The Swiftie and The Scholar - The Psychological Burden of The Albatross

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

We have a much-requested poem for you in this episode! Uncle Jerry and Angela tackle The Albatross from The Tortured Poets Department, but first, Uncle Jerry lets us all know how disappointed he is with us as a class lololol. Oops! Join us as we discuss relationships in the public eye, and the journey of repudiation and redemption the song takes us on.Works Cited:The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – Samuel Taylor ColeridgeAubrey & Maturin – Jack O’BrianBook of JonahCan’t Help Falling in Love – Elvis PresleySir Gawain and the Green KnightOde to the West Wind – Percy Bysshe ShelleyWild nights - Wild nights! – Emily DickinsonRomeo and Juliet – William ShakespeareAntigone – SophoclesAntony and Cleopatra – William ShakespeareThe Bad Seed – William March – Aff LinkThe Bad Seed (1956)Matthew 13The Hero with a Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell – Aff LinkRichard TravernerBarchester Towers – Anthony Trollope – Aff LinkDoggerelL'Albatros – Charles BaudelaireFrame StoriesFollow Us:Patreon⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠

Welcome to The Swiftie 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 very questionably Dr. Uncle Jerry coach, the scholar. Yes. Why are we questioning? We'll get into it, I'm assuming. Yes. Okay.

How are you doing? I'm really, really angry with you today. Okay. Do you want to tell the class? It's because of what you've done to me. Because specifically this song or just Taylor in general? This song. This song.

Yes, this song. The song has got me, has pushed me over an edge. And I think you were behind me. Matter of fact, all of you were also behind me pushing me over that ledge. And no, it's not because I've suddenly become a Swifty. It's because of our relationship. I mean, think about the reason why I joined. Our little troupe.

I don't know a thing about Taylor Swift, right? Other than she's a millionaire, billionaires, and she sings, and I knew exactly one song, and that was it. So you brought me in to do what? To teach us. To analyze the poetry, right? Oh, yes. Yeah. To analyze the poetry without prejudice to, yeah, without prejudice to things like her biographical criticism, without wondering,

oh, which boyfriend is this, and that kind of stuff. Okay. And then you gave me this. Are you going to tell them what we're doing today? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So today we're doing the albatross.

I didn't know this is a controversial choice today. This is much requested. Wow. This song, I think, is so pretty. But I have. I wouldn't know. But I have no idea what she's talking about. Okay.

I mean, I think I know, but I feel like I don't know. You know? Okay, so this is an Aaron Dessner and Taylor Swift written and produced truck. And I think I'm just going to let you take it away. Okay. So here's the... The vibes are weird today. Here's the cause of my angst.

Okay. Okay. So, you know, I constantly preach to you guys that you should be exploring different methodology of literary analysis. Yes. Right? You should be looking at, look at feminist theory, look at queer theory, look at new historicism, look at new criticism, deconstruct the text. You know, take a look at the fundamentals of literary structure or poetics. And you know what I did with this poem?

I looked at the title, The Albatross. I thought, well, pretty clearly a reference to the rhyme of the ancient mariner by a semotarian. Taylor Coleridge originally published in the lyrical ballads right at the end of the 18th century, along with William Wordsworth. Mm-hmm. And then I read through one time. Mm-hmm. I read through it once. The first time I read it, I set my pen down.

I don't mark anything up. I'm just reading for my reaction, read-a-response theory. Mm-hmm. I read through it once, and you know what I immediately thought? Ooh, this is about Travis Kelsey. I've been perverted. I'm twisted beyond repair. And clearly, I'm no longer the impartial literary critic.

I'm doing pure biographical analysis of this bulk. So that's it. It's our last broadcast. It's been really fun. You know, I can't say I'll miss it. Uncle Jerry. Because I've been twisted. But we all knew.

We, we, those people in me, you all knew you would be. Does this make me a... I mean, Shirley this doesn't make me a Swifty, does it? Does it make... Am I no longer the scholar? No. I feel like I've been stripped of that title. No, I feel like you're still the scholar first.

Okay. With like an asteris beside it. Yeah. And then down below it says, might be a Swifty also. Possibly. You kiss my asteris. Yeah.

So, I mean, Angela, I literally read it one time. And I thought, oh, this is her talking to Travis telling him not to. Well, maybe you are as 50 because I didn't get that until about a year later. I was like, I don't know. I understand she's saying she's an albatross, but I don't know who she's talking to or about or what the albatross even is. And then all these people are talking about the rhyme of the ancient mariner. And I'm like, that's not a thing I know.

And then I said, you know, we got to start a podcast to get Uncle Jerry on the case. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. It's about Travis Kelsey. No, you know what I mean? I don't know. It's like, yes, it's got Rhyman the Ancient Mariner. I wrote down biblical references and Chaucer's in here and Shakespeare's in here. But yeah, I feel like she starts out addressing the wise man.

And she winds up addressing Travis Kelsey and all the other heretics trying to. dissuade him from a romantic life with her. Yeah. But don't you think it's also deeper than that? It's like about all women being wanted against. No, I think it's just about picking out what dress she's going to wear and, yeah, what her ring looks like. I don't think that's true. No.

