He literally says he is. I mean, he tells us he is. Yeah. He says, I don't know. Oh, I know, but he doesn't.

Your favorite song was playing that made his ears perk up. You know, it's a teen thing. From the far side of the gym, I was nowhere to be found. I hate the crowds. You know that. Plus, I saw you dance with him. Oh, no. Okay.

why these specific elements were on the far side of the gym you know why was he hanging out on the far side well because he is an isolationist he's immature he's hiding from her he knows he has something to hide yeah but he can't seem to grasp it I just

use the word no he can't seem to wrap his arms around understanding it or how to deal with it so his very mature reaction is go hide Yeah, I'm going to go over there. Yeah, I'm going to go over there where nobody's sitting, which is a very immature thing to do. He's nowhere to be found, and please notice use of nowhere, right? I hate crowds.

Well, you know, why? Is he ashamed? Is he guilty? Is this implied or an admission of guilt? It's also the fact that he can't seem to handle social interaction very well You know, 17-year-old boys are not known for their ability to socially interact True, true. In appropriate manners always.

He is socially awkward. Plus, I saw you dance with him. Yeah, so it's Betty's fault. It's now it's her fault. This is all Betty's fault. Yes, it's Inez's. fault, it's Betty's fault. He's got to blame those girls.

Have we seen an admission of guilt yet? No. No. But he knows. Well, it was the worst thing he's ever done. So that is a little bit of an admission of guilt. But it's because he did that because of Vines and because of Betty dancing with a boy. That's right. It's not really him.

It's because of this and that. Yeah. I don't have a lot else to say about the second verse. You? No, just that it's, you know, for Coming from verse one when you called out that she's telling us he's a teenager, this just is more of that. You know, like we're in a gym, like a high school dance or some, you know, some sort of high school gathering. My dances were like in a gym, you know, or the cafeteria, you know, the fancy high school I went to.

But yeah, that's just, it's just more imagery that kind of, you know, rounds out the, the, the, story for us. And the fact that they have a favorite song and the fact that she's dancing with somebody else to their favorite song. So she's doubly to blame. She's not only dancing with somebody else, but she's dancing with somebody else to his and Betty's song. Yeah. So, you know, it's like she has belied their whole relationship. She's cheating on him. Aha. Except like she knows he's in the room. Yeah, but it's a far side. Yeah.

Yeah, he's staying away from people. So the pre-chorus is again pretty much the same. You heard the rumors from Inez. You can't believe a word she says. He's just throwing blame wherever he can, hoping it sticks most times. But this time, it was true. The worst thing I did was what I did to you. So a little bit of an admission there, but.

But not an apology about it. apology. No. Then in the chorus, but if I showed up at your party, would you have me, would you want me? He's pleading again. Would you tell me to go fuck myself or leave me to the garden? Garden imagery again in the garden. Would you trust me? If I told you, it was just a summer thing, as you point out. That's really good. I'm only 17. You know, he's not, he's not accepting blame. He's blaming his age. I don't know anything. I know I miss you.

Okay. The bridge gets really interesting. I was walking home on broken cobblestones. You know, the most complicated line in the poem. Why broken? It's a broken relationship. The broken promises that have been applied between the two of them. And then later on in Cardigan.

Cardigan, we're going to see her walking in high heels on the cobblestones. Yes. So clearly linked. Just thinking of you when she pulled up like, there's that like again, she pulled up like a figment of my worst intentions. And, you know, this is the one time she actually manipulates a cliche in the poem. Yeah, she let herself in there a little. She did. She just can't help it.

Taylor, back off. I really did think that after a few readings. I thought, I like the line, but this is more Taylor than James. You know, it really is because this is one of those cliches. It's a figment of my imagination, but she plays with it and turns it into a figment of my worst intentions. These are not his worst intentions. He wants to get with August. Yeah, yeah.

It's a summer thing. It's easy. He's going to do it. But she said, James, get in. Let's drive. Okay, who's the assertive person here? August. She is.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. James has no. He has none of that. No, he's completely devoid of any blame here. Yeah. Life is happening to him.

Yeah, there's no choice to make. Girl drives up and says, get in. And, you know, I guess I had to. I had no choice. Yeah. Just get in. Get in there. Don't take that phrase too far either.

