The Swiftie and The Scholar - The Chronicles of Conflict in The Great War

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

In this episode, Uncle Jerry and Angela tackle The Great War from 2022’s Midnights. Uncle Jerry wrestles with the idea of using a horrific event as a metaphor, and he teaches all about the many floral symbols used throughout the poem.Works Cited:The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady – Edith Holden – Aff LinkThe Great War and Modern Memory – Paul Fussell – Aff LinkThe Strange Destiny of Rupert Brooke Hardcover – John LehmannSiegfried SassoonMemoirs of an Infantry Officer: The Memoirs of George Sherston – Siegfried Sassoon – Aff LinkGoodbye to All That – Robert Graves – Aff LinkAll Quiet on the Western Front (1930)War Poems – Wilfred Owen – Aff LinkDulce et Decorum Est – Wilfred OwenPoetry of the First World War: An Anthology – Tim Kendall – Aff LinkThe Soldier – Rupert BrookeIn Flanders Fields – John McCraeThe History and Rhymes of the Lost Battalion – Buck Private McCollum – Aff LinkCrimson & Clover – Tommy James and the ShondellsThe Swiftie and The Scholar Grading MatrixFollow Us:Patreon⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠Threads⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠Uncle Jerry’s Instagram

Okay, ready? Are you talking about war? Ready. War. Good God, boy. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Say it again.

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. I kind of feel like saying something like, I'm Sergeant Jericho. I'm Dr. Jericho. The scholar. How are you doing, Uncle Terry? I'm feeling very militaristic today. Yeah.

What was your dad's rank in the military? My dad was a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy. I actually was an ROTC in high school. So was my dad, right, at your same school? Well, yeah. Your dad did it by choice. I did it because I was drafted. You get drafted into ROTC?

Yes, yes. If you were in the band, if you were in the marching band or the, the wind ensemble. As a sophomore, all sophomore boys were required to be in the ROTC band. Oh. So they could win awards at drill.

Okay. District Drill competition. Some more Uncle Jerry Lour for you. We had the biggest band in the district because at our school we were required to be in it. Interesting. So I was out there marching up and down.

And he would, I learned language from Sergeant McVeigh, I never knew. He would address us as the genitalia of certain large creatures. So, yeah. Okay, well, don't put that in the comments, but make your guesses and keep them in your head. Don't get us banned from whatever platform you're watching on. But we're talking about all this military stuff because today we're covering the Great War. We are covering the Great War, yes.

And I wore my... Yes, Uncle Jerry is ready. He's costumed up. Yeah, actually, when I wear this shirt, every time I wear it and go out in public, like, I wore it for the Texas State Fair, and I'd like three people come up and say, thank you for your service. And I actually had one guy come up and ask me what unit is that, and I don't know if you can see. I have the A.E. Uh-huh. I bought it at American Eagle. I was going to say, this is just, this is just, I see the outfitters above it.

Yeah. This is just American Eagle outfiters. And not that I would ever make fun of military service, I do respect that. Yeah, it's a funny thing to have someone come up and say, thank you for your service. And I go, yeah, it's just a church. I'm a teacher. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I did serve in teaching for almost 50 years. It counts as something. Okay, this one was another Patreon choice. Ah. People have been wanting this one since really early on when you brought out a book of flowers. I thought it was because I showed off my World War I,

One bayonet. Might also be that. This is an actual Royal Enfield bayonet from the British military service. And, yeah, from a royal infield. So it's a... Interesting. Yeah, fixed bayonets. It's a kind of thing that everyone should have around the house.

I have no actual gun, no working guns in the house, but I do have a bayonet. Something to defend yourself with. Exactly. It's windy in here today. Yeah. Okay, so this is the Great War. this is a Patreon choice. Lots of fun imagery in this one that I think people really wanted to hear your thoughts on. You have also

had this one for a little while. So I'm sure you have lots of insights. I have lots of notes. This is from Midnight, 2022. This is one of the 3 a.m. tracks, like a bonus track on that album, and it is written and produced by Taylor and Aaron Dussner. Oh, what happened to Jack Antenol? He wasn't invited for this one. Okay. Any other elements of introduction you need to? Not really. This is one, I like it when it comes on. but I never like really reach for it. But I do think it has a really fun imagery and pretty language.

Yeah, it has that. I'm excited to hear what you have to say. Yeah, I think people wanted, wanted me to do that because I want, I think I showed off that book. Yes. Yeah, you can see that right. Yes. Okay, good.

Yeah, it has pretty like illustrations and stuff. It's got great illustrations. The Country Diary of an Edwardian lady, and it has all kinds of, you know, like floral imagery in it. Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, it's lovely. It's a nice book. It talks about flower symbolism.

So, yeah, I have a couple of other books on flower symbolism. And so they said, oh, you should read this poem because it has lots of flowers. And it does. So the Great War. Yes. So we need to talk about the title and the focusing metaphor of the piece. Okay. Clearly the Great War was World War I.

fought between 1914 and 1918. And I do have mixed feelings about the use of this as a metaphor. Okay, fair, yeah. I really do. You know, and I like the poem. I love the language. The flower imagery is great. I made two whole separate pages of notes on the flower imagery.

So for those of you who are writing a paper, just use it and fill it out, and you'll have a paper on flower imagery and the Great War by Taylor Swift. But the metaphor, which becomes a conceit, because it's extended throughout the entire poem, compares the Great War with like a romantic argument or something.

You know, maybe it's not explicitly stated as a romantic argument, but certainly I intuited that from her biographical. Right. Either that or the war to recover her six lost albums. Either one. Again, neither is explicitly stated in the poem,

but I think that the romantic element is certainly hinted at. Agreed. Okay, so what bothers me about the metaphor? What bothers me about the metaphor is World War I was such a horrific event. Right. I mean, to say millions of people died, is it just doesn't even cover it. We don't know how many millions of people died in World War I.

