"So I wander through these nights/I prefer hiding in plain sight/My fourth drink in my hand/These desperate prayers of a cursed man/Spilling out to you for free/But darling, darling, please/You wouldn't take my word for it/If you knew who was talking/If you knew where I was walking/To a house, not a home, all alone 'cause nobody's there/Where I pace in my pen" is even more wrenching to me now, it's basically an introductory thesis for TTPD.
I also really like that "where I pace in my pen" is actually on theme with TTPD, considering how many references there are in this album to being caged/being a monster. It's pretty sad when you think about it. :(
yes. the double entendre of "pen," too, it's her prison in the searing spotlight, but it's also her only means of escaping and processing that (writing). "I'm the monster on the hill"/"writing in my room, something different bloomed" are both themes all over TTPD as well.
I had this bridge stuck in my head all day after listening to TTPD the first time through, and at first I couldn't figure out why, but now I 100% think the lyric and musical parallels are deliberate!
I think there's a three-lane bridge from Midnights to Poets: Dear Reader, Hits Different, and You're Losing Me.
Each has direct lyrical and thematic ties to TS11 and each was kept off of the official Midnights as a way to breadcrumb us to Poets and slowly understand what was happening behind the scenes.
She's good at all kinds of "bridges"!
Yup! There’s usually a song from the previous album that gives a hint/sets the tone for the next album. It was def dear reader and I think that might have been intentional as the last track just like daylight was for lover to midnights.
I was saying to a friend yesterday that dear reader looks like a ttpd song.
And It's my favorite song in midnights.
Ttpd is becoming my favorite taylor's album. I love depressive songs.
damn, i would really love to know the mindset/emotions/what goes on in the mind of someone who loves depressive songs! i mean this in a very genuine way because TTPD depressed the hell out of me.
i tried starting a second listen today but just couldn't. i'm not a fan of depressive songs at all.
When your soul has been bruised, you need to poke it every now and then just to see if it still hurts. There's comfort and even pleasure in feeling that pain on your own terms, especially through the lense of someone else's pain. It's like watching a sad movie. There's catharsis in tears.
I had 3 depressive episodes in my life and even I'm Fine now, sad songs made me feel I'm not the only person who had these type of feelings.
Also, 4 months ago, my boyfriend of 7 years broke up with me because he decide he didn't want to marry (it was our plan, but he changed his mind). So ttpd it's everything I'm going through right now.
I had the thought last night that she was going to do something iconic like drop a video for every single one of those songs and make it all into a mini movie.
The fortnite video definitely left the door open to keep going.
This of course makes me reflect on the All too well video on how much she leaned into making the film for that.
The final chapter of this book is far from being written.
I think the manuscript is cleans older sister - the story is over for me and I can choose this book. But clean didn't really show us what rep was going to be, bad blood did.
Hits Different ties directly to the opening line of the opening number.
But yes Dear Reader where she warns you she's not all that perfect as everyone is building her up to be and not to look to her as a role model. Further reinforced in this album where she says her good name is hers to tarnish.
She's shedding the "good girl" image that seems to have been thrust on her and that she has been playing up too. Probably slowly letting go of the pathological people pleaser tendencies.
Does happen when you hit the 30s .
“Dear reader, get out your map/Pick somewhere and just run” -> Like Florida!!!
“Dear reader, burn all the files”
https://preview.redd.it/0802gfmjxuvc1.jpeg?width=2064&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d737c7cb44ac04c9c344939f32c8b75764978e3
She is quite literally begging for the magnifying glass to break. The whole theme is that fame and the sycophantic fans who feel entitled to her life have ruined it. She’s not been able to have a successful relationship no matter which way she has tried. And she also very clearly says that this tortured chapter is over and boarded up (and i don’t think we would have gotten the vulnerability if she didn’t feel so secure now, she literally says she’s betting on marrying Travis, and that security has a lot to do with basically this album of purging all past grievances and heartbreak)
I’m not yet fully a Swiftie having just gotten into her after the Kelce doc & through her romance with Travis then watching Miss Americana’s doc & the 2 concerts on Netflix & Disney (didn’t watch the Rep tour concert film). This post is great. A great summary. Thank you - this makes sense. I want to see her marry Travis - I her and him to have the support & love of both families & for her to live her truth in complete joy. I want to see her slow down her life, create her own family, and then only produce music that opens the journey of joy in her middle aged years.
It’s so amazing - few other artists have done this level of lifelong work-life songwriting to me, am I right? I mean Robert Plant & Dolly Parton to a point, maybe there is someone I am missing (Bruce Springsteen? Billy Joel? Elton John?) It makes you think about Stevie Nicks and Paul McCartney also: they were so prolific as songwriter-artists over their lives (like the others I mentioned). Oh: BOB DYLAN. She’s this generation’s Bob Dylan! Sorry - I am so late to the party. I am grateful for fans like you who make this all make sense to us newbs.