Okay. Okay. All right. I just feel disabled from being the purely critical scholar today. And I'm blaming you. I'm blaming all of you out there who have done this to me. All of you who put in your very kind comments, things like, oh, I appreciated the analysis. Or, you know, I always love Angela's comments.

And then here's what I think. And then it's always biographical criticism. Yeah, always. So we're pretty much done here. Okay. Good episode. Thank you. Okay.

Should I really talk about it? Yes. Teach me. Okay, so, I think serious. I mean, I am serious. I'm absolutely dead serious. I read through this one time and Travis Kelsey's name came popped into my head. And I thought, oh, Lord.

Yeah, so I went there. Is this the first time that you've like listened to or read one of the songs and immediately, well, I guess it would be. It was the first time that anything like... Absolutely the first time I read through. Yeah. And on a read, on a first read, I just immediately went to biographical criticism. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, I can't say that immediately. I mean, I immediately went to rhyme with the ancient mariner, right? Yeah, yeah. And then I'm reading through and I thought, oh, that has echoes of Shelley and oh, this is, you know, Matthew 13 and stuff like that. But then I got to the end and I went, oh, this is Travis Kelsey, and then I gasped. Who am I?

The buddy comes. That's what I want to know. You know what I think we need to take from this? Where I tell me. Is that even in your seventh decade of life, you can still become someone new. Oh, okay. Can I go back? No.

No, you cannot. Okay. The title. Yes. The Albatross. Yes. An albatross is an omen of good luck, a seafaring creature. Oh, it's good luck.

Oh, yeah. It's been seen, has been viewed as an omen of good luck among seafaring folks. It is that in the poem, Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Okay. And if we're looking for rhyme of the ancient mariner, it's R-I-M-E. Yes, yes. It kind of spells it in a rustic. antique way. Okay. That was going to be my first question. Yeah. Well, you remember in the Romantics,

I mentioned that, you know, almost when we talk about periods of literature, periods of music, things like that, you know, I always used to tell students, no one pulls out a trumpet, you know, and makes an announcement, okay, that's it. We're done with neoclassicism. We're moving on to romanticism, right? However, it's almost always true that, no one does that. But actually, Wordsworth and Coleridge did that. Yeah. In their 1796 publication of the lyrical ballads, they collected a bunch of poems, and they said,

we want a, they literally said in the preface to the lyrical ballads, we want a new type of poetry. Oh, that's right. Yeah, you've talked about that. Yeah. So they make an announcement, right? They want it to be common speech. They want it to valorize the common person. So when Coleridge spells out rhyme in the ancient mariner, he spells it RIME.

He kind of uses what they called an antique spelling. Okay. Okay. So that was something popularly done near the end of the 18th century to harken back to the medieval period. Okay. And the use of medieval English. Well, at least how they stylized medieval English. Gotcha.

Not real medieval English, but stylistically. So, yeah, I mean, the albatross is the controlling metaphor for the piece. It should be an omen of good luck in the story of the rhyme in the ancient mariner. Have you read that? No. Oh, okay. So in the story, there are these seafaring guys and they're taking this trip. And the albatross is following them.

And initially, of course, they think that's a great omen. Eventually, one of the members of the crew kills the albatross. And they run into terrible storms, right? And they hang the albatross around that crew member's neck because they think that killing the albatross becomes a terrible ill omen. He becomes, in seafaring terms, a Jonah. Okay. A jonah is someone who is a bad luck omen on the trip.

So if you ever read the Aubrey Matern series by Patrick O'Brien, they have a Jonah on board their ship. If you ever read the book, Jonah and the Bible, it's one of the shorter, more fun books to read. It's only four chapters long. Second chapter is very poetic. It's a lovely work to read. Take a look at it. It's all about Jonah, also in the Quran. But the story ends with him seeking to be shrikan.

to be seeking repentance for having killed this bird. They get becalmed. So they have this very famous line, water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink. Right, water, water everywhere, and all the boards did shrink. So it's kind of rhymed off in these really nice little antique quatrains, and it's a narrative story of this mariner. She characterizes herself as that albatross.

You know, that evil omened bird who's hung around someone's neck in the poem. Yeah. So, you know, it's an allusion to a famous work of literature. It's a controlling metaphor for the piece, probably extended in variety of ways, so it becomes a conceit. Nice. I know. I'm trying my best to forget. This is about Travis Kelsey.

First line. Wise men once said. Okay, so I do have to admit, the first thing I thought of was the Elvis Presley song Can't Help Falling in Love. Uh-huh. Wise men. Wise men.

Yeah. Only fools rush in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And I wonder if she's echoing that because, you know, in the relationship with Travis Kelsey. Oh, my gosh. I know.

It's like I couldn't stop. I felt like I was just tumbling down this hill, you know? And I literally thought, this works well for the Kelsey story because the title of the song is can't help falling in love. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So she just can't stop it even though she characterizes herself as an ill omen.