The official figures, I think, run 15 to 20 million, possibly more because a lot of civilians die because of malnutrition or because of disease during war as incidental casualties to the nature of war, probably not incidental to them at the moment of their deaths. Correct. You know, if you travel in Europe, you know that World War I is,

is a terrible event worth memorializing there. In America, we practically don't understand it. I mean, you know, we come up to November 11th, the 11th day, the 11th hour, the 11th month, and we have a veteran's acknowledgment. It's a memorial, but we don't really think about it because we didn't suffer the kind of loss that Europe did. Yeah, we're really removed from it. Right. And, you know, the war never really, it didn't touch America except for the expeditionary forces that we sent in 1917.

The war was over by the end of 1918. You know, we did, obviously, American lives were lost there, but not to the same extent that European lives were lost. You know, and it's also a war that was a very literary war. And I think I've mentioned before. It's a really good book. I didn't get it off my shelf. Paul Fusell's, the Great War and Modern Memory. So I would highly recommend if you're interested in the writing of World War I and how people memorialize it, Paul Fussel's, the Great War and Modern Memory, is a terrific book.

You know, the thing that bothers me, too, is I was in London for Remembrance Day one year. And so when you're there and you go down, you know, it's down by the banqueting house, there is the cenotaph. And a cenotaph is a grave, a war memorial that has no person buried there. It's just a memory of the loss. And the royal family was there and there was a band. And there were all kinds of speakers down by the cenotaph. It was such a somber remembering. Right.

You know, and they do that every year. And they do it every year. And the big like production. Right. Yeah. And we just, frankly, we don't do that. You know, I mean, Americans, you know, that we acknowledge it and then we move on. Right.

I'll also say that it was a highly literary war because there were a number of great poets. You know, in my master's degree in English, I was really interested in British literature. And so I actually took a course in war. World War I poets. So I have a lot of favorite books from that period. You know, I've got a great biography of Rupert Brook, The Strange Destiny of Rupert Brook. Really, really interesting biography.

Guys came home from the war. Rupert Bruck did not come home. But guys came home from the war and they wrote other biographies. I know you probably can't tell much from this. But there was a poet named Zickfried Sasson. and he wrote the memoirs of George Sherston, which is kind of semi-autobiographical. So he wrote three different books.

They're all compressed in this first edition of the trilogy of the memoirs of George Cherston. Siegfried Sassoon also wrote some really heart-wrenching poetry of World War I. He was on the front lines. So, like, they wrote poetry, like, reflecting on that time? Yes. Well, and during that time. Oh, they were writing during it?

Writing during the war and after the war. Robert Graves wrote his own biography, which I think is just brilliant. I think published in 1927, it's goodbye to all that. He came home to England, and he just, he couldn't take it. He couldn't take it the way veterans were treated. During one of his times, convalescing during the war, he came home after being wounded, and there was a munitions strike, and people were striking in munitions factory when at the front they needed musicians.

And he just couldn't understand it. He couldn't understand the politics. He couldn't understand the people after the war. And so he decided to literally say goodbye to all that. Interesting. And he moved to Mallorca and he lived the rest of his life in Mallorca. All right. Figured it out.

Yeah. It's a fascinating biography. You know, you may have heard of All Quiet on the Western Front. Enrique Remark wrote it, German writer, wrote from the, German perspective, and they've made several movies. I think the 1930 movie with Lou Ayers playing our soldier is pretty terrific. And some of you may have read, I really like the poetry of Wilfred Owen. So I have Wilfred Owens, it's a short volume.

Wilfred Owen's War Poems. He wrote a very famous and frequently anthologized poem, Dulciate Decoramest, which is a Latin phrase based on a Roman writer of the first century. It's Dulcciate decorum s, propatriamori. Sweet and appropriate it is to die for your native land. Oh. So all these young men were told, it's wonderful to put on the uniform and go die, die, die, die. And Wilfred Owen was blown up in an artillery barrage a week before the war ended.

And so it was neither sweet nor wonderful to see the loss of this really great rider. You know, if you don't want to buy all the books, but you want to take one look, I really recommend this anthology by Tim Kendall. It's the poetry of the First World War. Okay. Yeah. Oh, so it's like he, like, gathered it? He gathers, yeah, a whole number of, a lot of different writers.

And some of them talk about the home front, some of them talk about the actual war itself, some of them talk about the aftermath of the war. I did run off a couple of poems about the war. I mentioned Rupert Brooks' biography. Rupert Brooke would die in 1915, I believe. So he died before the war got horrific, before the trench warfare set in. And he wrote this little sonnet that's very famous called The Soldier.

I actually had to memorize this at one point, but just to get it right, I'm going to read. He says, if I should die, think only this of me, that there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England. There shall be in that rich earth a richer dust concealed. A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, gave once her flowers to love, her ways to roam.

A body of England's breathing English air washed by the rivers, blessed by the sons of home. And it's a sonnet, so here's the Volta, the turnaround. And think this heart, all evil shed away a pulse in the internal mind, no less gives back the thoughts by England given. Her sights and sounds, dreams, happy as her day and laughter, learn to friends and gentleness in heart a peace under an English heaven. So, I mean, here's a poem that's written in the early months of the war before it got just horrible. and you can hear the patriotism emerging out of his words

and then later on you'll read things like Siegfried Sassoons, Scarlet Majors where he just takes apart the officer corps and I thought this would be an appropriate one to read before we get started with Taylor Swift's poem this is John McRae's in Flandersfield's In Flandersfield's the poppies blow

Yes, between the crosses row on row. Let mark our place. And in the sky the larks, still bravely singing, fly scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, lived and were loved, loved,

now we lie in Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe to you from failing hands we throw the torch be yours to hold it high if ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep though poppies grow in Flanders fields okay

so when I say this was a difficult metaphor for me okay yeah that makes sense because it's it's very hard to reconcile using so horrific and event, you know, to compare to any single person's love life or economic or artistic

troubles or however you want to mention. Just any one singular experience even. Right. Yeah. Yeah. With the millions who passed and the millions who endured this event and the millions still whose, you know, grandparents or great-grandparents have someone who was affected by that war, even a hundred years later, it's a hard thing to see.

