1.5 Years Later: My Top 8 Songs & Their Queer Readings

我写的上一个 rep queer reading

与reputation的看似黑暗，实则满是在公众抓马背后与爱人的甜蜜相反，Lover则是看似轻甜，实则充满心碎，不安，痛苦。典型的Taylor Swift叙事方法，the saltbox house, two or three stories in the front, one in the back. 这是第一张TS拥有自己版权的专辑，也是自2018年中期选举以来打破政治沉默的第一张专辑。她终于写了一张在她的作品集中最pop的一张专辑，just like the pop star that she is. 对于美国45届政府的不满也散落全专。就像她在采访中说的，‘我现在除了政治新闻啥也不看’。

Taylor Swift与她对社会议题的看法一直是围绕她的无数controversy之一。当大部分名人都在利用自己的平台推动社会问题的时候，她的沉默尤其响，以至于不少极端右翼人士称她为‘雅利安民族的公主’或者‘纳粹芭比’。我认为即使在2018年之前，事情也不是那么简单。从她的纪录片《Miss Americana》观众们可以看到她即使作为一个国际巨星，她说话的权力和自由意想不到的小。她周围的中老年白人男子（包括她铁杆右派的爹）一边打断她哽咽的发言，一边要她保持沉默因为怕坏了生意（艺术家不过是产业的底层民工）。然而纪录片是constructing a narrative, 她周围的环境固然恶劣，但不要忘记，她既然比大部分人有更大的平台和权力。那么自18年‘打破沉默’以后，她在这方面做的怎么样呢？我认为依然是非常不够的。疫情、BLM期间的沉默以及前两天g&g事件，让我和其他不少粉丝意识到，Taylor Swift will only speak up about social issues that affect her directly. 这也就是为什么她从Lover era开始非常公开地speak up about LGBTQ+ rights issues让我坚信she's a member of the community. A closeted bisexual woman would be my guess.

Why does her sexuality matter? 因为我想更好地理解她的作品。性取向是一个作者人性中极为核心的一点，就像知道惠特曼，萨福，狄金森对同性的偏好对于理解他们的作品有极大帮助一样。 有人会说猜测一个closeted person's sexuality不道德，我整体上同意这一点，但在Taylor Swift的问题上我不同意。因为尽管Taylor是一个公众人物，我没有用任何not-publically-available的隐私信息来猜。我的解读主要来自于她的作品以及她自己留的彩蛋中painfully obvious的signaling. Like I said, it's painfully obvious. 从另一个角度看，从Taylor出名的那一天，一出新作品各路媒体就立马开始对哪首歌是关于哪个‘前男友’做连线题，为什么当人们开始猜疑可能的前女友的时候提起道德问题？

在分析我最喜欢的八首歌之前，我们就来先说一下彩蛋，or how loud she was without yelling 'I'm bi' from the top of a mountain. 从EW杂志封面的pride heart pin，到整个专辑的pastel blue/pink aestheric, 包括teaser阶段的proud手链和彩虹滤镜，以及mv中数不胜数的彩虹, let me ask you, which other straight artist do this? Hell, which gay one even go as far? 其中我认为最有意思的还是Me！的mv，如果倒着看的话，她的每一个era都有（最后一幕的 dance in a storm in my best dress ,再往前RED的‘ you look like a sixties queen’，1989的‘Kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats under coats’, reputation的LWYMMD楼梯），可是最后一个era，也就是第一幕，是她arguing with a boy in a fancy apartment. 另外她在片场领养的小猫她给起名叫Benjemin Button, 返老还童的本杰明巴顿，Get it?

在我看来，整张专辑没有一首歌是完全开心的，而且没有一首歌是直的 (not even London Boy). 在这里我想分析8首我最喜欢的歌以及它们的queer reading.

(说一秒London Boy因为太有意思了, TS sample 了Cautious Clay的Cold War的beat, 她职业生涯中第二次sample别人的歌。这首歌出现在booksmart里Hope&Amy的s3x sc3n3。TS看了booksmart并且在ins上大力宣传过。booksmart她是5月看的，London Boy录于6月，在YNTCD mv出来之后，宣传时她却说所有的歌在2月都录完了。歌的内容全是cringe，只有游客会去当地人头痛的地方，更不要说开头的Idris Elba提到Scooter, which is from an interview where he talked about having a fake date)

OK kids, spelling is fun, let's dive in to the analyses shall we?

