The Swiftie and The Scholar - Finding Agency in Dear John

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

We’re back in our Speak Now era with Dear John. Angela explains the lore behind this quintessential track 5 from Taylor Swift, and Uncle Jerry talks himself into being a fan of this poem. *Links with an asterisk are affiliate links, which allow us to make a small commission on your purchase at no cost to you. Thanks so much for your support!Works Cited:Dear John LetterAgnes von Kurowsky*A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway A Dear John Letter – Jean Shepard & Ferlin HuskyDear John Letter – Whitney HoustonEpistolary framePoetic InversionDramatic IronyMetapoetryMetonymy The Scholar-Gipsy – Matthew ArnoldThe Swiftie and The Scholar Grading MatrixFollow Us:Patreon⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠Threads⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠Uncle Jerry’s Instagram

Welcome to The Swifty and the Scholar, the podcast where we examine the lyrics, lore, and literary legacy of Taylor Swift. I am Angela McDowell the Swifty. And I am Dr. Jerry Coates, a year older now and the scholar. How are you doing, Uncle Jerry? I am doing well, thank you. How do you feel about being in your Speaking Out era, an album you didn't realize existed last week? I know. No. I thought it did pretty well in the first. quiz. You did. I mean, I'm a little proud of myself. You did. I don't know. Yeah, it's, I had to check the date and realize 2010, she was like 21 years old when it came out.

20, yeah. 20. So she's writing these songs at the moment. Yes. As we say. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, you can tell it's an earlier work. Agreed. Yes. This is a track five. First of all, this is, Oh, track five. Speak now, track five. And I feel like this is kind of a quintessential Swifty. This is kind of maybe where the, you know, the rumors started that she only writes about breakups and boys, you know. And it is fun to compare this one with a song we've already done, would have, could have,

should have. Oh, sorry, did I say we're doing Dear John today? No. We're doing Dear John today. An important song in the, in the Swifty community. it is fun to compare this one with what have could have should have, which is written about the same situation, but from her 32-year-old self rather than from her 19- or 20-year-old self.

Yes. So. I know. We should have turned the recording on earlier when you and I were having a conversation about this. I couldn't wait. I'm just going to tell you, I couldn't wait. Sometimes it's hard to not chat before the episodes. Well, but often we don't, like, you know, especially if,

If I'm going to say something wacky, I hold it back. Keep that back for my genuine reaction. If I'm going to drop like vampires on you, I want to see that. Or if I'm going to like spill gravy all over on. I just want you to experience that along with everyone. Yeah, I don't know. I just couldn't wait because as a poem, it's not as sophisticated as Wooda-Koshana. and I personally had trouble resonating with the work.

Okay, that makes sense to me. Yeah, and so I showed it. We went to Waterburger this morning, my wife and I, and I showed it to her, and I said, read this, and she read through, I said, okay, read it aloud, because I always read them aloud. Yeah, you got to hear it. You got to hear it. And she said, oh, I like that. I just, oh, why?

Why do you like it? Did she give you an answer? Yeah, she, I don't know, she liked the earnestness of it. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Right? It was a little bit raw, and she noted that. And I, you know, I said, what do you think about, like, if you were the other person reading this and realizing that a million, you know, millions of fans might be listening to it? and she said, well, you know, maybe that's their problem.

Going, okay, well. Yeah, like, if you don't want a bad song written about you, don't do a bad thing. That may be, right? I should also say we're not going to watch the Ares Tour surprise song performance of this song. So I'll just tell you that when she was about to perform this on guitar, I don't remember where she was on the Ares Tour for the Surprise songs. Speak Now Taylor's version was about to come out. It was coming out like two weeks later. And she decided to play this song and she told everyone, like, I do not care.

Like she was speaking, like giving us a speech, like a mom's speech. She was like, I do not care about anything that happened to me when I was 19 now as a, I think she was like 33 at the time, except for like the songs that I wrote and the memories that we've all made. So please, when you get this album. Please do not go on the internet and try to, like, avenge some past, like, wrong that was done to her. Basically telling us all, when SpeakNow comes out, do not go to John Mayer's Instagram comments and, like, berate him. Ah, yeah. And she gave this long speech. It was, like, five minutes of her being, like, please be nice.

Like, this, you do not need to write some wrongs for me. Like, we've all moved on. I'm just putting out this album again because I want to own my work. So this was Taylor's version that came out in 2017 or? No, just. just like 2023. Oh wow. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So this is like her second go round with the song and she doesn't want people to spank John for it just because. Yeah. She's like, please do not go do that. Like nobody needs to hear about that. I'm just trying to like own my work.

We don't need to rehash everything we did the first time this album came out. Yeah. It's just, it's so interesting given the time. lapse, you know, and given the fact that she's writing, this is one of the things I said before we started the recording is given the fact that she's writing almost immediately. And I didn't realize that at first because I don't always, I mean, I looked at the title of the album, Speak Now, and of course it's an incomplete cliche. Speak Now or Forever. Hold Your Peace. And so, you know, oh, she wants to get these things out now. and then perhaps she'll set them aside.

And clearly she had a bad relationship and she wants to work through that psychologically for herself, work through it emotionally for herself and her millions of fans. Yes. We've all got a John Mayer in our lives, you know. And I have to admit, I remember when we did, you told me about John Mayer.

And so I thought, oh, this is the John. is John Mayer. And I thought, okay, so I actually went back to the song, back to the front page that you sent me. Okay. And I didn't realize it was 2010 until I'd live with the song for a whole day and a half or two and read it a hundred times. And I thought, wait a minute, she's writing about how innocent and naive she was at 19, but she's writing this at what, 19 and a half? Right.

So in that half year, what elapsed? I mean, how did she go from a little girl in a dress to suddenly this worldly wise person? And I understand experiences can change us. Yeah. But it just felt a little disingenuous to me that it would be, that the time lapse would be so short. And then what it could have should have feels like it's a much more. adult realization of the impropriety of the relationship. Right.

Yeah. That one does feel much more, like, would have, could have, should have, does feel much more like, oh, I actually do have the wisdom and, like, the experiences to understand that I was too young

because I am now 32. Right. And also, I should say, the reason we got that, the reason I think that she wrote would have could have should have is because she re-recorded, speak now and kind of relived with all of those feelings and maybe that brought something back up and

you know and she realized oh now I'm the age of this man when that happened to me right but also when we were talking about that that's kind of what I was saying is that I do think it's a little bit like okay she heard her mom and all these people and maybe her friends being like you're too young and like you don't understand why you're too young because you're when you're 19 you Like, I'm an adult. I can handle all of this. And so in the song, she, in Dear John, I feel like she's like, yeah, I understand now that because all these people are telling me that I was too young and I shouldn't have been

messed with by this, like, older man. And, but maybe she doesn't yet really understand what that. Probably she doesn't yet understand what that actually means. See, that's what I had trouble reconciling. Yeah. Um, is, okay, so her mother told her at 19, you're, you know, you just. don't have the age and wisdom to understand the nature of this relationship. But then at 19 and a half, she does and she writes about it and she exposes it for the world to

see. And I'm thinking, well, poor John Mayer. I mean, I did. I, you know, and please, you know, it's so funny because I feel like I have to tread lightly here. Yeah. Because I understand that a lot of Swift fans have lived with this song. Right. You know, and have lived with a relationship a lot longer than I have, you know.

