The Swiftie and The Scholar - The Sensory Imagery of Maroon

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

We are wiping the incense dust off the shelf and picking ourselves up off the floor with Maroon this week. This Midnights track from 2022 is full of imagery, senses, colors, and so much more. Uncle Jerry also surprises us all with an interpretation from left field, which allows Angela the space to explain a specific sect of swifties.Enjoy!Works Cited:Richard Wright – Black American novelistParallelism in LiteratureRobert Frost – The Road Not TakenRobert Frost – Stopping By Woods on a Snowy EveningLawrence Ferlinghetti – American Beat poetGregory Corso – American Beat poetJack Kerouac – American Beat poetOn The Road – Jack KerouacFollow Us:⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠

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per per records. I just couldn't figure out what it was. But did you see all the evidence? I know. I got there. I got there with the mark on the collarbone before.

I know. I even said it. And it's more than 10. It's like 15 different lines. So funny. So funny. Welcome to the Swifty and the Scholar, the podcast where we examine the lyrics,

lore, and literary legacy of Taylor Swift. I'm Angela McDowell, the Swifty. And I am Dr. Jerry Coates. The scholar, although today you may not think so. Oh, no. I don't know, maybe. Okay. Spoiler alert, a little tease for the end, I guess.

Maybe. Okay. He keeps every time he brings up that we're going to record this song, he just starts laughing maniacally. I think it's like that. Yes, I do. And I'm really nervous because I can't tell if I can't tell what's happening in your head. It's all about literary interpretation. Okay.

Oh, dear. I'm nervous. Yep. Let's just get into it. Shall we? Yeah. What poem are we doing today, Angela? Today we are covering Maroon.

Oh, I thought we were, okay, we'll do Maroon. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Maroon is from Midnights, 2022. Okay. The previous songs we've covered from Midnights are Would Have Could Have. I feel like there's another one. Oh, the one nobody has.

seen the very first thing we recorded. Ah, okay. Dear Reader. Nobody has seen it. No, I'm saving that one for our Patreon, though. I still haven't started. Oh, okay. Yeah, this is a Taylor and Jack Antonoff banger.

Oh, Jack. He's our pal. He is our besty Jack. Yeah, I don't, I mean, that's kind of all I have to say, but I'm just really curious about what you're going to say about this song. That's all you have to say? It really is. I'm like, I really like this one.

track two. She has an earlier track called Red. Maybe this is a more grown-up version of that. Okay. That's all I have to say. I am wearing red today. Yes, yes, yes. That's intentional. He put on his outfit specifically for this song that he keeps laughing about. You bet I did. Okay, so let's play the conventional game of looking at it like literary critics, shall we? Okay, I think that's what we do here. Most of it. So let's see. It's, connected, feels connected to the album Red. Okay, okay. Look at you.

You are such a swift. I know, aren't I? Aren't I, though? I'm leaning. I might be beyond swift, curious. I might be swift leaning. Yeah, I think you are. I don't know.

Yeah. Except this is darker, right? Maroon is literally darker than red. It's from the, from the, from the, album Midnights. Uh-huh. Which is also darker. Which is also darker.

It's a darker shade of red. It's more mature. Uh-huh. You realize that maroon is not just a color. Yes. Right? So to be marooned is to be abandoned. Mm-hmm.

And I think this poem is about abandonment. I think you might be right. I'm brilliant that way. You sure are. Well, okay. So I would split the poem. into three parts. Okay.

The first part is the expressive joy of the relationship. The second part is the drifting of the relationship. And the final part is what we all come to expect from poor Taylor's relationships until she met a certain football player. Yeah. The loss of the relationship. Yeah. Okay.

So verse one. Yes. When the morning came. ordinarily I would pause and say morning is that a metaphor is it a symbol here I think it's literal yeah I think so I mean it just woke up it could also be it could be symbolic it could be metaphorical that this is the morning of their relationship yeah this is saying like this is like the happy beginnings that's right so morning is a symbol of joy it's light it's bright it's full of hope it's full of expectations but it only ends in night. Darkness. In darkness. So it's morning, you know, probably symbolic, maybe metaphorical and also literal in this particular case.

We were cleaning incense off your vinyl shelf. So they had lighted the incense that night and the fragrance, right? So we're connected to, you know, how it smells. Sensory. Sensory. So, and it burned all the way down. Okay. Off your vinyl shelf.