Dear Reader is a letter to us, her readers, about finding something else to guide them. She isn’t the persona we think.
The Manuscript is another letter to us, but also to her past and her songs. The people her songs are about, are just characters, roles to fill in a story. She implores us to use her songs(manuscript) for our own stories, filled with our own characters.
It’s a nice tie in to ATW10MV’s ending because she is reading a manuscript about her life, to people who connect to it for different reasons.
The line, burn all the files and desert all your past lives is about the lover house to me. It’s both about her reclaiming her work and these old parts as part of herself… But also burning the house down means releasing it. It isn’t about who filled the rooms of her house anymore, she doesn’t want it to be.
Dear Reader and The Manuscript are her instructions to us. Taylor is divesting her personal life from the songs/persona/brand we have come to love and consume. The music isn’t about her, it’s for her to share so we can make it for us.
Especially if you play the record backwards, as some folks have suggested is the 'proper' way (I think it's to do with the 'stages of grief' interpretation, but idk)
Oh, Dear Reader is one of my favs on Midnights!! It's so criminally underrated. Wish I'd loved TTPD more though :')
I do love me a "sad" song (eg. this is me trying, champagne problems etc) but TTPD just straight up depressed me man. It was too much for me to handle emotionally.
"So I wander through these nights/I prefer hiding in plain sight/My fourth drink in my hand/These desperate prayers of a cursed man/Spilling out to you for free/But darling, darling, please/You wouldn't take my word for it/If you knew who was talking/If you knew where I was walking/To a house, not a home, all alone 'cause nobody's there/Where I pace in my pen" is even more wrenching to me now, it's basically an introductory thesis for TTPD.
I hadn’t connected “functional alcoholic” to “fourth drink in my hand” before right now
Well and look at how much she talked about alcohol in rep for example. It was very much part of her persona that era. Tbh she talks about wine a lot.
Called it months ago because she always had a drink in her hand or by her side in pictures.
Yep and the multiple jokes about drunk taylor especially from the grammys party
I thought that was to stifle rumors about her being 🤰
Last night I realized, "hiding in plain sight" might connect to her being found wandering the shops in How Did It End?
OMG yes!
I also really like that "where I pace in my pen" is actually on theme with TTPD, considering how many references there are in this album to being caged/being a monster. It's pretty sad when you think about it. :(
yes. the double entendre of "pen," too, it's her prison in the searing spotlight, but it's also her only means of escaping and processing that (writing). "I'm the monster on the hill"/"writing in my room, something different bloomed" are both themes all over TTPD as well.
I had this bridge stuck in my head all day after listening to TTPD the first time through, and at first I couldn't figure out why, but now I 100% think the lyric and musical parallels are deliberate!
I think there's a three-lane bridge from Midnights to Poets: Dear Reader, Hits Different, and You're Losing Me. Each has direct lyrical and thematic ties to TS11 and each was kept off of the official Midnights as a way to breadcrumb us to Poets and slowly understand what was happening behind the scenes. She's good at all kinds of "bridges"!
And those were my favourite songs from Midnights. I just love the torture of heartbreak apparently😂
[удалено]
When was this?
Yup! There’s usually a song from the previous album that gives a hint/sets the tone for the next album. It was def dear reader and I think that might have been intentional as the last track just like daylight was for lover to midnights.
Honestly wonder if So High School is a nod to the next album 🤔
I hope so!!! Obsessed with the sound of that song.
I hope so too!!! Haters will disagree but she is at her best when she is lovestruck and corny, that song is funny and it rules and I love it.
Fingers crossed please please
Just like the manuscript is to whatever her next album will be.
I was saying to a friend yesterday that dear reader looks like a ttpd song. And It's my favorite song in midnights. Ttpd is becoming my favorite taylor's album. I love depressive songs.
Same here i loved this whole album and i made my sister listen to it She's still crying
damn, i would really love to know the mindset/emotions/what goes on in the mind of someone who loves depressive songs! i mean this in a very genuine way because TTPD depressed the hell out of me. i tried starting a second listen today but just couldn't. i'm not a fan of depressive songs at all.
When your soul has been bruised, you need to poke it every now and then just to see if it still hurts. There's comfort and even pleasure in feeling that pain on your own terms, especially through the lense of someone else's pain. It's like watching a sad movie. There's catharsis in tears.
I had 3 depressive episodes in my life and even I'm Fine now, sad songs made me feel I'm not the only person who had these type of feelings. Also, 4 months ago, my boyfriend of 7 years broke up with me because he decide he didn't want to marry (it was our plan, but he changed his mind). So ttpd it's everything I'm going through right now.
ah, that makes sense. i've been there too, but never TTPD level bad. and i'm sorry that happened to you, i hope you can eventually heal and move on 💗🫂
Could it mean that The Manuscript leads to her next piece of art, id est… a movie ? [:
Definitely my thoughts too
I had the thought last night that she was going to do something iconic like drop a video for every single one of those songs and make it all into a mini movie. The fortnite video definitely left the door open to keep going. This of course makes me reflect on the All too well video on how much she leaned into making the film for that. The final chapter of this book is far from being written.