Yeah, it's the speech habit of youth for pulling up like, but she gets a little more complicated with a figment of my worst intention. She said, James, get in, let's drive, echoing the first poem. These days turned into nights. Okay, so these are fairly easy symbols, daytime, light, symbol of openness, you know, things that come to light, night time, ooh, naughty things happen at night. So, you know, through this innocent act, it turned bad, slept next to her butt.

Okay, so here's our third butt. I dreamt of you all summer long. Oh, it was just physical. Yeah, this is, I was missing you, though. I know. I was thinking about you when I was doing her. Again, rhetorically, James, I don't know if this is your best. approach.

You know, while I was having sex with her, I don't want you to think it was bad because I was thinking of you. This is not a very good approach to how to generate an apology. Agreed. I also, I mean, you realize that this is a

kind of dramatic monologue. Remember, dramatic monologue is a dramatic situation where you have two people or more, and one of them is a speaker, and the other person or persons are silent, and we get to hear the thoughts and intentions of the speaker only. And frequently in dramatic monologue, the fun hook about them is that they reveal too much about themselves. Okay, yeah. So James is revealing

too much here. He absolutely is, yeah. He admits he slept with her, and then he says, but I thought about you. So he couldn't even be true or honest to this poor girl he's sleeping. Yeah. It's like doubly bad for poor August. Yes. I mean, and if I'm Betty, I'm thinking, okay, so I'm supposed to trust you now because you think of other women when you have sex with someone?

I just, you know, he is revealing his own duplicitous nature. and he doesn't mean to. Yeah, he's just trying to get out of the hole that he's dug himself into, but he's just digging himself way further in. He's throwing whatever he can against the wall and hoping something sticks. Yeah. But he's duplicitous. I mean, he literally shows us that he cannot be trusted because August should never have trusted him.

I mean, essentially, if you think about this is what he's implying. Yeah. Right. August couldn't trust me. I was always with you. Yeah. And so now that I'm with you, I want you to trust me. Yeah, and I'm not thinking about August.

No, don't worry. Yeah. I have a fun note for you that that's something you could not have picked up on. And I didn't pick up on myself, but people have picked up on. Yeah. In August, when the song says, get in the car, the end, it's in the outro. And she's like, remember when I pulled up and said, get in the car. The first time she says it, that is at 247 in the song, two minutes and 47 seconds in.

And Betty in this bridge when it says she said, James get in, let's drive. That is also at two minutes and 47 seconds. Is it really? Wow. That's either completely bizarre, abonstantially or amazingly intentional. Or they worked really hard at that. Isn't that crazy? It's crazy.

Yeah. It happens. again in Cardigan as well. There's another cardigan. I think it's Cardigan and Betty. So now we have to go look at Cardigan and see what's happening at 247. I think it's a different, it's like a different time. Something happens in Cardigan and I have to look at them.

I forgot. But yeah, we'll get to that in the Cardigan episode. Yeah, isn't that wild? Yeah. Wow. No, I try to be a close reader, but I am not listening to the song and rolling the timeframe. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. And I don't know how somebody figured that out, but Swifties, you know, they can do, they can do hard things. Well, okay. So that's fun. That's fun to know. I know. Verse three.

Yes. Betty. They're starting with Betty again. Here we are again. I'm here on your doorstep. So the doorstep, you know, in the very first line of August, we have the door. Um, doorstep. He's on the outside.

He's wanting inside. Yeah. So, uh, and, and the image. Oh, that's interesting. Right. Yeah. Because in August she's been let in. So it's just on the door.

We don't know which side she's on, but we can assume that she's inside. Right. And in this one, he's still on the outside. He's still on the outs. That's fun. Yeah. Um, and it is also kind of a trope, you know, kissing a girl on the doorstep. Yeah.

Um. And I planned it out for weeks. Planned it out for weeks. Again, very simple diction, you know, replicating the idea that he's a 17-year-old. But it's finally sinking in. And sinking, I think, has a double meaning here. It's finally getting through that dull brain of his. But also it's, he has a sinking feeling.