All right. So let's pause and look for foreshadowing elements. Okay. Is it a good thing to start a relationship off in ashes? Oh, dear. Probably not. No. I would say that was foreshadowing a bad.

add end to this relationship. Interesting. Okay. Right. Also, the shelf. Is it genuine mahogany? No. Well, that was a little Easter egg.

Little mention of, yeah. Yeah, a little something, something from maybe another song. Is it genuine oak? Is it strong like oak? Is it beautiful like laurel? No, it's vinyl. It is artificially covered. to make it look nice.

Oh, you know, wait a second. I always just took that as the shelf that holds your vials. Oh, no, your vinyl shelf. Interesting. Yeah. I never even considered that there could be another meaning to that. Yeah, it could be, it could be a record shelf, right? Yeah.

But would you put incense on the record shelf? I mean, I would not, no. No. And also what would burning ashes do to your vinyl if it's plastic? Yeah, it would just melt it and get all the ashes all over it. That's right. I think what we have in line two, we have contrasting imagery. We have the morning, which should be bright, beautiful, full of hope and expectation.

And then we have ashes and vinyl. Interesting. Okay. So this portends an unhappy ending to this poem. And okay, now I'm skipping ahead, but now I'm thinking, okay, you're saying this is like covered to like look like wood. Right. And later they're drinking cheap-ass screw-top roses. They sure are, aren't they?

Yes, they are. I'm going there too, babe. Okay, okay. I'm with you now. I'm with you now. Right. Yeah, this relationship is not a fine burgundy. It certainly is not.

No, that's served up in an aperitif glasses off of her mahogany dresser. Yeah, no. No. No, this is cheap vinyl and cheap-ass wine. Okay, okay, I'm with you. Yeah. Because we lost track of time again, laughing with my feet in your lap like you are my closest friend. She loves cinematic vignettes, right?

You know, and one of the other songs you mentioned that she's actually filmed it. And I counted like ten different cinematic images that you could pull from that song. This is one of those. I mean, everybody's seen this image of a girl sitting with her feet in a lap and the guy sitting there. And they're laughing like you were my closest friend. Now, that can be a simile, but like can also mean like but not really. Right. So we were pretending.

We looked like we were besties. We looked like it seemed to me like we were great lovers, having our first morning after giggling about what we did last night. But not. Because how did we wind up on the floor? Well, your roommate's cheap-ass screw-top rosae. Okay, I love the phrase. Yeah.

Cheap-ass screw-top rosae, and it works. The reason why it flows together is she uses alliteration. You see how the Ss connect the word ass and screw and rosé. Oh, you didn't expect it. say ass right up. No, it's just a funny phrase. Yes. Yes, the ass gets us kicked off right.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to make a crack. No. No, no. It just keeps flowing out. No, stop it. So I'm having way too much fun with this song. Oh, my gosh. Okay.

Okay. I do love that line, though. I do too. It has connectivity through its alliteration, and we know that she is intentional about using alliteration. Yes. And she says, I see you every day now. Oh, things are rosy, aren't they? Just like the rosé.

Yes, I think she chooses rosé for a reason because it impends rosiness. Right. Right. Okay, so let's take a step back and talk about another literary device that I, I haven't talked a lot about, and that is imagery. Okay, yeah. Okay. So she uses a lot of sensory imagery in this stanza.

So sensory imagery are five senses and included the sixth eye blind or the third eye blind. The five senses, though, you know, taste, touch, smell. Sight. Sight and hearing. Why was that hard? I was like, I don't know. I was looking at you for it. I know. I'm like, I don't know.

I can't remember. We need to stop drinking before we do this. What's in these mugs here? Yeah, we got our new mugs. It's a cheap, I should have brought it cheap as screw top rosé. I really missed an opportunity. I'm into that. Oh, see, there you go.

Oh, my God. Okay, so. Do you want to just stop and start over? No. This is chaos. I like it. Okay. Sensory images, using the five senses.

So, you know, I always told students that in order to see a really good writer, you check the use of images, the use of imagery, whether they use the five senses. Because most people will use sight, okay, what they saw. You know, good old Larry walked into a shop all around and they fill in the, and they fill in the, you know, and they fill in. the images around a shop. He looked at the shopkeeper who was, and then we filled in a description of what the shopkeeper looked like, right? And I tell them, you know, really good writers will use multiple senses when they write. So if you're a creative writer, remember to use multiple senses.