And I know it's just awful. So, however, to go back to the rhyme in the ancient meritor. Yes. I actually did run off the beginning for you so you could see these nice little. The nice little stanzas, you can see, mostly characterized as quatrains here. Yeah. And it begins kind of the way this poem begins with an old man. So the poem begins, wise men once said, right?

But the poem began with a wedding. Okay. Okay. I know, right? The bridegroom is on his way to a wedding. Incredible. Actually, there's these three guys on the way to their friend's wedding, right? And it begins, it is an ancient mariner, and he stoppeth one of three.

Again, you hear the kind of antique language, stoppeth. By thy long, gray beard and glittering eye, now, why fair, stopest thou me? Okay, so he, so this old guy walks up and stops one of the, So he's clearly singled out for a specific reason, just as Travis was singled out in her heart. I'mena. And, like my music, my hair changed with me. And he has to be able to continue my rhythm. For so, Potion 9 of Sebastian Professional has everything my hair needs.

Nutrition Profunda. Protection contraband. 99% less of rotura and punas abirtas under control. New Potion 9 of Sebastian Professional, the secret professional of who are not sighing tendencies, but not of who canes create. Stop it.

It's making me uncomfortable. I know. Let's change seats. You sit here. So, this is going to be as wild as the vampire one. Yeah, maybe so. So they're on their way to a wedding

and this old man stops. He picks one of them out who needs to hear the story. And he says, And he says, you know, he holds him there, and he starts off, there was a ship, quote he. And the guy says, hold off, I'd hand me gray beard loon, which is something you should always call some old guy who stops you like me. Oh, gray-haired loon. I love that, actually. Fsoons, his hands dropped he.

But he held him with his glittering eye. So he's got this weird staring eye that makes the wedding guest stop. and he tells this whole story. And it becomes apparent throughout the entire narrative that, in fact, the old man who stops him may be the very same mariner, who now is charged with going out and telling this story about how he sinned and about how he sought forgiveness and was forgiven. Right. So this is his penance to go and tell the story. and he picks the wedding guest out of the group of three because the wedding guest needs to hear this story.

Okay. Just as Travis needs to hear the story of her life. I mean, the particular motif is used elsewhere, for example, in Sargawain and the Green Knight. Okay. So that's a medieval tale from the mid-14th century. And it's in the Pearl manuscript. for those fans of medieval poetry out there.

The Green Knight is written in what's called a bobb and wheel stanza, which is really kind of a fun mix of Anglo-Saxon and French-style poetry. And it tells a story about a guest who has to go off and face a Green Knight, and his penance at the end of the story is to go out and tell his story over and over again, how he failed in his Christian duty. And, you know, so he stops people and tells them the story. So it's kind of a motif. Okay.

Whereby the narrator is forced by way of penance to go and tell the story. Gotcha. All of that's a huge, long explanation for the wise men. Yeah. Yeah. But I like it. It also kind of, it really mirrors the opening of the rhyme of the ancient marriage.

Yeah. So a second line. Yes. Wild winds are death to the candle, which is this like great cryptic line that the wise men would say. I love that line. Wise wild winds are death to the candle. Yeah, it's fun to say.

It is fun. And you know, and you know the reason why is because of the alliteration. Yeah. Right. So she's using her poetic techniques. It also reminded me of a poem by Purim. Percy Bish Shelley. You know why his middle name is Bish?

Why? Well, he was a son of a Bish. Yeah, there's a poem Ode to the West Wind by Percy Shelley, and he talks about the Wild Wins. There's also an interesting short poem by Emily Dickinson, Wild Knights. Wild Knights, Wild Knights, Wild Knights,

where I with the Wild Knights should be our luxury. Yeah, it's nice. So, yeah, if you're interested, take a look at Palm number 269 by Emily Dickinson for a comparative. So the wild winds, like I say, echoes of Ode to the West Wind by Percy Shelley, echoes of Wild Knights by Dickinson.

So she's doing what she does. She uses these possible allusions to other literature. The third line hits on the same idea. Yes. Right? A rose by any other name is a scandal. So we're taking the line from Romeo and Juliet. A rose by any other name would smell and sweet.

The reference there, I don't know, for those of you haven't read Romeo and Juliet, first of all, shame on it. You know, I saw a performance of it at the Globe Theater in London a few years ago, And I literally tear it up at the end. It's so unexpected sometimes how much great literature can affect you when it's done well. Oh, my goodness. It's like a story you know backwards and forwards, but still like. And still when she cries out in the tomb, it just felt like I had that dagger in my chest. Yeah.

And I think everyone there had that same day. But yes, the illusion here, the reference is that they come from two separate fans. families, the capulets, and the Montague's, and, you know, the question is, what's in a name? You know, I mean, he loves her. She is, she smells as sweet by any other name. So that's a lovely use. And I think that we're obviously talking about Taylor Swift, dear. Yeah.

I know. It's just, yeah. So, cautions issued. So the old man stops the wedding. and rhyme in the ancient mariner and cautions him, you know, he's got this tale. There was a ship he tries to start a couple of different times in the poem. And finally, he hears the message. Cautions issued, he stood, so the wedding guess is transfixed just as, yeah, in the context of the poem, the listener is transfixed.

shooting the messengers they tried to warn him about her, which of course begs the question who's him and who's her. Yeah. And I think we answered that fairly early on. Yeah. But also, like, I feel like it could be about any. So if we want to take it as just women or if you want to take it further, as like women that are in the public eye that, you know,

they have these relationships that don't last. and then everybody's like, you can't date her because she's gonna, she's just gonna take your, you know, she's gonna take up your time, then break up with you and write an album about it. You know, or like, you know, like a friend group being like, that girl's

crazy, don't date her, you know. Can you say that with more snap? That girl's crazy. Oh goodness, yes. I see you're trying to seriously apply some critical thinking. I am. As opposed to my shallow.

biographical. This is what you taught me to do. Okay, thanks. The line shooting the messenger is, it also has roots in literature. Sophocles uses it in Antigone. In Antigone

this character runs up and says no one loves the messenger who brings bad news. So they're going to learn about the deaths of several characters throughout the play. It is a tragedy. after all. And so, you know, the idea of shooting the messenger. No one loves that messenger. It's also in Shakespeare's Cleopatra, Anthony and Cleopatra, when Cleopatra receives the news that

Anthony, Mary, is going off, and, you know, she mentions that as well. I don't know. It's just, it's a fun line. It's an interesting first verse because it's got all these allusions, everything from from echoes of Elvis to obvious rhyme of the ancient mariner to I really feel a little Percy Bish Shelley and and Sophocles Antigone. That's a lot. Yeah, it's a five lines, six lines. Yeah. You know, and then if, well, and I left up Shakespeare's Romeo and Julia and possibly Cleopatra.

But, you know, and then if you go back and look at the use of alliteration, obvious allusion, rhyme scheme, right? We have said, candle, scandal, stood, which is not quite said, but it's got the same consonant values. It starts with an S, N, with the D.

Yeah. And then Messenger, her, so A, B, B, A, C, C. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's really well done poetically.

Good. Yes, I know. No, but it's about Travis. Okay, the chorus. Uh-huh. Cross your thoughtless heart. So cross your heart? Yes.

You know, she's doing her cliche thing. Yes. Right? So cross your heart's a cliche. Probably references, you know, making a cross on your heart. Maybe Catholic making the cross, the symbol of the cross on you. You know, to cross your heart is promissory. It's an absolute.

By the way, to cross your heart with an X, you know, there are some people who think, some Christians who think that the X is non-religious, you know, like spelling out Xmas. Right, right, right, right. That's not at all so. Yeah. Let me disabuse you of that idea.

The first letter of Christ's name in Greek is the Kai, the X, the Greek. the Greek letter. And so in the early Middle Ages, they used to indicate Christmas by X-Mass. So it is a thousand-year-old, more

than a thousand-year-old tradition. In Christianity, just relax. Yes, everything's fine. It's all fine. If you see Christmas, X-Miss, it's okay. And I, you know,

I mean, I love the second line of the chorus. Only liquor, anoints you. Yeah, I don't know what those two phrases mean together. Well, see, I really like it because the idea is that, you know, anointing oil is something that that culminates a sacred event. Okay, yeah. Okay. And so somehow people who are characterizing her as this albatross are belying the sacred nature of anointing. Does it? Is it? this makes sense to you? A little bit, yes. I mean, it's, you know, in, there are a lot of different

churches where, where you have this sense of a divine salvation through anointing. It's in the Bible. Saul is anointed. David is anointed. My first job, my very first job was teaching at a Catholic school. And at the start of the year, we all get together. You know, and you have the these endless first week meetings, but the priest came down and anointed our hands with oil. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was very nice, very moving. I had never experienced anything like that. I'm not Catholic, but it was really, really interesting and moving.

You know, here he is anointed with liquor. So he's just, you know, those people who characterize her thoughtlessness are just drunk. Okay. Yeah. Okay. They're anointed with liquor, not with. Not with oil. Right.

Like the actual anointing fluid. Right. It's not anointing through empowerment. It's not anointing through divine selection. It is just drunk. Okay. Yeah. So they are thoughtless in swearing through their bleary, drunken eyes that she is an albatross and she is here to destroy you.

You know, I hate to jump too far ahead here, but we're going to find in verse three, that in fact the wise men are not so wise. Right. Right. So we're already getting a hint of that in the chorus. Okay, I got you. I'm with you now. Okay.

Verse two. Yes. Wise men once said. So we're reiterating that introduction. One bad seed kills the garden. So I love the phrase bad seed. You know, there's a novel by William March that is titled the Bad Seed. Oh, okay.

Yeah, they turned it into a movie. And I have to admit, I saw the movie when I was a little kid. Okay. And it scared the dickens out of me. Well, because it's about this little girl who is kind of adopted into this family, and she appears to be sweet and kind. And she starts killing people. Oh, good, good, good.

So it's just a subtly horrific film. So one bad seed kills the garden. Yeah, one bad element, one bad apple, rotten's the bear. This may also be a reference to Matthew 13. Okay. So if you crack open the Bible and read Matthew 13, it's all about seeds. There's a very famous passage about the mustard seed,

about the tiny seed that grows into a great plant. Yeah. But there's also about how bad seeds, weeds left untrue, intended can spoil the garden. Okay. So possible allusion to the Bible. So if you're counting, we've got Percy Shelley, we've got maybe Dickinson, we've got Shakespeare, we've got Sophocles, we've got Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and toss a little

Bible in, and she is working it. Yeah. Yeah. The Tortured Poets Department is really coming out. Oh, yes. I didn't even say that at the top, that this is from the Torture Poet Department. I was so angry with you at the top that I hear. You ruined the whole, the whole vines.

I know. So, yeah, I forgot. Yeah, this is tortured Poets Society. So clearly, she is exercising her poetic chops. Yeah. So she moves from the sea to one less temptress, one less dagger to sharpen. And so here we have woman as temptress.

Yes. So, you know, I want to go back down the hall where my copy of Joseph Campbell's hero with a thousand faces is. Yeah, we just talked about that. Yeah, so the tempterist is a character on the on the hero's journey.

You know, she reaches into the life and challenges him. Again, biblically, you've got Samson and Delilah. Delilah tempts Samson in, cuts his hair. You've got Bathsheba, you know, naked on a roof,

and David falls in love with her. I mean, there are a number of a number of these. I wrote down Odysseus and Cursay or Odysseus and Calypso. So on the journey's way, this witch temptress appears, it's really, it is interesting and somewhat sad, and maybe we'll talk about that with another song coming up, that women are seen, that women's bodies are seen as the source of temptation. Right.

Right. So I'm not in control of my own libido. Yeah. Only she is. Yes, only she is. It's women that makes us do it. Yeah. Yeah. And there's actually, I love, there's a 17th century song by Henry Purcell, Tis women makes us drink. It's great. And it completely abjures the man of any responsibility for controlling his own life. Of course. Which we know is wrong. Okay, people, we know that's wrong, right?

Nevertheless, women are characterized as witches, as a temptress, as, you know, plying their body and men are somehow uncontrollable in, you know, in the throes of that sexual agony. Hey, that's a pretty good phrase. In the throes of sexual agony. Yeah, they apparently can't control themselves. So she's one less dagger to sharpen. You got to chase them down and kill them. I was going to say, so that's like if you kill her, then you can, you don't have to, then she's not a problem anymore.

Right. And of course, a dagger may be a phallic symbol. Oh, dear. I know. No, in the next line. Certainly a tower would be a phallic symbol. I was just listening to this on the way here, just like preparing. Yeah?

And, yeah, I got to that. locked me up in towers and I was like not again. Uncle Jerry, he's going to talk about towers again. Baggers and towers. Stabbing the old girl. Temptress. Yeah, you got to lock them up in towers. That's the only thing you can do with witches and women who are always the source of temptation.

It's not us. Man are blameless. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, it's the women. Yeah. And I, so I do have to say, I like her sense of irony. Yes.

I mean, because clearly I'm speaking with a great deal of irony. You know, I think that she is too. Yeah, it's like, it's like kind of angry but also like sassy at the same time. Like she's being like, yeah, I don't know. The irony really, I feel like comes through and all of it. Yeah, I love that. She clearly like does not mean anything she's saying. Yeah, I love exactly the way you put it.

She's, she's sassy. Yeah. I mean, it's like she's got. this wry smile on her face. Exactly. Yeah. That's that's half. Screw you and half. Yes. Yeah. I know this is the way it is people. Yeah. And it is the way it is. You know, on the one hand, she gets up on stage in, I'm just going to say, very skimpy outfits. You know, so she clearly utilizes her sexuality. and then on the other hand, you know, how is she not supposed to? Right, yeah. And how is that condemnatory?

You know, how is it that as a male I can use that? Or how is it as a prude I could use that against her? And, you know, now you see why she's ultimately going to flip the phrase, the wise men once said, right? Because it's not wise, you know. Leave me alone. body. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and they tried to warn you about me. So again, we're left with that question who's the you and who's the me and. Yeah, before it was, they tried to warn him about her. Right.

So now it's you and me. Talking to him. Yeah. Yeah. So when did they get together? I almost, you know, I don't research this stuff. Um, and I have to admit that I was like poised on my keyboard. to look up, when did she and Travis first meet? Like, what's the chronology here? No, you're correct. So this was 2024. Yes, they started dating in 2023. Wow.

Did they now? Well, okay then. Yeah. And honestly, when the tortured poets department came out, I was like, there's not going to be any Travis songs on here. Like, she's been writing this for a bit. This is, like, about that, you know, torturous past couple of years. But there are a few on there, and it took me, this came out in April of 2024,

and it probably took me until about that time in 2025, where I was like, oh, I think she's, I think this is a Travis song. Ah, well, probably because it hadn't been well established early on. No, exactly. And also, like, this is just, this is so dense to me. And it's so like, I would say, quill pen-esque, you know, and those just, they just take a little longer. And as I've said before, we had 31 songs. And also, I was getting married the next week.

So I'm a lot to think about. And the albatross wasn't one of the things I was thinking about. Feels like that line from Princess Bride. I'm swamped. Exactly. So I was a little slow on the uptake on some of these. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, I think it's probably easier in hindsight for me because, you know, I mean, I pick up my newsfeed every morning. I get the pictures of him on his knee proposing and I get the pictures of the diamond wedding ring and all that stuff. You know, so in hindsight, I live in the surety that her late songs may be about Travis Kelsey. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's where I went. Yeah.

Okay. Second chorus. Cross your thoughtless heart. You know, once again, using that same cliche, only liquor annoys you, you know, again, sort of drunk and using that reference to the sacred. She's the albatross. She is here to destroy you. You know, we've got these warning signs, these clamoring bells, you know, these wise men saying, devils that you know raise worse hell than a stranger

she's the death you choose you're in terrible danger nice rhyme you know good rhythmic values but I like the phrase the devil that you know the devil that you know is better than the one you don't

so better raise worse hell than any stranger so she's using that quote that's actually So I did, I have Richard Travener's book. Of course I do. There is no need for any of you to buy this thing. It's the Proverbs or Sayings of Erasmus, the great Dutch scholar. And he says better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

1539. This is also echoed in Trollope's Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope. So I don't know. I've got the, I've got Barchester Towers. behind me somewhere. Matter of fact, I've got his biography right back there. Okay. Yeah, Anthony Trallup,

mid-19th century writer, British writer, and his wife, interestingly enough, was also a writer, wrote several travel works alone and together. And there's an echo of it also in Macbeth. So it's a very famous saying. Is she like twisting it here, though? Because I feel like the devil that you know

is better in the saying it's better the devil that you know than the one that you don't know and he or she's saying the devils that you know are actually way worse than the stranger yeah and it may be um i think you're right yeah i think that that that characterizing herself as a devil through the eyes of the wise men right so the wise men are telling him okay the unnamed him uh-huh that you need to stay away from her that you know, she's way worse than you can imagine. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

She will in fact place him in terrible danger. Terrible danger. I know. Then we have the bridge. Yes. And when that sky rains fire on you, oh, Psalm 11, fire raining from heaven, your and your persona known grata.

Yes. Yeah. It's a lot. Latin phrase. A lot of people, I think everybody, most people who don't read Latin usually think Latin's got to be an antique language that was only spoken by Romans. Remember that Latin was also the language of diplomacy for several centuries. As a matter of fact, in England, for example, the Latin secretary was tantamount to the foreign secretary because everything was written in Latin.

Oh, okay. So European documents were all written in Latin between nations because each nation had people who could read Latin. So it became a lingua franca. It became the universal language. Persona non grata is actually a diplomatic phrase that emerges out of 18th, 19th century use of Latin. So it's not a classical phrase. But it simply means person unwanted. So, you know, the bridge warns him that if he,

stays with her, then fire will rain from heaven that he'll become rejected from all polite society. I'll tell you how I've been there too, and that's, then that none of it matters. Yeah. What? Yeah. Wait a minute. I sense a shift in our song.

You know, leave for a shift in. Yeah, you know, and this is something that I have, have not, I did not recognize immediately in our going through songs, but recently, I guess, after going through now 30 of them, it seems like she likes to do this. Always. So like two-thirds of the way through the song, she gives you a little flip. And I think that'd be interesting to go back through and catalog all the flip songs. Yeah, it's very tailored to do that.

You know, you're singing about one thing, and then when you get to either the bridge or if there's a verse three or something, that's when she flips it. Yeah, the very last song we did had exactly that same technique. So I thought, you know, when I saw the flip and the bridge, I thought, oh, okay. So we go to verse three and, yeah, it's something different, right? Wise men once read fake news and they believed it. Jackals raised their hackles. Okay.

I have read that line 40 times now and I can't decide whether I like it or it's too cute. I mean, you guys tell me Jackals raised their hackles. Now, I will admit I once wrote a poem in which I rhymed the word shekel with Dr. Jekyll. Okay, that's brilliant. I thought that was awful. And now we've got jackals and their hackles.

I know. I think it's obviously like that's fun, like it's fun to sing that because it's a jackal and hackle are kind of fun to say anyway. But it is a funny internal rhyme. Yeah, it's a funny internal rhyme. I can't, and I can't decide whether it drops into forest rhyme. Yeah. Otherwise known as doggerel, right? Doggerel is like really bad rhythmic rhyme.

It feels a little dogrel-esque. Okay, okay. But I can't, like my initial reaction was, I wrote the word cute. Not a great rhyme. There's a song I don't know that we'll get to, so I just want to, like, talk about it for a sec that has, like, such a hilarious rhyme that makes me want to do the song, but I just don't know that we will. But in the song, it's another Travis Kelsey song on Torture Post Department called So High School. And it's like, you make me feel so high school, basically. And she says, she rhymes.

First of all, part of the chorus is, you know how to ball. I know Aristotle. Aristotle. Oh, no. Auto light went out. Oh, it's still okay. Yeah. But she then goes on to rhyme Aristotle with the video game Grand Theft Auto.

Oh, yeah, that hurts a little bit. Yeah, that hurts a little. And every time I hear it now, I'm like, oh. I think it's pretty fun, though. Yeah. Okay. Jackals and hackles. Jackles and raising their hackles.

Okay, so yeah, verse three is clearly that reversal. Yes. When we find out that the wise men are being ironically treated, that they listen to fake news, they believe all the crap that they've heard about her, and that they are jackals, they are, you know, people who just chase after her and want to tear her apart. Yeah. And, you know, and they get their hackles up. You couldn't conceive it. You were sleeping soundly when they dragged you from your bed, and I tried to warn you about them. I mean, he was just Travis Kelsey, right?

He was just playing football. I mean, you know, a tight end, which apparently she liked. Sorry. I think I abused myself with that. Can I say that again? No, I'm not going to... They heard it the first time. Okay.

Okay, I won't make any more cracks. So I do. I think that's funny. Again, it's about this time when I'm thinking, this is Travis Kelsey. Yeah, yeah. You know, he's just a dude living in Kansas City. Right, just playing football.

Shot his shot. Having success. Yeah. Going to go in the Hall of Fame someday. Winning Super Bowls. Then all of a sudden, fame descends upon him. And yeah, it drops like an anvil. They drag him from his bed, which I really like, you know, just the figurative language, the, like I get that strong image, right?

So it's a pretty fun image. Again, it gives you that idea of monstrous treatment. So they're dragging him as if he were a monster, a criminal, you know. And then we get to the chorus. So I crossed my thoughtless heart, spread my wings like a parachute, nice, simple. family, right? So she's going to catch him very famously. Albatross's white wings are these great curved wings.

So Charles Baudelaire, French poet, wrote La Albatross, in which he describes it as a cloud, the wings of, you know, he is the prince of clouds. It's a much more complimentary poem than rhyme of the ancient mariner. So I read Baudelaire. So we've switched now to being the bad omen albatross. To being the good omen. To being Charles Baudelaire. Yes.

The Prince of Clouds. Okay. Yeah. So now she's here to rescue him because she's lived through all this crap, right? She's lived through the jackals of the news media. She's lived through all the rumors. She's, you know, and some of the things are true about her, I'm sure, but true only. as displayed in the microscopic media.

Right. Rumors are terrible and cruel, but honey, most of them are true. Oh, yeah. Well, see, that's it. I mean, you know, you do one stupid thing, you know, and people are going to blow that up. I mean, I, of course, have only done like three stupid things in my life. One of them was signing up for this. But, no, that's not true.

But, yeah, I mean, you know how that's magnified in the media. Yes. So she says, I swept in at the rescue. The devil that you know looks now more like an angel. So now we have another simile like an angel. And kind of what's different about the chorus here is the use of similes as opposed to metaphors or illusions. Yeah, I feel like we don't talk about similes a ton. It's always metaphors.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I also like the word choice. Again, you know, you read it backwards and you see that the terrible danger, the terrible danger is mitigated by words like angel, swept, rescue, spread wings, parachutes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You've got these beautiful polysyllabic words that are all about rescuing. You know, so she sweeps in, rescues. him and she exits to the utero so cross your thoughtless heart she's the albatross she is here to destroy you

that's not true we know that but like destroy in a good way yes destroy him in yeah by like because she they came in and changed others lives that's true yeah yeah so there you go beautiful big themes

I wrote down repudiation redemption You know I think What is the She asks the question Which I think is kind of interesting What are the psychological

Burdens of a public romance You know Obviously when When some guy You know Living on the outskirts of Dallas Fort Worth And is sitting here

reading one of her songs and I immediately look into a window of her life, right? That's got to be both the psychological and kind of physical burden on her and on him. Yeah, for sure. So she's questioning, you know, what is that burden? And she is kind of, she's playing the part of the wise man at the end of the song by saying, this is what you're in for. Yeah, this is where we're going. We'll always have a public life.

Yeah. But the others withered away. And he blooms. So I haven't heard a song. Yeah. You ready to listen? I am. Yeah, I want to hear if that, if I could hear the change in verse three.

Okay. Let's listen. And if she comes sweeping into the final course. We're only going to, for this one, watch the lyric video and that's it. Okay. But for the next episode, we have a lot to watch. Just warning you. Oh, boy.

And warning them. And by the way, this is the first episode we're recording since we started Patreon. And so if you want to watch the full song reaction and listen and all of that, you can do that on Patreon right now. It's there. But if not, we will be right back. Convierte your passion in a business with Shopify and bathe records of ventas with the form of pay with a better conversion of the world.

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comer records. Okay. That's fun. Yeah. I do like the idea that cross your thoughtless heart.

You know, I think that there could be a little ambiguity in the use of the word thoughtless. Someone suggested

that every time I say the word ambiguity, you take a drink, I hadn't said it yet today. Yeah, there's your first drink. I hope it's not early for you. But, you know, thoughtless early on, I think it's ironic, you know,

that he didn't give a thought to what could come of the relationship and the wise man obviously didn't give a thought to his life or her life. But now I think that there is a, at the end of the song, you know, you do have to be thoughtless and giving your heart away. You can't be too protective. You can't be shied off. You can't be afraid, you know. He was clearly forthcoming because you have told me the stories of how he tried to give her his number and everything.

Once again. But fun, I loved the floating, lelting sound. Yeah. It sounded like an albatross floating on the wind. Yeah, just like sor. around. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a really pretty one. I just, that honestly, cross your thoughtless heart, only liquor annoyance you now makes so much more sense to me. Because at first it's like, I feel like it, that also kind of changes too.

It's like she's talking to them, like they're being thoughtless, and then she's talking to him, like you're being thoughtless, but in like a more positive way. Yeah. Well, and I think in the, after the first stanza,

they're thinking about liquor anointing him like, oh, you've got to be drunk to get into this dude. Yeah. You know, but in fact, what he's willing to give his heart away, right? He's willing to take the dangerous step of trusting another person with your emotions. Yeah. Which is always a little scary. Yes, for sure.

Yeah. It's called trust. Maybe love. Okay. Are you ready to grade? Yes, I am. You know, I do. I always do really wonder, because I have lived a literary life, you know, I always cross-reference things that I have read, things that I live with as literature.

And I do wonder if she's intentionally referencing these or if Ode to the West Wind is something that's come across her imagination or, you know, the reference. to Antigone or you know, just am I making all this up because I've read it because that's my reader response? Yeah, I mean, I feel like I feel like she set out to do exactly this

on this album was to you know, make a lot of illusions and references and use inspiration from poets of the past. And so maybe not everyone that you're picking up on

does she mean to but I feel like like obviously I think it seems clear to me that she knew about the rhyme of the ancient mariner like that feels like certainly she would have known you know well you know and I do wonder and I have said before that she's like

your prize high school student and I don't mean that sound like it's a diminutive comment at all but we do read Ode the West Wind and Antigone and Macbeth and Rime of the Ancient Mariner in the high school curriculum.

So these are all works that she might have been familiar with in that curriculum. You know, I don't know how strident her high school education was. I think you've mentioned to me that she finished early because she was homeschooled and that kind of thing. Yeah, she went to regular high school for, I think, two years. Oh. And then had to leave to go be a star. Darn it. Well, and obviously she hasn't lived in complete isolation from the world of,

letters. Right. She can still pick up a book from time to time. Yeah. So it would be an interesting conversation to have with her. For sure. Okay. All right.

Let's grade the albatross. The first option, or I mean the first category is lyrical strength. Okay. Yeah. I did like the rhyme scheme, even with the questionable internal rhyme of Jacqueline Huckle. And I still haven't made of my mind. It's like, I don't know, I think that's a matter of taste. Yeah.

So, you know, you guys can decide you're all readers. But 95. Okay. Then we have narrative and structure. Yeah, I like the allusion using kind of the shell, the frame of the rhyme of the ancient mariner. The rhyme of the ancient mariner, by the way, is what we call a frame tale. Okay. So a frame tale is a story that has an extent.

frame and then an interior story. So if you think about it, the wedding guest is on his way to the wedding and he is stopped by an old man. Uh-huh. You know, and then the old man tells him, now you have to keep going and I have to tell this story, right? So that's the frame. And then what's in the frame is the story of the person who killed the albatross.

Okay. Yeah. And personally, I think that works really well for this song, because, she's trying to tell the story of her life, right? And she's trying to explain how these people have framed her story and here's her story. Okay, yeah. Right. So we have two levels, metaphysical levels, if you will, of storytelling.

So I like that. I like that a lot. Yeah. So I'll say 98. Okay. Production and atmosphere. I mean, the song was nice, 95. Okay.

Yeah, I like the lilting, floating. Yeah. Lur and Literary references. Lots of those. Yeah. Yeah. So 99. And you got some Taylor in there, too.

Yeah. And emotional impact. Oh, man. You know, it's all about the two of them. It's all about the perversion of who was once a scholar and to just another. you know, hack guessing fan. Oh, no.

So I'm going to say 23. What? No. What? I guess I'll go ahead and say a 95. Okay. That gives up, well, I have to actually type. That gives us the 96.

There you go. The Albatross. Yeah. All right. Anything else? No. I wish I had a live one to play for you, but she only played it with a mashup to another song

and I don't want you to hear that one yet. Got it. Yeah. This honestly helped a little. I mean, it's still like not one of my favorites from that album, but I do think it's fun like the way she's using other texts.

And I did like that theme of like repudiation. You know, here's the story they tell, you know, at some point you're going to get to hear the real story. Right? So you know, you've got the multi-leveled storytelling. And I think that's nice.

It makes a song worthwhile. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Is that all? That's all I got. All right. That's a good one.

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