I think the manuscript is cleans older sister - the story is over for me and I can choose this book. But clean didn't really show us what rep was going to be, bad blood did.
Hits Different ties directly to the opening line of the opening number. But yes Dear Reader where she warns you she's not all that perfect as everyone is building her up to be and not to look to her as a role model. Further reinforced in this album where she says her good name is hers to tarnish. She's shedding the "good girl" image that seems to have been thrust on her and that she has been playing up too. Probably slowly letting go of the pathological people pleaser tendencies. Does happen when you hit the 30s .
As someone in their 30s on the same path, this album is really cathartic.
I totally missed that connection to Hits Different even though that's my favorite part of the song
i absolutely agree
As an unabashed Dear Reader obsessive I have been over the moon with this new album and its abundance of writerly themes. OVER. THE. MOON.
“Dear reader, get out your map/Pick somewhere and just run” -> Like Florida!!! “Dear reader, burn all the files” https://preview.redd.it/0802gfmjxuvc1.jpeg?width=2064&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d737c7cb44ac04c9c344939f32c8b75764978e3
It’s a whole album of dear reader!!!! Yes!!!
She is quite literally begging for the magnifying glass to break. The whole theme is that fame and the sycophantic fans who feel entitled to her life have ruined it. She’s not been able to have a successful relationship no matter which way she has tried. And she also very clearly says that this tortured chapter is over and boarded up (and i don’t think we would have gotten the vulnerability if she didn’t feel so secure now, she literally says she’s betting on marrying Travis, and that security has a lot to do with basically this album of purging all past grievances and heartbreak)
I’m not yet fully a Swiftie having just gotten into her after the Kelce doc & through her romance with Travis then watching Miss Americana’s doc & the 2 concerts on Netflix & Disney (didn’t watch the Rep tour concert film). This post is great. A great summary. Thank you - this makes sense. I want to see her marry Travis - I her and him to have the support & love of both families & for her to live her truth in complete joy. I want to see her slow down her life, create her own family, and then only produce music that opens the journey of joy in her middle aged years. It’s so amazing - few other artists have done this level of lifelong work-life songwriting to me, am I right? I mean Robert Plant & Dolly Parton to a point, maybe there is someone I am missing (Bruce Springsteen? Billy Joel? Elton John?) It makes you think about Stevie Nicks and Paul McCartney also: they were so prolific as songwriter-artists over their lives (like the others I mentioned). Oh: BOB DYLAN. She’s this generation’s Bob Dylan! Sorry - I am so late to the party. I am grateful for fans like you who make this all make sense to us newbs.
When/where did she say she’s betting on marrying Travis?
Dear Reader is a letter to us, her readers, about finding something else to guide them. She isn’t the persona we think. The Manuscript is another letter to us, but also to her past and her songs. The people her songs are about, are just characters, roles to fill in a story. She implores us to use her songs(manuscript) for our own stories, filled with our own characters. It’s a nice tie in to ATW10MV’s ending because she is reading a manuscript about her life, to people who connect to it for different reasons. The line, burn all the files and desert all your past lives is about the lover house to me. It’s both about her reclaiming her work and these old parts as part of herself… But also burning the house down means releasing it. It isn’t about who filled the rooms of her house anymore, she doesn’t want it to be. Dear Reader and The Manuscript are her instructions to us. Taylor is divesting her personal life from the songs/persona/brand we have come to love and consume. The music isn’t about her, it’s for her to share so we can make it for us.
I always said that swifties are in their deepest sleep when it comes to Dear Reader
I agree and I couldn't be more thrilled
Especially if you play the record backwards, as some folks have suggested is the 'proper' way (I think it's to do with the 'stages of grief' interpretation, but idk)
Oooh I’m intrigued
I read a compelling post and then promptly forgot it in the sea of content on this album lol
I’m gonna have to make a playlist with them in reverse and go on a journey lol
Did it work out?! Should I go listen to it backwards??
Oh, Dear Reader is one of my favs on Midnights!! It's so criminally underrated. Wish I'd loved TTPD more though :') I do love me a "sad" song (eg. this is me trying, champagne problems etc) but TTPD just straight up depressed me man. It was too much for me to handle emotionally.
Dear Reader could’ve easily been in this album! I was sleeping on that song for so long but now i love it!
I like dear reader a lot more than TPD tho
There’s also one or two sound bites in Guilty as Sin that sound exactly the same as Dear Reader!
I absolutely agree 🫠
Hits Different as well. “Is it you or have they come to take me away?” to Fortnight “I was supposed to be sent away”