The Swiftie and The Scholar - The Exploration of Depression in Evermore

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

In this episode, we are taking a trip through the wildest winter with evermore from 2020. Uncle Jerry once again blows Angela’s mind with some folklore tropes relating to the dog days, and with some tidbits about Carl Jung’s theory on the Anima.If you’d like to see us listen to the song and enjoy the episode ad-free, you can now join us on Patreon!Works Cited:Cats (2019)Fats WallerApostrophe literary deviceGerard Manley HopkinsWilliam Somerset MaughamThe Burning of Lord Byron’s MemoirsEmily Dickinson – burned lettersJane Austen – burned lettersCharles Dickens BonfireThe Hero with a Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell – Aff LinkCarl JungThe AnimaThe Raven – Edgar Allan PoeSonnet 29 – William ShakespeareEvermore lyric videoEvermore x Peter MashupFollow Us:Patreon⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠Angela’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. Uncle Jerry Coates, the scholar. Hi, Uncle Jerry. Hi there, Angela. How are you doing? You know, I'm doing really well. Good.

Yeah, I mean, I think I am. We're into the Lenton season. Yes. Into Ramadan, for those of you who follow that. And, you know, season of sacrifice. so I'm a little chocolate deprived. I was going to say, have you given anything up? Yes, I have.

It's personal. Now, I am addicted to World of Warcraft. Yes. And so I am not playing World of Warcraft for 40 days. Okay. And it's already been hard. Yeah. I'm just going to say.

You're going to replace it with a different game? No. That's what my dad did. No gaming. No, I'm not gaming at all. Okay. Well, I didn't give anything up. I apologize.

I used to give up. In high school, I'd always give up like sweets or sugar or something. And that was always terrible. Yeah. It's a hard thing, the Lent thing, you know? It's a little thing, but difficult. Yes. I know that's the point, you know.

But, okay. So today, oh, first I want to talk a little bit about the mashups on the Erez tour that Taylor did. So whenever the, I want to say the European dates, or maybe it was like the, I should. Either way, it wasn't the first U.S. States. It was the leg after that. She started doing mashups for her surprise songs. So on the Aeros Tour, there's always two surprise songs, one on guitar, one on piano. And those were different every night.

And then she started mashing songs up. And I think that's so fun because Taylor's main bread and butter is that she just tells us stories. And when she started mashing up her songs, it felt like those stories were kind of changed. like added a new layer to the stories or changed the story. And one of my favorite mashups was at the very end of the tour. And I think I'm going to play it for you today, which is Evermore and Peter matched up together. Okay. All right.

And I just think it will be fun. We'll listen to the regular, the normal song. And then we'll watch that. And maybe we'll see how we think that kind of changes the story. or if it does or if it just adds to it or whatever. And on that note, we're doing Evermore today. Yes, we are. The title track from Evermore.

Sound redundant. From 2020. This song actually is written by Taylor, Justin Vernon, who we may better known at Maine. Oh, my goodness. Who we may better know as Bonnie Vair. And William Bowery, who we may also know as Joe Alwyn. So this is one of those sad songs they wrote together. Yeah, it's a sad song.

Yeah. And this is produced by Aaron Dessner and Taylor. I will just be honest, I do not have strong feelings about this song. I do feel like it kind of maybe wraps up the Evermore album kind of nicely. It is the closing track of the album. But yeah, I'm excited to hear what you have to say. Well, I think it's interesting to me. It's the closing track.

I mean, obviously, I didn't know that. Since Angela doesn't let me listen to these things. We're strict around here. And I've never heard the song. Yeah. You know, I mean, I think it would be interesting then to hear it in context with all the other works. Which is something we ought to get to someday. I know.

Yeah, where we just take one album holistic. and go down the list and say, okay, how do these songs, you know, have an interplay, how do they reciprocate, you know, how do they have a conversation with one another?

Yeah. So sometimes, sometimes I do have to admit, I feel like I'm at a disadvantage by not knowing the context for the song, although I'm not a big, I'm not heavily into biographical criticism, as you all know.

Yeah. Yeah, I've felt that too. I'm like, uh, it's like I feel like we all love these songs because we have a little bit more context to them. But I also just kind of want the work to stand on its own. Right. Yeah. And I completely get that. And, you know, I understand that's my function. And I'm very cool with that. And I like reading it just for the, for the standalone poem itself,

you know, and I tend to try to do that. You know, however, I mean, for the works of Charles Dickens, for example, you know, I've read several biographies of Dickens. And I've been to his house, you know, in London and Gads Hill. And, you know, I mean, I just would, every time I read one of, reread one of his novels, I always stop and think about how does this fit into the context of his life. And I know that's a game that everyone plays, and I know it's a game that we probably sometimes shouldn't. Because sometimes it really doesn't touch on his life. On the other hand, there are seminal moments in his life when he holds his dying sister-in-law, which is something that really happened to Charles Dickens.

And so consequently he has this image of a dying child or a young woman who's passing. And it's one of the most heartfelt movements in any one of his novels. And it's because he lived it. So sometimes it is a disadvantage not having the biography of the background. For sure. Yeah. But let's talk about Eremont. All right.

Let's talk about it. Okay, so, you know, I mean, immediately the title evermore, I think of two things. I think of fairy tales. And so I thought, okay, so I'm going to start reading this in the context of a fairy tale. It does kind of foreground me as a reader. Okay. But there was very little fairy tale in it. Yeah.

So I quickly disabused myself with that notion after two or three read-throughs. But that is something that kind of foregrounds the poem. The other thing that it made me think of was the poem by Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven. Okay, yeah, yeah. Because Evermore appears in that. Yeah. And I think that there's more the Raven than there is fairy tales. Yes.

So I was pretty confirmed in the first verse that it had echoes of the raven because it starts off gray November. Yes. Oh, we should say also before we start that this is the first collaboration that we've done. So this song features Bonnie Vair, Justin Vernon. And so I did in the lyrics put who was singing at least that section of like that chorus or that verse, not like specific lines when they're when they're together. So I appreciate that. But I have to admit, I didn't notice that.