I used to have a little short story by Richard Wright, the American author from the 20th century. I think Richard Wright is just a brilliant writer. One of the reasons is because he uses all five senses. So you go back and you look at the sensory imagery, cleaning incense. Okay, so you've got the lingering smell of incense. Okay, we've got smell off your vinyl shelf. Okay, so you can kind of feel the cheap plastic of the vinyl.

We lost track of time laughing. You can hear them laugh. Okay, we click. off laughing. How'd we end up on the floor? You can see them down there on the floor. Well, we kicked off seeing your roommate's cheap-ass screw top rosé. Can you taste the bad rosé? She has all five senses in this one stanza. Nice. Isn't that nice? Yeah, that is. Yeah. And I didn't really notice. I mean, you know, I read through them two or three times and then I pick up my pen and I start marking them up and I started marking it up and I started marking imagery about the sixth

time through and I thought wow how'd she do that she's she is one tricky lady she got all five sensory images in one stanza and that's just really nice poetry yeah yeah so when we get to the you know how do I evaluate the poetry can you can you hear a high grade here yeah yeah I was nervous because you kept laughing so evilly. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I do love it. It brings me great joy when I see good writing. Yeah.

You know, I love it. So, yes, this first ad is really fun, really strong, and we're looking at a joyful relationship, nevertheless, does not portend well because there are ashes and cheapness surrounding it. Yes. And then we go with, I chose you. You know, now later on, we're going to,

see a parallel stanza. Okay, so we get parallelism. And I chose you, the one I was dancing with in New York, no shoes looked up at the sky, and it was the burgundy on my t-shirt when you splashed your wine into me. And so she kind of runs all these lines together. There's no punctuation.

It's like she's tumbling down stairs into this quick relationship. And we're back to New York. I'm wondering, you know, is this a reference to a previous song? She's written a New York song before. She went to the Met Gala before. I did not know these things. So you told me before.

New York is in a lot of stuff from 1989 on. She moved to New York right before or during like the 1989 era, like right before that, I guess. And so New York makes its way into a lot of her work. Okay. Yeah. I was kind of waiting for you to tell me, okay, why New York? Yeah. Because, I mean, my own resources wouldn't. Which is an extra, like, you know, point for me loving this stuff because I just, you talk about New York.

I instantly love something. You do. Yeah. She loves New York. So, okay, they're going to New York or they're in New York and they're dancing. They have no shoes on. It's kind of a gay, fun, capricious. fair and there's burgundy on her t-shirt and i wrote the note like wine on her dress yeah yeah

the wine-stained dress she can't wear anymore that's right and i started connecting it to that other song to clean and i thought oh boy you know again we're going down a road that she is not going to like the end yeah um so the burkony's on our t-shirt you splashed your wine into me so you get a lot of red imagery, you know, maybe blood imagery. And then you get how the blood rushed into my cheeks. So scarlet it was. The mark they saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephones. So I'm assuming everyone has determined that the mark on our collarbone is a hickie.

That's what I always assume. Yeah. I mean, I would think so. So the rust that grew between telephones, that would be, They were supposed to start calling each other, but their line got rusty. I love that line. Okay, so it's a kind of metaphorical. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh, I was going to ask you. I was thinking about us doing a different song, one from Tortured Poets, and I was going to ask you if you knew what ghosting was. Come on. Look at you. I know. I'm so hit.

You know stuff. I don't think. Now I don't want to ask you that anymore. I know. So, yes, rusted phones ghosting her. Yes. The lips I used to call home, so scarlet, it was maroon. So the scarlet turns dark into maroon.

And then you go back and you start thinking about imagery again, and you see the way that the color red pervades this stanza. Yeah. It's burgundy, it's wine, it's blood, it's scarlet. It's the mark, you know, Hickey would be red. It's the rust between the telephones would be reddish. and then it's scarlet, it's maroon. So that's burgundy, wine, blood, scarlet, mark, rust, scarlet, maroon. And lips.

And lips. There you go. Nine different references to the color red or blood in this particular stanza. Yeah. Yeah. I did like the use of lips and the lips I used to call home. So you used your lips to make a call. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, and then you use the lips to make a hickie, and then, you know, his lips were a familiar home. Yeah. Right. So we get a lot of lip imagery going on. I've never gotten that there's, wow, you're so good at this. That's why I'm here, Angela. I am here for all of you. Literally never picked together, like I use my lips to literally call home.

