The Swiftie and The Scholar - The Lives We Didn’t Live in The 1

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

We have the opening track of folklore for you today! Uncle Jerry and Angela discuss the relatable way Taylor Swift writes about the ruminations about the different lives we never got to live during this discussion of The 1. *Links with an asterisk are affiliate links, which allow us to make a small commission on your purchase at no cost to you. Thanks so much for your support!Works Cited:The Windhover – Gerard Manley HopkinsEllipsisCaesuraErnest Hemingway’s Iceberg TheoryContrafactualitySight rhyme or eye rhyme*The Great Gatsby – F. Scott FitzgeraldTrochaic HexameterThe Swiftie and The Scholar Grading MatrixFollow Us:Patreon⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠Threads⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠Uncle Jerry’s InstagramAngela’s YouTube Channel

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You gotta try breakfast. I'm participating A&W locations in Ontario. To The Swiftie and The Scholar, the podcast where we examine the lyrics, lore, and literary legacy of Taylor Swift. I am Angela McDow, the Swifty. And I am Dr. Jerry Coach, the ever serious scholar. a yoga aficionado apparently. How are you doing, Uncle Jerry? I very well indeed. Thank you.

Good. We're still trekking along through folklore. Love it. Everyone is a different challenge. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Okay. I like the one today. Okay, good.

Yeah, I mean, I liked it because it's about romance, but it's not a, you know, weepy. Oh, I lost, you know, my love. But yeah, I mean, it has a unique twist. It does, it does, yeah. Okay, this is the opening track from folklore. Oh, you mean it's the number one track? Yes, so today we are going to tackle the one.

And I just want to set the scene for like the first time I heard this because I'll never forget it. Much like I'll never forget where I was when I heard the lyrics, you kept you like a secret. I kept you like an oath for the first time. I will never forget. So this was in July of the pandemic. I was not, I was working from home.

And so because it was summer, it was hot, I lived in a loft that was literally just four walls in downtown Dallas, which I was fine. Like I was doing great being by myself. I was kind of thriving, just me and Juniper hanging out all the time. But we were, or Juniper and I were going to my parents a lot, and I would just stay with them for a few days, and we would swim,

and Juniper would be able to run around, and, you know, she was a puppy then. And so I was at my parents' house. I woke up to start working, and the first thing I did, of course, was open my phone to scroll before getting out of bed. It's a great habit. You should all try it. They already do. Yeah, you're right.

Especially Thursdays. Yeah. And I open up Instagram and the first thing I see is a post from Taylor and I'm like, what is this girl doing? And she just announced that she wrote a whole album, made a whole album and it was coming out that night at midnight. And I lost my mind. I remember getting up and be like, Taylor, there's an album.

There's an album. I remember my dad being like, okay. And I was like, no, you don't understand. You didn't go, well, whatever. No, I definitely did not. That was my dad's reaction. I love Joe He was just like

Why are you freaking out? It's just some music And I'm like, no, I don't think you understand So I just remember so specifically Trying to get through that workday Probably did a whole lot of nothing And then the album came out that night And hearing the first chords of the one

Was just like so magical It sounded so different She immediately says like I'm doing new stuff in the first line And I just, that same feeling every time I start folklore from the beginning, like, comes over me. It's like this weird, like, nostalgic, like, that was such a magical moment. And so even though this isn't my favorite song on folklore, something about those chords, like, are inside of here, you know? Mm-hmm.

I don't know. That's a fun story. I just like. I wonder how many other people have that same. Probably, like, millions. Yeah, you know, I mean, given the, you know, given the nature. of the pandemic and given the nature of her fan following, I would think that there are a lot of people Yeah.

Yeah, very excited. Yeah, just losing my mind and my dad being like, first of all, why is this grown woman in my house? Like, why is she not at her own house? Why is her dog here? And why is she running around freaking out about new music, you know? But yeah, just like, it's just, it was just such a moment that we just, I never expected. I don't think she expected. I don't think anybody else expected.

So just a fun, fun little mem talking about this fun. That's a fun story. Okay. No, not hoax. We just did hoax. What are we talking about? The one. This is also Taylor and Aaron Destner written and Aaron Destner produced, which is pretty

common for this album. It is. In the last few weeks of this. Okay. All you. I love it that she does something different here. And so I think that's fun. Yeah, fun.

and this is a type of poem. So I always like to point that out, especially because I know some of you like to write poetry or your kids like to write poetry. So this is a fun poem to write. It's a what-if poem. Okay. She used the phrase, what if, several times.

And so you guys should try it, you know. Have your kids write it or you write a what-if poem. And you can say, what-if about anything. So I have a couple of examples for you. This is Paula Goldsmith, contemporary poet, and she's written the poem, What if the old lighthouse could speak? What would it say?

She says, The old lighthouse wants to say about the cold clouds of gray when it rained all night and day with the keeper wanting to pray. Then the sun would come out to play, making the blue sky a pretty high way. This old lighthouse saw many ships.

Some sailed by, smashed like a souffle. Oh, that's fun. I know, I thought, like a souffle is kind of fun. So it goes on. It's just like, what would the lighthouse say about all the things it sees, you know, day to day? Yeah. So that's a fun one.

Probably more famous is the poem by Shell Silverstein. Icon, legend. Terrific. Obsessed with Shel Silverstein. Which is how we got here, I think. I know. I know, right? I bet the second I'm sorry.

I said Shel Silverstein, there were, you know, a lot of people who went, oh, yeah. You know, a great poet who gives something for adults, something for mature readers, and, of course, a lot for young readers. Yeah. So this is his poem, What Ifs? Last night, while I lay thinking here, some what ifs crawled inside my ear and pranced and partied all night long and sang their same old what if song. What if I'm dumb at school? What if they've closed a swimming pool? What if I get beat up?

What if there's a poison in my cup? What if I start to cry? What if I get sick and die? What if I flunk that test? What if green hair grows on my chest? What if nobody likes me? What if a bolt of lightning strikes me? What if I can't grow tall?

What if my head starts getting smaller? What if the fish don't bite? What if the wind tears up my kite? What if they start a war? What if my parents get divorced? What if the bus is late? What if my teeth don't grow in straight? What if I tear my pants?

What if I never learn to dance? Everything seems well. And then the nightmare, what if strike again? I had to read the whole thing. I love that so much. But also, that poem needs like Lexa Pro or something. You know, so anxious. I know, but it's just like a kid laying in bed.

No, absolutely. It's very relatable. I know, right. Well, it's so funny because, you know, my grandkids all went back to school on Tuesday and Wednesday. And so, and you know them all well. I do. And I do have to say they all had their anxious moments. Yeah.

You know, I mean, Haley is starting her last year of high school. She's a senior. That's so crazy. Yes, I know I look youthful, but I got married when I was 10. But she's just starting her last year of high school, and she's all trepidacious. What's senior year like? You know, she said, I asked her yesterday when I picked her up. I said, so what was it like?

And I said, did you feel like you own the school? She said, I had the weirdest feeling. I felt like I owned the school, and I felt like it was the first day I ever walked in. Oh. I know. And she's wondering about college. What if I don't get in? What if I, you know, can't find a room?

What if my best friend doesn't want to come with me? What if, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Gillian just started ninth grade. She's going to high school. And, you know, she was such a mix of excitement and trepidation, you know. And then Oliver started seventh grade. He's in the same middle school, which is very comforting, but his sister's not there.