Okay, yeah. So emotionally he's sinking. Betty, right now is the last time I can dream about what happens when you see my face again. Okay, because she's about to open the door, and he's going to know for sure. He's going to say, go think about it. It's almost, it's an implicit ultimatum. You know, it's the last time.

So I'm going to open the door and I'm going to catch that expression. And if it works, it works. Yeah. You know, wiping my hands if it's not. Because you remember he's not to blame, not really. No, no. None of it's the fault. So the only thing I want to do is make it up to you.

And what's the it? We don't know. Whatever perception is 17-year-old brain is working on. And again, you know, you read the words backwards. You, two, up, it, make, and do want to. I think only the, it's almost entire. monoselonic, right? And so it's a very immature voice that's speaking. So I showed up at your party. Yeah, I showed up at your party. Yeah. Yeah. Just a lot of yaes. Betty's and yes.

Yeah. Yeah. I showed up at your party. Will you have me? Will you love me? Kind of pleading. Will you kiss me on the porch? Cute. In front of all your. your stupid friends. Okay. You know, he makes one last rhetorical error. He depreciates the value of her choices in friendship. Yeah. You know, all your friends are stupid, including that Inaz.

She's just a liar. She's a liar. Her truth is not my truth. So, I mean, this is just not. a good argumentative ploy. In other words, will you do it publicly? Will it patch your, I'm sorry, if you kiss me, will it be just like I dreamed it?

So he's been dreaming of him. Yeah, while I was with August. Well, he was with the other girl. Nice. Will it patch your broken wings? Oh, she's broken. Yeah. Not him.

He's good. He's okay. I'm only 17. I don't know anything, but I know I miss you. that redundant no and then finally standing in your cardigan

cardigan here it comes kissing in my carigan that's a fun one I knew you were going to have something to say about that yeah anytime you use one word to rhyme with two words

that's something you ought to stop I really think about I like it I'm going to Finn James slash Taylor on this one. Well, he is a little immature. Yes, I just, I read that and I went, oh, what was that rhyme from, from not the last from the one couple of times ago? That you hated.

Oh, the jackals and the hackles. Jackals and the hackles. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if I hated it. Just it hurt a little bit. You know, somebody, people were commenting that it was funny that jackals were, you, you compared them to dog girl, because jackals are part of the dog family. I didn't catch that. Standing in your cardigan, kissing in McCarigan, stopped at the street light, you know I miss you.

And the fact is, in these types of narratives, you never know. You never know his true intention. Do we ever hear from Betty? No. So we don't know what she knows. We have a little bit from August. Yeah. But even she, in the midst of that song,

in the midst of that poem, is reassessing what she knows and how she remembers it. So, you know, to me, the final irony of the poem is that it ends with, you know, and taken together, one of the things that they underscore is we never quite know. Right. Which is a lot of fun. It is a very deft handling of irony.

Yeah. And even though I don't credit James with it, I certainly credit Taylor. Yeah, absolutely. So I need to hear the song. I need to hear if it's a chugging song like I predict. It's Betty I will make assumptions. I will say that this is the most country of the three. Oh, I was trying to sing it to Yellow Rose of Texas.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay, so we will, I think maybe on this one, maybe we'll watch the lyric video, and then maybe we will also watch the Long Pond sessions part of just this song, just on this one. And we'll be right back. Okay, I kind of cheated there,

and we didn't watch the August long pond before, so I just threw that in. So now you have... Bonus. Yeah, two versions of Betty, two versions of August. Okay. You liked Betty more than you thought you were going to. Yes, as a song, much...

I think I'm agreeing with your husband. Yeah. It's just fun. It is fun, yeah. It's a fun song. It's really lighthearted somehow. It sounds that way anyway. Well, and like I said, while we were listening,

I think you could learn to sing it in 10 minutes or 50 minutes. 15, 20 minutes or something. It's easy. I love the key change. And I think she wants it to be, I think she wants him to have the credit of his innocence. You know what I mean? You know, I think she wants to forgive him a little bit

because he is such a young dork. And he's kind of, he's making as much of an apology as his 17-year-old male brain. can make. Yeah, because what we also learned in that is that Taylor thinks that Betty and James end up together. Yeah, that's interesting. Which is so weird, but also interesting that she's like, my favorite part of that is

like, she's like August is not Augustine, the girl from August. Like, she's not like the villain in this story. She's just a person. Yeah, she is. She's just a person. Yeah. I mean, she has hopes. She has desires.