And so, but for a moment, you know, and I'm going to say not because I'm a guy and I empathize with the guy. I think I empathize with any human being who is thus exposed. Right, right. You know, so male or female, I think I would empathize with the other person whose voice is not heard in this poem. Yeah. So it does feel a little bit difficult because what we have is a kind of dramatic monologue. in which the other person does not speak, is depreciated as a human being for their actions

and does not have an opportunity to redress any of the elements here. Okay, does it help you to know that John Mayer then did write a song about this relationship? And it's like calling her a paper doll and like saying, like, she's like a dumb child, basically. Yeah, that would be equally bad. Yeah. But that is also an interesting thing that we haven't talked about yet is that some of these

relationships, a lot of the relationships she was in with other musicians. And so she writes songs and then they go ahead and write songs back, you know. So essentially, if music be the food of love, play on. That's from 12th night by Shakespeare. I was going to say that's the opening line. So apparently, Shakespeare got it wrong. music is not always the food of love. Where I have surfeit of it is the continuation of line.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think the other reason why I feel like I have to trail a little bit lightly is, you know, since you in the last few months have had me reading the comments. Yes. More assiduously. And they're so great, and I'm so appreciative. And I love it when you guys agree with me, of course. Yes.

Please always agree. But I also love it when you propose alternative interpretations or when you conflict and challenge me. I really do. Yeah, that's the best part of being in a classroom, actually, is having the students before you so that they can do that in a live interchange. I think it's just brilliant, you know, especially on those occasions when you guys know more than I do about Taylor Swift. Right. Right, yes. People are also coming to it with so much more like context and years and more context, just more songs in general, you know. And so we're just not always going to. And also we can't hit every little thing all the time. And, you know, and I get it when I read the comments and you guys write and you say, well, you know, when my boyfriend left me, this helped me through that relationship. When my husband left me, this song helped me through that relationship. You know, and not having had that. experience, you know, I, it, I don't resonate with the same emotional power, but there are songs

that I do resonate in that way with. So, you know, I get it. I, I, I hope that I can apply that to the songs I understand and have lived with as long as you may have lived with this song. Right. Exactly. And you like the song. Yes. I do. It's just like, I don't know, it just feels like an important one in the, in the canon, you know. Right. And of course I have not listened to it. Yeah. So I have no idea how it sounds. But you're allowed to have your opinions.

They might disagree, but that just gets us more engagement. Oh, okay. And so we jumped in and started talking about like this macro picture of this, of this poem. So maybe we should back up a little. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back it up. John Mayor. No, no, not John Mayor.

Back it up. Dear John. Dear John. Speak now, 2010. This is a self-written song also feels important. And the original was produced by Taylor and Nathan Chapman, who she worked with a lot in her first, I think, four albums. So, yeah, that's kind of it.

Okay. You take it away. It's from the Speak Now album. And like I said, it's a continuation. I mean, it's an ellipsed cliche, right? Speak Now or Forever. Hold your piece. Yes.

So I'm thinking, these are things that she feels. compelled to say, especially since it's a track five. And as you have educated me, track fives are always pivotal. Yes. And generally demonstrate a relationship with the nature of the album. So the album feels thematic. Yes. Dear John is a type of letter.

Just generally associated with World War II. Okay. You know, if you look up demographics, and the only reason why I have in the past is I actually wrote a paper, I presented a paper on a pop fiction writer from the turn of the last century. Fun? Yeah. And so I really, when I was an active member of the American Pop Culture Association,

I was very interested in popular writers at the turn of the last century. And so I looked at demographics between 1880 and 1920. Okay. 1920 is that census where I think about one and four Americans were actually not born in this country. We had a very high rate of immigration. And so there were a lot of anti-immigration protests may resonate with America today, with a lot of nations today. And so it's reflected in the literature of the time. And one of the things I also noticed was the name John is the most popular name in America in those census rolls between 1880 and 19-1.

Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. So I think the name John is chosen as a generic name. Right, we're not technically supposed to know who this is about. Right. So, Dear John letters are some very famous ones. I picked out one that's probably the most famous Dear John letter. You may not recognize the name.

It's Agnes von Kourowski. Okay. But the guy she dear jaunded is very famous. Obsessed with using that as a verb. It's Hemingway. Oh. Yes, so Hemingway was wounded as an ambulance driver in the first. World War and he goes to convalescent a hospital and he meets a nurse Agnes.

Nurse Agnes. And falls in love with her. She was several years older than he at the time and they made promises of getting married. And afterward, she gets transferred. He goes home for a bit and she sends him a dear John letter. Interesting. In which she says she's going to get married to another guy. In fact, she did not get married to the other guy.

It was a way of dumping him. Yikes. So it becomes very famous. She is the character of Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms. Okay. So if you read the novel of Farewell to Arms by Hemingway, this is the nurse, Catherine, is the real person, is Agnes. Interesting.

She's based on. Yeah, a lot of the things that happened to our protagonist in A Farewell to Arms, it actually happened to Ernest Hemingway. Interesting. He gets wounded the leg and he's an ambulance driver and he's in a hospital with a long white building as described in the novel. And all of that is exactly what Henningway experienced. Interesting. So there, you know, World War II is probably the most famous Dear John period.

There are several movies about Dear John letters, about people receiving Dear John letters. there's a song by a Jean Shepherd and Furlin Husky, A Dear John Letter. Okay. I looked it up because I wasn't sure of the year it came out. It was 1953. Okay. I had heard the song mostly because I have a collection of Furlin Husky's grazed hits. Of course you do.

Never heard those names before in my life. So my dad was a big country Western fan. Yeah, okay. And Furlin Husky was a country Western singer, Gene Shepard was. teamed up on this song, Dear John Letter, and it's terrible. You know, YouTube, it's, it's, I mean, it's, it's not terrible. It's just, he talks through it.

Oh, and you love that. Yeah, I do love that. You know, like she sings, Dear John, and she's singing along, and then he says, I receive this letter when. God. So a lot of people have made fun of it. Whitney Houston also had a song, Dear John Letter. Oh.

Yeah, 2002. Okay. There you go. So, okay. So one of the things to note as we start the poem is this is an epistolary frame. Okay. And I should have a joke ready for the word epilitary. But I'm not going to say it.

Oh, dear. I'm just going to move on. Yes, please. Just move on. I mean, your innate ability should lead you. to creating your own joke around epilitary? Or am I just all wet?

Oh my gosh. Oh, goodness. It's getting weird. I know. I'm going to get hosed for this. So, okay, so it's an epistolary frame. Epistula is a Latin word that means letter.

Oh, okay. Thank you. So wherever you get the word epilitary. So if you've ever read an epilitary novel, that's a novel that is told in letters. Okay. So a lot of the works, 18th century novels were very famously epistolary novels. If you ever read Jane Austen, she inserts letters into the narrative to kind of push the narrative along, but it's not entirely in letters. Ring Lardner, an American humorist from the 1920s, wrote a really fun book, You Know Me, Al,

I should have had my copy ready to show off. But you know me, Al is about a barnstorming pitcher in baseball. Okay. And he rides home and talks, he talks to his friend Al. And he always starts off, well, you know me, Al. Okay, gotcha. That is cute. It's fun.