Right. And it is a, you know, they are such good friends. and his sister's a comfort to him. So, yeah, there are a lot of what-ifs in our lives. What-ifs really do just creep right in your ear. And so write a what-if poem. Yeah. This is a what-if poem.

Yes. It's a lot of other things. So we should talk about the one. Okay, let's do it. You know, for a serious poem, she does use a lot of humor. Agreed, yeah. In this poem, which I found really enlightening. The title, I think, is she,

humorous with the numerical one because it is the number one track in the album. Yes. And I'm sure she's alluding to that. And so she's having fun with it. Yeah, on this one, the one is the first track. Seven is the seventh track. August is the eighth track. Oh, that's fun.

It's the eighth month. Yeah, so there is like a lot of intentional feeling behind the track listing, I think. So why is October the 10th month? Because of Julius Caesar. Congratulations. I didn't know what you do. Wow, all right. I'm so impressed.

I'm proud. Thank you. But I'm not proud that you chose. We should do a poem with the word S-H-I-T. You said it yourself on the last episode. I know, I did. E. E. Cummings said it. E.E. Cummings.

If it's good enough for E.E. Cummings, it's good enough for Taylor. I was quoting Cummings, yes. Yeah, and you know, you referred to her as Taylor, and it's such a funny thing. He's like you're just that close. That's been my friend for 20 years. I know. Okay. Well, Gerard Manley Hopkins has been my friend for longer than that.

I don't call him Gerard. Well, maybe you should think about it. Also, it's hard to say. Gerard. It doesn't really flow off the tongue. It doesn't. But Windover is one of my favorite poems. Okay, verse one.

Yes. First of all, in the poem, we should also, first of all, We should also note there's lots of fun rhyme going on here. You know, inside of poems at the ends of lines, you know, she does like to be very playful with the rhyme. She says in the very first, I'm doing fine. Well, there's an afro that starts four of the first six lines of the poem. In verse one, right? She says, I'm doing, I thought, I hit, you know, it goes on, right?

Yeah. So it's very self-focused. She's really inside of her head and speaking out of her own mouth. She says, I'm doing good. Okay, very conversational on tone, right? And as a reader, we should wonder, wait. You know, first of all, doing good. It should be I am well.

Yes. Right. But no, it's conversational addiction. Yeah, like I'm good. I'm doing good. We say that all the time. Yeah. So it's like she's talking to with a friend or speaking in her own head again, being conversational.

I'm doing good. I'm on some new shit. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands of. in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer.

Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. You've got to try breakfast. And what better way than with a delicious pre-organic coffee? Starting with just $1 all day, every day. until December 31st. You gotta try breakfast. I'm participating in W locations in Ontario. Can you imagine?

Put yourself into that scenario I was talking about earlier where we didn't know this album was coming. And then it opens up with this line. And you're like, you know what, Taylor? On both counts. She's okay. Well, I know.

I mean, I know this is her COVID album. Yeah. And, you know, the question is, well, how are you doing with COVID? how are you doing without your audience? As you pointed out, Mirrorball, you know, is one where she laments the audience. So, no, she says she's doing new stuff. That's okay.

Yeah. You know, we have a little juxtaposition. The speaker claims to be moving forward. Oh, but we're really looking backwards in this, aren't we? Yeah, we are. Yes. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, the rest of the poem kind of belies that.

She, you know, and she doesn't begin. and emotionally. Personally, I find that refreshing. You know, she just says, I'm okay. You know, she just sort of comes out mundane stuff. I'm on some new shit. Okay. Now, what does that mean?

I'm on some new shit. Yeah, that's very, like, slang colloquial. It is. People will say, like, I'm on my, I don't even know another phrase that you would say that. But it's like, this is like, I'm on this. New Journey, basically. Right.

Yeah. Actually, you are on a New Journey. You are in your podcast era. I am in my podcast era. You are. Yeah, I hope it didn't mean she's like on drugs. No, no, no. Right.

You know, the tone, and I don't often speak about tone, but it usually comes out in our conversation, but the tone immediately she sets a sort of breezing. self-assured, you know, everything's cool, I'm okay. Yeah. And then she goes on and says, been saying yes instead of no. Now she ellipses the word I. Right, yes. Which appears in practically every other line of the verse.

Yeah. But we know it's there. It's understood. I have been saying yes instead of no. Again, very conversational. It's also kind of metaphorical. Yes, no. you know, she's moving forward incrementally.

Right. Okay. So it's also spatial and temporal imagery, right? She describes herself as moving forward. Right? So instead of backwards, I'm regressing. You know, the speaker is kind of in the present, and later on we're going to hear about a relationship that was in the past.

So she's speaking in the present. You know, almost ironically, this is a poem about memory, but we never hear the word memory. You know, it's kind of funny, or we don't hear it immediately, right? Yeah, that is interesting. Because, yeah, she's just taking us through the movements and the motions and the things,

but we never really, yeah, that's interesting. And I also wondered how much the pandemic was on her mind when she's writing this, because it is the first track of the pandemic album, and she says, you know, I'm okay. By implication, I think she was hoping, that we're all okay to. Exactly.

Yes. I'm okay. I've been saying yes to stuff. Hope you guys are okay. Yeah. But she talks about physical movement, been saying yes instead of no, but she's also talking about psychological movement, right?

And so eventually this becomes a psychological hope. Yeah, yeah. I thought I saw you at the bus stop. I didn't though. Okay, the bus stop, I'm sure everybody has pointed out. everybody's pointed out is a cafe in New York. It's just about to have to bring that up. Were you?

Yeah. Tell us about it, Angela. Well, that's all I was going to say is that there's a, that is the theory that she's not talking about an actual bus stop, that she's talking about this cafe that she was maybe like driving by in New York City. I don't know how I feel about that. I don't know. I think it's ambiguous for a reason.

She does mention the high line and elsewhere. Yeah. She mentions New York. Yeah. I think this is a possible illusion. I wrote it down mostly because I've been there. So I thought, all right. It's also a Sciura, as was the first line.

And now I shouldn't even have to point Sychira out to you guys. Yeah, we know that one. So we have this break in the middle of the line. One of the things I like about the poem, one of the things I like about her style of writing, you know, a couple of weeks ago I talked about the iceberg. Yes. Right?

She loves iceberg writing. She loves that Hemingway-esque style. So this is narrative compression. This is an iceberg. I thought I saw you. I didn't, though. You know, so. Yeah, like what does that mean?

Right. Did she see that other person she's thinking about? Was she merely thinking about them? Is she literally talking to them? Is she rethinking them? Yeah. Or did their hologram just. pop up right there at the bus stop.

Yeah, she doesn't have to say, I was on the street of the corner of and give a location. She doesn't have to describe the bus stop. She doesn't have to say any of those things. The precision in phrasing doesn't really require the whole story. Right, yeah. We get it.

Yeah, I like this line because I feel like it's a thing that she does often, where it's like when you're missing someone or when someone's not in your life anymore and you, like, feel like you see them everywhere, you know? Yeah. There's a line from red. I think it's in Holy Ground where she says, I see your face in every crowd.

Like, it's just like you're just always, like, hoping to, like, run into this person or see this person. You're, like, missing them so bad, you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah, they're always like they're omnipresent in front of your face, and somehow or the other. Yeah.

Oh, the other line gets us in trouble. Okay. I hit the ground running each night. I mean the very first read through, I read that line, I went, well, because I hit the ground running sounds like an energetic happy thing, right? Each night? Well, no, the cliche is I hit the ground running every day. Oh, it's night. Night is a different meaning, right?