Yeah. It never bothered me in the poem. Like, I understand where you're coming from completely and kind of agree now that you're, like, talking about it. But when, after this song came out, the tickets for the Aeros Tour went on sale, and there, like, weren't very many dates at first. And Ticketmaster, like, crashed, and it was, like, a whole thing. And people started saying that when you got tickets, you survived the Great War. Like the Great War of Ticketmaster. And whenever that started happening, I was like, oh, that's a little weird that we're, like, saying that when we're just, like, trying to get tickets to an Eros tour.

Like, I'm not going to say I didn't say it because I did, but every time I was like, is this weird? And then so, like, I do, like, I completely understand where you're coming from. And it's like, this is, like, a horrific global situation that we're, like, kind of trivializing. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I did, you know, and I read through it, you know, again, my early impression, so I read through it a couple of times and I thought, well, you know, I wonder why the Great War. Okay, so I understand it's ironic, you know, because another word for World War I is the war to end all wars. It did not, right?

Right. The first World War set up the conditions for the Second World War. You're right, right. Yeah, the terrible reparations placed on Germany would ultimately. help fuel the fascist rise in Germany in the late 20s and early 30s. So, you know, it's a funny thing, I guess. And on the other hand, if you want to pick a war to compare something in your life too, if you want to create a metaphor, what war are you going to pick?

Right. I mean, that is the one you're going to pick. I think so. The giant one that was supposed to, because in this one, she is kind of saying, like, if we get past this, there will be no more wars. Right. So it does kind of make sense in that. It fits in that way.

Yeah. Yeah, and you're not going to pick the Civil War. That's kind of a, I mean, it's too old. I don't think that it's relevant to our life. You know, it's interesting to say that, but I don't think that it is. Yeah, it's funny how time slips, you know. By the time Oliver, my grandson, is my age, the Second World War, which actually, occurred, you know, my dad was right at the last year of the Second World War.

That's when he went into military service. And, but, you know, for Oliver, that'll be more than 100 years of a rearviewer. So, so far away. Right. It will be. Even though we still make movies about it, it will be so far away by the time he's my age, you know, that it'll be in the rearview mirror. I think that's the civil war for her.

I don't think you're going to pick the Revolutionary War. think you're going to pick the Spanish-American War to obscure, you know, probably too recent to pick some of the more recent wars we fought like the Iraq War or the Iranian in-carriage or whatever it is we're doing right now. Whatever it is that we call that. Yeah, it's, so I think that it makes sense to me that she chooses World War I as her focusing metaphor for this. So let's talk about the poem.

Okay. Okay, now that I've gotten over past, past Jerry's objection to using this in a metaphor. You know, it's a funny thing, I guess. Sorry, I'll show you one more thing. This is the history and rhymes of the Lost Battalion, which is published in 1920 right after the war. And it's a collection of poems and illustrations from American writers.

And in it I have the, person who owned it was a veteran of foreign wars. Oh my gosh. Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, it was... Is this like... How old is this book? Is this one from that time?

Yeah, it's from 1920, so it's right after the war. And it's got different pictures and poems and essays inside of it. Oh, there really are. It looks cool. Yeah, it's interesting. But, I mean, this kind of thing was just so omniprovales.

present that, you know, using in a poem seems a little bit trivial to me. So nevertheless, you know, Swiftie's out there. Don't give up on me yet because I do think it's a very good poem. I think it is hyperbolic that we use a war metaphor to describe, you know, we use a military campaign, we use a battlefield, we use blood, we use a historic conflict to hyperboically reflect on how her emotions are playing at this time. But it also works as a metaphor because the Great War was great, not in the sense that it was wonderful,

but that it was so large, it was so horrific. It was epical, you know. It was history-making. It was catastrophic. And so all of those worked in this poem. First one. Yes. Okay.

Oh, for those of you who are waiting, for my discussion of the flowers, I wrote a whole separate essay for you. So, no, we're going to lay that over here. Okay. And we'll get to it. First one, first line, my knuckles were bruised like violets.

It's a simile, comparing the knuckles to violets. You know, note that they're both purple, right? The violet's purple. The bruise is purple. They both elicit old blood imagery. There's a kind of juxtaposition between the violence of the bruised knuckles and the delicate beauty of the violets themselves. Violets tend to be small and sometimes hot house flowers. I mean, sometimes they're grown in lawns, but, you know, there are exotic violets that...

Hot house flower, that's interesting. Yeah, and it has a delicate beauty to it. You know, violets are frequently symbols of loyalty. Oh. Yeah. You know, why do you have faithfulness? Why do you go to war? Because you're loyal, because you're faithful, or at least you want to maintain it.

You're willing to fight for it. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's a good opening line. It is a good opening line. Yeah. Again, if you're going to use a war metaphor, then you better write like this. Or I'm going to be all over it.

Yeah, this is really well written. The second line, sucker punching walls cursed you as I sleep talked. So you've got this Sciura in the middle of that line. You've got alliteration, sucker punching walls, curse, sleep. You hear all the S's, right? It's also probably hyperbolic. She's talking about how really frustratingly, how frustration overwhelmed her.

Right. You know, we had the violin imagery with physical manifestation by punching it. And then she says, cursed you as you, as I sleep talked. So she hurts herself and but curses him through sleep talking. I mean, the, the conflict reaches into her unconscious mind. Conscious, yeah. Like, she can't get any rest. Right.

It's everywhere she goes. She can't get any rest. And this does reflect the, like in World War I, you have trench warfare. You know, you have constant bombardment. You can't get any rest. I mean, where do you sleep in that mud? Right. Spineless, and you hear the continuation of the alliteration from the second line,

sucker, walls, curse, sleep, spineless, silence. It's a lot. I know. Two lines worth. Yeah, let's count that one, two, three, four, five, six, seven elements of all in two lines. Yeah. So, spineless in my tomb of silence. Okay, so in the metaphorical war, you know, she's tomb, she feels buried.

Again, they're in trench warfare, so they would have been literally down in the mud in a trench, like a tomb, like a grave. In the metaphor of the romantic conflict that I think is also going on in the poem, the Tomb of Silence is she can't talk back. She's hiding from this conflict. You know, somehow she feels silenced. She is spineless.

She feels the inability to act. Yeah, she can't. She feels like shouldn't have the courage or something. Right. Somehow he's the enemy and she has a difficulty. imagine fighting back. Tore your banners down, took

the battle underground. You see the Bs and the D's, more alliteration, and the question we should always ask is why. Okay. You know, we had the S's because it's like hissing, but then you have Bs and D's

are like bombs. B, D, D, D, B. Okay. Right. So, yeah, we had this almost verbal imagery, sonic imagery of bombs exploding on this battle underground. He's the enemy and the fights going on internally. You know, it's to the death and a sort of grave of the trench.

Banners could represent loyalty, allegiance, but she's torn those down. and now she's gone underground, kind of a metaphorical guerrilla warfare. Yeah. Right. These two lines, spineless in my Tomb of Silence, tore your banners down.

There's another song on this album, which we covered at the very beginning called Would Have Could Have Should Have. Which is also on this album. I think I just said that. Sorry, it's been a long day. In that song, she's talking, she talks about,

she mentions banners in that song and she mentions a tomb, like the tomb won't close. Oh. And I'm only just now putting that together. Oh, that's a good catch. Yeah. That's interesting. Because we talked about in that episode,

I remember talking about what the banners meant, because I was like, I have no idea what banners means. Because she says, in that one, she says, she's also tearing down banners. She says years of tearing down our banners, you and die. So she used that same image. Wow, I like that. Good catch.

That's interesting. Yeah. Well, and so they're both about that tearing down the love relationship. Yeah. Yeah. So again, we're back to that love relationship as the other end of the metaphor. And maybe it was egos swinging. So I love this image.

So instead of swinging fists, it's their own pride, right? This fighting, their own needs are really what's fighting. You know, I need this, you need that. and that's what we're wrestling about. And then, you know, a really interesting line that has, I think, elipsis and ambiguity. Oh, my goodness, you know, realize I didn't use ambiguity in our last recording. No, it was straightforward. Wow, Vivian.

I don't know what to say. Wait, I think I did. I think I said maybe it was ambiguous. Oh, maybe you did. Okay. The parachutes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, maybe it was her.

Okay, what? Yeah. So who is her? Is there another girl here? I mean, it's ambiguous. And it's, I think it's a kind of ellipse where something is missing. You know, maybe it was her. And I'm, you know, I'm wondering, is this another girl?

I don't know. Yeah. Feels like it is. It feels like it is. But I don't know either. Yeah, she kind of throws it out there. Flashes of the battle. come back to me in a blur.

Okay, why in a blur? Well, it's almost like she has PTSD, right? I mean, she's, she's suffered so much bludgeoning. She's suffered the, you know, the bruising of her knuckles and has been swinging their egos about and has been so bottled up in a tomb of silence that she's literally suffering from a form of PTSD. Interesting. And you do know that, I mean, I mean, you do know that. that in relationships that go wrong or relationships in which you are abused, you know, that you can suffer literal PTSD.

Yeah. And it feels like that's what she's describing. Okay. So let's back all the way up and look at the rhyme scheme. Yes. Violets talked silence underground swinging her blur. And not a lot there. No, just her and blur.

Yeah. Otherwise, everything else is non-rhymed. Now let's jump forward to the chorus. Clover over for war, remember letter, any more war. Wow. Every line is rhymed in couplets. It's perfect rhyme. And there's no rhyme at the top.

Right. There's no rhyme in the verses and perfect rhyme in the chorus. I mean, even in the next verse, treaties alone freely, fire-talking crypt did it. So the last two lines tend to finish in rhyme, but everything else is, is definitely. desperate from rhyme, which I found really interesting. I wondered if the choruses are the tone back, the regression moment from the war itself to think. Oh, okay. And what really brought me to that was the fact that verse one is in the past tense.

My knuckles were bruised. I cursed you. I took your banners down. Maybe it was egos. Maybe it was her. flashes come back to me. So this is a memory poem. I was going to say this is a memory of the Great War.

Another memory poem for you. Thanks, Taylor. But it's all in the past tense. And so, you know, when she steps back from that, we get the chorus all rhymed. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really interested to hear how this sounds. You know, I was on the verge of making a speculation that the chorus is going to be that

separation of sound where she goes, all that bloodshed, comma, crimson clover, uh-huh, Sweet Dream was over, my hand was the one you reached for all throughout, that a great war, right? Because you can feel the Sciura kind of going through there. And the more melodic element of perfect rhyme that goes through the chorus. But I don't know. I don't know. I'm very curious to hear how this poem sounds when we get to it. Okay.

Pre-chorus or chorus. All that bloodshed, crimson, clover. It's very rhythmical. All that bloodshed, crimson, clover. Crimson and Clover, Tommy James and the Chondels. You know that song. Probably. I feel like we talked about this.

Like, we, the Swifties, talked about this when this song came out. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Crimson and Clover is a song by Tommy James. Yeah. But it's like blood spattered clover.

It's red clover. And so, again, as with the first line of the first, where we have bruised and violets, where you have juxtaposition of, you know, the violence and the beauty, the delicacy, you have the same thing going on here. You have crimson. You know, it's blood covered. So you have the violence. And then you have the clover, you know,

which is a symbol of nature. Right. So you also have color imagery. So you have crimson, blood, passion. So blood can be violence, blood can also be passion. Right. And it's a battlefield overgrown with crimson. You know, if you've ever seen a field of clover,

all that bloodshed, this red clover covers the field. So their fight is a bigan. It was a great war. So we're back to, did she choose an appropriate metaphor? Yeah, I think for the purposes of this poem, she chose an appropriate metaphor. Okay. It covers everything. And let's not forget that Crimson and Clover are alliterative.