I was just always like, oh, she, these are familiar. This is where I like to be. Oh, my gosh. You know, there's also a kind of, you know, there's a dark, there's a darkness as we go down this stanza. So things are going dark. We wind up with maroon. You know, I mentioned in a previous, in a previous podcast that you always notice the end of the first line of a poem. You always notice the end of the last line of a stanza, too.

So this one ends with maroon. So we end with this darker coloration. Um, things are getting darker as we go down through. Um, so things are not going well. Yeah. Um, I think one of the darker turns too is the mark on the collarbone. Um, you know, I mean, I, I am not so hip as to know exactly what it means to kids today. But, um, I do know that in my day, you know, guys would do that to, to put a mark of ownership on a girl, you know.

and sometimes girls would get mad about it, you know. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And so here his interest in her is disingenuous. Interesting. Right. He wants to put his mark on her, but he doesn't have time to pick up the telephone and make a call.

Uh-huh. Right. Uh-huh. And then we get to verse two. Okay. It doesn't get happier after this. No, it sure does it. When the silence came.

Um, great opening line. Yeah. I think when the silence can. I would like to write a book that starts when the silence came. Yeah. We were shaking, blind and hazy. How the hell did we lose sight of us again? So they're still kind of together.

Yeah. They're not talking. They're shaking, you know, have angry about it, blind about it, hazy about it, unsure about it. Yeah, they don't know what's going on. They don't know. how the hell did we lose sight of us again? So it's not, you know, she knows who she is, he knows who he is, but...

They don't know who they are together. Yeah, as a couple, they don't know who they are. Sobbing with your head in your hands. So, yeah, he's not exactly happy. Ain't that the way shit always ends? You know, I could talk about the use of alliteration here. Yeah. You know, and you just want me to say shit again.

Shit always ends. The S's length, the end of the lines. You know, great job and very sad. Yeah. You were standing hollow-eyed, you know, is he sad? Is he remorseful? What's he sad about? I mean, you know, the, the relationship was cheap-ass vinyl to begin with.

Yeah, yeah. Right? It was lots of fun. carnations you had thought were roses. Okay, so we have flower metaphors, you know, imagery, symbolism. You know, they can both be red. You know, they can both symbolize, they could symbolize love. Carnations are cheaper.

And in fact, they're frequently associated with funerals. And are we at the death of a relationship here? Even though you thought they were roses, romance. Right. You thought it was romance. And no, it's just, it's carnations. I'd like to talk about hallway. Oh, yeah?

Specifically hallway. This, like, you're standing hollow-eyed in the hallway. I did not, I wish, this, like, just came to me because, and I wish I had, like, pulled out all the time she uses that. But I feel like she uses hallway in a couple of different songs. We've talked about you're losing me before because I think so long London, there was a kind of parallels to you're losing me, which we haven't covered yet. And in your losing me, she also talks about a hallway. Oh, okay.

And then in another song called Hits Different, she says, like, I hear your keys down the hall, like in the door down the hallway. And I think, I don't think I picked up on this on my own. I think I saw somebody talking about it somewhere. But it feels like she, in these songs where she's talking about relationships that aren't technically over yet, but they're like in this weird period where they're, they seem they're going to end soon. I feel like she always talks about being it like in a hallway or like different ends

of a hallway. Yeah. Or. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for connecting it to other songs. Yeah.

Yeah. So they're not in a room. Yeah. They're not in a private place. And a hallway, I mean, I think of a hotel hallway or an apartment building hallway. It's just a long, empty. Yeah, and it's like takes you to a different place. Right, you're moving on to another place.

Wow, that's a really good image. I don't think I can take credit for that. I think I saw somebody say it. And then I started seeing it in more songs and I'm like, wait, what is up with the hallways? Okay, so hey, I'm going to stop talking about Maroon just for a second and say, Angela called me last week and she sent me a couple of the, a couple of your comments on the YouTube channel. And I honestly, I had not looked at them. I mean, she sent me some from time to time. And she said, you ought to look at them.

And so I looked at all too well. And I must have read through, I don't know, 70 of them. And thank you very much for the very kind things you say. But the other thing I saw is there were three or four of them who said things. And I thought, wow, I didn't think about that. That's really good. I mean, collectively, we're one smart person. Yeah.

So, yeah, thank you very much for the comments, but thank you very much for the additional interpretive power as well. Very fun. Yeah, it is fun. Yeah, we're all smart. Yeah, we're all smart. Together. So, yeah, I like the hallway thing.

Yeah. And the verse ends with, I feel you, no matter what the rubies that I, gave up. Okay, rubies again, they're red, so we're connecting to the previous stanza, but also they're precious stones.

You know, so she gave up something that's precious, and what did she get back? Cheap-ass wine, cheap carnations. Yeah, and rust. And rust and ashes and vinyl and, oh, yeah, so we're piling up

these images of cheap things. Yeah. And I lost you. Okay, so you go back to the first chorus and I chose you. I chose you. I chose you. And now, and I lost you. And back to the first chorus, the one I was dancing with, the one I was dancing with in the second chorus in New York.

So, yeah, we had all these great times. And I looked up at the sky and it was maroon. It was red and dark. I still have the burgundy on my t-shirt that you splashed your wine and the blood rushed to my cheeks so scarlet and there's still rust in the mark and the lips that I used to call home. So it's the same, but in its parallelism it has one key difference. Yeah, I'd never notice that before. She's adding maroon in here this time. Yeah, she adds maroon.

Two extra times. Yes, maroon. So scarlet. it was she doesn't go on to the mark yeah she it was maroon yeah and now i'm thinking of bugs bunny what a maroon i don't okay no never mind yeah never mind i wonder why she puts maroon in there well because he's he's left now yes and all is darkness she is marooned the red flesh of her cheeks has turned to darkness and she is literally marooned.

Yeah. Yeah. That's great, isn't it? Yeah. So good. And then we get to the bridge and I wake with your memory over me. I love the image of over me or the idea of over me because it gives, I think of words like pending, you know, like something hanging over her. Yeah.

And so I put the word hanging together with the death of that relationship. Uh-huh. But also it's over. Right? The relationship is over. Yeah. And she uses that word memory. And I've told Angela that I'm beginning, you know, with this my 12th song, I began to see a really interesting theme of memory that strings her ideas together.

And I'd like to do just an entire thing on how we see memory in her different songs. There are theories of how human beings create. create memory, store memory, how memory changes, how we alter it to match our own needs. Yeah. And so I'd like to do a whole thing on just memory. So keep that in mind. Yeah. Stay tuned.

Yeah. So the waking up, instead of waking up to the smell of incense and waking up to him, now she's waking up with a memory and it's over. And it's pending honor, like hanging. Yeah, literally hanging over her head. Well, that's a real fucking legacy, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She doesn't seem to be happy in that line. Certainly not.

Okay, I was hoping you would see that. It was a maroon. She's been marooned. I wake with your memory over me. That's a real fucking legacy to leave. And then we go back to more of everything we've seen before. So Scarlet, it was maroon.

Okay, one thought on that. It's a real legacy to leave. Ah, yes. It's to leave. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, there's like two, I feel like there's two different interpretations there. Like, it's a legacy.

It's, your legacy is that you left me. Yes. But also, that's a legacy to leave. Like, you've left. your legacy, but your legacy is that you've left me. That you've left, right. So you've got two different meanings of two leave. Yeah, it's nice.

Yeah. So nice, a well-written song, lots of color imagery, all five sensory images, all in the first stanza, parallelism, you know, once again, you go back through and mark all the all the alliteration, really nice stuff. Yeah. And we're done. I don't feel like that's true. And now, and now.

and now for part two. So years ago, I was teaching, getting ready to teach Robert Frost, and I knew people were going to want to talk about things like the road not taken or stopping by woods on a snowy evening or things like that. Robert Frost can be a very dark poet. You know, a lot of people think the road not taken is kind of like a happy-uplifting poem. Oh, I was different. But he says, no, the two roads were, in fact, very similar.

And I took the one less taken, and that has made all the difference. Oh, negative. Yeah. Is it a happy thing that it, you know, what he's saying is it's irretaceable. It's non-retractable that he's made a decision and you just can't go back. He doesn't tell us whether it was a good decision or a bad decision. Interesting. Yeah, it's actually can be a fairly dark point.

So in his poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening These woods Whose woods these are, I think I know His house is in the village though He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow Okay, the little horse must take it queer to stop

Without a farmhouse near He gives his harness bells a shake to ask if there is some mistake Oh, okay But he says he, the woods are lovely, dark and deep. And I have promises to keep in miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go before I sleep. So in getting ready to teach some of these poetry, I was reading a number of critical articles. And I came across an article that was the dumbest, worst interpretation of this poem ever. The author said that this is a poem about bestiality. What? Look at the lines, Angela.

I stopped without a farmhouse near, right? He intentionally goes to a place where he will not see me stopping here to watch it fill up. My little horse, see how he infantilizes the horse, must think it queer to stop without a farmhouse near. Okay. He gives his harness bells a shake to ask if there is some mistake. Oh, my gosh. Okay. But the woods are lovely, dark and deep.

Oh, my God. I'm worried about where we're going with this. I'm just going to tell you that the guy who wrote that analysis is wrong, that this is not a poem about beastility with a small horse. This is a poem about, um, You know, a sad desperation of a man who sees death imagery in snows and loneliness, in darkness, and in the depth of forests. But he knows he has to go on. Nevertheless, the guy wrote a compelling article using evidence from the poem.

All right. Let me make a compelling argument. Okay. This is a poem about vampirism. Oh my gosh. Maroon, the color of dark blood. Oh, my gosh. Okay, it's from the album Midnight.

When do vampires come out? At night. Yes, as a matter of fact, the first line of the poem says when morning came, well, he only comes out at night. They're cleaning the incense. They had a dirty ritual. They lost track of time. Do vampires care about time? No, they live timeless lives.

Yeah, they're always alive. Yes. Or dead or not alive or whatever. She says, I choose you, chose you. Have you ever seen the movie, let the right one in? No. You know, there's this lore about vampires that they must be invited in. Oh, right, right, right.

They can't come into your house. They can't come in unless you invite them. Oh, my gosh. She says, What are you doing? She says there's burgundy on my shirt. Oh, you mean the blood spilled down from her neck? Oh, my God, the mark on my collarbone.

Yes. How the blood rushed into my cheeks. She's flushed with excitement as he bites. So scarlet it was as the blood rushes out. The mark they saw in my collarbone. The teeth. Mark, the bite, the lips I used to call home, his lips sucking her blood. We were shaking, blind and hazy.

The mutual ecstasy over sharing the blood, sobbing with your head and your hands, he's remorseful about turning her. You were standing hollow-eyed in a hall. way he'll always need more blood more victims oh my gosh the carnations you thought were roses carnations associated with funerals okay i feel you no matter what they're forever linked by the blood the rubies that i gave up the drops of blood that she gave up to him my gosh and i wake with your memory over her, is she a vampire now? Does she need blood? Very, very Edward and Bella coded.

That's a, that's a real fucking legacy, isn't it? To turn her into the vampire, you splashed your wine into me. She says, not on me, into me. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Swiftie's everywhere. this is a poem about vampirism. Oh, my gosh. That's hilarious. I just... How many read-throughs did you do before this came to?

I don't know. I'm telling you, I read them and read them and read them and read them, and I mark them up and mark them up. And I read through it and I thought, ooh, the mark on her neck, all the blood, the hollow eyes, the death imagery, the incense that implies a ritual. Oh my gosh.

Now I see why you're laughing evilly at me so hard. That's why I couldn't wait to do this poem because, yes, we could read it conventionally as a poem about loss. It has a very nice theme. I mean, we can talk about the theme. Theme of a loss, theme of abandonment,

being marooned, theme about emotional remorse. Right? So yes, it's got a lot of really nice themes, really well developed. I praise it highly for its use of sensory imagery, and it's about vampirism. Oh, my gosh. Can't believe you're making a mockery of Maroon. This kind of actually does play into something that I considered not talking about.

Oh, yeah? Have I talked to you about galerism? No. No. So there's a subsect of Swifties called The Gaylers. Okay. That think that Taylor is a lesbian. Okay, yeah. Gay, sure. So they're not Taylor's Gayler.

Okay, she has trouble with male relationships. Yeah, so they think it's all fake, and she puts all these secret messages into her music that's speaking directly to them. Now, I want to say, before I keep going. that reading work through a queer lens, great. Go for it. If you can take something through a queer lens and apply it to your life, even if it wasn't written that way, great. That's good art, right?

That you can see it through multiple different lenses. The opposite side of that, though, is assuming everything that Taylor says and does and is is a lie. and she's only talking to you. And a lot of people think that this song is about a woman. Oh, really? Okay. Because they're talking about, I think it's like she's talking about lips and they're like red. And it does like evoke a little bit of like a more feminine energy or like image.

Could it be a gay vampire? Yes. Yes. You know, there is a movie where the vampire is gay. What movie's that? Yeah, I can't remember the title, but one of you will remember it because. We're all very smart. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that is like an interesting parallel with like, okay, Robert Frost's poem is about Beastiality and Taylor's song is about lesbianism and or vampires. Yeah, could be. I'm telling you, I picked out line after line after line that clearly indicates vampirism. And so this is a poem about vampires. Yeah, so whatever linds you read through is valid. Convinced now. No, I mean, really, to be serious, just for a moment as we begin to wind up, to be serious, that, you know, one of the fun things about literary interpretation is you bring your own self to the work.

Yes, yes. And yes, I have used queer theory to analyze literature before. I used feminist theory. I've used a number of, you know, read-a-response theory. it's a terrific lens to view a work and try to understand what writers are getting to, right? Yeah. I honestly don't think this is a poem about vampires. You know, if Taylor calls you tomorrow and says, no, it really is.

I'd like to know. But it is funny sometimes how much how when we take little tiny increments out, that it's, it can lead you down the road. of a reading that may belie the direction of the holistic work. Right. You know, again, Robert Frost stopping by Woods on a snow evening is not about beastiality. Yeah.

when are we going to do Maroon? Let's do Maroon. You're like, I'm ready, I'm ready, let's do it. And then every time I go, yeah. Okay, that is hilarious. But yeah, I do think that that is, I don't know, it just shows that you can,

if you're looking for something, you can find ways to get there. Yeah, well, and it also should tell you that almost anything we have said or will say on this podcast or YouTube channel will probably be subject to review and entirely discounted. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, like, we're all just reading it through whatever lens we're bringing to it. Right. Yeah. So let's just, let's be honest when we played this game. It's fun. You know, that's why I've stayed in literature my whole life. It's so darn much fun. I can't let it go.

Yeah. That's why we're here. Okay. You ready to listen? Yes, I want to listen. Oh, my gosh. We're going to listen to, like, watch the lyric video, and then we'll watch the ERIS tour movie performance acoustic,

and she is wearing like a dark pink, maroony color. We will be back. Okay. Tell me your thoughts. Well, so we saw both the video and the ERIS tour performance, and the ERIS tour performance was very beautiful. It's just piano solo. I love it when they strip away all the glit.

and just let a singer sing. Me too. So it was beautiful. What I really thought about the video was it stressed the darkness. You know, it's not mourning at all. No. I mean, it looks like twilight. It looks like a pending doom hanging over the place.

Not twilight. No, and it's. It is. And there are just billows of red, blood, back to our vampire, but billows of red blood coming up. Oh, yeah, behind the chorus. Yeah. Right.

And I love the way she tumbles through the language. You know, one of the things that I think unique about this is a poem, unique about the song, is she frequently likes to use Seishura. She likes end stops where you pause at the end of a line. So that's very typical the way she writes. pauses in the middle of the line, pauses at the end of a line, and stopping. In the chorus, she doesn't stop at all. Yeah, it's like a continuous sentence. It's a tumble of language.

I mean, it reminds me of beat poets. If you've ever read Lawrence Ferlingetti or Gregory Corsoe or people like that, the beat poetry or it reminds me of Jack Kerouac. Yeah. Yeah. So a Jack Kerouac novel where he just, the language is just, flows and flows. It goes and goes like life as a continuous rolling tumble,

and you're almost not in control of it. And I wondered if she's illustrating she's not in control. Yeah. Right? Yeah. The events just happen, happen, happen, happen, happen, happen. And then you're gone, well, thanks. She doesn't.

Yeah, she doesn't even know what just happened. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the other thing I will say that I didn't say before in my serious analysis before we got to the supernatural one, is I wondered to if there is sexual imagery, intentional sexual imagery here. Okay.

You know, she does, after all, say, you splashed your wine into me. Okay, interesting. Right. And I was very curious about that line, and that's one of the things that actually put me on the vampire track, which I am now officially denying. But I hope that I have started.

a small cult of you who do believe this is a vampire cult. There's like Reddit theories like next week about like. Yeah, I hope Reddit blows up. Guys, I have a new theory about Maroon. Yeah, it's all mine, by the way. But, but yeah, I did worry over the word into me. And then the very next line is her cheeks flush. And so during orgasm, her cheeks would flush.

She's very fair. And, you know, yes, so this is his spilling his wine into her and her flush of orgasm. And that's a fucking legacy to leave. Oh. Right. So essentially what she thought was, you know, the start of a fun, wacky relationship turned out to be just a sexual one that ended in her being in abandonment. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I honestly did think about the, the orgasmic imagery there.