It changes the idiom. So this is an idiomatic phrase. I hit the ground running. Uh-huh. probably refers to one of several different theories. There are a bunch of theories about it. I am the history guy, and so there was the idea that the Pony Express riders would leap off their horses

and change horses at different Pony Express stops. So for those of you who don't know, we used to have a mail circuit that went all the way across the United States called the Pony Express. And it operated for a couple of years. It was very important to get messages all the way across the 3,000 mile expanse of the United States. And so the riders would carry mail,

and they would carry like one satchel of mail, fairly light load, no big Amazon packages. And they would jump off their horse at different spots where a horse would be waiting for them. So they would hit the ground running and jump onto the next horse. Interesting. Okay. There are other people who say, no, no, that's not it, that it refers to hoboculture.

Okay. Right. That they would jump off a train and hit the ground running to keep from falling. Okay. And as someone who has hopped on trains, I will tell you I never, never hit the ground running. I did almost fall under a train once. Thank goodness my, have I talked you about this? No.

Oh, yeah. So my roommate, my college roommate and I would hop a train. This has nothing to do with the one. That's okay. Jerry's biographical information. At the University of Texas, my good friend, my roommate and I would sometimes hop a train because the trains went right by our apartment on 45th Street. Okay.

And so sometimes we would hop it up to the donut shop, which was a mile up the road, and we would buy donuts all-night donuts, and we would walk back. So these are just like trains that are like carrying, like, Like, they're like not passenger trains. You're just hopping on a train like a freight trains. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like the box car children.

Yes. So we decided we had to do it. And we, he bought cigars because we, you know, they, and a can of two of, of, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Because hobo is always smoked cigars. You just live in the life. Well, he was a, he was a film major and he thought it was a movie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we jumped on this train. The train goes really slow by the tracks there at 45th. And so you just kind of run along and you swing up by the ladder. And we got on top of this like cold car. It was horrible. That's what I was picturing. Black crap blowing on us the whole time.

But we got up and as we went through the city, we would jump up and dance with our legs akimbo smoking cigars. Yeah. These days you would like have to film that for TikTok and go viral. I know, right? and also get arrested. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we did crazy stuff.

I actually jumped from one car to another while it was moving. Yeah, we were in these big, like bauxite, I don't know, it was some kind of sandy material. And so the train was moving like 45 miles an hour. And so I ran and jumped up in the air and the car moved under me. And I kind of, I didn't realize how fast it was moving. I mean, I hit the very end of the car. Yes.

So I am here to tell the tale. Oliver, Oliver, do not do this. No, no. Anyway, I was trying to get on a run. We were trying to get on a box car. And you don't realize box cars are like really tall. And we were trying to get on one because we were down in San Antonio. I need to get back to take a test on Monday morning.

Oh my God. And we're riding all the way from San Antonio to Austin. Yeah. So we, yeah, we, we wrote it all the way. down at Kingsville one. Oh my gosh. Yeah, check a map out. And the car, the trains didn't stop.

They just kept going and kept going. And so we finally decided we were run. And I told my friend, okay, you tell me, tell me when you're going to go. And I looked at him and he had a guard already gone. And so I take off after him and the train was going faster and faster. And I just sort of leaned into the box car. And it was like a bad comedy because I couldn't swing myself up. I'm just hanging there like this with my legs up under the train.

And my roommate grabbed a hold of my jacket, gets hold of my jacket, and he starts pulling it. And it started coming off. Oh, my gosh. And he's pulling my jacket off. But he finally managed to pull me into the car. Oh, my gosh. How did you even survive your life? I know.

I don't know. We did crazy stuff. Anyway, hobo culture. You hit the ground running. Or there is actually a late 19th century mention of a military connection where they hit the ground running. And it may be also, I've read that the paratroopers in World War II hit the ground running. So there are lots of supposed origin. The question in the line is why each knight, right, it changes the idiomatic phrase.

night's a symbol of darkness. So is she staying up all night? Is she trying to distract herself? Is she trying to avoid self-reflection? Yeah, it does feel like, yeah, I'm trying to outrun like the nightmares and the what-ifs that creep in your ear when you're laying in bed, you know?

Right, yeah, so now you've got to reflect back on the word running and think, oh, it's not the idiom. I hit the ground running. It's I'm running from nightmares. I'm running from myself. Yeah. And then I hit the Sunday matinee.

Oh, you know, how many times do we hear her refer to movies? All the time. Last week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So a movie, I think, for her is, you know, a metanarrative. She's outside of her life watching herself.

She's in the audience. You know, the movie, we see it in exile. We see it in hoax. So here it is again. I think I've seen this film before. Yeah. I like the imagery of it. She's seeking activities.

She's seeking entertainment. Notice that it's on Sunday. I think that's symbolic, you know. Should be a day of rest, but she has to fill up her time. Just like the night. You should be resting. You're sleeping and you're running. Her mind is running all the time.

She can't escape these memories or the question, the what-if question that's going to come very soon now. Yeah. Yeah, she's looking for a distraction. And I'm going really fast. I think I'm excited about this. That's okay. This is fun.

Yeah. You know, the greatest films of all time were never made. Oh, she introduces a brand new word for us. Contrafactuality. I know. Write that one down in your notes. Okay, wait, but I already get it. Yeah, contrafactuality.

Yeah, because it's like, she's saying it's basically, a fact that like, because that doesn't make, greatest films of all time could not ever could never be made. Thank you. Yeah. Otherwise, it's not the greatest. Right. Right. So, say it again, contrafactuality.

So it's against what we understand to be rational factuality. Right. Right. So essentially she's imagining alternative realities where this great movie would exist out there except, you know, it was never made. But what if it had been?

It would be the greatest. So she's implying the what if question. Right. Lady, you are a clever writer. She really is. I said this last week. I'm going to say it again.

She's very clever about introducing ideas or thematic material and maintaining it. And here she's already introduced the what if without even having to say would it. Yeah, we don't even, like, how many, how many read-throughs do you think it took you before you understood that she was, what she was asking? You know what? I don't know. 20. Yeah, because I think that line confused me for a long time. Oh, yeah. And then finally, I think I understood, like,

oh, yeah, like, they are maybe one of the greatest films that was never made. Right. You know, and then I finally, like, pulled that thread and, like, kept going with it. But it's, But it took me a long time before, because I was always like, what does this line even mean? Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer.

Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. You gotta try breakfast. And what better way than with a delicious pre-organic coffee? Starting with just $1 all day, every day now until December 31st. You gotta try breakfast at A&W. At participating A&W locations in Ontario. Yeah, so essentially it's also a metaphor. Yeah.

The movie, the unmade movie, is there, in an alternative reality, in the what-if reality, is their unrealized, perfect romance? Or their unrealized romance. She never says it would be perfect. No. But it's the possibility of their romance. And that's when I thought, oh, this is contrafactuality. You know, you see it sometimes in poetry that's a dream vision.

So dream vision is a particular type of poem. Okay. where someone has a dream, like Dante goes down by the river, and he lays back and he has a dream that he visits the inferno, and Virgil takes him on a walk through. You know, so you see dream visions a lot in classical literature. You know, this is kind of a dream vision. It's a reverie in which she remembers the memories of the past,

and then what-ifs them into the future in a contrafactual existence. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's really clever. I think, I mean, it's cool because it hits that universal idea that the most powerful stories are never told, right? We just, we believe that they're out there somewhere or they're what-if somewhere, but we can't tell them because maybe they just never happened. And, yeah, I didn't realize that's what she was introducing until, like, yeah, the 20th century. It takes a while before it's like, what are this girl even saying? Right. The pre-chorus.