It's fun. Okay, so why an epistolary novel? Well, it lends verisimilitude. It lends truthfulness in the narrative because you've got a first point. person narrative who actually lived through the events and wants to tell them in the form of a letter. It also makes us wonder what the other person would say. So if it's a letter to John, then the question is, what would John say back? And what's interesting in the poem, Dear John, by Taylor Swift, is she actually supplies some

dialogue for him, which I don't know if the actual. actual John ever said. Right, right. But nevertheless, she does play that game in the text of an epilillary frame of supplying his own response. It's also a way of engaging in the narrator's kind of awakening because it's through the letter that we can interpret the narrator's feelings, right? Emotions. it also allows for a very public sense of accountability and a public sense of reinventing.

So, you know, the teller, the narrator in the form of a letter, gets to reveal to their reading public, or back to Dear Reader. Yeah. Yeah. And they get to reveal how they change through an experience. Interesting. Yeah. So all that works. I love the epistolary frame, so, you know, kudos for that.

Before we start looking at verse one, I do want to note that we have a lot of near rhyme and assonance throughout. You see, at the ends of rhymes, when and again, the mind, fine, sky, tonight, why, rain game, every day, the long A-San, sound is assonance. So we have a lot of, like, poeticisms going on. Okay. In the poem. There's also some internal rhyme, days, praying, right? Okay.

Yeah. Rain. And, I mean, all of those are noteworthy. Okay. So nice poeticisms. From 19 year old, 19 and a half year old Taylor. From a 19 and a half year old writing is really very nice stuff, right? It's very impressive.

You know, I know it's like for someone. who is, who portends to be naive throughout the poem, she nevertheless is very adroit at creating these kind of internal poetic systems. Yeah, that is interesting, yeah. And you should also note the first person address, right?

Since it is an epistolary frame, the last line of the verse indicates the clear intention to be a first person there. Yeah, she gets a little meta in that last line. Yes. Yeah. I like when she does that. Yeah.

As a matter of fact, I made a little note of that. It is metapoetical. Okay. Yeah. And I never met a poet that I didn't like. It's got two in here already. I know. I haven't even started yet.

Okay. Line number one. Long were the nights when? And of course, we've got an enjammed line when my days once revolved around you. Long were the nights is a poetic, inversion. Right. And it's, you know, it's very typical of romanticism. Okay. They love poetic inversion. So an inversion is where you invert the natural order of syntax or the grammatic order of the words. If you were going to say this, you would say, the knights when my days revolved around

you were long. Right. Right. But instead she flips the order long worthy nights instead of the nights were long. Right. Right. It sounds more poetical. Yes. To say that the nights were long suggests insomnia, waking, anxiety, grief, all those things. So she introduces in the very first line, the tone of this poem is going to be filled with anxiousness, filled with grief, filled with a kind of insomnia. Right. All this would be hyperbolic, you know, long nights. The The night is no longer or shorter. Yes. It just feels that way.

It just feels that way, right? She uses juxtaposition in the first line, night versus day, long with the nights when, my days once revolved around you. So she is opposing night, which is, you know, darkness, sadness, today, brightness, happiness, revelation. You know, the night is a symbol, shadow of repression, hopelessness. subconsciousness. That's going to be a motif throughout the poem. Yeah. So she's going to go with day is my conscious waking reality night is my subconscious self-revelation.

Interesting. Right. So it goes on and on throughout the whole poem. So yeah, you know, it's funny because I'm going to have to go back to our opening conversation. Okay. Although I personally didn't resonate Resonate with the I think with the intent of the poem nevertheless It's good writing, right?

And the poeticisms are certainly there I mean, come on, we have the first line We have poetic inversion hyperbole, juxtaposition and symbol She's doing okay And don't forget the neroym anacinus It's going to run throughout the whole first first person address which is going to tie in with the epistolary format. She's okay.

She's writing okay. So my days once revolved around you. So this juxtaposition of duality of day and night, consciousness and subconsciousness, joy and sadness. She's recognizing immediately. She also creates this metaphor of revolving, so like a satellite,

revolving around another person's gravity. Oh. Okay. So if you're a satellite, Do you have any personal agency? No. No. So that's, I mean, that's to me a perfect metaphor for a bad relationship.

Interesting. Right. He's, you know, the person, and I hate to keep using, you know, masculine, feminine pronouns, because generically, any relationship with one person who is the gravitational center of relationship, while the other person can only fly around. Yeah, can only orbit. Yeah, can only orbit. They don't possess, that person doesn't possess any independent agency.

Right. Right. That's a sad state. Yes, yeah. So with this metaphor, I think, that she establishes the basic inequality of the relationship. Yeah. And she's going to do this, you know, use that same metaphor again throughout the poem. Again, it's just really good writing.

Maybe I'm changing my own mind. It's good writing that you don't actually resonate with. Well, I don't know. I mean, I get it. I do, you know. I do. I mean, okay, so I mean, I've been in relationships with male friends. Right.

Right. Where the gravitational force all lie in one person, right? And my job was simply to revolve around that other person. and, you know, I've had significant others in my life say, why don't you just not see this dude? I mean, you know, why do you hang out with him? Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, it takes a while. It does, yeah. Yeah. And so I'm going to say that, yeah, that although I haven't had this in my romantic life necessarily, I certainly have had it in my life. And I certainly do understand the gravitational pull of someone that you want to be with, but you probably realize. Not great.

Sometimes that's all it takes is like to get out of it. And then you have like a couple of weeks. And then you're like, oh, actually that was like actually terrible. And I'm better now. Yeah. I mean, he was a jerk. Yeah. Like, what was I doing?

So it's like after after I stopped saying, yeah, we can get together. I have lunch. It's like, whew. Right. Yeah. It just like, it does sometimes just like getting the person out of your life, whether it's a friend or a relationship or whatever. it's like you can breathe a little bit

for like a couple of weeks and then you kind of do all have all these like moments where you're like oh yeah so that that mist kind of clears and you stop sitting blurry exactly exactly

as we're going to hear later I keep jumping around of this ball and doing it sounds like you kind of like it though I guess I do yeah it is funny how after you step

away from it then those mists kind of clear and you realize huh yeah and maybe that's the explanation on why when she was 19 she didn't get it when she's 19 a half she does she kind of yeah like kind of like gets it a little bit yeah she steps away from that relationship and then she goes oh yeah yeah jerk maybe not to the extent as when she's in her 30s but she still does understand it a little bit you know I mean, in her 30s, I think, that she understands more deeply how manipulative and incorrect. Right. Okay, next line, counting my footsteps. It evokes the anxiety, the obsessive behavior, right?

One, two, three, four, five. You're, like, compelled. The fear of making mistakes. Don't skip a number, you know, just. And also that momentum of keeping going. Oh, yeah. It's like forward. Like you can't stop one, one.

You know, when I was walking the Camino several years ago, and you just get so tired day after day. And sometimes I would say, okay, I'm going to count a hundred steps. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Just to like move. Keep yourself moving. Just keep going.

There are some hard, hard spots. For sure. Yeah. Just keep going. Yeah, it's all of that bound up together. So again, nice image. Praying the floor won't fall through again. Okay, so it's fallen through before.

Yeah, like in this relationship or in other relationships or like what? Where? Who? It's indeterminate. Yeah. But certainly worthy of noting that the last word in the line is again, good poets will put important words at the first of a line and at the end of a line. And so the word again coming at the end of the line, we should take note. Yeah.

This is metaphorical. It is also symbolic. Like the floor is something that grounds you that provides security. If the floor is falling through, then you have no emotional security. Yeah, and you're gonna miss a footstep and mess up on your counting.