Top 1: Cruel Summer

与St. Vincent (a.k.a. Annie Clark) 和Jack Antonoff 的合作，旋律抓耳，歌词直白却略有神秘，bridge尤其出彩。被不止我一个人认为是全专最佳，不是single且没有mv是许多歌迷心中永远的痛。我认为这首歌是关于作者陷入了一段禁忌之恋，与此同时还要与一个‘男朋友’假装在一起 (also known as bearding)，所以Cruel Summer.

'Bad, bad boy, shiny toy with a price' 这已经不是一次Taylor管男朋友叫toy了（Don't Blame Me中‘Toyin' with them older guys/Just to play things for me to use’, The Lucky One中 'your lover in the foyer doesn't even know you'等）‘shiny’, 新，‘with a price’, bearding contracts are expensive.

'it's new, the shape of your body/It's blue, the feeling I've got/It's cool, that's what I tell 'em/if I bleed, you'll be the last to know ' 同样指的是新的beard, which makes her sad and he doesn't know her very well.

'I'm drunk in the back of the car/And I cried like a baby coming home from the bar' 联系Delicate的dive bar以及cardigan的‘To kiss in cars and downtown bars was all we needed’, 借酒向她真正爱上的人吐真言，I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you. 由此我们可以看出，如果Taylor不继续保密，她就可能失去她爱的人，which straight relationship is like this? 接下来她说，"For whatever it's worth, I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?" If it's a straight relationship, why is it the worst thing that f*cking Taylor Swift is in love with you?! (p.s. if you are wondering what the hell is a 'garden gate', look at the entrance of Karlie Kloss' West Village apartment gate and you'll understand)

这首歌让我心疼TS，但又忍不住听，几乎整张专辑都是这样。就像Jack Antonoff说的，这张专辑想让你‘crying while dancing’.

Top 2: Death by a Thousand Cuts

这么惨的歌词配上这么轻快的音乐简直是犯罪。Secret Session说是受Someone Great启发，上Ellen也埋下这个彩蛋，可是如果看版权信息这首歌制作完成的时间都比这电影上映的早，而且我几乎肯定写的时间比录的时间还要早。这首歌与小说《 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo 》有着惊人的相似处。这本小说讲的是一位虚构的好莱坞双性恋影星，尽管她在公众视角里有7个丈夫，实际上人生伴侣是一位女性。作者Taylor Jenkins说是受Elizabeth Taylor的生平改编（怎么这么多Taylor？我又想起Are You Ready For It 中的一句‘Burton to this Taylor’，以及与KK有名的Big Sur Trip去的Pfeiffer Beach是Tim Burton & Elizabeth Taylor拍The Sand Piper的取景地。巧合？I think not）, 又在推上回应：

Taylor Jenkins Reid推特截图

最直接的与这首歌的联系：

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo截图

我最喜欢第一个verse，‘I see you everywhere, the only thing we share is this small town’ 联想Cornelia Street 'the city screams your name' (下面会说). 当处处都能看到从前的爱人的广告牌时，九百万人口的纽约市也会显得如此的小。And can we give a moment to appreciate my favorite line, 'You said it was a great love, one for the ages/But if the story’s over, why am I still writing pages?',像诗一样又押韵又让人心痛，唉。

另外， 'My heart, my hips, my body, my love/Tryna find a part of me that you didn't touch' hips联想False God（我后面会说），‘Our songs, our films, united we stand/Our country, guess it was a lawless land/Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand’ 明显的政治commentary，45届政府一上来就对LGBTQ+ rights各种打压，仿佛之前几十年的progress白整了，'guess it was a lawless land'. 她很害怕，指望身边的爱人能安抚她的恐惧。在这里我再问一下，what's to be afaird of if she's in a relationship with a cis white male who's also rich and objectively handsome? 接下来，‘Paper cut stings from our paper-thin plans’, to me refers to the plan to come out, or the lack there of.

(p.s. 我认为window boarded up/storm是指与DA的分手，chandelier是beard，详见LWYMMD、Blank Space mv, 这里不展开解读了)

Top 3: Cornelia Street

就像她在歌里唱的一样，Taylor在她的Tribeca公寓装修期间在Cornelia Street租了一栋房子，which is a 10-min walk away from Karlie's West Village apartment. 第一句‘We were in the backseat/Drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar’继续延续上面Cruel Summer中提到的酒吧trope，and what they were drunk on, if not the alcohol, shall I say love? 副歌部分的‘And I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends/I'd never walk Cornelia Street again/That's the kinda heartbreak time could never mend’多么动人，你现在在我身边，但我没有一点信心我们可以一直走下去。如果我们分开了，时间可修补不好这样的心碎，我们在一起时我住过的街道我都不愿再踏上一步。‘And baby, I get mystified by how this city screams your name’， Karlie's a model, there are billboards of her all over NYC.