Yes. Got to love a pre-chorus. Chorus rhymes. Note the now is a sight rhyme with no and grow. You see N-O-W. Rhymes with K-N-O-W, which sounds like a radio station, and G-R-O-W, right? So it's site rhymes. So we have no and showed.

and grow and now. Interesting. Yeah. Sight rhyme. Yeah. So she is pulling out the stops when it comes to rhyme. Love it.

She says, I guess you never know. And in case you missed it, she says it again. Never know. Never know. Now, if my wife were here, she would tell you that

I personally always make fun of this expression. Oh, like, well, you never know. And I always say, well, eventually you will. I do every single thing. I'm sure she loves that. It always entertains her. Just now, when we were, before we started recording this, we were, I don't even know what we were

talking about, I don't even remember what you said, but you just went off, you said something, and then you went off and told us this like, this is from this time and blah, blah, blah, and we were both kind of just like staring, and then Leslie goes, thank you for that information. I already don't remember what you were saying. Thank you. I'm so glad you held it so close. to your heart and mind. The way she just said, thank you for that information.

I know, she does that to me a lot. It's a way of saying, you know, extraneous, Jerry. That's extraneous, and no one needs an extraneous. I know. I give that kind of information all the time. Okay, so, yeah, you never know. Because you never know, she repeats it. She wants you to think about it because you never know the what-ifs, right?

If you go back and seize a memory from the past and then extrapolate it forward into the future in a contrafactual way, you know, then then what if might happen, right? Yeah. This is a cliche. Yeah. You know, I guess you never know. I think it's one of the central motifs of the poem. Yeah, agreed. You know, because she doesn't know. And so when she speculates on what might have happened in their relationship, She can't, you know, but she knows it would have been fun. Yeah. You know, I like the qualified diction. She says, I guess, and she says, never know.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Because she can't know. Yeah. You know, so she's guessing. No, she's wishful thinking. Right. She's hopeful thinking. And if you wanted me, you really should have showed.

Okay. So we have the introduction of the conditional if. Yes. Right. If you had wanted me, then you should have showed. And like from this point on the rest of the poem really is about what if he had shown that, what if he had shown, you know, any of the other things that Sheila is here? You know, so we essentially shift from this nostalgic memory to a sort of level of accountability.

Mm-hmm. Right? you know, he should have showed it. Or maybe the you, is she talking to herself here? You should have shown it. Yeah, I mean, who knows? I should have shown it. We had this really nice conversational diction that she maintains throughout, you know, should have shown.

Kind of fun, alliterative power. Agreed, yes. I like it's connected to, you know, the use of conversational diction is connected to her voice. connected to her voice. And her voice here has real authenticity. Right. Imagine if she had used formal grammar. Right. It doesn't land the same. It's the tone. The tone would be off.

Yes. I mean, just imagine rereading the poem with conventional formal grammar. I'm doing quite well, although I'm on to some new enterprises. I have been saying, I have been affirming new experiences instead of rejecting them. I thought, nevertheless, I saw you at the bus stop. However, I was mistaken. You know, I mean, just rewrite the poem in formal diction. It doesn't work because it has an authentic voice. It's one of the reasons why we believe her.

Right, exactly, yeah. Because it kind of feels like we're, like, in her head or, like, having, like, a text conversation with her or something, you know, rather than a formal writing or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it also is the way she would think. Like when you're thinking, you think in elipsed sentences and truncated words. Right.

Yeah, you know, so she's inside her own head. So again, I guess that begs the question again. And if you never bleed, you know, look at the conditional language, you're never going to grow. Okay, is she talking to him? Is she talking to herself? Is she talking to both? And us. And all three.

Yeah. Yeah. I think you can apply it any way you want. Metaphorically bleeding is emotional pain, vulnerability, failure, heartbreak, you know. And pain is part of maturation. Right. And this poem, one of the themes, is youthful, wishful thinking versus mature thinking. Yeah, versus like how things actually work out.

Right. Yeah. I like the use of parallel grammar. You know, parallelism, if you're not X, then you can't be Y. You know, if you never bleed, you're never going to grow. The parallelism gives it almost, you know, an aphoristic quality, you know, like as if it's a proverb. As if it's like one of the things Marjorie said to her. Yes, exactly, yes.

Right. Yeah. You know, so she takes that Sychura, that parallel grammatic structure, and she turns it aphoristically. I like it. You know, if, you know, if you never get hurt, if you never try things out of the box, if you never have new experiences, you don't grow. Exactly.

Yes. But ironically, what she's not doing is engaging in a lot of growth. Right, because we're back. We're not resting, not sleeping. We're running from our midnight thoughts, maybe. We're also thinking. we saw this person that we used to know everywhere. We're hiding in a movie theater on a Sunday afternoon.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you notice it's a matinee, so she's like staying up late nights and she's in the movie theater in the afternoon. Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting life. Yeah.

But she says, and it's all right now. I'm okay. It's all right. Yeah. I love the brevity here. Me too, yeah. Yeah. It's just so simple.

It is. It's all right. I'm okay. Yeah. That maybe would have been fun, but. Yep. It's kind of like an emotional resolution to the pre-chorus, right? I mean, she's essentially saying, I acknowledge the loss, and it didn't destroy me.

I'm okay. However, we get to the chorus. Yes. But we were something. Don't you think so? Okay. I love the vexed. Agnes, you know, again, she doesn't have to describe the whole scene.

Right. She doesn't have to say, gee, we had witty repartee in our conversation. Or, wow, we were the best lovers ever. Or, you know, she doesn't have to fill in all the blanks. Yeah. Right. It's just we were something. We were something, don't you think so?

Yeah. It's an idiomatic phrasing. It's perfect for this conversational poem. Agreed, yeah. Roaring 20s, tossing pennies in the pool, cultural allusion to the 1920s, possible literary allusion to the Great Gatsby. You know, anytime someone says roaring 20s, I think that always comes up in our head. Yeah, she makes references to the Great Gatsby often.

It's one of those books we throw at high schoolers. You know, I mean, it's only 180 plus pages long, so it's short. It's got great characters. It's got wonderful themes. It's got symbolism. Yeah. You know, the eyes of the doctor and the green light and things like that. Yeah.

I always think that it's fun that she uses roaring 20s here because it is like we're like, you know, I feel like it is like a Gatsby reference. Like we were having a great time. We were having good parties, you know. But I also think that she's referring back to her own 20s, like when she was in her 20s. Oh, wow. I did not think of that. Yeah. That's great.

think that it's both of those. Yeah. Well, see, that's where I was going with the roaring 20s, too, because it's like prior to the Depression. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So, yeah, we had a great, you know, we really were something where we were just partying all night long. Exactly, yeah.

And then the depression hit. And now I'm sitting in the matinee on a Sunday afternoon. Yeah. But I like it that she was in her 20s, her party years. Yeah. Wow. Because, like, tossing pennies in the pool. So it's like, you're just, you're just.

you're just wishing, like when you're in your 20s, you're like hoping for all these things to, like, work out a certain way, you know, and you're wondering, like, where your adult life is going to go. And so that's just where I always like. Yeah. Yeah, I love the whole tossing pennies. So, you know, pennies equal wishes. So their metaphors, you know, the pool is a water dark and deep. And so it's the future. You can't see into it. It's a metaphor. It's also imagery, symbolism. It's got great alliteration, 20s, tossing, pennies, pool. Yeah, and 20s and pennies. 20s, pennies, yeah.