Okay, great. like my fourth or fifth read through. Okay. Because I was pretty convinced on an interpretation for the middle section of the poem. And, I mean, I was making notes and writing about it and thinking about it. And then I happened to notice, wait, what? Justin Vernon and Taylor Swift. Yeah.

And I thought, well, why is that there? And then I went back and I saw, oh, she labeled who sings what when. And I thought, oh, okay, so we have two voices. But it still doesn't alter my interpretation. And we'll get there. Okay. Yes, I just want to put that out there. Gray November.

Gray November. Okay, we have color imagery. Mm-hmm. Okay, gray. What's it a symbol of? Like, I don't know, it feels like sad and, like, like, there's just no, there's just, like, nothing, you know. Gray is just like, you know, gloom. It's gloomy and it's dark and it's sad.

It's not black. It's not white. It's not a color spectrum. It's some dank mixture of black and white. Yeah. It's sad, gloomy. So, yeah, we have this dank, gloomy atmosphere immediately because of the color imagery. The month of November, the end of the year, the end of things.

It's cold, cold, frequently a symbol of death or passing. Yeah, going into the winter. Going into winter. Yeah, winter is a symbol of death. So I think we have, you know, we have a couple of reasons to think that she's not feeling well. Right. And she says, I've been down since July. And, you know, normally I would think July would be the heart of the summer.

It might be active. It might be happy. So we've had this transition. But she says, I've been down, which metaphorically might be sad since July, right? Not just down like lying on the couch. Literally sad. Yes. And I think that that's pretty confirmed later on when we find out that it's the dog days.

And we'll talk about dog days later on. And then she says motion capture put me in a bad light. So there's a metaphor. Motion capture is an artificial imaging technique, you know, where you put on one of those suits with all the little nodes on it. And they can capture. Think Andy Circus in the Lord of the Ring. you know, when he plays Ghalem.

Chase loves to talk about Andy Circus. And I'm like, I don't know who that is. And now I do know who he is because he's like, you know, he's Golm. And I'm like, there's a guy in Ghalm? He swallowed it. And he's directing the next movie.

So there you know. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, yes, that's motion capture. So it's not the real you. It's the kind of electronic shadow images. of you. Okay, that's so interesting because I have never, like I said, I don't, this song,

I don't have strong feelings about, but I have tried to figure it out and I'm like, what is she talking about? And I have seen people talk about, which I know you just accidentally discovered that Taylor was in Katz. Oh yeah, yeah, I had no idea until it says cats is going off Netflix. And I thought, ooh, do I want to watch that? And I tried. And I thought, oh, this is horrible. Yeah. And I got to the end and I was looking at the credits and it said, Taylor Swift and I went Taylor Swift was she in there? Like I missed her. I did. I missed her entirely. Yeah, because she's a cat.

Yeah, I had to go back and rewatch that scene. And I thought, and it's so funny because I'm sorry for those of you who do just think she does no wrong. That was the song I really disliked. Couldn't tell you a single lyric to that song. I'm sorry. It just didn't seem to fit. No. Yeah. Her and Andrew Lloyd Webber apparently wrote that together that song, but I

I don't. I've listened to it one time. But people were saying that because cats, like, kind of everyone had the same thoughts as you. And she probably did motion capture in that movie to be a cat that maybe she was talking about that. I don't really believe that. But I thought that was a funny. Yeah. But Cats was out before 2020.

Yeah. Yes. I think so. Yeah. So it could be an experience. I don't know. I mean, yeah, I don't believe that. Yeah, it was 2019.

Okay. But I just thought that was so funny that people were like, she's talking about how cats made her look bad because that movie was so bad. I mean, maybe. I don't think so. Yeah, but I do like the idea that it's a kind of artificial shadow representation of yourself. I do like that, yes. Yeah.

And so it put her in a bad light. Yeah. So, I mean, it could also be, you know, an event in her life. And, you know, now I'll just throw the gates open to all of you out there who love biographical criticism and, you know, put in your comments whether you think it was something having to do with an album or a relationship or snake gate. Yeah, something that happened like in the media or something. Yeah, who knows. Yeah, it's not clear. It's not represented in the poem itself, whether that's, you know, what's going on.

But I do like the metaphor, you know, that this is this kind of a shadow. him, he's just not the real me. And whatever it is that people perceive, whatever it is that's coming across in media, puts her in a bad life. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, it's not the real her. Yeah, I like that very much as a metaphor. And so she replays her footsteps on each stepping stone.

And we have more metaphors. So, you know, again, when we do our Patreon, we're going to have a drinking game. Oh, no. Yeah, every time we find a metaphor, we have to take a drink. I'm going to have to sleep on your couch. I know, it's true. Well, we'll be drinking diet Coke. Okay, okay.

But, yeah, lots of metaphors here, as usual. And also the really nice alliteration, you see footsteps, each stepping stone. Yeah, lots of ST. Yeah, lots of S is rolling through. And then in the next line, where went wrong? So, yeah, she's really, you know, she's got her poetry cap on. And she's using her alliteration. That's good.

She's got her metaphor is rolling. I like footsteps on each stepping stone. So, you know, when you're using stepping stones, you're trying to avoid the mud or the water or you're trying to avoid, you know, pitfalls, right? And so she replays in her mind or in her motion capture, right? She's replaying the film of where did it go wrong? Yeah, that's interesting. That's a fun thought to think about because I always always.

She's just picturing her, you know, she's just like on the stepping stones like this is the path I've taken. But I like that the path was like, you know, there's all these like dangers around. Right. And she's trying to. The reason why you use stepping stones. Right. Right. Is to avoid something.

Yeah. And apparently she did not avoid it. Yeah. Yeah. So she replays those footsteps. And, you know, I do have to stop and say I really, she used a lot of metaphors. And a lot of them might kind of just go. Okay, metaphor.

I see how it works. But I really like these metaphors, the motion capture, the footsteps on the stepping stone, finding where she misstepped. You know, I think that they work really, really well in the context of the poem. Okay. Great. So, kudos to you, Ms. Swift. And she's writing, and you see the w's that tie across lines.