‘Windows flung right open, autumn air’对比上面的‘windows boarded up after the storm’, she's ready for a new love story in her life.

这首歌我最喜欢的部分莫过于bridge (don't we all, with all TS songs lol), ‘You hold my hand on the street/Walk me back to that apartment/Years ago, we were just inside’. 这里是Taylor屈指可数（也许是唯一一次）写在街上与爱人牵手，无论弯直，不可否认的是secrecy/in the dark/at midnight是TS爱情歌曲的不变主题。这里绝对是一个对还没发生的未来的幻想（’现在’在这段里被形容为Years ago，这段必然是未来）。她们走在了Cornelia Street，说明战胜了一切外力没有分开（记得她刚说如果失去你就再也不会走这条街吗），并且能光明正大地牵手走在大街上，然而Years ago (the 'now' in the song), they were just inside. I would interprete this as inside the closet, or away from the public eye. 后面的became my religion联系False God，后面会说。

尤其是2021年听这个bridge，心痛啊

Top 4: Daylight

The untimate coming-out song, 仿佛如释重负，长舒一口气。‘You gotta step into the daylight and let it go’, might I ask how do cluless straigt people interprete this line?

'There are so many lines that I've crossed unforgiven' 联系 Don't Blame Me 'For you I would cross the line'. 'I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you/I don't wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you' 非常浪漫的两句话，可以理解为Taylor找到了the one, 不会再去寻找那个人了，但也可以考虑为她找到了让她觉得值得出柜的人了，‘我现在有了你，不愿再想他们所有人跟我说的出柜的后果，我愿意为你踏出这没有回头路的一步’，‘I've been sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night’ 我认为是一个Rip Van Winkle的reference

‘Clearing the air, I breathed in the smoke’联系cardigan‘the smell of smoke would hang aroung this long, cuz I knew everything when I was young’, 我认为是指代她的性取向，‘clearing the air’又有澄清的意思，为了假装她不是弯的，她把自己的身份藏了起来，breath in the smoke.

后面三句我非常喜欢，‘Maybe you ran with the wolves and refused to settle down’，这里的你我认为是Taylor的爱人，who's always had straight relationships, 与狼群（坏影响，指Taylor）跑了并且拒绝settle down to a heteronormative lifestyle; 'Maybe I've stormed out of every single room in this town', by coming out Taylor think of the worst case scenario, burning all her bridges and making everyone angry; 'Threw out our cloaks and our daggers because it's morning now. It's brighter now, now' 联系tolerate it，'Took this dagger in me and removed it', also, coming out.

'I once believed love would be (Black and white)/But it's golden (Golden)...I once believed love would be (Burning red)/But it's golden' 黑白指heteronormative relationships, 联想Out of the Woods, 'the rest of the world is black and white, but we were in screaming color'. Golden is of course a known Karlie reference, while red a being Dianna reference. 这里就不展开了。

录音的outro也是全专的结尾，近两年后的2021年，she still hasn't stepped into the daylight yet :(

Top 5: False god

Urban R&B yes please. sultry saxophone yes please. One of the hottest/steamiest/sexiest and also gayest song by Taylor Swift, who thought she had it in her?! I'm so proud of her tho!

首先，religious imageries belong to the gays, this is a fact. 宗教是压迫LGBTQ+人群的一座大山，例子：Take Me to Church by Hozier, Bad Religion by Frank Ocean, Don't Blame Me by Taylor Swift, Holy by King Princess, Worship by YnY, Like A Prayer by Madonna, and Animal by Troye.

在False God里，宗教在爱人面前变得不再重要。下地狱又怎么样？你是我的宗教。‘But we might just get away with it/Religion's in your lips/Even if it's a false god’ 也许我们能侥幸躲过被诅咒的命运，I want you, even if religion doesn't approve. 'The altar is my hips/Even if it's a false god/We'd still worship this love' ***** worshipping anyone?? children please leave the room.

接下来是我最喜欢的Verse 2，‘I know heaven's a thing/I go there when you touch me, honey/Hell is when I fight with you' 后生永世的天堂被轻巧地说成‘我知道有那么回事，但我的天堂地狱都是你’，‘Make confessions and we’re begging for forgiveness/Got the wine for you’，宗教仪式中的告解以及代表耶稣之血的红酒对于她来说不过是aphrodisiac.