You're gonna mess up, oh, you won't be able to pass the test. Yeah. Yeah, it's also a religious diction, praying. Which is fun with what then becomes what have, could have should have. Yes, yeah, I think so, I think so too. Yeah, she goes back and depends

on that religious diction again. It's also demonstrative of sort of unstable psychological environment. You know, the floor is shifting. You're always just like terrified of it. Right. And falling is also a symbol. Downward motion is never a good thing. Right.

Right, right, right. You know, when you, you know, the expression to fall from grace. You know, I used to teach. world literature and I would sometimes teach the book of Jonah, which is really fun. Four chapters, very compact. Mixes narrative with poetry. The second chapter

is very poetical in Hebrew. But in the very first chapter, Jonah's always moving down. He's in the mountains and he goes down to Joppa, down to the ocean, down to the ship, down to the bottom of the ship, and

down to the bottom of the ocean. He is moving to hell. Interesting. Okay. So downward motion is always a descent into sadness, metaphorical descent into hell. Right. Right. And it's demonstrative of her general instability. Okay, yeah. Yeah.

Upward motion would be to heaven. Right. That's where you want to go. Yes. My mother accused me of losing my mind. Okay, so as she interjects in this letter, the outside perspective. Right. So it is external confirmation that something is wrong. You know, it's not just me. She said it too.

And also, you see the indirect discourse. So my mother accused me of losing my mind. So I'm going to bet that's something her mother actually said to her, but it's interjected into our letter as indirect discourse. We're not actually hearing her. Right. We're not actually hearing. But it does strengthen the narrative realism to hear the voice of the mother. in the line. It's also very direct diction. Yes.

Again, the poeticisms tend to drop out a little bit here because the mother just said you're crazy. Yeah, like what are you doing? But I swore I was fine, which is what every addict always says. I can handle it. I can stop drinking any

time I want. Yeah. I'll bet. That's called dramatic irony. That's when readers know more than the narrator his or herself. Yeah. Right.

So that's the type of thing a narrator says and that is the number one thing that we all listen to and realize they're out of control. Uh-huh. That they're not fine and they can't stop.

It is reminiscent of addictive behavior. Absolutely, yeah. You, now she's talking to John and dear John, you paint me a blue sky, metaphorical and symbolic, like and color imagery, right? Blue sky represents hope, safety, security, openness, peace, right?

Beauty. The use of verb paint probably indicates it's a false creation. Right, it's not, yeah, it's not actually there. He doesn't offer her a blue sky, you know, he paints her one, which is an artifice. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Right. So it's not a real blue sky. It's just a constructed unreal. Yeah.

I did have a question. Yes. Why the present tense? I mean, you see how. Oh, that's interesting. It's just that one will pray. Yeah, you paint me blue sky, then go back and turn to rain, and I lived through your chess game. You changed the rules, right?

So it's like, yeah, she shifts. back and forth in time. So we've got time shifts of the present narrator, the post-present narrator, who is looking back on the present narrator, and then the pre-present narrator, the past narrator, who's remembering past events.

Do you think that there is a reason, or do you think this is just her being 19 and not having like that, a great grasp on how to fit that in yet? Yes and yes. Okay. So my first impression was, I wonder if it's just because she is a raw and developing writer that she ships tents. But then I thought, maybe she is saying something about the nature of time, which had me start thinking about how often she writes about time in her poetry.

and that had me looking at some of her other poems that we've already covered. Okay. And there are, there were too many. Well, yeah, because if we're talking about a lot of her songs are talking about memory, then they're obviously going to cover and go back in time and move to what I'm feeling now and what I felt back then. So all of you grad students who are writing your work about memory, If somebody else has already done it or you're wanting something that's a little bit interesting spin on the nature of memory, take a look at time.

Yeah. And look at the number of times she mentions time as a personified entity. And then how she shifts time right down to the syntactical level of shifting her verb tenses. Interesting. Okay. Helen at Lauren Lyrics, we need you to get on this. Figure this out for us. Fine. find all the time references

and then just keep it going with it because there are a ton of them. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. So you paint me a blue sky, then you go back and turn it to rain. Yeah. Okay.

Dang it. You know, we're again in the present tense and we're again dealing with both a metaphor and assimily in the use of word rain. Right? Rain is symbolic. Sadness, disappointment, betrayal, tears from heaven

the range. So it's a metaphor, it's a symbol. It suggests that change is at the lover's whim. Right. That he is subject, or she is subject to his emotional betrayal. Again, he has all the gravitas.

Right. He is the center and she is just a satellite. Right. And she said, I lived in your chess game. Yeah, so now we're back talking about past tense. at the present narrator in the epistolary form frame remembering.

Yeah. I had, you know, the chess game's a metaphor. Right. You know, and think about what chess is. Chess has all kinds of very complicated move. It's not checkers. Right. Right.

It's a strategy game. It has calculation. Frequently use sacrifice characters. So it involves sacrifice. It's also a high. hierarchy. Right. Right.

You've had the queen who dominates the board, but other pieces who have other equally interesting movements. And then you have pawns. Right. So gee, I wonder where she is.

Yeah, so she feels like she's just the pawn to be sacrificed. Chess is all about sacrifice and manipulation within a hierarchy. Yeah. And she is caught in that hierarchy.

Interesting. On Midnights, which is also where would have, could or should have is. There is a song called Mastermind. Okay. And it's kind of about like, I, none of it is accidental.

I made this happen. It's mostly about a relationship. And she's like, I made this relationship happen. Like, you thought it was all just chance and fate. But like I was the wind in our sails. Like, I made it happen. And she performs that in the Midnight's Era on the Era's Tour. And she has this stage as a chess board.

Oh, does she really? And she has the dance. dancers around her and she's like pointing at them and they move to like different in a pretty graceful way they like move to different squares and stuff and so it is

interesting that here when she's so young she's like I was just the pawn in your chess game but then as she grows up and gets into her 30 she's like no I'm in charge here like I'm the one manipulating game yeah it's so interesting I tried to think about it in terms of

this in terms of the masculine feminine hierarchy relationship and it you know I didn't I don't think I followed that string all the way through so if you guys if you guys want to work with it yeah I'm happy to hand that off to you

please but yeah but chess is such an interesting game of hierarchy because you know the queen dominates the board in her movement clearly the most powerful offensive player but how do you win the game you capture the king yeah and

she says in this poem, I lived in your chess game. So note that she's in the game. She doesn't say I played your chest. She's one of the pieces. Yeah. It's like her existence

is in someone else's contest. Interesting. Yeah. So that she's not playing the game. She's just being manipulated. She's being moved around. Yeah. She's been scooted around. So again, it feels like she's a pawn or she's some other kind.

She certainly got rooked in this exchange. Okay. Bad dad jokes are falling like rain. You really are. There's a new bingo board that Vivian created, and it has Uncle Jerry pun or dad joke or something on there. So people are marking that one off today. Maybe so.

I do hope you know a rook is a chest beats. Okay, never one. Yeah, we got it. Okay. It's not that funny if you have to explain it. Anyway, I love this line I lived in your chess game because I think it's really rich in what a chess game really involves. Yeah. So she's trapped not only in his hierarchy, but also in this greater social schema, you know.

Yeah, yeah. But you change the rules every day. So she extends the metaphor of a game, right? He's playing a game. She's in the game. Unfortunately, she's not even a player. Right, yeah. In any sense of the word.