Where went wrong writing? Yeah, that's really nice. You know, I mean, so a lot of poets think, okay. I've got to use alliteration because Uncle Jerry said to. But you forget that alliteration can not only tie sounds together or images together, but can also tie lines together so that your reader has to read lines together. Yeah, that's nice. Well, that way there's a naturalistic flow, especially if you're writing in free verse.

Like we know some nine-year-old friends of our show do, you know, then if you're writing in free verse, you might want to try alliteration across lines. tie them together. Yeah, that's fun. And then we have one more metaphor. She's writing letters addressed to the fire. So obviously, writing letters, not in a real sense, but in a figurative sense, right? She's making a record of the misstep. She is, actually, Fats Waller wrote a song.

I'm going to sit right down and write myself a letter. Do you know this song? No. Oh, it's a fun song. And make believe it comes from you. Oh, that's sweet. about a guy who's love Lauren. Yeah.

So, you know, look it up. That's Waller. Yeah, I'll link it. But so here she's writing a letter figuratively to herself, trying to try to mull over and record where she might have misstepped. But her intention isn't really to publish them. It isn't to send them to anyone. They are literally or figuratively addressed to the fire. Right.

And by the way, any time you address, speak. to an inanimate object or a personified object that's called apostrophe. Okay. Okay. So she's using apostrophe here. And that made me think, anytime I see someone use a literary device like that, I think, okay, I should look for that elsewhere in the poem. Oh, okay.

So I started looking for it elsewhere in the poem. And it was there or no. Oh, yeah, it's there. Okay. So I always kind of got that address to the fire is like, it's almost like you're getting your thoughts down. replaying things, whether you're actually writing stuff down or not, you're getting your thoughts out of your head, but you're just like, then you're just like burning, like, you're just

burning them. You're just getting rid of them. Like, it's not for anyone or for any purpose. Right. Or to be seen by anyone other than you. For you, yeah. Right. Which, of course, did make me pause and think, okay, there are a lot of writers who have their works

burned or put in their wills, you know, or ask friends to destroy their works. Oh. Yeah. I mean, there are certain works they don't want to be seen. Yeah, and get like posthumously, like, published. I don't want that. Well, one of my favorite 19th century poets is Gerard Manley Hopkins. He's actually a Jesuit priest who writes this beautiful poetry.

But he didn't want it to be read by people. Some of it he didn't want to be read because some of it he didn't think glorified God. And so he asked that he burned some of it, which is a shame. I mean, I'd love to have had those poems. those poems to look at. Somerset mom also burned his poet, had it burned. I wondered if she thought about any of that. Jane Austen did.

She asked Cassandra, her sister, to burn her letters. Not Cassandra. Yeah, Cassandra. Yes, Cassandra, Jane Austen's sister, after she died, 1917, she asked that she burn her letters. So, and that was, I mean, it was, it was, it was,

done, you know, just so people don't misinterpret their life. Yeah. Or if it was too personal, like Lord Byron, you know, his friends burned many of his letters. You know, Carolyn Lamb with whom he had an affair, I mentioned, said that he was mad, bad, and dangerous enough. But obviously, she said some of the letters were simply too salacious. Oh, okay. For people to read.

I did wonder if she thought about it because Emily Dickinson also many of her letters were burned, which is a shame. We have a lot of her letters. We have letters that, copies of letters that people sent to her, but many were burned. Interesting. Whereas the poems, 2,500 poems remained, which is good. That does feel like she knew exactly what she was talking about there then. Well, I do wonder. Yeah. I mean, another one that she references. at one point is Dickens and Dickens's, Dickens had kind of a famous bonfire in 1860. He had what he called the 1860 bonfire.

Oh, clever. Where he burned a whole group of letters that he just didn't want people to see. Okay. Yeah. So he had subsequent bonfires since he didn't die until the 1870s. But that's a shame. I mean, we know he wrote some 15,000 letters that still exist. and they're just, they're incredibly engaging and fun to read.

One of them is, as a matter of fact, to a clockmaker that's at his home in London. So I like the idea that she's writing letters just for self-examination that she wants to ultimately burn. And that's all I have to say about first one. All right. The chorus. Yes. And I was catching my breath, which is a cliche. and, you know, she doesn't do anything special with it,

although it's repeated throughout subsequent choruses. And I, you know, I mean, she's catching her breath, maybe gasping for air in this sort of sense of depression that seems to build in the poem. She's staring out an open window. It could be literal. It could simply be an open window. But why would you have a window open and disqual?

when it's gray and presumably cold. She's catching her death. And so, of course, now she does something with the cliche. Yeah. Right. She's catching her death of cold. And so

she's catching her death through this open winnow could, you know, could be like, it could be figurative in that she is peering out into eternity. Could be, could be literal,

as much as she could be contemplating depression and suicide. Okay. Yeah. Like it's a high up window even. Yeah. I would hate to think that we're thinking about jumping here. Well, there's a few other songs where she spells that out. So, yeah.

Sometimes I think hyperbole and sometimes maybe not. Again, I think you have to go through the whole rest of the poem and kind of make that decision. Okay. Yeah. And I couldn't be sure. I had a feeling so peculiar that this pain would be forever more. So she feels like she has spiraled into a kind of depression.

She fears that that depression is going to be eternal. And now I'm going back at that open window thinking, oh, I wonder if she really is contemplating, taking her own life here. So I should stop and look at the poetics. Okay. Yeah, in the chorus. Look at the rhymes.

game. Really nice. Breath, death, and then sure, peculiar, peculiar, four evermore. Oh, it's like all four of those. All four of those rhyme. Yeah. Yeah. And so you have the first two lines rhyming and then the last four rhyming together.

That's fun. It is fun. It feels different. Yeah, it feels different. The chorus, you know, the choruses do that. It makes them perhaps more melodious when she sings it. I'll be looking forward to. Okay.

And then verse two. Hey, December, guess I'm feeling unmoored. Okay, so who she's talking to? Is she talking to December? Hey, comma, December. It seems like it. I did wonder about that. So this is like showing us passing of time because it was November and now it's December.