（p.s. 如果没看过的强烈推荐SNL现场, hottest thing I've ever seen, 另外DA就这观众里坐着嘻嘻）

（p.p.s. NY & West Village are of course Karlie tropes, just putting it out there）

Top 6: Lover

也许有人会说，这么直这么甜的歌怎么可能又不直又悲伤呢？且听我慢慢道来

'We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January/We could let our friends crash in the living room' 圣诞节在12月25号，所有人都leave the Christmas lights up 'til January; 朋友来访当然可以睡在客厅，有什么问题？ Taylor所梦想的与爱人的未来如此简单，其他情侣just take it for granted, but Taylor's BRAGGING about this little agency. ‘Can I go where you go?/Can we always be this close?’ 类似Cornelia Street副歌的不安全感。

解读这首歌不得不提这首歌的mv（以下全部是我自己的解读，没有官方确认）. 首先雪球联系You Are in Love 的 ‘You two were dancing in a snow globe round and round’，which is from VSFS. 红门内第一幕，在室内可是一走廊全都是关着的门，联系Daylight中上面提到的‘stormed out of every single room in this town’. 其中的男演员是rep tour King of My Heart (which is a Kaylor song) 扮演love interest的舞者.TS的所有‘前男友‘都是白人，也许这个黑人舞者代表了这个lover的‘不同’。房子内每一个彩色的房间都代表一个TS era，每一个房间不是关着窗就是拉着窗帘，可是第一幕和最后一幕雪球外的现实（理想）生活窗帘是打开的，有明媚的阳光照入屋内。在房子内与lover所有的甜蜜或吵架日常都是只有他们两个人，并且是在室内。那个红色的跨年party屋，‘there's glitter on the floor’, 明显联系New Year's Day, 有朋友在场，可是TS和lover不能表达爱意，只能隔着人群交换眼神，Taylor在弹吉他，当众人的entertainer. 爬上阁楼看投影的与爱人的回忆时，she literally climbed thru a CLOSET, later her lover also climbed thru that goddamn CLOSET to join her (投影的现实影片好多都是Kaylor moments).

（p.s. 我知道这里的bridge有‘magnetic force of a man’，但是与Shawn Mendes合唱remix的bridge是原版的bridge，也是TS写的。'Magnetic'也联系Gorgeous中的‘your magnetic field being a little too strong’, and Gorgrous is of course a Kaylor song. Just saying. ）

Top 7: It’s nice to have a friend

我非常喜欢这首歌，the ultimate gal pal song. 好多人觉得这首歌莫名其妙，i think it makes perfect sense. 三段verse讲了一个延续的故事，是两人从儿时的朋友，成年后变成情侣，最后结婚的故事，然而这样一个浪漫到一般人可遇不可求的故事，副歌却一直在说‘it's nice to have a friend’, 有朋友真好，她们不就是朋友吗。That's what society has been doing since the dawn of civilization, delegitimizing/belittling same sex relationships.

为什么我说故事的主人公是两个女性？1）‘Lost my glove, you give me one’ 像是电影卡罗尔的情节的改编 2）‘Sleeping in tents’ sounds like sleepovers, 我敢问哪个小女孩的家长，无论多小的孩子，会放心让她跟一个小男孩独处sleepover in tents? 3) 'light pink sky' 联系invisible string中的‘Give me the blues and then purple pink sky’, which is the color of the Bi flag. 于是这里的'light pink sky'我认为就是那粉色的部分 4）'Something gave you the nerve, To touch my hand'

Top 8: The Archer

著名的Track 5， the most honest, emotional, raw song of any TS album. 说实话我没有完全搞懂这个词（other than the fact that it's gay），不然可能会排得再靠前点。

'Combat, I'm ready for combat/I say I don't want that, but what if I do?' the mayhem that follows coming-out, certainly. 'I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you', the coming-out speech or whatever, to the fans/public.

'I never grew up, it's getting so old' 联系cardigan中的‘Peter losing Wendy’.

'And I cut off my nose just to spite my face' 联系kissgate时The 1975唱的歌Girls（You Need to Calm Down MV 中也有对Girls MV的明显reference）

‘The room is on fire, invisible smoke’,again, smoke, 上面说过

‘And all of my heroes die all alone’ 联系hoax 'You knew the hero died so what's the movie for? ', 可能 refering to the 'Bury Your Gays' trope in movies, 也可能指Dusty Springfield, 一个与TS有很多诡异的重合之处的双性恋歌手（举个例子，她在1989年录制了她的第13张studio album 'reputation').

(p.s. TS is sagittarius, The Archer, u know)

(p.p.s. You Need to Calm Down MV 中Hayley Kiyoko aka Lesbian Jesus射箭直击‘5’，好多人都以为Hayley要colab，结果并没有。She's only there to gay-approve the song imo)

写了好长其实也没写完，忍痛挑了八首歌。感谢阅读，我还打算写接下来两张专辑的乐评。Stay tuned for more.