And, you know, he keeps change the rules. You know, if you change the rules, can any strategy of yours ever succeed? No. No. So, you know, the metaphor expands to gaslighting, to unpredictability, to emotional control. You know, she has no chance in this relationship. Why? Because he's older, more mature.

And maybe because he's the male. Yeah, and I also think there's a little bit here, not to get too biographical with it, but where they were, they're both musicians. And I feel like he was coming in, and the way he like kind of roped her in was telling her that she was like so talented and had such a good future. And, you know, he was kind of talking,

her up in interviews when we didn't know they had dated or were dating and he was just like this girl she's so talented and I feel like that is like part of his game like getting her in by being like oh I'm just like you let me like mentor you we're gonna you know you can you can one day you can be as big as I am you know and here we are so I kind of wondered about that but not wishing to engage in biographical conclusion I never do as you know yeah never Never, never. You didn't text me this week and say, Dear John dot, dot, dot, dot, mayor, question mark.

I did. I texted her and said clearly John Mayer, question mark. So, yes, I wondered because he was an established musician, 32-year-old, and she, but then I wondered also, I mean, for going to say, she had, she was writing lyrics at 14, she had a record deal at 16. I mean, this is not her first album at 20. No.

20. Yeah. Our third album. Yeah. You know, so clearly, I wondered how much in the nature of their relationship he is guiding and therefore manipulating. Yeah. I think it was a good amount. Yeah.

I don't know. Yeah. Neither do I. It's not in this poem. No. Right. It could be however implied by some of the lines. So she's, if the rules change, she's wondering which version of you.

I might get on the phone tonight. You know, his own identity is manipulative and changeable. I think that the phone is also a symbol of distance. Right. You know, so she can only get him by phone, but also he controls her by phone. Interesting. Yeah. So it's like, you know, again, that satellite metaphor keeps coming back to my mind

because I think it's so powerful. it's almost like she is attached by this phone cord. Right, yeah. Or she's attached by a cell phone and there is no place she can go. You know, that he has control not only over life but also over space. Oh. Yeah. So those of you who are talking about space, by the way, that is proximity and space around us.

The nature of space is something that's fairly new in literary stuff. So again, you master's, M.A. students. Looking for a really interesting topic, you might take a look at space, not space like the Final Frontier. Yeah, the space between. Yes, actual physical space and people. And the poetry of Taylor Swift. Interesting, yeah. That's a fun one. Yeah, kind of interesting. Well, I stopped picking up. I liked that. It's like, all right, there is no phone. I am discontinuing manipulation by long. Yeah, taking that chord, unplugging it. That's right. And this song is to let you know why.

And that is meta-poetry. And you already use the word. Sorry. You are so very smart. Such a scholar. So metapoetry, for those of you who don't remember, metapotry is poetry on poetry. Right. So it's where you've got a poem and within that poem, the writer is self-aware that the poem

is a poem. So meta is kind of above. And it like comments on its own creation, on its own meaning and purpose. So it's kind of fun. Joan Didion wrote an essay where she talks about going into a cabin and there's a ship and a ship and she picks up the bottle and she imagines a man running all over the ship and she imagines a story based on the man. And you know she's writing a story about someone going in a cabin and she's writing a story about a story in the story. So you have meta levels, which is what this line establishes. Fun. I think it is fun. It's very clever. And we get to the chorus. Yes. Dear John, I see it all now that you're gone.

That's kind of what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. Now that I'm away from that relationship, those mists have cleared and I finally see it. And seeing is another, you know, element. The nature of sight, blindness, blur. is all something that comes to her lyrics. It is a director of dress.

It is a repetition of the title. It's also about distance and time. I see it now that you're gone. So again, let's talk about space. I was going to say that space between them. Yeah. That's right. And time.

The space between them. The connection is dissolved. The space is now empty and expansive. So she has space for clarity around her. You know, it's, then the notion of distance in time equals clarity is kind of a common literary trope

and she employs it really well here. It's also a kind of inversion of a famous cliche distance makes the heart grow fonder now distance makes the heart grow wiser. Yeah, I got smarter once you left. So I think that she's having fun with that.

I think that she is toying with that. I think we should as as intelligent readers, we should stop and think about that. Don't you think I was too young to be messed with? It's like the least poetic line. It is the least poetic line. And I marked it as colloquial diction to be messed with. Yes, it's, yes.

It's an ethical accusation without any engagement in like linguistic or literary accusation. She's not playing around. You messed with me. For me, this line is the moral center of the work. Agree, yes. Right? This is where she just comes out and says it. Youth is innocence, it's vulnerability.

It's inexperience. And you toyed with all of them within your game. And it was your game. Yeah. The girl in the dress cried the whole way home. So we have this kind of pathos. We have this appeal to emotions. She's a girl.

So she infantilized. herself, she doesn't say the woman. Normally one might think a 19-year-old woman, but nope, she's characterizing herself as a girl. She's objectifying herself in the third person. Right. She's in a dress, which is a symbol of innocence, dressed up to be cute and impressed, and clearly it didn't work on John Mayer. She's crying. It's hyperbolic, the whole way home, not just halfway there.

No, the whole way. the entire way. So everything in the line, girl, dress, whole, crying, all of that is geared toward a pathos to creating an emotional appeal to the audience. She knows we're reading this letter. Yes. And then she says, I should have known. And personally, I, you know, the very first time I read through this, that was a redemptive

line for me. I agree because she's like, oh, maybe this was my mistake too a little bit. Yeah. I think that it is, she's honest and realistic enough to own this is some of my mistake. You know, okay, I was only 19, but I was 19. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I had a million dollar record deal and I was making millions of dollars and I had good parental guidance and I had good advice and some of this is on me. Yeah, agreed. Yeah. So I like this. It's, it's, it's, I mean, it's victim internalization, right? She's realizing I was a victim, but I participated in that as well. Right, agreed.

If she hadn't played honest with me, I think I would have rejected the thematic elements of the poem. She plays honest. Yes. Verse two. Yes. Well, maybe it's me. So we're getting more of that. More of that I should have known.

She extends that self-present. She extends that self-blame. She links the verse to the chorus, which, you know, again, as a poet, is really nice. And maybe it's my blind optimism to blame. Okay, so we have an oxymoron here, blind optimism. How can you be optimistic if you're blind? If you can't see.

If you can't see, yeah. You can't be optimistic about something that you can't, that you don't know. Right. Yeah. So this is the second time she's mentioned sight in our pool. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, a vision of what reality is or isn't. So by having blind optimism, it allows her to engage in the fantasy that, oh, this is going to work out, right? That I can overcome all the realistic obstacles. Yeah. And we do get a sense of that juvenile self-ebulance, you know, that juvenile optimism. Yeah. you're 19, you can survive it all.

Right. Yeah. And no. Yeah. So I like the line. I like the phrase inserted blind optimism. Or maybe it's you and your sick need. I thought, oh, oh, we're back to John.

Maybe it's him, actually. So we have parallelism. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's you. We have a metaphor, sickness. It's not a physical illness, so it must be a psychological illness, an emotional illness, a manipulative, pathological, behavioral illness. Right, yes.

That was a nice phrase. It was. An emotional, pathological, behavioral illness. Yes. Which our John here is suffering from. I would say guilty of. Yeah. I don't think he's really suffering that much.