It's like a little bit there. A little internal rhyme. It's got great trocheic hexameter. Of course. It's trokeys, roaring, 20s, tossing pennies in the pool. Nice, yeah. Yeah. So you count it out and you.

you go, oh, it appears six times, trochaic hex, hex means six. And so I wrote in big letters, most poetic line. Yeah, I do really like that line. I know. All it has is two different levels of illusion, imagery, symbolism, alliteration, internal rhyme and trochaic hexameter. Otherwise, it's nothing. Oh, did I mention the Sciura? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. It's got like eight different literary devices going on. And as you pointed out last time, the lines we like tend to be the lines that are heavy in her poetic skills. Yeah, yeah. This is a line heavy in poetic skills. Lovers literally tossing pennies while metaphorically

wishing into the future. Mm-hmm. Oh, and if my wishes came true. Conditional diction, if. If only, you know, just imagine all the wishes you would make when all you could afford to throw was a penny. They're not tossing away half dollars. No, no.

So it is young in their life when they're together. And, you know, what do you wish for? Yeah, love, everlasting love. You know, the house with the picket fence. Good job, a future, children. I don't know. A dog or two. A dog.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, just think about all the different things that people want or hope for. And it says, if they came true, well, she doesn't have to tell us they didn't. Right. And she says, if they had come true, it would have been you. I love the simplicity of the diction. I think it would have been you creates almost the emotional center of the poem.

Right? because what we know is it wasn't. Right. And I think what makes the line so powerful for me is, whereas Roaring 20s tossing pennies in the pool has, like we said, eight different literary devices, this one really has none. It's just straightforward.

It just strips away all the metaphor, all the symbolism, all the glitz, and says, you know, the wish, the one wish that never came true was you. And then she says, in my defense, I have none. It's ironic, it's self-indiding. I do love this. Yeah, it's legal metaphor. It's a cliche. Yeah.

And it's funny. Yes. Right? I mean, here she is in the midst of this memory about a lost, I can't even say failed relation, just lost. We don't know that it was failed. We don't know why it didn't work. But it's not there.

Yeah. And she says, in my defense, and then she kind of stops and thinks, I have no. There's no, there's no defend in me. So she accepts whatever blame there is to be passed out for this lost relationship, for never leaving well enough alone. That's an idiomatic phrase. It's self-indiding. You know, something about their relationship wasn't, didn't.

jive right and she just couldn't keep from poking at that wound from opening that scar. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. And what better way than with a delicious pre-organic coffee? Starting with just $1 all day, every day now until December 31st.

You gotta try breakfast. At participating A&W locations in Ontario. Still hurts underneath those scores. It does, doesn't it? Um, but she kind of shrugs and says, but it would have been fun. It's so understated. Yes, I just like, I really, I really do love the tone of this one because I feel like there's not many songs

in her catalog that are just kind of like reminiscing almost or like yearning, but in a way that it's like, but this isn't like destroying my life. You know, they're, so serious and like so deep and so sad and the tone of this one is just like almost like a

nostalgic remembrance like oh that would have been fun but like oh well you know and she doesn't have to explain what fun what it it was right what it is and what fun is I mean we know yeah it's the whole life it's the span of 50 years you might have spent together yeah yeah if if yeah you know it's almost like a shrug uh-huh you know it's almost just uh would it be fun. Yeah. Yeah, like, oh, that would have been nice, I guess, you know, but we'll never know. You know, and I think you're right. I think the reason why I like it is it's not, she's not blaming anybody, she's not lamenting over anybody, she's not saying she cried over anybody. Yeah. She, you know, she's not accepting blame other than to say, you know, kind of in between,

I have no defense. Yeah, yeah. That doesn't feel like a, like a horrible indictment on anyone, including herself. Yeah. She just says it would have been fun if you would have been the one. Yeah. Again, love the conversation. Would have been the one. Another conditional if.

Nice repetition, you know, would have been. I think it's a central phrase. Agree. First two. Yes. I have this dream. You're doing cool shit. Okay.

If you're going to cuss, and I don't always recommend it. But if you're going to do it, I mean, obviously you do it for the attention factor. Yeah. But also, you know, good writers don't let an image a device drop. And so she starts with shit in the first line. And we're still dumping shit in the first line of the second verse. I mean, that's really well done. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, I think that it, she's teetering back and forth between reality and, and imagined reality. Right. Right. Contra factuality. She says, I have this dream. Yeah. She doesn't know.

Like, I don't know what you're doing. I don't know what you're doing right now. I've been stalking you. Yeah. I've been years. You know, I thought I saw you at the bus stop. Not sure. Yeah.

You know, but she imagines she's hopeful that he's doing well. And so you notice the parallel diction and the parallel structure between the two verses. Having adventures on your own. You know, she says she's doing cool stuff. I hope you're doing cool stuff. I hope you're out there having adventures. You know, she kind of develops this theme of maybe the two lovers, having separate lives. You know, she doesn't express hatred.

She doesn't, she imagines him having good adventures. You know, that's cool. Yeah. Maybe you meet some woman on the internet and take her home. Okay, that's a little catty. I mean, there's nothing wrong with meeting someone on the internet. No. That's how I met Leslie.

There's nothing wrong with that. But that always takes me to, now that we, after the Torture Poets Department came out with Chloe or Sam or Sophia and Marcus, she says... You said that really fast. It's in here now. If I sell my apartment and you have some kids with an internet starlet. Oh, oh. You meet some women on the internet. You meet some woman on the internet.

Yeah. But I think, I mean, I think she's having fun with it. I think it's humorous. Yeah. It's funny. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, she's wistful. She's remembering, but she hasn't lost her sense of humor over it.

Yeah. It's okay. She's doing some cool shit. Yeah, she is. Surprise dropping an album. Yeah. Here you go. You know, but it does make you ask, you know, is he needy?

Can't he meet a woman on his own? I always just picture, I don't even picture that as like internet dating. I always picture that as like, which like, obviously it's ambiguous. You can meet people on the internet in a thousand ways. But I always picture that as just like seeing some girls like Instagram profile and then like send in a being like, hey, what's up? Oh, yeah. That's so cool.

Hey, what's up? Sip. Well, for the record, I actually met Leslie at a wine tasting. Oh, that's fun. That was set up by an internet dating. Oh, okay, there you go, there you go, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it just paints this really nice mundane scenario. Yeah.

You know, she doesn't wish him ill. She just, you know, maybe you met somebody nice and you took her home. Yeah, you're just, you're just, you're just, you're just, you're just, You're just out there meeting people doing cool stuff, living your life. And then she kind of goes back into this remembrance phase. We never painted by the numbers, baby. Baby. That's okay.

It's conversational addiction. It's also idiomatic, paint by the numbers. We also have a metaphor. You know, they were non-conventional. They were not predictable. Yeah, they weren't coloring in the lines. Right. No coloring in the line.

Nothing's predetermined. There's no romantic script. Right. right, they were just flying by the seat of their pants. How many different? Yeah. Real romance. Real romance.

There you go. I'm feeling a Lady Gaga song coming up. Raw, raw. Oh, that's going to be in my head now for the next two minutes. I'm sorry. But we were making it count. Oh, so dang clever. I love this.

