TAYLOR SWIFT - ALL TOO WELL

 

All too well

Another Taylor Swift song this week! Taylor Swifts All Too Well, talks us through the journey of her past relationship through retrospective anger, now she is older and no longer naive. This blog is a bit different as this song is a whole ten minutes long and as much as I would love to analyse the full thing, we’ve all got things to do! Therefore, I’m going to pick out my top five favourite lyrics from the song and discuss why I love them so much.

 

1)    ‘He's gonna say it's love, you never called it what it was’

This shows Taylor Swift was blindsided by love. In hindsight she realises that her partner was never as in love with her, but she tolerated it at the time, reassuring herself that he would tell her he loved her soon. 

 

 

2)    ‘And there we are again when nobody had to know, you kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath’ 

This repeats the idea that Taylor was young and naïve. It shows once again their different commitments to the relationships. To her partner it was a secret, which suggests that he was embarrassed but to her it was everything. 

3)    ‘They say all's well that ends well, but I'm in a new Hell’

This relates to the song ‘Right Where You Left Me’, previously discussed in the blog. In both songs she speaks about common phrases which people will tell you to make you feel better but they it in fact makes you feel worse as you simply cannot fathom them ever becoming true in your situation. 

 

4)    ‘Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by It. I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still tryin' to find it

This word choice of ‘paralyzed’ emphasises that Taylor cannot physically move on. It is common for people to reference time flying when they are enjoying themselves but to Taylor every minute is as painful as the next. This is strikingly similar to her song right where you left me where she constantly says that her partner gave her no choice but to stay in that place for ever.  The next line shows that Taylor Swift literally gave everything to this relationship, that without it she has no idea who she is. She has experienced so much pain from it that she can’t ever see herself recovering and returning back to being happy like she was before. In some ways it seems as if Taylor Swift feels like she will be grieving this relationship for eternity. 

 

 

5)    ‘I'm a soldier who's returning half her weight’

This is Taylor realising that she had been carrying a dead weight and a relationship was never going to work if it was only one person fighting for it. By referring to herself as a solider it shows that Taylor realises that she was fighting a losing war all along. 

BONUS LYRIC!

6)    ‘But you keep my old scarf from that very first week ‘cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me’

 

The scarf symbolises the relationship throughout the song. Though it was left, it was never forgotten. This shows the confusion that still lies around this relationship as he can’t let go of her completely which proves to her that he also remembers it ‘all too well.’