No, no, he's okay. Yeah. to give love and take it away oh you know again look at the parallelism maybe it's you maybe it's me you give love you take it away so she works in parallel form yeah again poetically really nice give take away and it's all about control the game is fixed right yeah um and you'll add my name to your long list of traders visit betmdm casino and check out of the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you,

please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Okay, it's hyperbolic to characterize her to people who leave him as traitors. It's a militaristic diction. Okay, yeah. So it's like, you know, now we're back to love as a battlefield. Yeah. And you could probably go back through her poetry and find every time.

Yes, every time she uses military diction to describe love. Yes. And so title of your thesis, love is a battlefield. And Taylor Swift is Carrie is packing. Let's see. It also suggests a kind of narcissistic worldview. Everyone who is not with him. Against.

Yes. If you're not my girlfriend, you're a traitor. So you can't just be someone I can be friends with. You can't just be someone who we grew apart. No, you're a traitor. So, yeah. I mean, she's essentially. calling him a narcissist.

Yes. Who don't understand, and I look back and regret how I ignored when they said, run as fast as you can. So she does maintain the rhyme. You know, I pointed that out with the first verse. You know, don't skip the nice poetic element. Understand can. Right, yes. Right.

You know, the fact that he doesn't understand is kind of ironic. He interprets difference in disagreement as betrayal. Interesting, yeah. Right. And she's too young to hear. that other people said it. So she starts with just her mother said beware. But now she's expanded that at the end of this verse to other people told her.

All the they's. Yes, the days. They should run as fast as you can. And notice that she's using direct quotes this time. Right. So with her mother, she used indirect diction, free indirect discourse. But here she's using direct discourse. They told me you were bad.

So you see this in. intensifying throughout the poem of the kind of warnings. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. As it goes on, maybe, more people are like, no, you've got to get out of there. Right. The longer it goes. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. The longer goes, more people jump in and say, yeah. Yeah, this isn't good. Not a good place. The chorus, Dear John. Okay, so we're, again, underscoring the epistolary nature. Uh-huh.

I see it all now that you're gone. I can see it repetition Don't you think I was too young to be messed with The girl that her ass cried the whole way home Dear John, I see it all now It was wrong Again, she's kind of going back to that moral center And she's saying, you know, I was too young

And you were so wrong But she didn't say you were wrong She says it was wrong And so it's a general reference pronoun It forces the reader to look for a name down anteceded. What was it? Well, this is how she indicts the actions he took.

Which is really, I think, a fair way to discuss argumentative differences between people. Right. It's not like you aren't wrong. You as a person are allowed to exist how you want to, but this thing between us that happened was wrong. You know, when we would do peer editing in class, you guys remember peer editing, right? That's when you had to pair up with somebody else in class, and they read your paper and you read theirs and you were always thinking, I should be really nice to them. No, be honest. What students are reluctant to do is to be critical or to be analytical of the writing that's on a paper in front of them.

Right, because you feel like you're attacking the person. That's right. You're not attacking that person. You're not saying you are dumb or ugly. or incapable, you are saying the language on the page can be improved. Right. And I always stress that. I always put it on the top of every peer editing sheet I ended up.

Remember that you are not talking about the person, the writer. You were talking about the craft of writing. Exactly, yes. And I think she does that pretty well here with It Was Wrong. She's not saying John Mayer is necessarily completely evil, but these actions were not morally right. Correct. Right. Don't you think 19's too young?

This is the first time she mentions the actual age. Right. So she is dropping a specific bomb right in the middle of the song, right in the middle of the chorus. You know, come on, dude, I was 19. To be played by your dark, twisted games when I loved you so. You know, again, you know, I loved you, but you were a player. you know, it might trespass a little bit on, you know, blaming and not accepting blame.

But then she says, I should have known. Right. Right. And it's like, oh, she took it away. Uh-huh. Right. Rhetorically, she's doing something really interesting. And that is kind of what happens in your head when something like this happens to you,

where you're like, this was awful. He was treating me so horribly. He knew what he was doing. doing it was manipulative, he was gaslighting, and then he's like, and then you switch maybe the next day or the next hour, you're like, but why did I let that happen? Right. Why was I, why did I stick around? You know, like, why did I let this continue to happen to me when I have all the control

to just leave? Yeah, she does at the very last, I mean, she accepts some of this. Yeah, yeah. I was a human being. Right, yeah. I could have said no. Yeah. Right.

Okay, young poets, take note. If an image, a symbol, an idea is important enough to mention in your poem, don't let it go. Okay. Okay. She has started off with the image of the gaming, right? The chess playing, the breaking of rules. And so here she says, to be played by your dark, twisted games. That chess game.

Yeah, she's bringing the game back and back and back a third time. That's maybe one of the things she does the best throughout her work is carry the images through. Again, for a 19 or 20-year-old writing, I think this is really kind of amazing stuff. Notice that used to word dark as night imagery. Again, if the day-night parallelism and imagery is important enough to mention, don't let it go. Be consistent with it through your poem and use it. And notice how she changed it a little bit. She shouldn't say night.

Instead, she says, it's dark, twisted games. You know, so metaphorical games, night imagery, really nice stuff. She should have known. And then we get the bridge. So good, this bridge. I know. It's a real moment. I wrote it's emotional climax and height of the indictment.

Can you imagine being a 19-year-old woman? in a crowd with 50,000 other women screaming this bridge with Taylor Swift. I've never had the experience. Either as a 19-year-old woman or I do, if you recall, have an inner 14-year-old girl. But no, it's got to be crazy. Do they just yell this bridge? Uh-huh. Oh, gosh.

Yeah. We're going to watch. Spoiler. If you're not on Patreon, go join now because you'll get to see this. So we're going to watch Taylor performing this on the Speak Now tour. Oh, well, okay. Something to look forward to. Well, you're the expert.

At sorry? No. You are, okay, the bridge. You are an expert at sorry and keeping lines blurry. Okay, notice she's talked about sight. She's talking about blindness. Yeah. And now she's talked about blurriness.

Again, all the side imagery is really terrific. And as a poet, if it's important, don't let it go. Got to keep it going. Yeah, don't let it go. Yeah, it's a paradox. How can you be an expert at apologizing? Right. Because apologizing, it should be because you did something wrong.

And you change your behavior in the future. Yeah. But instead, he just says, oh, I'm so sorry, but. Oops. Yeah. And the visual imagery of the blurry. is keeping indistinct lines connects with also changing the rules.

Right? Because the rules, you know, if the lines are blurry, the rules are crossed and I can't even see the chessboard to know where the pieces are moving. Right. Right.

So she's mixing these images together in a really artful way. Never impressed by me acing your tests. Okay, now he's a teacher, she's a student. What does that imply? an age difference. Should you mess with your students?

No. No, you know. Well, maybe not to this degree. Probably not to this degree. It's a metaphor, you know, relationship in a classroom. There are tests that are required. She passes them all and somehow passing doesn't matter because he's got impossible expectations. Right.

Right. Isn't 100 good enough? Didn't 100 mean I succeeded? No. because the rules keep changing. Yeah, because that 100 doesn't mean anything because the rules are different now. That's right. Yeah. All the girls that you've run dry have tired lifeless eyes.

Okay, so we've had seeing, we've had blindness, we've had blurriness, and now we have tired lifeless eyes. I have literally never picked up on this sight symbol. Yeah, I'd love it. I think it's pretty great, you know, it's edible, not in the sense that he loves his mother, but, which she, of course, does. Eipus, who only learns to see when he is blind. Okay, yes, yes, yes. So, you know, Taylor isn't unique in this poem.

She says he's done this before, all the girls. Yeah, this is not, this, I'm just a lot, one in the line where all of this has happened to. And those maybe are the they's that were telling me to run. Yeah, maybe they were some of the girls. Again, you notice how she kind of, infantilizes using the word girl. We have infantilistic diction going on. She could have said all the women.

Again, she's making a pathetic appeal appeal. And by pathetic I don't mean, you know, saddenial. I mean pathos, the Greek rhetorical term, appealing to emotions. It's hyperbolic. All the girls. He's never had one good relationship. Does his sister like him? Does he have a sister?

I don't know. She's got water imagery going on. They run dry, you know, metaphorically running dry. Water symbolizes life. Right. Right. Growth. So there is no life.

There is no growth. It's just lifeless eyes. It's kind of metony where you're representing the eyes as being a complete physical mental depletion. Right. Because you burned them. Okay, so we start with water imagery. We lack water. Now we have fire imagery.

If you burned out someone's eyes, then it's like literally antipus gouging out his own eyes with a poker, and it's only through his blindness that he sees. I took your matches before fire could catch me. More fire imagery, she said, I bailed on you

just in the nick of time before you gouged me. This line is, interesting to me when you take it in context with what have, could have, should have more than a decade later. Yeah, why is that? Because did

did you take his matches before fire could catch you? Because it does seem like you've been burned down a little bit if we take what have, could have, should have. Because right now it's like this triumphant like, no, I'm going to be fine, I've survived this, but then we get,

Taylor gets to 32 and she's looking back and she's like, I regret you all the time. You took my girlhood. Like, I regret you so much that I'm still, you know, 12 years later writing this, a new song about it. Yeah. And, you know, I did, I mean, just before we started, yeah, is, is he still in her head? Because, you know, in Wooda Goda Shuddy, she comes back and she, at 32, she still can't let it go. Yeah. And I wonder if it's because he was 32 and yeah I think I think that yeah I think that is a bit she she she re-recorded speak now so these you know I'm sure that brings up the emotions of those times like she's reliving when she was living in the speak now era and so that I think is part of it and the other part of it is like now I'm at

the age that this guy was and now I'm looking at 19 year olds and I'm like that is a literal child you know And so I think that's also part of it. But there must have been something like inside of her because what if could or should have is beautiful. And it's like very poignant song to me where she's like, I lost my faith in everything because of this relationship. So it's like maybe it was just buried deep in there. And she did feel like she was triumphant, but it doesn't feel like it to me. Yeah. Well, and I wonder how, I mean, we keep going back to tragedies.

I guess I'm stuck now on the Greek tragedy. You know, the Greeks say that tragedy brings us to catharsis to an emotional release. Right. And so it may be that for her, there's an emotional cleansing. Maybe so, yeah. That occurs with woulda-go-a-shoulda. And, you know, if it's helpful to her, then... Then great, yeah.

Good on you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's always interesting to me, not always, but since midnights came out and we heard would have, could have should have. Going back to this line is always like, But like, did he?

Did you? But, you know, okay, so now you've got me thinking. Back again about the comments we read, you know, a lot of people say in the comments that this song helped me win. Right. Right. And then I understand, you know, I've had those moments in my life when I need something to uplift me and it's often music. Right. I read Matthew, you know, I love Jane Austen, and I love Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy.

And Thomas Hardy books are hard because they always end sadly, cathartically. Okay, yeah. But there's one poem I go back to every year. Every year I read Matthew Arnold's The Scholar Gypsy. Okay. You know, because it's about a wandering scholar outside of Oxford, who just wants to know about the world. you know, in a greater, broader sense. I just love that poem, you know,

and I go back to it and go back to it, and it fills me up, you know. And it's interesting because I think these poems fill up her listeners. Agree, yeah, and her as well. Yeah, I think that's why what it could have should have maybe as powerful as Dear John and why she revisits it because she needs that cathartic moment. she needs to be filled up with her own sense of hope and reconciliation with the loss. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and that's kind of, this is taking it back a bit, but on the anti-hero episode, we talked a lot about, like, her psychological state. Oh, yeah, yeah. Anti-hero is good. Yeah, and I was, you know, I was wondering out loud in that episode that I said that she has said before that she's never been in therapy and she just, like, feels very sane, and I was, like, questioning that. but a couple of psychologists commented and said actually I think she probably is pretty sane

because she has her songwriting because this is her therapy getting these out and that is the catharsis and that is what helps her like deal with the emotions and the things that have happened to her and she moves along from it and that is kind of so I'm I'm arguing with myself but it's like, did she get out before he really damaged her? And like, maybe so, because maybe that's what she was able to write this song and move along. And then it didn't actually come back up for her until, you know, 12 years later when she's re-recording it. And then she's like, oh, I have more to say about this now as a 32-year-old. So maybe so.

And you realize we have, you and I both have just spiraled into biographical crissue? We certainly have. I didn't even stop it. I engaged in it. It's just interesting. It's so interesting. I know. Okay, so she took his matches before she could be completely burned up.

Yes. So don't look now. Oh, don't look. So we've got seeing. Oh, my gosh. We've got blindness. We've got blariness. We've got lifeless eyes.

And now we've got, but don't look. I'm shining. which is of visual imagery like fireworks. So simile and more fire imagery over your sad, empty town. Oh, that's a rough stuff. And then she says, oh, oh. So, okay, okay. How does she sing this, Angela?

Does she say, oh, does she say, oh, oh, is it a lament? Is it a warning? I can't wait to hear. Okay. So now you're doing the list. I'm trying. I'm like how it, but no, it's, okay, I got there. No spoilers.

Sorry, I needed to get there in my head. Yeah. Then we go back to the chorus. More repetition. Dear John, I see it all now. More seeing. More seeing that you're, now that you're gone. Don't you think I was too young to be messed with?

More repetition. Now moral indictment. Clearly a moral indictment after that bridge. The girl in the dress cried the whole way home. you know, we have time displacement. When she was young, you know, she was overcome by it, but now she is more analytical and more reconciled to it. Right, right.

I see it all now that you're gone, now that she's not overcome by him, now that she's no longer a satellite, now that she's no longer in the game, she sees it. Don't you think I was too young to be messed with? So she's like got this chorus rolling and she's doubling up on the lines

or the emotional effect of it. The girl in the dress wrote you a song. It's like, well, guess what, dude? This is what this girl does. And so I'm going to do it to you too. So I love, you should have known. It feels like a Volta, a poetic reversal from I Should Have Known. She keeps saying I should have known, I should have known.

but she says you should have known what should he have known it's that he shouldn't have messed with a 19 year old it's that you shouldn't have mess with this 19 year old because she'll write you up in a song She's definitely going to write a song about you So you know it's ambiguous

You know should have known what Known that she was too young Or known that she would be very successful And write a song about you And tell the world that you're a cad Oh he just said CAD, guys. Yeah, see, what?

Always sounded in a song. Oh, okay. That's a word I learned from Taylor Swift. Is that right? Yeah, I didn't, I think heard CAD, but I didn't know what it meant. And I guess because that's like kind of old time. That's a computer architectural drawing. Right, right, of course.

Yes. But, yes, that's in a song on the tortured poets department. Oh, is it really? Yeah, one that I love, one of my favorites that we haven't done yet. Okay. It's coming soon, maybe. Yeah, no pressure, thank you, when I get to it. Yeah, note that the line you should have known is repeated in the outro. You know, it's like you can't miss the point.