This is maybe my favorite little bunch of lines. So she's got this great point. with count, right? She says, you know, we weren't painting by the numbers, and in the next line she says count, that's just cute. You know, it's almost like she's having fun

as a writer. Agreed. As much as she claims to be having fun in her life. Yeah. You know, the greatest loves of all time are over now. Okay, so we have parallelism. The greatest films were never made. The greatest loves

of all time. So unmade films, people's unrealized relationships. You know, great loves, equal kind of finished relationships over, I don't know. Some stories never happen. Yeah. You know, some great stories happen. Or they, yeah, or great ones, they can be great while they last and then they end, but that doesn't make them any great, any less great than when they were happening.

Yeah. You know, and overall, like when you take the two verses and you kind of overlay them, and you realize how parallel all the lines are. Or how they, you know, they mesh and jive together. And there's a little dissonance, but there's so much that overlaps. It's almost humorous. I mean, it really did put a smile on my face. I think that's just fun.

Yeah, I agree. We get to the pre-chorus. Yes. I guess you never know. Never know. It's almost like this repetitious echo that driftsous off into the nether. the neverland of what might have been. You know, you never know what would have happened.

You never know what is happening now because she doesn't even know what's happening with him. Yeah. And it's another day waking up alone. Oh, so she hasn't been anyone on the internet and brought him home. I think that's a really vulnerable moment in the poem. Agreed, yes.

Another day is kind of loneliness, uncertainty about the past decisions and how they move on. Yeah. It's, I don't know, it's a fun pre-chorus, and it's only two lines. Yeah. And then the chorus is complete repetition. So is it not? Yeah, it's exactly the same, yeah.

It's exactly the same. So, I mean, essentially, I think it contributes to the structural reinforcement of the poem. It also kind of mirrors the plot or the thought of the poem. I mean, if you think about it, she's returning to a relationship through their memory, and so she can't resist returning to the same claims and questions of the first course. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, we're just like living these, we're like ruminating on these thoughts, like over and over and over. It's like wash and rinse and repeat with all of these memories that keep her up some nights and drive her to the movies on a Sunday afternoon.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then we have the shortest bridge ever. Yeah. I mean, we talk about all the time, and you guys in your comments talk about how great her bridges are and, you know, how they often engage in a Volta, in a turning of the plot or story or emotional power. And what do we have? We have three lines? Three lines.

Yeah. And the first one starts with I, I, I, I, okay, how's she going to sing that? I, I, I mean, I, I, I, I don't think it's like that. It is an aphra, you know, repetition of the I, it's hesitation, uncertainty. Yeah, that's what, whenever I was thinking about this, like, I, obviously these kinds of repetitions and stuff make more sense when they're to music. But then I was thinking, like, what is Uncle Jerry going to get from those three eyes just on the page? You know, it kind of reminded me of in Hamlet. In Hamlet.

Yes, we've talked about this before. We've talked about this before, yeah, where Polonius is talking with Hamlet, and he asks, you know, Hamlet is reading a text, and Polonius asks him, you know, what is the matter? What is the, you know, what are you reading? And Hamlet says, oh, no, he's fine. You know, making a joke on the word matter. And he says, no, no, what is the subject? And he looks at it and says words, words, words.

And, you know, every actor's got to figure out how am I going to say the same word three time. You know, does he say words, words, words? Yeah. No, you can't do that. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's hesitating. It's uncertain. I persist and resist the temptation to ask you. So I would read it like that, you know.

Love, persist, and resist. So good. Interim. It's alliteration. See all the S's. Yeah. It's also paradoxical. How can you persist at something and resist something?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Is she persisting to resist? Yeah, she has persistence in the resistance. Yeah, I know. It doesn't say that, does? She says, I do the most. both. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, so she has these like dual competing impulses in this poem.

She can, you know, she continues thinking about them versus stopping thinking about them. Right. So she persists remembering the temptation to ask and she resists the temptation to ask. So it's like I I still remember and I still wonder what would have happened. I still wonder, you know, what if. And maybe I should call, no, I shouldn't call. No, no, no. Never call them. No.

And she wonders if one thing had been different. Okay, this is like this is the poster child for counterfactual thinking. Yes. You know, she says it's a pure and very sweet expression of her hopeful thoughts. but also her ability to evade the present. You know, I mean, she says if just one thing had been different, and I think this is intentionally vague, you know, first of all, really just one thing could have fixed your whole relationship.

You know, if I just didn't say he had funny ears, if everything would have worked out perfectly. Yeah, or if he would have. shown like in the first pre-chorus if he if you wanted me you really should have shown if he had like shown it a little bit differently if that one thing had been different and what's the one thing that would have turned an entire lifetime around you know this is the very definition of wishful thinking yeah you know is is it um a decision a conversation was it timing was it geography did It's so funny because I once, I was teaching as a teaching fellow at TCU,

and I was teaching a Shakespearean sonnet in a Britlet class. And it said, you know, he says, I admit no impediment to love. Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds, nor bends with a remover to remove. Oh, no, it is an ever-fixen mark. You know, it's perfect. It's always perfect. It doesn't care about anything. and this girl got up and started crying and then went out the door and I looked at her friend and said any

thoughts. Yeah, like what's happening? Do I say something? And they always sat together and she just, I don't know. And that afternoon she came to my office and she handed me a piece of paper and she said, I got this today just before I came to your class. And then she started crying again. And this is when, as a teacher, you think, okay, is it better to have the door open while the student is weeping?

Or should I close it while the student is weeping? And what if someone hears the student weeping from inside my clothes on? Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca.

You've got to try breakfast. And what better way than with a delicious pre-organic coffee? Starting with just $1 all day, every day now until December 31st. You gotta try breakfast. I participating A&W locations in Ontario. None of it is good. Yeah, not good. So her boyfriend went to Kansas State and he said that he thought it would work out,

but the distance between them has just been too much of an impediment. Oh, no, he literally used the word. He literally used the word impediment. Oh, you really triggered that poor girl. I know, and I said, oh, impediment. She went, oh, no. Shakespeare said he admits no impediment to love. Not the 500 miles between K State and TCU.

Oh, no. Yeah, so I don't know. You know, what was the one thing that could have been different? And really, do you think if they'd both gone to come to? case day or both been at TCU, that would have worked out. No. But it is like one of the things that you think of. It's like we learn about the butterfly effect where it's like if you just change one tiny

thing that like changes all of humanity, you know, and it changes like the complete trajectory of like the earth. And so I feel like that gets in your head where you're like, okay, so if if that's the case on like a global scale, then surely on in this relationship scale, that one tiny thing could change one butterfly. Yes, exactly. If I just hadn't stepped on it. Yeah, so I don't know.

That's just, it's like really like catastrophic like anxiety spiral thinking, but it makes so much sense to me because it's like just one small decision could have like altered everything, you know. When in reality, probably not, you know. Probably it was 28 different things or maybe more. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Okay, because we're on this line, I think it is time for Uncle Jerry to talk with all, talk with everyone. On one of the reasons why you love Taylor Swift so much. Yes.

One of the reasons is she uses a lot of ambiguity and she engages in strategic intentional vagueness. Yes. We don't know what the thing is. but that you know it's ambiguous it could be this it could be that it's vague and what it does how it functions poetically is it forces the poem into the realm of the universal yeah yeah it's that window it's that window now you get to plug in what you remember was an impediment in your own previous relationship right right yeah this is exactly what draws fans in yeah it's exactly why you you feel like, I feel like

I am invited to participate in the world of this poem. Agreed, yeah. I mean, because I did have one or two breakups, as you know. And, you know, I also play the game of,

oh, if just this one thing had been different, wouldn't it have been perfect? Exactly, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, if I had made this one different decision or if I had leaned in more there or if I had, you know,

like it would have changed, everything and everything would be so much better for me right now. But I think if she had supplied a one thing in this poem, she would have closed that window. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So she leaves a window open by not telling us the thing and she lets us participate. Agreed, agreed, agreed. And then she asked the question, would everything be different today?