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, could be. But I like the, I like the performance very much. I was at a Lady Gaga concert and, you know, she played piano solo and they elevated her on this giant piston. And those are beautiful moments in concerts. Yeah, the best, yeah. And I was just really struck by the dark redness, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

of the video. Yeah. Good stuff. It is good stuff. It's fun. You ready to grade? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Okay. As a vampire poem or as a both? Yeah, you choose.

Okay. Okay. Grading. We have five criteria. I know. Lyrical strength. Lyrical strength. Okay, so I really like the chorus with no stops. you know, I like the tumble of language. You know, it frees me up as a reader to go forward and backward in her language.

So, yeah, lyrically, you know, it's a little A typical of some of her work, and I like that freshness. I mean, there are other lyrical elements, too, of course, but I really like the choruses. And I like the parallelism of the two choruses, right? Parallelism of the first line. Yeah, it does feel very different the way that this line picks up here. Right. Yeah. So 96.

Yeah, good. Okay. Narrative and structure. So, you know, I love the structure. I started out by saying I thought there were three parts, the initial moment of joy, the fragmenting of the relationship and ultimately the abandonment. So you had this clear step by step, the parallelism of the two choruses. and I didn't say in the performances,

I love the way she sings the very end of the song, the way it trails away. So again, a very strong 97. Okay. Production and atmosphere. Ooh, I like the songs. Yeah, that's a 98 for me. Okay, yeah, this is that one.

This is one that, like, I really liked at first, and then, like, for some reason kind of stopped listening to. and then when I came back to it, I was like, why haven't I been listening to this every single day? Like, it's so fun. Lore and literary references. So I'm going to talk about, you know, like that one in the first one or have some relationship, the lyrical strength. The use of imagery in that first verse, if I were teaching English, I am retired. You're teaching all of these people now.

Yes. Well, seriously, if I were teaching an English class, and I wanted to teach about sensory imagery. Or if I were teaching a creative writing class and I wanted to get my students to work, to hone their skills in using all five senses, I would use this opening verse. It is so, it's got such a perfect blend of imagery

without slapping you in the face with, you know, it's like someone, someone who doesn't know how to handle the sensory image of smell will say, I walked in the room, and it smelled of sweat. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, good.

Check that one, sense of smell. Yeah. But she says we were cleaning incense, you know, and so you can smell the incense without her having to tell you. Yeah. That the incense smelled. Yeah. And remember, it smells like incense, you know.

It's just, it's deftly handled. And so I'm going to say there's a 99 right up there at the top. Goodness gracious. I would use this in a classroom. Okay. Yeah. So all you teachers out there use it. Right.

And emotional impact. Well, I've never been a vampire. Oh my gosh. I'm not going to let it drop, have I? I feel like this is now the lens you're going to read all of Taylor's songs too. That's right. Could this be a werewolf? If this had been in folklore.

Emotional impact, you know, I mean, I did, I felt sorry for the direction that she was going. You know, I felt that with the dead incense on a cheap shelf and cheap rosé, that, you know, you want to, have you ever had that friend you just wanted to yell, stop? Mm-hmm. You know, and, you know, if, when I was reading this, I felt like this is one of those poems where if I were sitting beside her, I would say, My dear, you know, please stop. What we do in here. Yeah, what we do in here.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so, but you can't, right? You can't, it's like that tumble of words that gets you into the chorus. You can't stop. You're rolling downhill too fast. And so I don't, you know, it had that impact on me that, the kind of sadness and frustration about not being able to reach out and say stop. Yeah.

So 97. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You love this song. I really did. Yeah, despite my joking around with the, I'm telling you people, with the vampire theory. That gives us a 97. Oh, that's good.

Yeah. Well, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I liked it. Yeah. There's just that first verse, I think.

Yeah, the first verse really hit me. I mean, I was at the end of my first. first reading and I went back to that first verse and I thought man you know I mean I felt like Richard Wright to me you know it felt like I should be reading something by a really skilled writer who

understands how to use sensory images yeah awesome 97 for Maroon there you go love that for her little Maroon okay is that it I think that's it all the vampire talk I you know

got it all out of your system I'm going to put that to bed. I'm going to drive a steak through its heart. Oh, my goodness gracious. Okay. Okay, that is all for today. Make sure you're subscribed on all of the things. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Swifty and Scholar Pod.

You can follow me at Angela Wyatt McDow on Instagram. You can find Uncle Jerry, you know, here watching vampire movies probably. Filing my teeth. Drinking some blood. Sure. Okay, and we will see you next week. Bye.