Yes. So we're kind of marking a clock. So we've got time before July. Oh, yeah. Time now or then November and then time again December. And, you know, it took me a couple of readings through when I began to think about that apostrophe that she uses in addressing letters to the fire. And I kind of wonder if she's talking to the months as they pass.

Yeah, it does kind of feel like she's like talking to like time as it passed or like her life as it passes her by or something like that. So then I go back up to first one. Okay. The first line, gray November, I've been down since July. Oh, okay. So she could, yeah, so she could be being like November, you're gray and I've been feeling that way since July. And then in verse two, it's, hey, December, guess I'm feeling unmoored.

That's kind of fun. Yeah, it's not getting better. I'm completely unhitched and floating free and, you know, with no rudder. Interesting. Yeah, I thought so too. I thought it feels like. like she's taking that apostrophe and, you know, going verse to verse in using it. Okay.

So, yeah, I mean, I think that works. And she says, I guess I'm feeling unmoored. You know, unmoored is like a ship adrift. Since I use like a ship adrift, that must be a metaphor. She can't remember what I used to fight for. You know, those things she fought for, I'm assuming, are her goals in life. Oh, I would assume, yeah. And like this is like, like, now that you, now I'm reading it as like, you know, this is like a really down time in her life.

And she's just like, I've completely lost it. I'm unmoored. I'm just like floating out here in the world. And I don't even know like what I used to like what got me here basically. Which may in fact be why, if we go back up to the first first, why she's writing letters. Yeah, trying to figure it out. She's trying to figure it out. She's trying to remember what was all this for, you know?

Why was I doing all this if all I'm going to do is be most? motion captured and I'm going to make missteps and that's what people are going to make of me. So, yeah, just I love the image of being unmoored. She says, I rewind the tape, which again, echoes that that tape made of the motion capture that put her in a bad light. Okay. Okay. So, I mean, what I will say is I think the verses are linked one to another very strongly.

Yeah, seems like it. Right. We have the November, we have the December, we have the motion capture, and we have the tape that she rewinds, which is, of course, a metaphor. I don't think there's a literal tape. Right. She's rewinding in her mind, so she's comparing that process to viewing a tape of herself. But all it does is pause on the very moment all was lost, you know, which is typical of someone who's depressed. You know, I have to say when my wife died, when she passed away, I had trouble not hitting pause on the worst moments.

Right, yeah. You know, I mean, we had just spent nine months going through pancreatic cancer. And, you know, we had a few great moments. We had great family moments. I mean, you know, we were together. And we had great family moments together. There was a wonderful Christmas in between. You know, I still have that wonderful picture.

of everyone at Christmas with her. But it's hard. It was hard at the time not to push pause on the worst moments. Yeah, because that's all your brain wants to like, you just want us to live there. Right. Yeah. And it's hard to move on.

It's hard not to remember, oh, the doctor told us this day that the numbers looked bad. Oh, the doctors told us this day it metastasized. Oh, the doc, you know, it's like all the you mark off all those days. All the little like points that got. eat to wear. Just horrible. And, you know, one time she had gone to the restroom in a public restroom and she fell and she

couldn't get up. And what am I supposed to go barging into the women's restroom and try? And it's hard not to push pause on just the worst moments. So you get past the depression, you know, but it's hard. Yeah. And so I do, you know, I related and empathize with what goes on near the end of verse two. She says, on the very moment all was lost. That's Rishi Paul, sending signals to be double-crossed.

Again, stop and admire the alliteration, you know. Yeah. But there are signals, those moments, those double-crossing moments, and maybe it's someone double-crossing her or maybe it's herself, right, in her own head. Yeah, that feels like it does feel like it's in her head, to me. it did to me too especially when I get to the next page to the bridge

but we have another chorus in between yes in the second chorus is a great deal like the first I was catching my breath but she changes one thing the second line barefoot in the wildest winter catching my breath so now she's barefoot I think that's a metaphor

hopefully she didn't forget to our shoes That does sound like if you take it face value barefoot in the wildest winter catching my death It's like okay I went outside in like a snowy day and with no bare with no shoes on and I'm gonna like get cold like I'm gonna get a cold or something I'm just gonna intentionally punish myself Yeah and it could be again you know not every one of these have to be a metaphor could be literal does feel like it's a metaphor though It does feel I mean the metaphor would be A symbol of being unprotected right a symbol of of being raw, of emotionally raw and pained, you know, frozen out, which would be a really nice

sensory image, right? So, yeah. Yeah, remember, we're not only seeing the winter weather, we're only feeling its grayness, but we're feeling it's the raw chill of it, you know, which is really nice sensory control. She does that always in her poetry. Yeah. I couldn't be sure. I had a feeling so peculiar

that the pain would be forever more. Right? So that nice rhyming and then we get to the bridge. Yes. Okay. This is where we go a lot. Yeah, to me this is the meat of the poem.

Yes. And it's something that I didn't get right away because I didn't understand there were two singers. Right. And I gave you everything. I know. I know.

It's like it's right here on the pain It says, Justin Vernon, Taylor Swift. He didn't read that. I went right to the poem. I know. That's where the good stuff is. Yeah. Not reading my notes.

I know. Didn't read your note. Why would I? Yeah, you got these parenthetical inclusions that start down around line nine in that bridge and, you know, and echo throughout the rest of the poem. And so it's clearly two voices. Yeah, I mean, you know, on your very first read through, you can tell, Oh, these are two voices.

And so without realizing that this is a real other person singing, I thought that this was the voice in her head. Oh, that's fun. I mean, it doesn't mean that it can't be just because there's another person singing it. This is Uncle Jerry's hot take. I think it is the voice in her head. I think that she has old Justin Vernon. Okay.

I'm interested to hear how he sings that. I've heard just a couple of songs by him. And in one of them, he sings a song. kind of like low gravelly voice. And in the other one, he sings a sort of high gravelly falsetto. So is it going to be low gravelly or high gravelly? Yeah. I actually do think that the bridge, while I know we're just getting into it,

I feel like I don't know any. Like, I feel like you're going to open up a lot of stuff here for me. But I do think this is the, like, the star of the song. This is like the most beautiful part of it. It's very fun the way they're both singing together. Like, you know. So, okay. So let's deal with the poetry stuff first.