Right. You should have known. Yeah. You know, don't you think I was too young? Yeah, you bad, dude. You should have known. And so, you know, of course, what I wrote underneath that was woulda, coulda, shoulda. Exactly.

Yeah. Exactly. It ends with the should ofs. Right. Or this has should haves throughout. Exactly. I think that she uses the word shoulda and it's going to show up and woulda coulda shoulda. That's fun.

Yeah. Because it's the last of the sequence. He shoulda. Shoulda known. I was just trying to look. So at the end there, she says you should have known three times. And so I'm trying to see how many times she said I should have known. One.

Two. Two. Just two times. Okay. I was wondering if she said it three times, like, equal, they're on equal footing. Yeah. Well, interesting. Good catch.

Yeah. So, let's see. Overall poetics, I made a list, games, chess, tests, rules, playing. Games are things you play competitively. Games are not love. Right. Love is not a competition. Weather, blue sky, rain, emotional volatility.

Vision, you know, seeing it, blind optimism, see it all. lorry lines, moving from blindness to sight, shows the reader's development. He wants to burn out her eyes to permanently blind her to everything. She takes the matches and goes off like fireworks. Okay. That actually helps me because with the whole argument I was just having with myself, because you saying it like that, he didn't, he just didn't burn out her eyes. And that's why she's able to see how wrong it was.

Right. Right. Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she still retains. So she still retains her sight. Okay.

And now that he's gone, the blurriness has been lifted. Yeah, I was just picturing, like, burning her down, but it's like specifically about the eyes and the sight. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, dear John, there's a progressive emotional arc throughout the thing. You know, so it begins with a little bit of hurt and with more hurt and more condemnation. And then finally, you should have known.

You know, I see now you should have known. Oh, I think that may be about all. I guess I've got a little final statement to read. Yes. I like that you're doing these. Yeah, but I'd like to hear some music. Okay. Okay.

Oh, no. Okay. Oh, oh. Yeah. Oh. Oh. We are going to, this might be controversial. I don't know if it's going to be controversial.

I did ask my Swifty friends, and I didn't really. get a clear answer. So we'll see what they have to say. But we're going to listen to Taylor's version of this song for two reasons. One, I think it's perfect and beautiful. And I just, like, really appreciate her grown-up vocals on it. And the second reason is that it has the lyric video. She, once the original speak now did not have lyric videos.

And I really enjoy the lyric videos. And I like when we watch those because I think it's fun. So we're going to watch that lyric video. And then we're going to watch, you know, 20-year-old Taylor sing this on tour. Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah. Well, since you're my only swiftly friend, I'll just tell you.

that advice. And we will be right back. Yeah, that is fun. I love the rawness of the emotion still there. Yeah, pretty fun. Okay. My final statement? Yeah. Okay, this is what I wrote as my conclusion. Okay. Dear John, sophisticated example of confessional songwriting. Oh, okay. It's confessional. It feels a little like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. Okay. If you've never read Anne Sexton,

oh my gosh, you know, then I just have to tell you, it's waiting for you. She's brilliant. Okay, I have not. Yeah, brilliant. She takes a failed relationship and creates a dramatic monologue, right, through this frame

of then an epistolary frame. It is a monologue in which memory, accusation, self-discovery, moral judgment, all unfolds simultaneously, The title immediately establishes intertextuality. So we've got this crossover between song and letter and dramatic monologue. Traditional letter should have some kind of romantic entanglement, but John kind of functions as the person being addressed and, you know,

attaches to her own life. Throughout the song, she blurs autobiography, poetic persona, allowing her personal experience to become an exploitation exploration of manipulation, innocence, and emotional maturation. Beautiful. Thank you very much. It's my summative statement. I like it.

I've been trying to do that. I think it's kind of fun. Yeah, I do too. Here's what I think, you know, of the whole thing. So, yeah, it's fun. It's funny how talking with you about it makes me feel more appreciative of its emotional power. That's why I'm here. I also think seeing her, that second victim,

when she was younger. Yes. You know. Yeah. For the Speak Now tour, it reveals a lot. It does, yeah, because you can tell she's still kind of, it's still in there. It is. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Anything else? You ready to grade? Yeah, I may be changing my grade. Uh-oh. I don't know if she aced the test, but, you know, pretty good. Okay.

Dear John from Speak Now, your favorite Taylor Swift album. Yeah. That you didn't know existed a week ago. I do like the title, though. Yeah, there is a song called Speak Now. That's like a silly song, but it's a fun one. It might be fun to look at. Okay, lyrical strength, dear John.

Gosh, that's, I mean, I tend to rate them so high, but she does a nice job. I really like the site imagery. It's interesting how she shifts it throughout, and it ends in fireworks and full vision, you know. So she thinks she sees, but, you know, then she's blind or then she's blurry and then others are blind and then finally she sees again. And she's kind of sparkled. And she's shining. Right. You know, I, oh, it's very strong.

So 97.8. Oh, my goodness gracious. I don't know. Okay. Okay. Narrative structure. Narrative structure. Yeah.

I did like the intensification. of the emotional arc throughout the poem is nice. I like that moral center, you know, where she just kind of goes, bam, here it is. And then when she drops the specifics of 19, so 97.

Okay. Production and atmosphere. I liked the 20-year-old version. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, the pathos she engages in in her writing, I really feel it in that performance. For sure, yeah. So I was not, I was expecting to give this about an 88.

Uh-huh, that's what I was expecting to. Yeah. And now I'm pushing it up into the mid-90s. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I'm going to say 95. I did like it. Yeah, it's good. lore and literary references and I do kind of think I've said this a couple of times and then a couple of comments have said it like maybe we need to change this to like lore literary references and like devices yeah lots of really good devices lots of metaphors again really nice use of rhyme that kind of weaves the whole thing together the day night imagery parallelism lots lots of nice devices so 97 oh my gosh this is going to get such a high score I know I didn't think so

and emotional impact. Oh, see, you're doing it to me because, again, I was going to say, 87, and now I'm pushing it into the low 90s because I'm beginning to empathize more. I am an empathetic soul I try to be. So, yeah, I can understand how for her this was a cathartic exercise and for many of our fans, it touches on moments in our lives. So, 94. Oh, my goodness.

Okay. That gives us a 96. Okay. Now, that's higher than I anticipated last night when I finally shut my computer down. Okay. This is a Swifty right here. Yeah, maybe. I don't know.

I'm getting there. I didn't cut us off from our biographical. from 10 minute engagement. I know. Yeah. I wonder whether a relationship is very right. Yeah. Okay.

This is a fun one. Yeah. This also, I should say that on Patreon, people can vote every week. You have, they have 13 votes on this app that a listener, viewer created. And so I check that pretty regularly to see what's in the top. And this, Dear John has been in the top, like,

10 for a bit now. Oh, wow. So maybe you should have known. Maybe I should have known. I know. So I was like, okay, I guess it's time. And when you didn't, on the, in the quiz, when you didn't know, speak now was an album title. I was like, we're going to have to get some more speak now in here.

I know. My response was, that's an album? You did say that, yes. Okay. So that was fun. That was different than I was expecting it to be. But yeah. So we will be back next week with another song about lost love.

And you can follow along on social media at Swiftian Scholar Pod. You can follow Uncle Jerry on Instagram at Dr. Uncle Jerry, Dr. Uncle Jerry. You can follow me at Angela Wyatt McDowell. And we will see you next week. Okay. Bye. Bye.