Yes. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Sweet dream was made of this. No, that's not it. No, that's the eurythmics. And now we're back to the poem, The New Romantics. Sweet dream was over.

The dream of peace, the dream of a perfect union. It's a metaphor for a relationship that comes to a beautiful fruition, right? And it's kind of a tone shift because what we've got is going from a harmony to conflict or conflict to harmony. my hand was the one you reached for. So he never let go of her, even though they were fighting. Never let go of that hand. You know, a hand is a symbol of trust, relationship. You want to hold hands, shake hands, all throughout the Great War.

So all throughout the Great War, he would continue to reach for her hand. So there were entrees of peace. that would eventually, I think this is foreshadowing for what happens at the end. Yeah, that we would eventually find in both of them. Right. Always remember, uh-huh. Tears on the letter. Okay, what letter?

The letter home? Mm. You know, like soldiers write a letter home or someone at home writes a letter to a soldier and there are tears on them. You know, those types of letters are always things like keep yourself safe, return home. to me. Right. Or is the letter a death notice? Oh.

I'm sorry to inform you, but your son. Right. Right. So I don't know. That's ambiguous to me. I kept reading, kept reading, I couldn't. I mean, I think because of the end of the poem, it's a letter from home, but I don't know. Yeah.

Not sure. I vowed not to cry anymore. So I don't. don't know. Too many tears? Just too much sadness going on? Yeah. Like if if if if we make it through this then it's yeah that's the end of the poem. Then we're fine and I'm not going to I'm not going to make these big like we're not going to be in battle anymore. That's right. There's going to be no more because this is the war to end all wars. That's right. And I guess it ends it. Um, it if we survived the Great War which is a conditional statement.

I think that's great. It's like, all right, you know, I'm sure you're reaching out. We'll get back together. I won't get, you know, there'll be a resolution to our war. We won't cry anymore if we get through. But maybe not. Yeah, I know. It's like if we get there.

Stay tuned for verse two. Yeah. Okay, verse two. Yes. You drew up some good. faith treaties. Okay. So you drew up some treaties.

That would be a diplomatic metaphor. Mm-hmm. Right? So we got a metaphor of two sides coming together and saying, all right, let's stop this crazy war. And then I drew curtains closed, which is really interesting stuff because it is a homonym, right? It's using the same word with two different meanings. Okay. And she's going to do this elsewhere in this poem.

Hominism sounds alike, but it really has different meanings. So when you draw up a treaty, you actually write it out. But when you draw the curtains close, you pull them closed and you declare an end to it, right? The closed curtain is a kind of symbolic, you know, emotional retreat or emotional closure. Yeah, I think she's like barricading herself in somewhere where nobody can reach her, including the other person that she's fighting with. So there was an attempt to negotiate. You drew up good faith treaties.

But then she draws the curtain and she drinks her poison. So here we have a, you know, Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra, Shakespeare, allusion. But we also have hiding in a seclusion, you know, or retreat, if you want to use a battlefield term. Okay, yeah. Right. So the hominem works really well. You know, sometimes when you ask why. I think the answer is just because the poet is having fun.

Language should be fun. Yeah, it's very fun the Drew and Drew. I think so too. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think that it goes a lot beyond that, that there are two different meanings of the word Drew, and she repeats it, you drew this up, I drew this. Yeah, we were doing like opposite things here.

That's right. They're doing, he's trying to get back, and she's, no, no, no, no, he's shutting those curtains. I just think that's fun. I think it's having a lot of fun with language and clearly something that she likes to do. One of the reasons why I've enjoyed reading this stuff. This also, like these two lines is like you, the other person was doing everything right and I'm the problem. Yeah.

Which is also on this album is anti-hero. Like, hi, it's me, hi, I'm the problem. It isn't me. It's you. It isn't you. It's me. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. You said I have, you said I have to trust more freely. Okay. that's nice that's his idea of drawing a treaty yeah just trust me trust me bro but diesel is desire

all right you have to love the alliteration you know diesel is fuel it burns you're playing with fire so you have it's really fun again use of language I think that she is having fun writing this

the idiom is playing with fire and you play with fire because the diesel is explosive in its burning. It is combustion imagery. Desire becomes fuel for conflict. And maybe it's the past that's talking. Well, you remember verse one was in the past? It was looking back. Maybe it's the past that's talking.

Okay, personification. The past cannot really talk. And a kind of psychological metaphor trying to determine if old wounds persist through to modern times. Yeah, it's like the skeletons in the closets and ghosts even. Yeah. The ghosts from our past. Screaming from the crypt?

This is clearly vampire imagery. Oh, my gosh, vampires. No, it's not vampires. But I do believe it could be ghosts from the past. I do believe that because we go to screaming from the crypt, the crypt is resonates with, You know, the first stanza where she kind of gives us this imagery of, you know, the trenches and the tomb, right. So now we have the crypt here telling me to punish you for things you never did.

So I justified it, you know. She wants revenge in war. And she's going to find a reason for revenge. You know, I don't want to make any modern political statements. I think you do, though. Yeah, I kind of do. Yeah, I kind of do. I think that we excuse ourselves for war in for a lot of different reasons.

And we, you know, we create these excuses, these needs for revenge, for perceived slights. And that's what we use. And I think that we do that in relationships too. Yeah, absolutely. Also, this is, but diesel is desire you were playing with fire. Does that maybe go with the line? Maybe it was her in the first line. Like, he is desiring another girl,

and maybe he never acted on it because she's saying, tell me to punish you for things you never did. But what is the desire? Is that the diesel is desire you were playing with fire? Is that about the two of them, or is that about him with someone else? I'm going to say, I don't know.

I really, I was, You know, maybe it was her, is speculative on her part, and I wonder if that's telling me to punish you for things you never did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That, yeah. Did you really have somebody else, or was that something you never did? Or maybe she just liked a guy named Vin Diesel.

Maybe so. He really likes the Fast and the Furious movies. We manufacture whatever, you know, whatever works sometimes in the world of relationships. Yeah. Okay, the chorus. Chorus is primarily redundant, right? Except things get a little heightened. The bombs get closer.

All that bloodshed, crimson, clover, the bombs are closer. So those sweet dreams are over and the war is encroaching. Because you remember the previous second line was sweet dream was over. So the dream of peace is over. And the bombs are marching nearer and nearer. So it's interesting how she never forgets what she writes in the first chorus. Never. Never.

Yeah. She brings it forward in the second chorus. My hand was the one you reached for throughout the Great War. Always remember, uh-huh, the burning embers. And that's also different from the first chorus because... Tears on the letter. Tears on the letter have turned into burning embers. So the destruction of war now surrounds them.

And or is she burning the letters? Mm-hmm. I know, right? Could it be that the burning embers are those letters aflame? I like that. Yeah, so maybe the letters were that entroit to peace. Maybe the letters were him penning his apologies, you know. But, yeah, that shouldn't work.

Should just be a text. I'm so sorry, I screwed up. Yeah. And I did wonder, since the bombs were closer kind of means the sweet dreams are over, I did wonder if burning embers are the letters. Yeah, yeah, it works. I vowed not to fight any more if, conditional statement, we survived the Great War. Okay, the bridge. Yes. Oh, her bridges. It turned into something bigger. Okay, now the war turned into something bigger? We don't know because it's a general reference pronoun. You are correct. That is a general reference pronoun.

Somewhere in the haze. So a haze is the remembrance of things you can't quite see. You can't quite remember clearly. It could also be gas imagery. You know, gas was a huge part of World War I. Hitler was injured in a gas attack during World War I. Oh, I didn't know that. There you go.

Somewhere in the haze Got a sense I'd been betrayed Your finger on my hair pin triggers Okay I am liking the phrase Hair pin triggers So he knows just how to set her off You know isn't that true though

Yeah absolutely I mean I mean do you know just exactly what to say To set chase off? Yeah yeah Yeah I think that's that's kind of fun. I also like the way it works rhythmically, hair pin triggers.

Yeah, it's a very fun. It's a very fun. This isn't the only song she talks about hair pins also. Oh, is that right? Yeah, like she talks about like my pinned up hair, but then she said in a different song, she says my pinned up hair, but then she says you could hear a hairpin drop

instead of just a pen drop. Mm-hmm. And I don't know. I think it's fun because, yeah, I don't know. It just, it almost adds like a femininity to me. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I like that. Yeah.

That's good. Yeah. Well, and it's also a trigger. Uh-huh. Right. So, again, if you're going to use a very famous war like the Great War, then please maintain the metaphor. Yeah, throughout.

Yes. Yes. So the haze could be the metaphorical gas imagery. The bombs. marching ever closer and now a hairpin trigger. You know, people talk about a hair trigger, something that fires easily. Right. So.

And then she says, soldier down on that icy ground. Okay, icy death imagery. They also fought through the cold months. You know, so ice symbol of death endings, looked up at me with honor and truth, broken and blue. so I called off the troops. Oh. Okay, so blue, you know, color imagery, sadness. You looked up at me and somehow in your eyes, there is honor and truth in them.

I know. So he's trying to make his apologies. And even though when she suddenly looked at him and looked at him humanistically, she sees him broken and blue, cold, near death. Right? And the two words are linked, of course, by their alliterative elements. So she has, takes pity or some kind of recognition is kindled in her. Yeah, she sees that she's like, oh, I'm, I'm also doing some hurting here.

That's right. Yeah. So she called off the troops. She declared a truth. That was the night I nearly lost you. So night, a symbol of death, right? That was a night that you were nearest to death, that our relationship was nearest to death.

And so I said no to all that. I really thought I'd lost you. And, you know, now we're back to the very famous lost battalion where I thought that I had lost you. So verse three, she's going to plant a memory garden. And I'm sorry, I'm rushing right along. No, that's okay. I was just going to say, plant a memory garden.

memory garden sounds like that's just Taylor writing all her songs. Yeah, they are a kind of memory garden for her. And people did plant memory gardens, you know. They put memorial flames up that burned eternally or they made beautiful gardens or you can visit the American War Memorial. You know, that is something that they did. So, but what does she put in there? she puts flowers in a garden.

She says, say a solemn prayer, place a poppy in my hair. Poppy is symbol of death, a symbol of remembrance. And then we have that poem that I read to you in Flandersfields where poppies grow. And there are those crosses row on row. There's no mourning glory.

It was war. It wasn't fair. And we will never. ever go back. Okay. She's doing clever things in language. You love this line. Right.

So look at Memory Garden, M and G. And then look at Morning Glory. Oh, that's fun. Isn't that fun? Yeah. Yeah, M and G. And then look at the alliteration that falls in between. Prayer, Place, Poppy.

So she is, she is dancing on language. She is. I think she connects the memory garden with the morning glory. Plus, morning and glory are hominiferous. They are homonyms. Right. So the word mourning, M-O-U-R-N and M-O-R-N, sound the same. But when you mourn, Emma, with you, you, you know.

I mean, that's what you're doing with the poppies. That's what you're doing with the to do with the tomm. You're remembering. Remembering death. You're remembering the passing of a sad time. but morning, M-O-R-N, is sunrise. It is rebirth. It is rejuvenation.

It is a rekindling of flame. So is the glory, the glory of death, the glory of the spent lives for your nation, or is the glory the rising sun that brings love back? So, yeah, we've got this, she's got this really terrific fun that she's having with language, and it doesn't stop in that line. It was war. It wasn't fair. This is what we call oppositional rhetoric.

Okay. Right. So you have rhetorically almost the same thing, but completely not. Right. Completely opposed. It was war. It wasn't fair. You know, they say all is fair and love and war.

Right. I think she is echoing that cliche. Yeah. And that is quintessential Taylor Swift. Absolutely. And then she goes on to her next album. and which is the tortured poets department and the kind of tagline for that whole thing

was All's Fair in Love and Poetry. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Okay. I like that. That's kind of fun. Yeah. Okay, and we will never go back.

We will, alliterative, never go back. Now we're looking at the future, you know. And what's interesting to me is World War II comes. You know. Not the war to end all wars. No, it's not the war to end all war. I wondered if, if, so I really did. I did not do, obviously, I didn't even look at the date this was written.

What was the date? 2022. Okay. So. I feel like you're having to. I'm going to stick a toe in biographical criticism. Is this before or after she breaks up finally with that guy? I can't even remember his name.

What's his name? Joe. Joe Alwyn! Yeah. I got it. I have been totally polluted. You have. You have.

I've come over. Okay. Welcome to the dark side. Yes, I'm over. I'm all the way there. I do think this is about their relationship. Okay. I do think this whole album was written at the end of their relationship.

Okay. So does she think she's got him back in this song? Yeah, I think so. But World War II's coming. Well, I will. say that we thought that she still had him. I don't know that she thought that. Because I think if you listen to a lot of the songs on Midnights, there's a lot of clues there

that we didn't recognize until we got the next album and then we're like, oh, she's talking about some of these things that we were maybe thinking. That wasn't as that, that was like a, I would say that Midnights isn't a breakup album, but I would say that Midnights is a, we're about to break up album. if we want to get really biographical with it. We're sitting here laughing about the tragedy of her previous life. I know, it's fine. She's great now.

She's over at all. We're good. She just had the best week of her life a couple weeks ago, you know? That's true. That's true. She's like everywhere. I can't sidestep her. Okay, so yeah, it's interesting.

She says we will never go back because ultimately she will. Yeah, World War II is going to show up. It's common, baby. Yeah. Final chorus to that bloodshed, crimson clover, uh-huh, the worst was over. Now we're into the aftermath of the war, right? My hand was the one you reached for and throughout the great war, all throughout the great war. Always remember, uh-huh, we burned for better.

So now we're different. You know, we have, we have endured this. We've come through a crucible of fire. And all our impurities are burned away and all this left is pure love. Yeah, the bombs turned to embers and it made us burn for better. And now we burned for better. I vowed I would always be yours. Oh, Lord.

I vowed I would always be yours because we survived the great war, you know. And that's kind of a triumphant repetition, a cathartic statement, you know. We survived. I vowed I would always be yours until World War II come. And on the way out, she says, I will always be yours because we survived the Great War. I vow, I will always be yours. And we have this patriotic parallel of promising, you know, to always be true to your native land, pro-patria-a-mori to die for your native country. Right.

And she ultimately won't. She'll just go give them up. And that's the Great War. That's it. That's right. Now, I will say I went back and I made some notes on some other elements that she uses. Like I kept mentioning juxtaposition. I was interested how she frequently uses oppositional sides of things side by side.

Okay. Next, like it was, it wasn't. Okay, yeah. She says she talks about destruction and then she talks about healing. She talks about blood and then she talks about flowers. She talks about war and peace, death and survival, ruin and love. And I think that the contrast ultimately brings us to a more satisfactory reconciliation in their relationship. Okay.

I think that's why she's so celebratory at the end of the poem. Because like we have been through so many like. Right. We went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth so much. And then finally, boom, here we are finally emerging, having been through this crucible of fire. Yeah. the structure of the poem. I did think that the poem followed a narrative arc.

Okay, yeah, great. And it looks like a kind of war chronicle to me. Okay. Right. The conflict begins, even though she's remembering it in the past. She talks about the beginning of the fight, and then she talks about how the damage escalates. At first it's just her knuckles,

and then she's literally in a crypt. Yeah, drinking poison. Right, she's drinking poison. The relationship reaches this crisis, the bombs are approaching nearer, the letters are burning, and then there's some reflection, she looks down at his body, he's about dead, or perhaps she's looking literally down at the body of their relationship, that is just about dead.

And that's when reconciliation emerges, and then survival is celebrating. Oh, wow, it is really like a full story. Right. It's a narrative. It's kind of, it has an kind of epic quality. where you're looking at a war narrative. Okay. You want my essay on floral imagery?

Yeah, we do. Okay. So I did look at just the floral imagery. Okay. And what we have are violets, crimson clover, poppies, a memory garden, and morning glories.

Okay, in verse one, we have violets. violets are wounds that bloom. Oh. Right? Beautiful. Thank you very much. Because they are the bruised knuckles.

Love and damage are inseparable. When you love, you will be damaged or you will do damage. It is the first image of the poem. Okay. Yeah. It is the entry point to our poem. Emotional pain becomes a part of the landscape of that battlefield itself.

In literary and Victorian flower traditions, violet is a symbol of faithfulness, modesty, love remembered, grief, and mourning. And so the line has several different meanings. It could be the bruise is physically purple, but the speaker's emotional wounds are also connected to the love that she is built and shared. The relationship becomes so painful it resembles the violet. It's a remembrance of faithfulness, but it's bruised and damaged. Then we go to the chorus.

We have crimson clover. This is love mixed with bloodshed. So the phrase is central to that theme, right? It is repeated throughout the poem. Crimson evokes blood, passion, warfare wounds. Clover, I think, is maybe Taylor trying to use alliteration, but, you know, clover can also be something that carpet covers, a touch with nature, can be luck.

Then we go to planting a memory garden. This is a kind of symbolic coda, the reconciliation in the song, right? You can't forget that war is a destruction always, but you also need to remember that life takes the place of death in this sort of reconciliation. The garden is a kind of mirror or juxtapositional image to the battlefield. And we start with the battlefield, but now we have a garden. Instead of bodies and torn banners and tombs, we have flowers.

Okay, okay. And the poppy, of course, memory and remembrance, maybe the most important flower, it is a red flower, blood red. So we have blood imagery. So together you have memory, remembrance, death, and honoring what is lost. Finally, you have the morning glory.

This is the most maybe ambiguous flower reference. Morning can be both morning in the daytime, but morning and well you are I-N-G. Notice that these are, the interesting thing about morning glories is what time of day do they bloom? I assume in the morning. In the morning.

So they are aligned symbolically with the rising sun. So morning glories are frequently images of rebirth, of coming warm, of new light. And so we get to the morning glory as this triumphal image that loves survives that new light and life are on the way. That's interesting that that's the last one that she uses. Yeah.

And you're saying it's like the new, it's like a new dawn, like a new. Right. Yeah. Yep. There you go. So now you can write your, write your whole essay on just flower imagery in this work. That's nice. It's good.

All right. I think I'm done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, lots of symbols. Boy, I made a list. You know, the crypt, the banners, the trees, the poison, the poppies, the garden, the violets, the bloodshed, the color imagery, the personification, ego swings, the past talks, trauma screams, you know, the motifs, memory, survival, flowers, warfare. Yeah, she really pulls the war, war and florals. throughout the entire thing. She does a good job at that.

She does a really good job of it. So, yeah, I mean, so I started off by saying I really questioned the use of World War I because of, you know, my own understanding of the havoc that it wreaked, you know, on the world and on individuals. And because of the incredible literary production of the war, there's amazing poets. And I'd like to hear the song. Okay. I want to know what she does with this.

Yes, okay, let's listen. Okay. We are, I think we're just going to watch the lyric video. We will be right back. Okay. You know, a war isn't something you win or lose. It is something that you, if you survive, you decide mutually to survive and to renew a relationship. Yeah, it really does make me go back and think about that image.

of her when he's lying on the icy ground. I love the way she sings that one. Soldier down on that icy ground. I just like that rhythm, that melody, I guess. You know, and so I did too, and that's what made me go back and kind of reflect that, you know, when you win in a battle of love, when you defeat your opponent,

is that really what you wanted? Right, yeah, like there is no glory in that kind of, Yeah, there's no glory in that win, especially if you actually love or loved the person. Right. You don't glory over there lying, they're, you know, freezing the death. You don't, when they're looking up at you with eyes of truth. Right. You know, you don't glory over that.

No. And a war, so a romantic war isn't something you necessarily win or lose. It is something that you choose to survive together. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So why? You're great to grade?

Yeah. Or you got more themes or anything else left over there? I mean, I'm good. I, you know, it still nags at me. I guess I like the poetry, the, the raw earnestness of the poetry that comes out of that event. But it's hard to forget that for me, you know, for me. For sure, yeah. Because I read and studied it for so long and taught it.

you know, it's hard to forget. Okay. Ready to grade the Great Lord? Yeah, I think so. I think I've worked through my own personal angst. Okay. It is funny because the tone was more upbeat than I would have thought. I don't know if you, there is a new version.

I probably should have looked this up, but there's a new version of Enrique Remarks' book, All Quiet on the Western Front, that came out just. three or four years ago, two or three years ago. And it has this horrifically grinding soundtrack that I think won the Academy Award for Best Soundtrack. And so, you know, I was wondering if it would be like that and it's not. It's just like, m-m-m-m-m-m-it.

We're here. I know. Okay, the Great War, Lyrical Strength. Ooh, yeah, lyrical strength. I mean When I got into the poem It's really strong I'll say 96

Okay Whoops Narrative structure Yeah it does read like a war chronicle Right from the remembrance of the beginning of the conflict To the escalation of the conflict To that moment of conflict resolution And then the reunification

So, yeah, 97. Okay. Production and atmosphere. Hmm. Of the song? It was okay for me. Okay. You didn't like all my uh-huhs that I was singing for you?

Oh, yeah, the uh-huh. That was the best part, especially in his way. So, can I say just 90? Yeah. It was fine. Okay. Lure and literary references. I did like the floral imagery imagery.

Yes, I think you could write a whole paper just on the four flowers mentioned. You know, and anything with poppies in it makes me remember that poem in Flanders fields, which is one of the loveliest, most poignant, I guess I should say. So 98. Okay. And emotional impact. Well, I feel like you went through a range of emotions. Yeah, it does.

It comes through a range. Well, just you. Like, with your, do I even? do I like that she used this? And then like, okay, maybe it does kind of work. Yeah. Yeah, it's like I wanted to question the use of it. And then after I got into looking at it, I thought, oh, yeah, I understand her use of it.

And I think that she does a really nice job with crips and trenches and bombs and haze. And yes, I thought, and then the flower imagery. I thought that she puts that all together. I mean, come on, she's a complete writer. I think she believes in the, I don't know, songwriter. Hall of Fame. Maybe they should induct her someday. Yeah, that would be good.

So a 95. Okay. And that gives us a 95. Okay. Solid. Yeah. Yeah. An interesting choice by our Patreon folks.

And yes, they were exactly right. The flower imagery is fascinating and cohesive. So I think it tells a sub-narrative all in its own right. It's pretty good stuff. Yeah, it is good stuff. Thank you guys. Yes, thank you patrons. And if you would like to vote, if you're not on Patreon and you want to vote for future songs, we've been voting for about like one a month so far.

Join us over there. We're having a lot of fun. And yeah, that's it. Anything else? No, I think unless I need to reach for the bayonet and cut the wires. Don't do that. No, okay. Okay, we will see you next week.

Keep up to date with us on social media at Swifty and Scholar Pod. You can follow Uncle Jerry at Dr. Uncle Jerry on Instagram, and you can follow me at Angela Wyatt McDowell, and we will see you next week. Sounds great. Bye.