Okay. By that, I mean, you know, you look at the rhyme scheme. You see cost, lost, pause, sort of echoes that rhyme. And then again, frost, days, tossed, cross. Yeah, great. A lot of it, yeah. Yeah, it's almost every line rhymes and almost always with the same rhyme. Now, now pause again, cost, frost.

And even in the middle of lines, you know, if you run down to about line 12 or 13, it was real enough to get me through T-H-R-O-U-G-H. Wait, you just taught us about this. Yes, I did. It's called a sight rhyme. That is correct. That is called sight rhyme. So she's using internal. I was just editing that episode last night, so I was Googling sight rhymes.

Yes, this is site rhyme. So when the two words don't literally rhyme, but they look. like they should or would. It's called sit rhyme. So here we have enough, O-U-G-H, and through T-H-R-O-U-G-H, right? So she's using sight-rime. So in terms of the poetic technique, I think, oh, yeah, this is really fun. Yeah.

Okay. So what's it all mean? Yeah, please. I did make one bad poetic note, whether, whether be the frog. Wether W-H-E-T-H-E-A-T-H-E-H-E-H-E-H-E-H-E-R. So when I was teaching poetry to middle schoolers one summer at a local library, fun. One of them made the same rhyme.

Are you serious? Oh, yeah. That is hilarious. Yeah, they put words. And he thought he found the coolest thing in the entire world. Well, I mean, that is really cool. That's okay. I think that part is fun to sing.

but I've never really considered whether that's like a good technique or not. Right. Well, and you know you shouldn't say them both the same. And now I'm going to reveal something about myself that I probably shouldn't. Oh, dear. When I was a child, I spoke like a shot. Now, when I was a child, I had a series of severe ear infections that left me with very garbled hearing. And so I developed a speech impediment.

Okay. So I would slur my words. I had a Lisp and I went to a speech therapist, a wonderful woman who worked with me for a year. And one of the things that she had me do was to light a candle, which is probably not something you want to do with an eight-year-old. But she would have me say W-H words and the candle flame was supposed to move. Yes. So you're supposed to say when, right?

And the candle should move. But when you say the word, when the candle should not move. Okay. Because W-H-E-N should aspirate when, and W-E-N-T should not aspirate, went. Wow. So when you say these, it should be weather, weather.

Okay. I don't think any of us are doing that. No? Okay. Well. My Texan says weather, weather. Thank you to my speech therapist. Thank you to,

speech therapist everywhere. Truly. Okay. So what about this internal voice she's hearing? So, you know, she says, I can't not think of all the cost, which seems like a double negative. Yes.

You know, please, people. No, no. There is no problem with double negatives. Okay. No problem. all. You shouldn't. Language is not multiplicative. In other words, you know how people say, oh, two negatives, that's a positive. That's in math. It is not in language. Language is, okay. Language is additive. Yeah. The more negatives you add, the more negative it is. Okay. I don't want

you ever, never, never, ever to do that again. Yeah, I just got. It just got stronger. So, yeah, it got stronger. I piled three negatives together. You shouldn't have to say, okay, no. And then positive. And then, oh, negative. Yeah, right.

Language is additive. Okay. So I have no problem with a double negative. Can't not think of all the cost. I kind of like it here. That's a fun lesson for us all. Thank you for that. Well, I mean, you know, Shakespeare uses it for good of sakes.

So we're all allowed. So you're all allowed. Yeah, you know, multiple superlatives. Like, you know, when Mark Anthony is giving his speech about Julia Caesar, this the most unkindest cut of all, you know, here, read through Caesar. Yeah, so this the most unkindest cut of all.

He doesn't mean it's nice. It's not multiplicative, it's additive. Okay, so I like the line and the things that will be lost. Oh, can we just get a pause? You know, now she wants to pause, which is ironic because in the previous stanza we had in the previous second verse, she didn't like those pause. She didn't like where her mind made her stuff. To be certain will be tall again. I think tall is a metaphor.

Right. She wants to stand up again. She wants to be upright again. Depression leaves you flat. So she wants, you know, she wants to feel better. She wants to have purpose and have perspective. She wants to remember what it was all worth. what she was fighting for.

Right. So, you know, again, I think the lines echo one another really, really well. And then we have weather, weather, be the frost. Okay, frost's a metaphor, right, frozen, death-bringing, wiltz plants, or the violence of the dog days. Okay, what are dog days? Summer. It's summer. Dog days are the hot days of summer.

they're from the middle of July to the early part of August. It's when summer is steamyest, worst. Interestingly enough, you know, as a folklorist, I have to stop and think, okay, dog days are used a variety of ways in folk literature. Okay. You know, frequently the miasma of terrible swamps breed poison in the dog days of summer. Okay. So you don't want to go near a swamp or near bodies of water.

What's the very next line about? Oh, on a wave. I'm on waves. Oh, no. Yeah, so, you know, I'm wondering. Well, that's fun. I'm wondering if she's tapping into folk literature. It's also believed that wounds don't heal in the dog days of summer.

Yeah. Yeah, I know. That's kind of fun, too. You're saying so much. Just about that one line. It's just folklore, right? it's also believed that anything you drink can turn to poison in the dog days of summer. Ooh, I know, all three work, right?

And, you know, maybe wounds don't heal that the, you know, the old folk idea is because it makes it wounds harder to close, because it is hot and sultry and you sweat and your body doesn't let it close, let a wound close. And it may be that, you know, that folklorists have it that anything, saying water can turn to poison because, in fact, insects breed. And if you drink water that is, you know, pulled out of a standing pool, you know, you're likely to have some kind of insect or something in there that's terrible for you and you die. So it could be literal poison. Okay.

Any of those are fun. Yeah. So it's that, okay, so I've got one more for you for the dog days. Okay. I like this one best. Okay. So again, I'm also a classicist, right? Okay.

So in classical literature, the dog days are when Sirius rises, the star, the dog star, you know, one of the brightest stars in the sky. It's in the constellation of Candace Major. So in the summertime, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, you look out and you see Orion who's got his outstretched arms, and then at his feet, you see the four star, primary star, constellation of Canis Major. Yeah. Okay.

So, Canis Major was thought to have like strange or frightening portents. So in the Iliad, for example, when Achilles rides out to kill Hector, he does so as the dog star is rising. He kills Hector in the dog days. I'm Anna Mena And like my music My Cable My Cable And I'm

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Empecia. Interesting. Yeah. Seneca, the Elder, actually writes a tragedy that takes place in the dog days. Okay. Yeah, for that same reason. And I think that in one of Virgil's, I can't remember whether it's, probably should have looked it up, it's in one of his bucolics or one of his echologues, maybe in his bucolics, he talks about the dog days. Huh.

I know, it's a really interesting image. I'm glad she used it here. I think it works in a lot of different ways. And she's on the waves out being, I'm moving on from dog days. Okay, yeah, I'm moving along with you. Sorry. I was just staring at it thinking. Yeah, a lot of stuff.

I like the folklore ideas. Me too, because I mean, this is like the folklore era. I know. And she's drinking poison and it's the wound that doesn't heal. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's kind of fun. Yeah. And it's the body of water that breathes out the sickness.

And then we're going water. I'm on the waves out being tossed. You remember she's unmoored. So here we are. We're stretching that. We're continuing that metaphor across two stanzas, maybe a conceit. And she asks, is there a line that I could just go cross? Yeah, is there something I can get over, get across?

And I'm not sure if it means more than that. I wondered about being crossed. You know, she talks about being crossed earlier. Yeah, double crossed. Yeah, double crossed. So I'm not sure. It may also link in that way. And now she's shipwrecked.

And when I was shipwrecked, again, a metaphor, right? She's somehow or another she got busted up in July. Yeah. Extended throughout across the dog days into November and December. can't think of all the costs now. I thought of you, all the things that would be lost now in the cracks of light. So I think the cracks of light, she's getting better. What do you know?

Yeah, she's finally coming out of the gray. Something breaking through the gray. Can we just get a pause? So now we're pausing the gray. I dreamed of you to be certain we'll be tall again. We've got this kind of echoing voice, kind of, pressing her along in her recovery. If you think of all the cost, it was real enough.

Weather, weather be the frost. You're going to hear me say, whether, weather, to get me through, or the violence of the dog days. The violence now of the dog days. I love that. Or the violence of the dog days. She repeats it out on waves being tossed. I'm on waves out being tossed

But I swear is there a line that we can just go cross? You were there So she's getting better Someone's pulling her up and rescuing her I'm loving that this could be her voice in her head Yeah Okay so let's pause and talk about that Yeah because you were there like the real the real me The healed version of me that remembers what

what we were fighting for that was moored, that knew what was going on. Well, and she has been writing letters to the fire, and she has been trying to remember. She's been trying to get past, and she has been trying to remember the good things, not just the bad things. So she's hearing this voice. Okay, so let me throw some psychological interpretation. Okay. Okay.

So I'm going to use CG Young, Carl Gustavus Young, one of Freud's disciples. Okay. Now, you know, Jung has been thrown back and forth about people who like him and don't like him, who have debunked his ideas. But I'm going to talk about it here because I like it. And for me, because I like, I don't know if anyone's ever seen the hero of a thousand faces by Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell talks about the monomyth, how all stories are one story.

and in the monomith, our hero goes on a journey, and the hero gets a guide. Okay. And the guide is the anima. In the Odyssey, for example, his anima is clearly Athena. She's his guide. Okay. And so the Latin word, Anima means spirit.

So it's a spirit guide. that's the feminine form of the word. The masculine form would be onymus. Okay. So maybe she has an onymus. Okay. She has a dream manifestation, an internal part of herself. The onimus, anima is usually controsexual, which means if you're a woman, you have an animus.

If you're a man, you have an anima. Okay. It's like the other part of you, the other. Half of you. So the onymus for a woman tends to be that logical side of herself, that rational side of herself, that assertive side of herself. Okay. So she's trying to rediscover in her own voice that onymus. She's trying to listen to that spirit guide that reaches out and says, you know, don't think of all the cost.

Let's get past this. We're together. You know, let's be logical. Let's be assertive. right. I really love this. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I like it.

You know, I mean, I like Joseph Campbell's idea that every hero has this kind of spirit guide. He also uses as an example, Star Wars. Okay. Yeah, Joseph Campbell says that Luke Skywalker, for example, has a guide or a couple of them. You know, he's given the spirit guide. of Obi-One Canobi, and then he has another spirit guide of a little green guy. Yeah. Do or do not.

I know him. There is no try. You know, who despite the depression that we see, you know, in the second of that first trilogy, the first original, the original trilogy, the Empire Strikes Back. You remember, Luke actually goes into a cave, which could be a symbol of a descent into hell, and he sees a refurb. reflection of himself. That is when the mask flies off of Darth Vader whom he appears to slay, it's Luke himself.

It's himself that he's battling. It's your own inner thoughts that are your worst demons and your best help. And interestingly enough, George Lucas says, yes, he read Joseph Campbell's hero of a thousand

faces when he was writing Star Wars. That's fun. Yeah. So it's no surprise that it looks a little like Odysseus and his anima, Athena. So, yeah, this appears a lot of places. And before I found, I realized this is an actual voice singing. I thought, oh, wouldn't it be cool if this is like anonymous? And she's listening to that other side of herself.

And she's using the logical and the rational and the assertive self in order to control the, you know, the side. that's awash in these depressive emotions, you know, and try to reconfigure, reintegrate herself, these two halves of herself in this song. And that's what I was thinking, you know, oh, she's reintegrating two halves of herself. And that's why we get to the chorus, which is a little happier.

Yeah. Right? That's why we get to that last line of the bridge. You were there. Yeah. You were, I was there for myself. I pulled myself out of this. I created my own opalite.

That's what I was just about to say Because like in the cracks of light That feels a little bit like dancing through the lightning strikes I think so too Yeah Yeah Yeah and then I looked up and said Oh no this is just another guy singing

It's just a guy But I still think it works It absolutely works Especially if you're saying that it would be a male Yeah it would generally for her Generally for her be a male voice And that other side of herself You know that other half of your personality

So you just blew my mind That's my big break on Evermore Well, so you know we talked a lot about psychology In the anti-hero episode And we did have a few different people Message us and say that it was very Jungian

Oh really? And sent me some links Like a few different people sent me links to like This is kind of you know So I don't know It just all kind of like Ties together There you go here's to Carl Gustavus Young

Yeah You know I actually used them to write a paper once in my grad school years working on an MA in English. Yeah. Yeah, that just blew my mind a little. That feels, that feels, I know there's no correct, but that feels correct. Well, and I don't know if she intentionally does this or if it emerges out of her own psyche. Right.

You know, and either way works for me. You know, I think that we all listen to the multiple voices of ourselves. and hopefully there aren't too many. So she ends with the chorus and the outro. And I was catching my breath. And this time I think catching my breath literally means breathing again. I was literally like coming down from the bat or coming up, I guess. Floors of a cabin creaking under my step.

And I couldn't be sure I had a feeling so peculiar. This pain wouldn't. be forever. So she changed it to the pain's not going to last forever. It's a new realization. And you know, I thought about those images you've shown me in some of the songs that you played for me. They're in what looks like a cabin and she's got what looks like a flannel shirt on. Yeah. They're singing.

Yeah, Longpont. Yes. Yes. That long pond? That's, yeah, that's the studio. It's called Longpond. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I kind of wondered if that's what she was echoing here. Yeah, it feels that way. And then we have the outro, which is just ever more, ever more, ever more. This pain wouldn't be forever more, ever more. I do have to throw a couple of poems at you.

Okay, please. First of all, yeah, I did run off a copy of the Raven, and I read back through to see other links. And, yeah, Edgar Allan Poe says, for the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore, nameless here for evermore. And interestingly enough, in the poem there is a bust of palace, and that would be Palace Athena. I know. It all just connects.

Well, and the speaker of the poem, The Raven, is maybe having the same internal dialogue. You know, this freaky raven comes in through an open window. Oh, there's an open window. We're catching our death. Yeah, so there's an open window and he's feeling depressed and he's having this conversation with the Raven. And the Raven stops and lands on the bust of Palace Athena. She's the goddess of the mind, the goddess of wisdom. And so, in fact, he may be having a conversation with himself.

Wow. And that's what this poem is about. You really just busted this wide open for me. I do have one more poem Okay And I you know Again I don't know that she stops and thinks about this poem But I love it

So I'm going to show it to you It's Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare Oh who's that So it's one of his 100 plus sonnets And it's one of the more famous ones So some of you guys may have heard this Went in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes

All Alone be weep my outcast state and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries and look upon myself and curse my fate. So he's not feeling well in the same way that she's not. I love the line, he troubles deaf heaven. So you're praying and is anybody listening? Oh, it's not hearing you. Nobody's hearing you.

It's death. Yeah, there's not a wasted word in a Shakespearean. Yeah. And so he talks about. how he wishes he could be like other people at this time. And he ends with the last quatrain and couplet. He says, yet in these thoughts myself almost despising happily, I think, on thee. And then my state, like to the lark at break of day arising from sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate, for thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings that then I'd scorn to change

my state with kings. So in the poem he thinks of someone else and that other person, just the support he has from that other person and maybe his inner self brings him around out of the depression and then he would

never want to be anyone other than the person he is. I like that. I mean, it's kind of a sonnet, poetic reworking of this song. So kids, when you're writing your poetry, one thing you could do is take a song by Taylor Swift and rewrite it in a different format.

Oh, that's fun. Yeah, could you take this song and rewrite it as all free verse? Or could you take this song and rewrite it as a sonnet? Yeah. One 14-line poem. Take a look and see what a sonnet. Choose your poison. whether you want to write an Italian sonnet or an English sonnet.

But, you know, or could you take it and rewrite it as four quatrains rhymed A-B-A-B-C-D-C-D-E-F-E-F, right? So you interlock the rhyme scheme on every quatrain. But that's a fun exercise. Yeah, do it. Yeah, take somebody else's song and rework it as another kind of poem. No, I want to do it. Okay. I want to hear the song.

Okay. Yes. Okay. Any follow-up? anything you need to say? I don't think so. I feel like you gave me a lot to ponder on here. Okay.

We are going to watch the lyric video. And then I think we will just watch the Evermore and Peter mashup from the Ears Tour. Okay. We'll be right back. Okay. Okay. Forgive me Peter, but this pain wouldn't be forevermore. Yeah.

Gooseys everywhere. I'm okay, really. But I will tell you that, okay, first of all, just the song. Yes, just the song. The song is really good. You know, obviously the, at first I didn't like his raspy, falsetta voice, but then later on I thought, no, it's got this kind of airy quality. If it's the ghost-like second self, if it's the voice in your head, if it's the animus,

then, you know, I don't want, I don't want a beautiful baritone. Yeah, it's got to be a little spooky. Right. And so I thought it worked. Regarding the mashup, I think that's brilliant to pair those two songs. I do too. I mean, think about if I'm right about this being an internal dialogue, right? If, you know, then we've got ourselves, I've got me talking to me, right?

And so I'm saying, you know, that there is light around the corner and there are things beyond the sad moments. And, you know, that I've got to remember to be in touch with those. And when I hold on to that, you know, as a thought, then that's when the light breaks through. And in Peter, she's having a kind of internal dialogue, you know, because Peter is our childlike self. You know, and so we all have a Peter inside us. You know, the sad thing is we tend to lose it as we grow up. Right. You know, and so I think that it's got that great line where they're both,

where they're flying in different directions. Crossing our jets, crossing your jet stream. Crossing the jet strains. Yes, she's flying on this, you know, human-made vehicle, and Peter is flying on the wings of imagination, right, on her imagination, of our imaginations when we touch our childhood self. Yeah.