She had a summer thing. It's gone now. She has hopes for something else. Yeah. Something more. There's still hope. Yeah. And she sings that over and over and over again as the song trails off.

And I think it's kind of lovely. It's a wonderful perspective to have. Absolutely. You know, something that happened to her when she was 17 on a summer didn't destroy her life. Well, good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's just an experience.

Just an experience. They're all moving along. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You have any more thoughts on Betty? No. I mean, like I said, I kind of liked the song, the song as,

song more than I thought. And I still like, my favorite thing about the song, about the poem, is his clumsy use of rhetorical devices. Yeah. You know, he's just so bad at making an argument. It's almost delicious how bad he is. Yeah. Like, I'm going to show up trying to apologize and we call all your friends stupid.

I'm going to tell you about what I did this summer and not really feel remorseful for it. But I'm going to pretend like I was thinking about you the whole time. And I'm going to blame you partly. because you were dancing with some guy to our song. But I'm going to admit I was immature and hiding in the corner. And, you know, it's just so, rhetorically, it's just so bad. Yeah, so funny.

And the diction is fun, too, the adolescent diction, which I think does actually break up a little in the... In the bridge. Yeah, in the bridge. I think that I wonder if that's a foreshadowing that he's going to get older and he's going to grow a brain and have a perspective. Oh, that's a fun way to think about it. That's like his redeeming, that is what, that shows us his redeeming qualities in that little bridge.

Yes. And that is, takes us forward and that's why Betty chooses to end up with James. And it does for me. It redeems him a little bit that he's capable of making those expressions at the end of the song. Yeah. So, grade it up. Ready to grade? Let's do it.

Okay. For Buddy from folklore. Lyrical strength. You know, a poem that I originally would have given very low marks. Not very low, but, you know, 78 or something. On multiple reads, I began to notice the simplicity of addiction and things like that. That kind of came up for me. Still doesn't have a lot of literary devices.

He doesn't have a lot of literary devices. He doesn't learn those yet. He doesn't have metaphor similes and illusions in his brain. 93. Okay. Um, narrative and structure. Yes, I got a good sense of his character, of his duplicitousness, of his admitting to doing wrong without admitting to doing wrong, without understanding that he's not admitting to doing wrong. Um, you know, a very strong sense of character development in the narrative.

So fun. Again, I would have probably given this maybe in the 80s if I hadn't read the other two. Right. You know, but in in the mix of this intermittent narrative, you know, he's an important and integral part. Absolutely. So 95. Okay. Production and atmosphere.

I love the key change. Love the sound of it. Singing along. Yeah. Ninety-seven. Okay. Lore and literary references. Oh, you know, I mean, the lack of it, like I said, you should always notice what's not there.

And what's omitted if it's intentional can be very important. important in telling. So, no, there aren't any. I think that's important and part of his nature. 90. Okay. And then emotional impact? You know, it did bring me back to being 17 a little bit.

It didn't impact me terribly because he's still a terrible dork. I'm not willing to embrace that, the old dork, Jerry. But 92. Okay. That gives us a 93. Okay. Okay. We are lined up for Cardigan.

Yeah, I'm excited. I'm so excited. Much more interesting poetically. Yes. And the punctuation to all of these devices we've been talking about. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So make sure you come back next week for Part 3 for Cardigan from the folklore love triangle.

Anything else? That's it? I don't think so. Come back. Okay, we will see you next week. Make sure you're following us on all the things. You know it by now. It's on the screen.

You got it. At Swiftian Scholar Pod on all the things. At Dr. Uncle Jerry, at Angela Wyatt McDow. And make sure you're following us on Patreon and subscribe to on Patreon so you can watch these. The song reactions. Listen to the song with us. Yeah, that was fun for these. Yeah.

I really like that. I like the long pawn section. I like looking at her expressions. Yeah, me too. Okay, and we will see you next week, and we will wrap all this up. Okay. Bye.