It's a rhetorical question. It doesn't really expect, anticipate an answer. Is it wishful thinking? You know, is it a hyperbolic question? You know, everything, everything would have turned out peaches. Yeah, yeah, but that's, again, that's that, like, butterfly effect where, you know, if you change this one thing, that changes everything. But everything?

Yeah, and it's like, it's not. It's not in this situation, but, like, it certainly can feel that way, you know? So my mom and dad were married for 70 years before my dad. passed away. My mom is still out there. Yes. Not on the internet. You know, in their 70-year-long relationship as a married couple, I am going to guess that there were occasional rouse. Probably, yes.

So everything be different. Pretty hyperbolic wishfulness. Yeah. I do think it is a thematic question. I mean, essentially what she's asking is, can one, she's. change in the past, rewrite the future, right? And she, I don't know if she, I think she wants it to be so. I don't know if she thinks it so.

I completely agree with that. Yeah, I think she's like, I wish that that was the case and I could have done something different, but I feel like in this song she does understand that like, no. Yeah. So she connects the chorus with the last chorus. Yes. Right? She says, we were something, don't you think so?

Hiding in memories. And then she imagines if that one thing had changed, would Rosea flowing with your chosen family? You know, would I be sipping wine, you know? With all these people I choose to keep around me and people I'm choosing to love. She's thinking about, like, she's imagining her youthfulness with this person, and now she's thinking about adulthood with this person. Now we have a home and family. We have adulthood together. We have a shift from childishness, pennies in the pool, right?

To Rose and families. Yeah. You know, it's just the possibility of youthful romance turns into adult, you know, mature social belonging. Right. I think rosé is a symbol. Everything would have been rosy. Agreed, yeah. You got like a little rose color glasses on.

Yeah. Yeah, I think she's kind of playing. Again, I think that's part of the humor, the playfulness of the poem, is she, you know, could have been red wine flowing. Yeah. In which case we would have thought blood. Vampires? Yes, vampires. Could have been white wine, which, you know, you're thinking fish.

Yeah. But rosé, and it's the word rose, yeah. And it would have been sweet. The rosé would have been sweet, the family, the life. Yeah. You know, it's so understated. She uses the word sweet. She doesn't have to say, she doesn't have to say we would have had a two-story house with a white picket fence and we would have been driving a station wagon.

Yeah. She doesn't have to say that. She means the entirety of the life of love, right? The belonging, the pleasantness, the meaningful on this, everything would have been there. Right. Everything would have changed. If conditional language, it could have been me. Yeah, so it's me again, right?

We kind of start the poem off with me, and earlier she writes if it would have been you. Now she says, If it would have been me. If it would have been me. Yeah. She's wondering, you know, if she could have been the one. Okay, so now we go back to the title

and we realize, ah, the title is ambiguous. Yeah, is it her or is it him? Yeah. So, or both, you know, is she the one for him and he the one for her? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, and that's so fun, I swear to you, it took me like the third time through. I mean, I realized what she was saying, but it took me like the third time through

when I realized, ah, she's, she's playing with the title. Yeah, yeah. In my defense, I have none. She repeats that for digging up the grave another time. Oh, mediter. for the grave, the lost relationship, digging it up, sifting through old memories and changing them. I changed them because I didn't say that one thing.

I didn't make that comment about his funny ears. And so we live the rest of our happy lives together. Yeah. And still she claims it would have been fun. Yeah. She doesn't have to say it would have been perfect or she doesn't have to say it would have been eternal. Just would have been a good time.

would have been a good time. If you would have been the one. Now she's back to you. It's the final use of conditional rhetoric, the big if. So many ifs. It is just an everlasting if in this bowl. Yeah. Yeah, I really like it.

It's playful. It's poignant. It's got poetic devices to cure the heart. Yeah. I made a list of the patterns of literary devices. Oh, okay. Patterns of literary advice is language of conditionality. If you wanted me, if you never bleed, if my wishes came true, if you would have been the one, if one thing had been different, if it could have been me, would everything be different today?

Question mark. That's an if, too. Yeah. So she only says if like eight times in the poem, we shouldn't miss it. The poem is obsessed with the nature of possibility. The emotional architecture rests on this one word, if. Yeah. Right.

Art as a metaphor for love. She talks about films, the greatest films, painting, the greatest lovers. Yeah. Right. She's creating this extended metaphor showing that relationships kind of resemble a work of art. You know, it's perfect. If, if you have the hand of Michelangelo, maybe. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. the repetition, you'd never know, we were something in my defense. I have done. It would have been fun if you would have been the one, all this repetition, it mimics the psychological process of her rumination, of her dwelling in memory, and then creating a, you know, counterfactual future. The colloquial diction, I thought, was a really fun literary device, good, new shit,

cool shit, baby, fun, sweet. You know, it's like she's talking with a friend. Exactly, yeah. Or like she's talking to herself. Yes. I like the juxtaposition of youth and adulthood. I like the really interesting mood shifts. Okay.

Okay, so I made a list of that. I thought that was fun. In the beginning, it's very lighthearted. As a relationship is recalled, she begins to be more melancholic, more nostalgic. Yeah. When she engages in hypothetical reflection, it becomes very wistful.

in the bridge, she's vulnerable and introspective, you know, little self-blame. And at the end, she's bittersweet but accepting. Yeah. Right. So she shifts through all those emotions. And, of course, you have to ask how many times in the past have you shifted through those same emotions? Yeah, I mean, it's so relatable.

Like, in these moments, like, if you are, you're laying down at night or whatever, and then you're just, it's like you're, you really. do like go on a bit of a roller coaster. Right. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you lay there and you think, oh, I should have done something different. Oh, but it was nice.

Oh, but there was that one moment. Oh, I wonder what it. Yeah. It's less like to go back. And so it brings us to the last big one, and that is counterfactuality. I think it's the most important literary device. She uses, you know,

there is no empirical way in the world to know that the alternative future would have been glorious or anything different. It wouldn't have been the two-story house with the picket fence, you know, and the dogs in the yard. We don't know that. We don't know that two months later they wouldn't have screwed up again. Exactly. Yeah. Right. But we don't engage in that thinking when we are remembering and pulling that memory forward into the

alternative counterfactual future. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I have my final statement. Okay. But I ain't reading it until I hear the song. You gotta pay me off. Okay. Okay. We are going to watch the lyric video, and then we will watch her perform this at the Aeros Tour. Fun story about that, though.

So when the Aeros Tour started, Swifties are, like, obsessed with set list. Like, we want to know what's on the set list, especially when the Aeros Tour came around. She hadn't toured in, like, five years. She had several albums that needed, that she hadn't toured yet, you know. airing. Yeah, we needed some, we needed to see them live, you know. And so, like, literally me and my friends put together a playlist of, like, what we hoped the playlist would be, or what we hoped and thought the set list would be.

Like, we had, like, a whole, like, it was serious. Can you say obsessive? Yes. And so. I think that's great. Like, people always like, what are your hobbies? I'm like, um, Taylor Swift. So this is just what I spend my time on.