You know, so we all have those things inside us, you know. And by matching up the two songs, she really underscores that idea that these are both conversations with the self. Agreed. Yeah. It's really nice. Yeah. I just, that mashup is like next level to me. In the way that she's at the towards the end, she starts singing the Evermore part over the piano, the Peter like Waltz.

It's just like so fun. That is actually captured in the Aeros Tour documentary because that was one of the last shows that she sang that at. And so they show her like rehearsing it in the backstage with just her family there. And she just she finishes it. And then she just looks at her mom and she goes, ever more. And Peter, woof. Like she like knows that it's like rough, like really emotional. Like they work well together.

But yeah, I just thought that was so fun. And I felt like I needed to share it with you. I think that's cool. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it is that we, you know, somewhere inside of us, we've got our childish self, we've got our logical self, our emotional self, and it's the reintegration of all those cells that make us whole. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Good stuff. It is good. Yeah, I think it's, I like it better than when I was reading it yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it really brings it to life a little bit, especially with the Peter.

Yes, I almost like the Peter mashup better than the song. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Okay, you ready to grade our little Evermore? Let's grade, yes. Okay. For Evermore from Evermore. Lyrical Strength.

Lyrical strength. Very, you know, the dialogue between Taylor Swift and herself, I think. is really fun and not anything I've seen yet. Yeah, yeah. I mean, unless you want to count Peter where she's talking to Peter.

Yeah, but that's just one. This, they kind of come together. It's like a little bit different. Yeah. So 99. Oh, my goodness. It was higher than I thought it was going to be. Narrative and structure.

You know, it's very strong with the time frame, you know, July. November and December, light breaking through. You know, assumably turning the corner on a new year, right? She doesn't name January, but I think that the new year is just around the corner. So I thought it was good on 95. Okay. Production and Atmospheric.

Yeah, I liked his voice better than I thought I would when you first started playing it for me. This is not their only collab. Oh, is it right? There's one on folklore as well. Any good? Yeah, that's Chase's favorite. Oh, is that right? Yeah, and he's like, why aren't y'all doing the exile?

And I'm like, we'll get there. Yeah, I mean, you know how much I like pinks. Just Give Me a Reason. This song is so good. I think so, too. Yeah, I mean, I can't help but that. That's a shower song where you can't help but sing. So, yeah, what was the question?

Production and atmosphere. Oh, production and atmosphere. A 95. Okay, yeah. Then we have lore and literary references. Ooh, you know, if she's really going for the onybous, if she's really giving us dog days with those folklore images of poison and wounds that don't heal, then, oh, that's a 99.

If she's just throwing dog eggs out there because it's July, then it's a, it's a 88. Oh, no. Do we need to go in half there? Yeah. It's like, Taylor, what, how intentional is this? And I'm going to, maybe I'll split the difference and say, I'm going to give, credit her for it being intentional and say 94. Okay.

And emotional impact. Oh, you know, the whole thing about hitting pause where you don't want to was emotional for me. and hearing Peter mixed with it is really, really good. It really takes it up a notch. I know, you know, when we were listening to it, we didn't say anything for about a, I don't know, a full 45 seconds or minute. Yeah.

You're not allowed to talk during Peter. I know. And my comment was, yeah, it's like talking in church. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, anything else? No, it was fun.

It was fun to see something a little different in the bridge. Yeah. I enjoyed that. I love that bridge. The rest of the song, I could take or leave. But that bridge is, it's just beautiful to me. Yeah, actually, it was for me too. When I was reading through the first page where you had the first two verses, I thought,

uh, this is okay. Can I tell you my revelation for the week? Okay. Before we go. Okay. My revelation for the week. So I was listening to Zyde, music this week.

Okay. Me too. Well, because it's, you know, we passed Fat Tuesday. And so I thought, I saw all the pictures from New Orleans and Rio and that kind of thing. And so Zytoco in America is a big part of the New Orleans celebration. So I was listening to some of that great music. And Hank Williams Jambalaya came on. Okay.

And when I was thinking about it, I thought, you know. Now, Hank Williams might be the country western 1950 version of Taylor Swift. Interesting. Okay. I know. It's weird. And I know you're going to say immediately, well, that's weird. But think about the music.

He wrote like 160 songs, and half of them, I swear, are things like, I got the lonesome blues. Or your window shopping. Do you know the song? No. Your window shopping. Just window shopping, you're only looking around. Okay, okay, I don't know that. It's addressed to his girlfriend, and he says, you don't want true love.

Oh, so she's window shopping relationships. Right, okay. Or he talks about going down to the river, but the river was dry in another song where he sings the lonesome blues, you know, because he wants to throw himself in the river and drown himself, but there's no water there, which is an image of death as well. Right, right, right. So, yeah, he's got all these songs about terrible relationships or things that go wrong or things that end poorly. And he's, by the way, highly misogynistic.

But if he can get past that. As per the time. 1950s, you know, you can't forgive them for being that way. No, but you have to accept that it was different. He died at 29. Did he really? Yeah. Oh, wow.

Yeah, very young. prolific for such a young age. And he wrote a lot of religious music. I saw the light, you know. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Hank Williams.

Hank Williams, Jr., pretty good, too. Yeah. I feel like I know more Hank Williams Jr. And now we have Hank Williams, Trace. Do we really? Oh, yeah. Is he a singer? He is.

Oh, look at that. Oh, I know. When will it end? How many will there be? Yeah, I don't know. So this is Jerry's hot take of the week. Hank Williams, you know, crying about having the lonesome blues may just be a little touch of Taylor Swift in the 1950s.

Taylor before Taylor. That's right. Okay. Now, I assume she's happier. Yes, we do assume. She's got some opalite now. I hope so. Okay.

Is that all? That's all. Okay. Another one done. Make sure you're subscribed everywhere. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, rate and review where you can, wherever you can, wherever you listen, make sure you're following us on TikTok and Instagram at Swiftian Scholar Pod. You can follow Uncle Jerry on Instagram at Dr. Uncle Jerry, Dr. Uncle Jerry, and you

can follow me at Angela Wyatt McDow on Instagram. Okay. All right. We'll see you next week. Hi. Bye.