And so the set list, like, when it came out, it was like, Some people were waiting, you know, getting off of the internet completely and like waiting till their show so they could be surprised. Yeah, I literally only had to wait like two and a half weeks and I simply could not. I needed to know everything instantly. So when the tour started, the folklore era started with a song that we haven't gotten to yet called Invisible String. When she sings it, you'll see like she's like on top of the... I used that phrase in when I was talking about another song and you had a song. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah.

And she's like on top of the folklore cabin and singing it. And then for my first show, so Arlington Night 1, we get there and thinking we know the set list. And then she comes out on top of the folklore cabin and she starts singing the one instead of Invisible String. Wow. And my friend that I was with, Ethan, he was a Swifty originally and then kind of stopped listening to her. so he had like kind of made a playlist of the set list to like get familiar, re-familiar with all the songs. And he was like, Taylor, what is this? This is not what we talked about?

Like, you're freaking out because he was like, I don't even know what this song is. But I love this song live. And I think it was a good choice to change it. So you'll get to see that and just know that I was the first person to hear this song be a part of the set list. Not all the other people. No, it was just me. Okay. Just me.

Okay, we're going to watch those and we'll be right back. Wayfair's Labor Day clearance is on now. Right now at Wayfair, you can get up to 70% off everything home. Shop Wayfair's Labor Day clearance now through September 7th at Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Okay. Well, that was fun. Oh my gosh, at the end of folklore, then you can watch the whole folklore section of the movie.

Oh, boy, I can wait. Yeah. Okay, so rude. I know. I did it just for the effect. I knew you would give it to me. Okay, give us this thought. Okay, you're ready?

Yeah. My written note, The One is a poem about the emotional power of an unlived life. The speaker has moved forward, but moving forward has not erased the past. Oh. Swift uses multiple poetic devices

to transform an ordinary breakup memory into a meditation on the nature of possibility itself. Most impressively, the poem doesn't confuse nostalgia with a desire for a reunion. I shouldn't say, I want to get back with you, I want to find you. Like I still want to be the one. She knows that that time has passed. Yeah.

The speaker can acknowledge that the current life is good while still wondering about another life. The poem's climax is deliberately modest, but it would have been fun. This understatement captures the poem's mature perspective on the past and a hypothetical future. The thematic appeal of the one rests in the recognition that some of the most persistent ghosts in our lives

are not necessarily the people whom we lost, but the lives we never got to live. Wow. I like that you got ghosts in there. I know. I put that in there just because if there would have been a way to put vampires, in there. I would have done that too, but I thought ghosts was right. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, you know, I love it that memory is mixed up in this poem. And like I said, she never used the word. Yeah. It's never even like, I remember or like any, any word that like kind of takes you

to a memory, none of that is in here. Right. Yeah. And yet it's the foundation of the, of the counterfactual what if future. Yeah. I liked this one. Yeah, you like this one more than I was expecting. Yeah, you know, I like it because of the tone, you know, there is a sense of melancholy. You know, I wouldn't, you know, it's not joyful. No, yeah. But, but it, she keeps her sense of humor, you know, and it's, you know, for me, I do like humor. I use it all the time when I talk class. And, you know, for me, you can be talking about a very serious subject that I expect students to know, remember and to be tested on but let's not lose our sense of

perspective here. Yeah, like we're all just, we're just learning. We're not saving lives. We're not, yeah. Okay. All right. You ready to grade? Oh, yeah.

Can you sense this is going to be a fairly high grade? I can, yes. Yeah. Okay, the one from folklore, lyrical strength. Oh, you know, I'm going to go ahead and say 98.

Okay. Narrative. Structure. Narrative structure, I got it. You know, I mean, she moved through several mood shifts, all of which were accounted for in the structure of telling the story of what might have been, you know, without telling the story because she wants us to come in. Yes. And that's a hard trick to manage, so 97. Okay.

Production and atmosphere. I like the song more than I anticipate it would. I really like that one. Yeah. Like just that chord, like it just takes me somewhere. And then when we were just listening to it just now, at the beginning of this, I was like, maybe it's not my favorite song. And then when it started, I was like, no, it is my favorite song.

It just does something. Yeah, I like the tone of the music. It really matches the tone of the poem. You know, because like I said, the poem isn't exactly joyful. It isn't really horrifically sorrowful. It's not angry, you know. It's just, well, that's what was. And here's what I wish had been, you know.

and so I liked it a lot. 98. Okay. Lore, literary references, and devices. You know, maybe a little great Gadsby. Yeah, some fun wordplay a couple of different times, some ambiguity. She tricked me into thinking the one was him, you know, and finally I realized, oh, no, the one is either of them. Both of them, yeah, I'm the one, you know.

So I like that. I like to be tricked by a good writer. I mean, who, I mean, you should be. Absolutely, yeah, that's delightful. To be like, what? I didn't see that coming. So 98. Okay.

And emotional impact. You know, I don't know. I guess we all have those moments. It's funny because I knew you were going to ask this question. And I'm not always prepared for it. I don't always like emote because I am pretty, I mean, when I'm sitting for hours, by the way, reading and rereading and marking up. up, you know, when I, and like I mark it by hand and then I type notes and then I type it

onto this format so that I can talk about it more easily. Yeah, you're approaching at the very, like, academic lens. Yeah, I do. I approach it through academia and so it's not exactly emoting all over the work. But when I had a few minutes this morning, I did stop and think, you know, there are a lot of things that I wish had, you know, I changed my majors from biology pre-med, very late, you know, my last semester, biology pre-med, to classics. Right.

And I kind of wish I knew that the liberal arts were going to be my passion all along. Uh-huh. I love history and language and literature. And, you know, I always knew that in high school. Why didn't I stick with that? Yeah. You know, and I wish I had made that. I think, you know, if I had made that switch early on and, you know, I always knew.

you know, what would have happened, you know. But I don't know, the path I took was a path I took. It turned out well. Or you didn't change your major and you ended up in a career that you maybe weren't happy with, you know. Yeah, it's so funny. I like to tell the story about going into my optometrist's office, and he had just gotten off his lunch break, and he walked in and laid down T.S. Eliot's collected poems. And I said, wow, you're reading Elliot?

And he said, I would go crazy if I had to read ophthalmological journals all day. Exactly. Yeah. And I thought, that is so cool. Yeah. Point one for the humanities. I know, right? Yeah, so I don't know.

I did engage in some wistful thinking. Yeah. So I'm going to say 97. Okay. That gives us 97.6. There you go. Round it up. Yeah, 98.

I'm going to give it to 98. This was, I can legitimately say this was a fun one. Yeah, it is a fun one. Yeah, because she says so herself. Yeah. Yeah. Are we done? We're done.

Good, because I got shit to do. God. Really never know what you're going to get here, huh? I never know what we're going to get here. I know. Somewhere there's a 12-year-old listening. Yeah. He said it again.

Your grandchildren. Oh, I know. Okay. Come back next week, please, for more of this. Will there be cussing next week? Maybe. I don't even know what we're doing next week. but you just you let us know

we will be back with more folklore next week and then shortly after that we will you know we're going to finish this album out so we can get Uncle Jerry's thoughts so make sure you stay tuned make sure you subscribe everywhere following us on social at Swiftian's CollarPod

I just forgot it for a sec. You can follow Uncle Jerry at Dr. Uncle Jerry on Instagram. You can follow me on Instagram at Angela Wyatt McDowell and we will see you next week. Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know the same way you can skip an ad? I get it.

I'm Siaia and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem.