Keep it 100 with Brigid Kaelin: The Sounds of "evermore"

Hello and welcome back to the Taylor seminars where we talk about how Taylor Swift turns life into poetry. My name is Hannah and I'm here with my wonderful co-host exquisite. Hello. Hello, Hannah. I'm very excited. Are you excited because it's our hundredth episode? I guess yes actually wow Taylor has leared for this Keep it 100 oh my god, you're right wait We're keeping it On the land to see the sky and the airway and the air waves especially because we are also exotics. We have a special guest with us You may or may not have seen her go viral During the show girl era for her incredible analysis of the chord progressions in The songs like the fate of a philia we are here with Bridget Kaylen Who is at Bridget Kaylen K.A.E. L.I. and would you like to say hello? I? Would hello hi Hannah hi exquisite. Hi everybody. Hello If you guys don't know Bridget is an author composer singer musical saw virtue So I did see you do that on one of your Instagram meals Bridget tell us a little bit about yourself. Oh I'm all over the place clearly, but I've always been music first So that I always lay with myself musician, but yeah, I was a singer songwriter, but I write it the kind of beginning of streaming and such so You know my first album I actually sold a bunch of CDs to her around Yeah, I was trying to explain that to my children like I had these discs and they made a little rainbow and people bought them and It's like back in the 1900s, you know Yep, yep, that's a century Exactly, but yeah, I'm just kind of pieced together a living-making music which has been a you know I'm super great for that, but it's been doing a whole bunch of different things so sometimes writing sometimes teaching sometimes performing and All kinds of things you know that COVID made a whole other Pandemic shift where I do a lot of I did a lot of session work in Nashville and that are in the kind of mid-2000s And I shifted back to doing that again, which is like when you play in other people's albums So this is by email though Earlier I played it according in first somebody I've never met and emailed it off. Wow I'm talking the internet about music. Yeah, I mean if you think about it That's kind of how like to not to bring it back to Taylor Swift But how Taylor Swift and Aaron Desner do things they're just like zip and zip and vile back to each other and Putting him together But so Bridget, why don't you tell us a little bit of how you fell into the Swiftie Universe Swift talk and all of that jazz Yeah, I algorithm had not brought me there, but I had known Taylor Swift for you know obviously 20 years and I was working in Nashville when she before her for style and came out so you know word on the street was People are always buzzing about the new Country artist who is coming out. I was working in country music primarily so I knew of her and I Feel like I was probably more dismissive than I should have been just because we all were we were all doing the same thing And it was you know just kind of chugging along everybody was a singer songwriter Who was kind of our age? I'm a little older than she is. I was actually already too old according to Nashville Which is I made you know I've traveled and other people's bands and such too But I knew her for ages not personally But I knew her songs and I taught her songs to my guitar students and piano students and didn't really dive deeply into her album So just because I was like oh she's a good singer songwriter good for her anyway But really this is the last couple years when my kids have gotten super into I have two boys But they're both just obsessed and so it was just on a lot and I would pause and go hey Do you guys hear that and say something nerdy about music and one of them would be very excited and the other one would be like Yeah, I heard it but anyway push play Posing every five seconds So I'm very glad that the internet likes it because when I am you know making my kids wait in the driveway Before getting out because there's like one thing that's about to happen on this song I can tell you guys instead of making them suffer No, so I discovered you I think because you were talking a lot about the showgirl songs And I think you did Ophelia father figure. Did you hit all of them eventually? I feel like in Individually I don't think I think I get excited and then it's like I want to make the video perfect So I don't post it. So I have a lot in my drafts about all of them No, I didn't do them all but I really you know you mentioned showgirl and that's the reason I started kind of talking about it publicly As that I felt this kind of personal I felt like We all owe so much to Taylor Swift and I say I mean, I guess we in general, but the Particularly the women singer songwriters and I think a lot of people my age and Don't realize that that things have changed and they have changed because of her and that we are not each others competition And let's lift each other up etc etc And so I got pretty annoyed when my feed on October 3rd on Tick-Tack was all People like telling talking about how simple the album was and I was like well, that's just a lie So, you know, I don't like inaccurate information I'm done. I was like actually no, it's not here's why so Yeah, I think that's so interesting that you were on the scene when Taylor was coming up So I guess you can like really kind of get into a little bit how you Seen that change since you were there as she got there and then you're like she Even though started she started after you paved the way for you as well If you want to like go into that just a little bit more because I think this such an interesting perspective Truly and I you know, I could write a book about this Nashville especially because so much has changed in Nashville in the past 20 years Physically like the city's unrecognizable to when I was living there Just even the music row bungalows, you know some of them are gone and it's high rises and stuff But yeah the world that she was living in was Songwriting and you would really literally go to a little house and I mean it's crazy She just talked about this in this New York Times interview And I I had just taught a course about this exact same thing the the week or and I was like Was she want to move our off people in the course like what's going on but Ultimately, we were both in Nashville then and so yes She heard the same things I did as a as a woman who's a singer songwriter. She was a girl at the time but even stuff like your hair is too curly and and I was too old I I was I was a Quarter fine. I don't right before semi-finalists on this like I still laugh because I don't know how I got roped into doing this but it was called the Nashville star It was like the country version of American Idol Okay, I'm not gonna work and I was doing the only reason I bring that up is because I was in the Tennessee and in the newspaper The same week that Taylor Swift's album came out And so I was on the like the front page with my accordion and the writer who was an amazing writer called Peter Cooper Who's no longer with us unfortunately, but he and I were standing in the alley Between the lower Broadway honky-tongues and the rhyman and he had asked to interview me because I was the only one that night Who had played an instrument and sung an original song and it was just because it was a silly reality show And I was clearly cast as the old one of 27 or so I was quirky one because I played the accordion So we were laughing and talking about The scene in Nashville and he's like well, there's this girl who's got this album out that came out just a couple days ago And I think her album was actually reviewed in the paper either the day before the day after that that I was in it And we just he was like her name's Taylor Swift and I was like yeah, I heard someone else talking about her So it was just kind of the buzz, but it was exciting because she played an instrument and wrote her own songs and that was unusual And I mean I got told all the time don't tell people that you play more than one instrument like that Looks like you're going off like it Just It just silly stuff, but but so much of it we just accepted because it showed business Ultimately The biggest thing though that I think Taylor has changed and this is something I think that the young artist don't even realize Is that we were constantly told there could only be one quote girl on the bill so only one woman musician singing you know, you couldn't have a woman open for another woman like promoters just accepted as fact that Girls don't sell tickets. Yeah, I suppose that's a festival line up. It's one woman Yeah, exactly and even Lilith Fair didn't change country music. It was just it radio wasn't playing More than a certain number of women artists per hour and that yeah, there was some sort of Twitter argument five years ago during Before it was like 2020 or 2021 about this it's still an unwritten rule to some stations So the fact that Taylor did this this is really what that cinched it for me was or clinched I can't think it late for me you guys She did this huge 10 million ticket tour where she didn't need any openers at all because she'd already sold the tickets And yet she had not just openers But women openers and I just fed a V all the fields and someone who's worked in this business for so long And I had to point that out to as many of my colleagues as possible like hey, have you been sleeping on what she's doing silently? So you know, I don't know if she listens to you, but I see you We think she secretly elicit her just like she's secretly off camera in your classes right exactly Where does she have time? I felt some sort of responsibility like hey, we owe her a lot and people should realize this because she's not out there going like don't you see what? what I've done everybody. - Yeah, she definitely does not do that. But no, thank you for that. I was like really insightful for just seeing where she came out from. And I do like that you mentioned the New York Times article where she really did talk about coming up in the Nashville scene and things like that. - Yeah. - Yeah, that's very funny. Is that in that same art. She mentioned every single one of her problems, except one, which is why you're here to talk to us about it. Because Taylor treats my poor ever more, like a backstored redhead stepdaughter. - Really doesn't. - Everyone got to mention even speak now, which we know she is incredibly complicated feelings about because 19 is the worst age a girl can be. - You need to look to speak now. And we know she's proud of her more, but she doesn't talk about ever more because she sees ever more as folklore's twin. - It's a twin sister. But anyways, we thought what a way to celebrate this album, which is incredible, but to bring someone who understands the music behind it more than excuse me tonight, we can talk the lyrics till our faces turn blue. But we were like Bridget, would you like to share some of the musical things that we hear but don't clock. We're not quite putting those pieces together. Bridget, do you have any thoughts about the album overall? - I have so many thoughts and I'm such a nerdy overachiever that I did so much. Like I spent the day making my children listen to this album with me and I'm not kidding. We spent 45 minutes on Willow before we finished. (laughing) Honestly, one of my kids left and was like, I'm gonna go do my science course now. They're homeschooled, it's a long story. (laughing) But my 10 year old, whatever time it was, he's like, oh, it's been 40 minutes and we're only two and a half minutes into the song. - Yeah, we're gonna be here a while, so. I did not subject him to it, but yes, I have thoughts. - Hi, I'm so excited to hear thoughts. I have like a question, I wonder, I'm gonna say something and you both cannot get mad at me, right? - So there's a specific lyric in Willow that is like, I come back stronger than a 90s trend and I wonder if that reflects in the music. I wouldn't know, I wasn't in the 90s. - Well, I was. (laughing) - It was the music in the 90s. So I've always wondered on that part. Like I've heard music from the 90s obviously, I'm not like only listening to music before I was born. But like, were there music trends that then have been reflected in Willow around that part? Because it seems like something Taylor would do. It's specifically probably country music trends. - I know, now I wanna pull up the track listing 'cause that's not, I was so focused on music today that I didn't make a ton of lyrical connections. I have to separate the two because I write lyrics also and I feel like it's either left or right brain, like I can't be artsy and I think the music is mathy at the same time. I can do both, but I turn them off. But there are a lot of 90s-ish and late 80s instruments all over this album. And I think that's one of the more interesting things that I clocked today and that my 10 year old, who maybe he's listening to this high angus. He was helping me out as someone who was also not alive in the 90s. (laughing) - 20, 10. - 20, 10. - He sat in my studio. So I have these kind of big studio speakers that you hear a lot more than you do when you're just listening on your robot that plays stuff or your phone or even- - You're gonna be visiting you so that I can listen to those speakers. - I'm telling you, so you should have to come visit me anyway. We just discovered that we don't live particularly far away from each other, road trip style. You have to come with me to a recording studio where they have like $10,000 speakers. I keep telling every time I go in to do session work there, I'm like, "Ooh, can we just listen to this one song?" (laughing) - She's tired of me asking. (laughing) But the first thing we noticed on Willow was that it opens, and my 10 year old has a theory that it's actually a Willow branch, like rustling. - What? - And I don't know. - Yeah, so there's like, there's so many rustling sounds when it opens. And so this is my child, he's 10, and he hasn't, I've been doing research on Taylor lately and he has not read through the stacks of books, but he goes, "This sort of sounds like fall leaves." And I was like, "I think that that's the thing people "think about this record is that's very associated "with fall and winter." So of course, no idea if it's actually a Willow branch, but the song, if you put on headphones, or listen, I'm really good speakers with left and right setup, the opening of Willow is like a rustling sound. - Okay, now I switch and it turns up. - Go away when the music comes in. It's still kind of there. - So it seems to me that it's opening like a setting, and the setting is some sort of nature, natural thing. But to bring it back to '90s that you're talking about is that there's also so many synthesizers and keyboards and stuff that was in '80s and '90s music, and they just cross with these acoustic and analog instruments so beautifully on this album. - Yeah. - And so I thought, she does this a lot, the old and the new and the contrast and lyrically too, I'm sure. So I found that more, there's like weather textures and rustling, lots of drones and suspension and everything's very uncomfortable, sonically anyway, not just musically, but there's a lot of, well, there are suspended chords, which again, you don't need to know music theory to know that a chord makes you, you don't like it, you feel uncomfortable. - No, ending or something. - I really like that you mentioned kind of the uncomfortable ability in the music, because it's all over the lyrics, right? - Yeah, yeah. - Shabby problems is literally the awkward silence after I said, no, I'm not gonna marry you. - Right. - Like, all the way to closure, which has the crazy drums and crashing metallic sounds. - Like so uncomfortable. - Yeah, I mean, where would you say that even is in Willow? Like, isn't it what I think of Willow? I just think, oh, it's like, it's nice. I mean, it's a little witchy. - So musically, there is a piano that comes in. I should have made timestamp notes, but the piano's kind of turned down and it doesn't come in right away, but it's playing a totally different rhythm than the guitar and then they're singing, so there's a clash there, but it's not a clash that somebody who's just enjoying the song and listening to it would even hear. You wouldn't, I only hear it because I've done so much session work again, which is in being a utility player in the band. And that's utility players, like, you know, when you go see a band and there's one person who's not actually in the band, you're like, they're not part of it, but they're on this side and they have like four or five instruments and they're adding the, you know, the one song that has a banjo. They'll add that part and the other song that has a flute, they'll add that. The people with the weird skill sets. So I have done that and so I'm always listening for those kind of buried textures and buried instruments when I'm listening to music. And this piano is playing in three while the guitars, I think it's just doing straight eighth notes, so it gets kind of a, they don't line up. - I wonder if it's like the, literally, the lyric of Willow in Willow that is like rough on the surface, but you cut through like a knife. So we're hearing like the guitar is cutting through like a knife in the piano, which is like, typically the surface is the rough part that's not meeting exactly. I think that's so interesting. - I love that. I don't even want to zoom out to the whole album and feel like that's the kind of rough versus smooth is very, very much a theme of this album. I think people kind of describe it as a folk album, but then it's loaded with electronics. And kind of another interesting thing is that this album, I need to go back and this is where the rabbit hole I pulled myself out of. But there are so many different instruments on this album. I think towards your poets maybe even had more, but up until this, this might, you know, this is the what album is it? 9th or 8th? 9th. I think it's 9th. - I'm pretty sure it has more different instruments than anything she'd recorded previously. Like it's got 40s, maybe 30 or 40 different instruments and not typical ones. And yet it doesn't feel like a really, really busy album. You know, and I contrast that with 1989, which feels really big and like lots are going on, but then sometimes you really listen and it's not very many different instruments. They're just doing a lot. And it's so listening to this is confusing to our brains because we're hearing lots of different sounds, but not all at the same time. And so just when you get used to one thing, something new comes in. And quite often on this album, it's the background stuff, like the cut through like a knife and there's all kinds of other things going on under the surface that you didn't even realize that's what we were hearing. sometimes a single note will just play for a very long time and then shift slightly and go back, but it's almost like white noise in the background except it's an actual pitch. - Yeah, 'cause I'm trying to think of the songs that maybe have a lot of texture. So obviously Willow does. I'm trying to think of just the Aaron Desner ones 'cause he's the most on the album, but I'm guessing like Ivy has a lot going on. Marjorie even has like Taylor's "Grab Moms Boys" in it, plus Justin Vernon going on. I mean, yeah, you really feel that the tension in the songs because of the production. Where else? - Truthfully. - Well, let's go to number two champagne problems. That one is an uncomfortable song, but has a lot less instrumentation, I think. Now have to look it all up. - Or I guess it's a bit more focused to me, like more focused instrumentation. - It does. - You can hear me typing. I'm like, okay, gotta pull up the track. - No, me too, me too. So we're doing that all the time. - I wish I had my version where, I wish I had my album book, but I only have my like, un-open, signed office that I'm not, we're not gonna open it. - Oh, but I'm gonna miss all the, miss all the, - The credit to instrument. - So, yes. So yeah, I haven't just pulled on the ol' Wikipedia for that. Yet, so champagne problems does not have a lot of different instruments. It does have, it's one of the few that has an actual upright bass, the kind of giant bass fiddles on it. And it's got a real piano that it's slightly out of tune, which is fantastic in these days of everything has to be perfect because you can see on your computer if you're the very slightest bit flat so people fix notes and our ears, it's good in some ways. We're hearing things more accurately, but it also kind of makes the slightly out of tune which used to be our normal sound feel a little bit uncomfortable. And one thing I love about the recording of, actually, this whole album, but particularly, I think you can hear it a little more clearly on champagne problems is there's kind of a clicking sound in the opening of the piano. And it's just the pedal. - Being pressed. - That's what that is. - It's just a, I mean, my ears, I listened in a whole bunch of stuff. I could be wrong. I'm gonna say that about everything. I could be wrong about this stuff, but that's what my piano sounds like when it gets a little bit sticky and it's I have a newer piano now, so it doesn't do that. - I will say, she does do that with, even with pianos. I mean, obviously, as in, you know, musicians can use the sound of a piano to their advantage. New year's day was literally jack Antennaught noodling around on a piano. And then she's like, I got a song. And then obviously, Exiles, a very piano forward song, ever more later. I'm the album also. And so, I do think that her play, her with this song, with the slightly added thing. That's a really great thing to note. I'm gonna listen for that a little bit. - No, I know, I'm like, I need to go back and listen right now. - Well, I think that it's important to do both things. And that's kind of why I've been excited 'cause I realized that there's so many people who talk about Taylor Swift, but they're very few that I've seen who were just talking about the music. And that's why I do try to not talk about the lyrics. Again, even though I love them, they're fantastic. And I try for my videos that I make to just stick to the music and bring in the lyrics when it makes sense, but let other people have that. 'Cause this is my super power. - Okay, this is a good question to ask you then. At the end of Champagne Problems, I think it's Aaron Desner playing piano, right? He does like the, (imitates piano) at the very end where he does that little like, what do you think? - What do you think it is? - Yeah, what do you think? Right, I've heard lots of theories. - What's your, what's your, what's your, haven't heard any theories? So I heard it today and Angus and I both, again, just catching up, he is my tenoral. We just started laughing because that's exactly what you do when you're finishing a song, a performance. He's in a band, he's in like a vibraphone, marimba band and you do this kind of great moment in the recording studio and then you know you've got the take. And then sometimes I do like a, gosh, I wish I had my piano like a bed, I'm f-bom, f-bom, f-burn, yes, just for fun. 'Cause you know they're gonna cut that off. So as soon as I heard that and I think in the background, Taylor actually says, nice. She says something like that, which again, turn it up really loud and put on headphones. I should have like a headphone endorsement. I keep telling people, listen with headphones. But somebody says nice, I think it's nice. And he does that just kind of home. Oh, yep, that was it. Something that bugged me about it though is that he, by playing the chord, he plays, he resolves the whole song. And that's another kind of big theme on this song is that most of the songs don't have the ending that your brain expects. It's something that Taylor Swift does a lot. It's something that film producers, film composers, musical theater. Like it's not a deep, deeply genius move, but if you know what it does to your brain, you can use it. I'm not saying she's not genius. I'm just, be careful with that. This isn't a particular move that nobody else has ever done before. But Taylor Swift is genius about the way she uses it. And so this song, I feel like, should have ended somewhere else, but then Aaron Desmer goes, (imitates singing) I'm like, oh, but you played a scene. You had left it on the four chord, and now you resolved it. But I think that's why it's fascinating. 'Cause they couldn't cut it. But I feel like, so that's why I've always had this debate into myself. Did they resolve it? And did she want to keep it resolved? Because she wants to show that, oh, it's just a story. Oh, it's see, I'm just singing a sad song, but I'm not actually sad. Or was it, she just thought it was funny? It could be as basic as that. I just, or was she hoping for unhappy ending? It's just so interesting to, if people, if I could ever ask Taylor Swift a question about what I ask, I would ask what is Hokes about, and I would ask, why did you leave it? (laughs) Well, I've always wondered about that, especially one of the ways I see it, when you listen in order, and we think about Taylor, she's so very album-focused when creating the sonic landscape of an album to go resolving champagne problems and then into gold rush, which is about the beginning. It's like, she's like, in here, here's the beginning of an imaginary relationship that immediately comes next. If we're too intense, I guess, from the trauma in unfinished business that it's kind of finished, then I feel like your brain is gonna be less accepting of someone being like, look at this world, I'm imagining. Now, with this person I see. So that's why I've always like, okay, he's like, "Lorish, the end." But I also just wanna ask her. I mean, I bet, like, you could DM Aaron, he would tell us three more Taylor, like, "Who's the number she doesn't do?" He'd remember it before. I know we have a bunch of mutuals, but I'm like, I'm not gonna do that, I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna leave more on it. I've never met him either. I did see his band in like a 30, maybe. I might have opened that show actually in 2003. - For that show. - I doubt. - For the actual, yes. - Yeah, that's so cool. - Yeah, that's cool. - That is awesome. - I, nobody had heard of him then. They were just literally playing. It was a room where people were talking and they'd only sat 50 people, and I was actually there for-- - In front of all. - They were opening for Dan Burn, who I love. He's one of my absolute favorite song writers. But he sounds nothing like Taylor Swift, but he's just as brilliant. And what you said, I think everything is true. I think everything you just said, I think one, she thought it was funny. And 'cause that's the kind of thing that happens in recording studios. And I'd say this is someone who's been in a lot of recording studios. Having recorded my own albums, but more often being just the hired gun to come in and play piano on somebody else's, or accordion on somebody else's. And you kind of see these moments where decisions are made. The artist may have everything planned and then somebody hits a funny note or trips on a cable. Or one note I had here, that arpeggio, which is just the playing single notes kind of quickly of a chord that Aaron does at the end, is kind of mimicking what the guitar had done earlier, like about a minute before in the song. So it's almost like he's, I could see it being a very deep, let's close it because it's just a story. I could also see it as, that was a funny thing that happened because the guitar was too loud in his mix. And he thought he just like, Oh, there, there, there, there, there, there. (laughs) You know, I giggle because I see so many people making these huge connections. And of course, Taylor Swift does plant these things for us, but I also know how recording studios work. There's magic in the moment. You want to leave that in. And that's part of what Evermore does is it leaves in so many mistakes that aren't mistakes. Like the sound of the pedal or I think the very last sound on Champagne Problems is actually Aaron's breath. And I think it's an inhale. I was, again, this is why it took us six hours to listen to the sound more or less. Because I was like, is this an exhale or an inhale? Incredible. Yeah. He does the arpeggio. Taylor says, "When I think is nice." And then, but it's far off Mike. And then Aaron kind of goes, "But not like, I'm a bad actor." It's not a gasp. It's just kind of like, "Okay, we're finished." How is that? Nice. Yeah. Nerdy thing, too, is that maybe? - Yeah. - A sonically? Because the next song begins on an F sharp, which if they had ended champion problems on an F, those two notes are right next to each other, which sounds really bad. So it wouldn't flow as well. I don't think if the, so maybe leaving that C in there was actually a nice way for the C being that funny, arpeggio that Aaron played, made the bridge into Gold Rush. - Like a little palette cleanser. - Yeah, yeah. - It's like the way she changed real low to real slow. - Exactly, which, gosh, I can't believe she said that. I wish I had all of my guitar students from the past 20 years. I can get them to like sign a voucher that I had said. That's probably what it was. It's annoying to go real low 'cause it sounds like one word. (laughs) - Incredible. - I know it's so good. But let's talk about Gold Rush, because Gold Rush, there's that like the really lush beginning that immediately is like, oh, we're diving into a daydream that I think is like. - Oh, I love that. - You said, let's build the atmosphere here. - Yeah, I'm turning, oh, it's the orchestra sounds. Oh yeah, yeah, that's, I love this because it sounds like it's gonna be the beginning of a full orchestra tuning up. But then if like 10 seconds in or something, it kind of shifts to synthesizers. So you start with all these, actual 400 year old instruments, cellos and violins, and then there's a shift that's not noticeable to most people because they're not super nerds. Like me, they're just enjoying the song. And it shifts and it's synthesizers. - No, you just unlock something in my brain. It does sound like an orchestra tuning, right? And it's like that swell that you get right before the conductor starts tapping his podium, stand, music stand. And then they jump in and you're in a different universe. Like you said, it's because it's your diving into a daydream and you're in a completely different world. - Right. - And then the orchestra comes back, "Brrrr, what?" And it's like, okay, this is the one musical thing I know about this song. Is that the key, the modulation between the chorus and the verse is like a weird one. It's like not normal. It's like, yeah, I don't know. It's like usually like, you know, notice. Yeah, it's so noticeable. So I was listening to a podcast called Switched On Pop. And they love them. - Yeah, yeah. So they did one on this song and they were, it's similar to this key change that's done in, I think the song is Green Light by Lord, which Jack Antenov also produced. And it's, yeah, it's just this transportive. "Brrrr, what?" And so yeah, this song is wild. I thought it would be the wildest song of the album, but then we could get to the end. But it's so fun. - I love it. And it's weird 'cause the key change sounds a lot weirder than it actually is. If you're to kind of map out all the chords, there's really only one chord that's not in the key we started in. I had to an F-sharp minor and then the chorus, I think this is where you'll get music nerds fighting. And if I say it's indeed and they'll freak out, they'll say it's a mix of Lidian and they'll throw, I have this whole theory and this is my whole thing and my videos is that there's all these words. And I feel like they're designed to gatekeep and make you think you don't know anything about music. But you heard that, something weird happens. And so somebody along the way gave it a name, but we can also feel that yeah, something strange happens in this song. And it just happens for a moment and then it brings us back, but that one moment kind of shifted everything. So yeah, it makes you feel unsavable. - I keep thinking about what you said about one of the unfavorableness but also that orchestra tuning up and it literally stopped tuning up at the butt. Literally she says butt and it's like, I know we're searching, which is just a very funny thing to do. - Sorry, you said. - Okay. - So it's like, yeah. - Yes. - She does all kinds of fun. There's kind of twinkly chimes that are in the background too that I love and the lyrics are twinkling, gleaming twinkling. - Yes. - And there's like, I think there, this is all of her showgirl too, but it's an electronic instrument called an OmniCord from the 80s that she uses on showgirl. But this one is actual, I think, percussion chimes. Like, and then she does it just in the, I don't like anticipating that she plays, with the kick drum, which she loves to do. The archer is a different album, but we're all just kind of waiting for something to actually happen with those drums and then nothing actually happens. That she actually says the word anticipating and then the drum drops out, but then it comes back in, right? Because she doesn't like anticipating it. - So, I love how she thinks about that. - Yeah, 'cause that's the thing, like when you combine amazing lyrics with production, that's when you get magic, right? Like, or like a different kind of explosive magic. No, yeah, this song is, I think it's one of the standouts on the album, and so it's just a crazy song. Like, this. - All right. - Wow. - Yeah, well, look, let's go to the next one. We're gonna go back to Erin to "Tis the Damseys" and this one, a very electric guitar heavy. Like, she's gone back to electric guitar, which I feel like she, I don't know, was there a lot of electric guitar in like, not in a lover, I mean, I don't remember, but anyways. This one's the one that she wrote when she was drunk after they were recording the long-pond sessions and she's like, I have a song, Erin, he was like, oh, I guess we're gonna keep going. Any thoughts about this one, Bridget? - So, I really try to connect this one with this song and I haven't gotten there yet and I feel sad about that. Do you guys have any, I keep certain songs I zone out on halfway through and this is it. - What do you mean it's time to zone out? - What do you mean it's time to take it in? - Mara, what do you do for "Tis the Damseys" and the best way to enjoy "Tis the Damseys" you have to be driving on the back roads at night, listening to "Tis the Damseys" - If never done that. - That's when you have to listen to it. And it's either that or driving home, like I do a lot of long drives all the time. Driving home specifically for like winter or Thanksgiving, that's when you play "Tis the Damseys" 'cause that's like what it's about. But back roads at night when it's kind of dimly lit and there's trees around you, maybe some cicadas going on. - That's okay. Okay, now this makes a little more sense because part of what I don't like about when this song comes on is that there's, it's hard to tell where the downbeat is, where beat one is at first, but it's not a complicated song rhythmically. And yet everything is, usually something is a little louder or stronger and you brain- - Bridget, would you say it's making you uncomfortable? - Definitely, we uncomfortable. - But sometimes I really love the discomfort. This one I was, I guess it's at the beginning. Usually on this album it's the ending that's uncomfortable, which as people seem to have told me on the internet today when I asked a question about something else that this album's all about endings, which seems to be endings of different sorts, but the endings of all of the songs are unpredictable, uncomfortable, a little tricky. But the beginning of "Tis the Dan Season" as it bugs me. - But I think that's also because "Tis the Dan Season" kind of like how we're like me, you know how it opens up in the middle of the sentence. "Tis the Dan Season" opens up at the half of a conversation because it opens, if I wanted to know who you were hanging with while I was gone, I would have asked you. - For something has been said right before. - Yes. - Something has been said to me. And she's responding like, I don't even want to know that. Like she probably just called him and you like, actually, you know, and she's like, no, I don't care. I don't care about this. - Let's just go. - Let's get out of here. - Let's go, let's go, look up right now. - Yeah. - I'm home now. - Yeah. - It's like, I'm home now. I stepped back into, like, it's almost like, I'm trying to step back into the past. And I know I can't really do that, but let's pick up where we left off. Right after that first beat or. - Okay. - That's, I like that. Yeah, I'm sold. 'Cause I think you're right, Bridget. It does start off very off-kilter. Yeah. 'Cause it's da da da da da da. And then it's like, where did it start? Where did it go? But yeah, no. Yeah, no, this one is, it's just sad. - They're kind of re-gaming their footing. - No. - No, different path. - Like the two people are not, they're like here and here. She's like, I'm entering. - Okay, people can't see that. Exquisite was putting her hands in parallel lines. So they can't meet is what she was doing. - And then it looked, they're in parallel lines, but then Taylor like jumps down to where he's at. And it's like, yo, you just, where can you come back from? Which is always what it's like when you revisit, like if you've gone to Europe, if you revisit like your old high school or you're old like stumping grounds and you're like, okay, this is different. I can, like, I can run this place. And now I'm like, I don't even know where you guys - Half the teachers are gone. - Yeah, and I was pretty close. - You re-setter yourself. - So I think this comfort settling into the song makes it interesting. So you just gotta listen to it on a drive. - That makes total sense. - Well, the one note that I have, and this is the only song I have one line. I said, it's in 4/4, but it's really hard to tell where the beat is, like, where am I? So you're quote about the back roads made total sense because that's what it feels like. It feels like I think I know where I am, but I'm not sure it's different. So there we go. - I love that. - Boom. - Well, I will say the tolerated though has a weird downbeat just because it's not in 4/4, like we're used to. We have like this churning, yeah, I would call it like a churning, like underbelly of like discontent. and like darkness. So yeah, I love I love this song. I do too. I like it. I do. It's good. Most people in my comments really hating on or they're saying, "Why do I hate tolerate it?" So you guys don't hate it, that's good. Yeah. I think it is because it's very uncomfortable song. I'm so glad you said that at the beginning because now I'm going to use it for the rest of the album. But yeah, like it's yeah, because that driving force, I mean because Aaron Desner does this a lot. He does a lot of very like train, chug, chug, chug, like the last American dynasty, long story, short, even this one. But this one is not going to holiday house. This one is not going back, you know, to, you know, if it feels like home the shoe fits walk. This one is like, I'm going to the silentest to do. No way. I've ever been to in my life where you don't look at me, you, you just read a book and I just sit there like no one wants to go to that house like, oh, like, you know, even in Willow, like, you know, my train could take you home. This place is not home. No. Like I read that it was about when she was reading Rebecca, which is one of my favorite novels. And it's funny because that's actually about an incredible house. It's got that amazing opening line of last night I went to Mandela again. And yet I was just tolerated. It's just an interesting, it's so interesting for it to be like tolerate. And then they've got that the beat that is not a beat like I can't find it. Yeah. Get an off kilter. So how do you do you want me to get about? You can get, you can get as explained why. Yes. So I, okay. So there's a argument, but I will go with Aaron Desner's, because I've read in one of the articles that he calls it 10 and 8 times. A lot of the sheet music, if you look for it is all in 5, 4. What does that mean? If you're like, don't turn off the podcast, because I'm not going to go, I'm going to use regular accessible words. All it means is that, that strong beat that we couldn't find at the beginning of Tis the Dan season, the strong beat, where you stay at happening every three beats or every four beats. That's what most of the songs we've heard most of our life in Western music has done. And so that's the pattern our brain feels really comfortable with. If we grown up listening to songs where it was five or 10, we would feel comfortable with that. But this one is every five beats, if you're counting slow or every 10 beats, if you're counting fast. Like Aaron says it's 10 beats. That, that, that, gosh, I wish I'd turned on my piano, because I think I could get away with playing stuff if it's not Taylor's version. Oh, basically, it doesn't, after four beats, the pattern doesn't repeat. So you think, oh, it's going to go to six, or eight. And so you're expecting that. But then after the fifth beat or the 10th beat, it's basically the difference between one and two and three and four and five and four, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. The same amount of time passes. It's just, if you're counting it with numbers or one and so your brain expects that, and your brain would be more comfortable if it was an even, it was three, four, or six, or eight, anything but five or seven, or eleven. Those are not common. You see the more in musical theater or like pink Floyd that it, you know, kind of, I will say, you see odd time signatures more often in places where you are more likely to be a pain attention, like your musical theater in a seat, your nose, going your phone, when you're not driving, if you're not working out, so your brain can clock the your stuff a little bit more comfortably. But most of the time when we're listening, we're driving or doing something else. And so when our brain has to work extra, it feels, we don't like it. And that's why tolerated feels uncomfortable because you're like, what's going on? I can't clock the rhythm. It's weird. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it makes the song so powerful because she's just off-kilter. She can't figure him out. It's very much like, in dear John, when she sings like, I play your game, living your chest game. I live in your chest game, but you change the rules every day. You also like trying to get his attention. And it's like you do something out of the ordinary to get attention. And it's still not. It's like I'm trying to figure you out. I'm literally giving you the best colors for my portrait. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, and we tolerate it. We listen to it even though it's maybe we're like, okay, if we know we like Taylor Swift, I don't know about this song, but I'm going to give it a try. And then I celebrate it. Which is, my love should be celebrate. Which is such that the, my love should be celebrate it, but you tolerate it. It's such a forced rhyme, which is so interesting on like this forced rhythm. It is. And that I think that taller rate, like the rhyme part happens on beat one. So she's kind of split the main title of the song between two measures, which is just groupings of sound. Like sitting on opposite sides of the table. Like they're literally, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was like if you're reading a poem and you use or a book in you, there's a high fenton. And you have to jump to the next line. Yeah. Like a line. It's the same word. And you'd pronounce it the same in the audio book, but in the real book, it's different. So yeah, or like impotry within jamming. It's like musical in jamming. It's so interesting. Yes. It's a, yeah. I know Lin-Manuel Miranda does it a lot in his stuff too. And just kind of the rhyme is amazing, but it doesn't line up with the meter of the song. And so we're going to split it so that the rhyme lands at the right time. But it also emphasizes it in a way that you wouldn't expect, but can be very powerful. Right? Like you tolerate it. Like, oh, like there's like some, there's some agony in there. Yes. Like a forced continuation. Because again, she's like, I can take the weight of you and lose it. Like I can put myself in one measure. I don't need to stretch myself beyond it, make it weird. But I'm going to because I just wanted you to love me. Like, oh my goodness. Wow. What a song. It's yeah, it's uncomfortable, but it's super interesting. There's a lot going on. Well, there's also a lot going on in the next track. Nobody, no crime featuring the high sisters in the bandheim. I don't know why I said it like that. This one, I do think it's funny because it starts with the siren sound. And so sometimes I'm like, is there a cop? Oh no, it's just giving me every time. Every time. Every time. She knew what she was doing. She did that because it's in a couple other, I can't even think of it now, but there are other songs that do that in every time, every time. It's like putting a cell phone, like a text message alert and something or saying, I won't even say the robot speaker's name, but when I'm watching something and they say her name, yeah, it's been my, and it's my robot. It wakes up. Yeah. I mean, this song is like super country. Like she was like, well, let me just put on my boots and find my hat and do a little, you know, Dixie chicks or the chicks in personation. Let me just do it. It's my country tradition. My favorite country music tradition is women who are going to kill a man. It's one of my favorites. I was literally just listening to Reba who also loves to do this and it's like Taylor who had been in country for so long before she switched, which is very actually funny because now she has more albums not countries than she ever was country. Crazy. Yeah. Which is a crazy thing to think about. And I was so excited in "Honey York Times" interview where she keeps talking about that country tradition. And since you are of the Nashville scene, what country traditions are you seeing like musically in this song? Well, it's funny to say that too because her albums, like you say, are fewer country albums than pop or folk or anything else. And yet the songs when you zoom in, if you just play them on an acoustic guitar, most of them are still country. It's in the production and it's in the choices that happen in arrangements because her songwriting is still very, very steeped in the Nashville songwriting and country music tradition, which is storytelling. And we're not talking shiny sparkly cowboy hats and beers and trucks and men and mamas and trains and stuff. It's we're telling a story and we're being really specific with details because that's a lot more interesting than just I walked down the street and I saw this and said, you say something like that pot hole caught my ankle and there was a worm. I don't know. That's my deep poetry for the night. But this song, you know, it's a murder ballad. It sounds a little more country I think because there are more guitars in it. But there's I think this is one where he uses that rubber bridge guitar that they talk about on, what is it, the long pond sessions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That they don't have a visible string and something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah. There's a whole section where they're talking about it and he sent her one or something. So you get more strings and more that acoustic guitar sound. So it sounds more country tour at years. I think it's got like a harmonica in it or something, right? Yes, I thought it was an accordion at first and I was like finally an accordion and then I was like who's playing accordion if it's not me. It's not a harmonic us. So it was a little relieved. Taylor, on I play the accordion. Yeah, I mean, this definitely has the whole, you know, what she talked about in the New York Times interview. Tell the story about someone else and then, oh, now the story's gone to me. And look, I did it. Like surprise. No, it's not. But it is. And that's what happens in country songs. Like the really, I think it might actually be Tim McGraw. It's that please don't take the girl. Is that the girl? Yes. Don't take the girl. Don't take the girl. Right. So every verse, it gets a little bit. And then the last verse, you know, I won't spoil it. But go this-- it's a great song. Even if you don't like country music, you can appreciate the plot twists. So this does it too. That is the tradition. The lap steal guitar, which is that sort of twangy, "Nero." Love it. Yeah. That-- you could put that on 1989. And I think people would think that's a country home. Sometimes it's just the banjo that's doing it. All the heavy lifting. Likewise, sometimes people will say it's a country album. And it's not just because they put a banjo. [LAUGHTER] But no, I like the song a lot. This is usually the one that I will go to when I-- like this is the one that I had heard probably the most before, because it's a-- no, it's really good storytelling. It's interesting sound layering. There's-- I don't know. I just-- the slide guitar throughout kind of sounds like the sirens in the beginning. So there's this kind of throwback to R and my cot yet. Oh, no, it's just a guitar. I love it. That is great. Yeah. Actually, you're the best person to ask this question, I think, because you've done things in studio. And I think-- you know how there is this joke about Taylor and her features were sometimes. It'll feature like featuring Haim or featuring the chicks. And they're just in that background, providing the support. And I remember when I was younger listening to Taylor albums, and I would hear the people providing support in the background that weren't featured. And I've always wondered how that works. Yes, this time. And we have the part of she was with me, dude. But how is this working where they're the feature? Because I also know they're doing a little bit more that probably if I had better speakers, I'd hear. But-- Yeah, so I didn't really-- they're not spotlighted. So this is one of those moments where, again, my opinion, personally, I think this was Taylor shining a light on somebody that she thought should have more credit. So she needed-- she wanted to put her friends on it so that we knew who her friends were and that they're awesome. And putting it in the title like this-- because that is something that when you go to list your song on digital streaming, even the featuring becomes part of the title. And I didn't really just tell-- I did this on a 2008 record. I had a guy new from Nashville sing a duet. And I put featuring Shannon Lawson, because I was a big fan. And I thought his fans might like my stuff. He was a much bigger artist than I was. But then every time I put it in the ASCAP and be a my stuff, that became part of the title, too. So I'm not sure if that's still the case, but it made me think, oh, that's cool of her to put that in there. So everybody knows every time it comes up on the radio or anything, they get credit, too. Not just my friend played or sang a background on it. I feel like something she's good at, too. She sometimes gives shared writing credits when as a musician, I feel like that's not actually the same song, how kind of her-- She's a very generous person. Is it kind of, I guess, the poor, her prerogative, to be like, she didn't-- there's no hard and fast rule. Yes, you should be credited as a featured versus-- because I know for cowboy like me, Marcus Mumford, he's not featured. But he's very clearly-- and Justin Vernon, he was in the background of Ivy and other things. So that's just solely based on the agreement that Taylor-- either she's just gifting it or they've made an agreement. Like, hey, OK. Yes. Yes. And I would imagine that-- I this is where I start inventing my own conversations that happen, but she seems like a very good giving person. And she probably was like, no, I'm putting your name up here in the title. Everyone's going to know who did backing vocals. Because I didn't notice them. I mean, I didn't notice that there were backing vocals, but I wasn't like, oh, who is this artist over here singing this very specific background vocals? It's not normally something that you would do as credit the backing vocals. Yeah, no, Bridget, there's actually-- Taylor's to get criticized a lot because they'd be like, why are you featuring all these women? But they're only singing backing vocals. But I like your perspective. Because she's like, yes, they're only singing backing vocals, but I want you to know who they are. I could have not credited them, right? But then like, for example, Colby Calle, Marin Morris, they were-- They were really-- But like, no, but that means that Marin Morris got a lot of streams. Absolutely. Yeah, I wonder-- I wonder also if the function of having it in the title, specifically because in nobody, no crime, featuring crime, they're the characters in the song. So I wonder if it also like, this is a story. And the story stars, the dead body of SD. My friends are in the song. I love that. And they're dead. [LAUGHTER] Incredible. All right. I like this song a lot. It's a jam. There's a-- yeah, it's good. No, it's great. The next song is another uncomfortable song, "Coney Island." No, we skip. We did skip a song. Yeah, we skip a song. The next one I'm happy is. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. You know what it is? It's because I was looking at the singles order. Technically, Coney Island was this neck. It was like, you know how she released tiny, little radio singles with my bad? You're right. Happiness. How could I forget? It's awkward when I come to rule a song. I love when an artist will be like, this one's happy. This is how happy. And then it's like the second. It's genuinely-- oh, she's so good at doing that, too. Yeah, what did you think about this song? This song has like that like-- duh, duh, duh. Like very says elongated chords. And she's kind of singing over them. Very above the trees, you may say. The song works, go. You have good ears, you guys. Yeah, there's a lot of drones happening. So in music-- I mean, drone and think of like a bagpipe that there's always a low pitch playing, even though there's a melody at the same time, there's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I can't sing two notes at once, but the low note will hold the entire time. And it's this padding, this background. So there's a lot of that here. It's synthesizers and maybe an organ. There's not a lot of the sound engineer nerd word is attack. And if you can picture a sound wave, when it's really big at the beginning and then it kind of fades away, that beginning part is the attack, like how quickly you and you hear the sound. And then it fades into kind of sustaining the ringing of a guitar string. But the first is very obviously a guitar. On these soft kind of drone synthesizer pads, there's not a lot of attack. It sounds more like voices kind of-- or almost like somebody's fading it in and fading it out. And it takes up a lot of space, even though it's not doing a lot of pitch work. It's not singing a lot of different notes. It's just there all the time. Yeah, I don't love it. Yeah, it's not busy at all. We do get like as the singer is kind of resolving-- or like-- yeah, like resolving to move on. It hasn't moved on yet. You start getting some like plucking noises that are like pizzicato almost and a little syncopated. And that's like the most movement we get. And then you get extra loud droning at the end. I'm just like, oh my gosh, is she going to be OK? Yeah. I'm also a sucker for the Gatsby reference in any song. I love that. I would say my favorite part in this song-- like obviously it's the hope you'll should be a beautiful fool that you'll spot next to you. Sorry, I didn't mean that. And then it's also the-- and I hold your body into mind every goddamn night. Like she speeds up in the verse. And I just think that's very interesting when there's like that drone that tech. It does. And it mixes-- there's a violin in there, too. So you get that same sort of contrast between the old analog violin with these synthesizers. And sometimes they're playing the same note, so they overlap. And it's like, which is which. Which happens a lot in this album. And it's also that why it takes up so much space. There's not a ton going on, and yet there's always something happening. There's always a sound. This isn't interesting one, too, because it actually does resolve. Most of the songs on this album don't resolve in the way that you expect a song to resolve. Which just means it starts and ends in the same place. You start at home. At the beginning, you go on a little trip, and you in-bep back home, like the Odyssey or something. Yeah, yeah. Heroes' journey. But this one does that. It's in the key of B, I think. Yeah, B, which is not usually a piano player's favorite key. I'm a weirdo in general, so I like B, because I can feel it. You use all the black keys in the key of B. It's the one that uses all of five sharps, five black keys. I will say-- And when you go back a little bit, because you said that, it does kind of resolve at the end. But this one also has some weird twainies at the end, with that resolved drone like d-d-d-d-r-rr, okay, again, not a singer. Oh, I like that though, because it's. It doesn't sound like it resolves, but musically it does end up back at home. Oh, that's literally like the thesis of the song of like there's a me in the future that will forgive you and is resolved of this. I haven't met her yet. So yes, the song resolves, but also there's some stuff. I like that. So you're just changing the more things change, the more they stay the same kind of thing or reverse that maybe? Yeah, because that's not the new me yet. So for me, I hear the opposite way, it's a, I'm like, she's trying to, but I don't think she ever will. I think it'll always have this crack at the end because of the weird production sounds, but it could, I mean, it could be both. It could be, you know, which is it going to be? It's allowed to be both, you know, she, again, because she says in the song like sure, but also, I love she's a beautiful fool. Also, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Like she's going back and forth with herself on the thing and she's like, I want to be past it. And I can't and there's so long in and it's like, yes, the relationship ends with the weird things, the weird things. Yeah, there's two things can be true. Yeah, both of these things can be. Wow. Wow, great job everybody. That was one brain telling. I love that. We did it. It does. The song builds and builds, but it feels like it doesn't go anywhere. Yeah, I don't care like that too. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of not going anywhere, Dorothea is such a sweet song and I wonder what's making it musically so sweet. It's a sweet song. It is. It's like a John T song. I imagine that she wrote it on a ukulele. So this is one of those kind of things like I think you did. I think you didn't want to get out of bed one day and you didn't want to go get your guitar, but the ukulele was right there. So you were just like, do do do do do do do. It's another one of the songs that is very country if you take out all the synthesizers and such. It's, and the piano is very John T and like we're skipping and it's almost a swing, but then there's the drone and it makes it feel like there's so much more going on. This one has a really, really complex chord progression. Oh. So just to go back to all the people who are like, she writes such simple stuff. Sometimes she does because her lyrics are really, really, really amazing and if you distracted the listener with complicated sounds, then they wouldn't hear your incredible lyric. I actually have such a hard time listening to the words in this even when I'm trying to focus on it because there's so many different chords in the song. They move around a lot. It starts out really simple and then like it's just a, if you know music, it's just one, five, four, five in the beginning, but then we have all kinds. I actually went over to another website that does some really deeply, deeply nerdy analysis and it had some rating of harmonic complexity and I was like, okay, I'm not wrong. Like this song is complex harmonically. What? Oh, did I read? I'm looking at my notes to see, I think my notes might be off. I was looking at the people who played it. I have a note that it has a lot of the same people as just the damn season, like the players on the track. No, I have to go back because I feel like I'm maybe I'm in to say that about coming to Ireland. Ignore me, ignore me, every moment. No, I think Apple would list everything when you go and read the credit. Oh, that's right. I have Apple too. No, I do love what you said about the piano being jaunty and happy. Like for me, this song, it is very sad because he's never going to be reunited with Dorothy again. But he's just singing a tune, he's just happy to just remember her and be with her. I also like this song because it has her laughing in it in the background. Oh, yeah. Like she goes, or something like that, like a little in the background, like she's like doing a little giggle in the back. Or used to sing laugh a lot in her songs, like up until lover, she had at least one track where she laughed and then she stopped laughing. You know, we can't, like, I mean, there was no laugh about it during the pandemic. Yeah, there was nothing to smile about. Nothing to smile about. I think what you said about like it being deceptively complicated is kind of how I feel about Dorothy, right? Like it's so sweet. So like, like this well wishing for this person to be, but it's also the like, you could come home to me, like, never going to see you again. I'm kind of sad, but I don't, I want to have this uncomplicated wish for you, but also what I wish for us is something different that's probably never going to be. So it's very interesting. Like, you said, you can't listen to lyrics because you're getting distracted by the music. Yes. Yeah, I like that take. And it's those synthesizers. They're almost doing, they're doing a rhythmic thing. It's almost, I think it's an arpeggiator, which is just a fancy word for saying they're playing really fast notes up and down. It's the same thing that happens in the crazy breakdown of Death by a Thousand Cuts that you can control. That was not perfect rendition of that song. But it's distracting to me because it is a chord, is it a melody? Am I supposed to be listening to that? And the fade out on Dorothy has this synthesizer that's doing this very programmed. Yes. Yeah. It's it starts vibrating at the end. Yes. Yeah, yeah, basically it does. And it's weird because most of the instruments that Aaron is playing on it are your standard, you know, like Beatles albums, early rock band, it's a bass guitar, an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, piano, a tambourine. It's very normal, but somehow the synthesizer is kind of take over this song, which is distracting to me. Yeah, it's almost like the reverse of Gold Rush, where you had the strings take you to somewhere else. This one, like the synthesizer is like ending his daydream of being with Dorothy. Like she ain't coming back. No, erase. It's just the TV, it's through those TV waves. It's just the TV waves. Aww. It's way that's so sad. It's just so interesting how she uses all this other, she takes the time on these arrangements to help it tell the story too. And that's, you know, what I've been doing in my videos is talk about how the music and the arrangements and production is more complicated than people think. And it really does help with the feeling and the emotion that you have when you're listening to it. And it really does help you to stop the song and record it just with the ukulele and show you how the song probably started. Maybe I'll do that by the time this airs and just so that it's linked to it. We'll link to it. We'll link to it. We'll link to it. We'll link to it. I love it. It's a homework for that. It really is. It really is. It reminds me of what I was, I'm teaching my students right now about how when we're writing, right, we as the author, the creator, we're thinking of so many things, like the ascendancy, the eliteration, the consonants. We are talking about Sinectoki and Metin. I never said this word right. Metin. Metonity. Metonity. That's how hard we're just saying. And it would pronounce it correctly. But like all of these things that someone who is reading your story is maybe not thinking about it, but it's affecting them and it's working on them. Like they are realizing that you are purposely echoing visuals with the sound, like you're saying red lights and you have tomatoes in here and you're also purposely using that R over and over and over again. Like maybe they're not consciously like clocking it, but their subconscious is like, oh, this is an image and I'm tracking it. And that's what Taylor does. And it's like until someone draws your attention to it, you're like, oh, I mean, you realize that the artist was talking about like the poet was talking about space and slowly making the vowel sound to be higher up in the octave as I read it. Like, oh, we're going up and I didn't even realize it until I noticed it. So it's very fun that Taylor also is doing this. And it's like, till someone points it out to you and it's like, look, you hear that. And it's like books and poems like you don't have to know all that stuff to just enjoy it. If you want to take a class and break it down and learn about that stuff, you can, you can then take all that knowledge and for the rest of your life, analyze everything or you can just choose to know it and enjoy. And you're not everybody can turn off with music. I can't always, but sometimes I can just throw myself into the feeling of it. And I think that's so cool. And I think one thing that's amazing and that makes me want to re-record all of my albums is that Taylor Swift has the time budget, really the budget, to do this. And I'm not jealous in any way. It excites me and it makes me want to rethink what I have done if I had had unlimited studio time or if I could have called a full orchestra. Would I have put that in? Because my albums, they're very singer-songwriter. Like I wrote a song and here's the song and maybe it has a banjo, but that's, I didn't intentionally orchestrate the way that I, when I write for film or TV, I'm much more intentional with that stuff. And Taylor's first album was mostly just songs and as she's gotten older and more, I don't know, just worked with so many interesting people. She's really been using all of the people she knows, like their own instruments. And it's just so cool. And it makes me want to, I wish that everyone had that ability to make like 5D art, right? I'm very excited to see her re-record the Taylor's versions to see what he's like, let me bring into the orchestration to double that feeling of loneliness or connection in the tie together, we're small, all those. So I'm very interested musically, what she's gonna subtly change to bring like, that's the one I'm most interested in doing and in hearing and seeing the last one. 'Cause she's not redoing. And I'm gonna be the obvious one, it's gonna be the last one. She's not doing the mutation. We may get bonus tracks next year for reps, 10 year anniversary. She'll be like, "Here are the Volt tracks. I'm never gonna be recording this." But I am very excited. And I'm assuming it's coming out this year because it's 20 years. Hello, two decades. I know. So it's gonna be, it's like an interesting update. And I think, did you see those reviews that were all, especially after around like, speak now, Taylor version, 1989 Taylor version, people were like, the Taylor version project is like, there's no point in this, blah, blah. And I'm like, "But you had her in the scene, like she's literally self-editing in real time." Yeah, that's why, it's an incredible plot. And sticking it to the man, like it was amazing. Yeah. Oh my gosh, anyway. Well, now we arrive at Coney Island. See, I told you I'd run us off the rails. No, no, no. No, this is the 100th episode. We do whatever we want. Yeah. So we run the Taylor off the re-- So let me repeat what I said last time. Here's another very uncomfortable song. This one is a lot more lonely, I would say. When it first opens, and you hear the little bit of plucking, I don't know, some kind of guitarist, stringy thing, and then the drum, the doon, doon, doon, doon, doon. Whereas happiness felt very lush, and gold rush, especially, very lush, at the beginning, a lot of sound, this one sounds very empty to me. Everyone has gone home, and you're just sitting there on a bench. I agree. And I think that to go back what I said at the beginning, it's bizarre, because there's so many different instruments from a song, and yet it feels empty, which-- that's magic of production. Turn that down, pan that left, put that over here. All these compressions pull out the strings, put them back in, pluck it, don't-- yeah, it's doing all kinds of things. Yeah. And yet, I just say it's lonely, it's lonely. Did you guys notice the jingle bells? And this one? I love that. It's like, baby, we-- it's one of the songs on this album that builds the atmosphere of why it's a winter album. It's like, oh, this is Fall Winter. This is Fall Winter. And it's interesting to me, though, because jingle bells tend to-- when you hear a sound, it triggers the memory. And for most people, jingle bells are joyous, even though it's wintery. It's like, oh, this means it's the holidays and happiness. And just to hear those. And it's not what the function of the jingle bells are in this song. And yet, our brain still kind of connect this happy memory to it. So it's another one of those contrasting, happy sound on sad song. Anyway. Yeah, wait. I haven't heard the bells in the song. They're very low in the mix. Yeah, if you want to listen there, I have another-- they start at 58 seconds in. So if you pause the podcast, come back to it. That's crazy. Go turn your turn here. I had phones all the way up. Turn off your notifications that don't get weird. Listen to the golden black most ends. Go find them. OK, that's crazy. Yeah, this one, I think-- and then yeah, this one also has, obviously, the different timbers of Taylor Swift voice and Matt Berenger's voice. Right, he's like, she's still very-- I guess how would you-- how would you just-- wait, Bridget, how would you describe the timber of Taylor Swift's voice? That's a good question. I-- Yeah, this is actively unique voice. So how would you describe it? Oh, so the lower register is velvet to me, and the higher register is silk. But I have synesthesia, so I have very-- like, that's just what I see and think. Yeah, I think it's lovely. It sounds expensive, but accessible. I don't know. That's-- No, that's really great. So for those of you who don't know, Tamber, it's spelled T-I-M-B-R-E. It's like the quality of the sound. It's like what-- even though a violin plays the same note as a clarinet or a saxophone, they sound and feel different because of the way they vibrate or the air passes or whatever. And so, yes, I 100% see what you mean, especially about Taylor Swift's voice being like velvet at the bottom. When she sings those low notes in like maroon, right? Very deep and rich. Or I can fix it. [LAUGHTER] I love it. I love it. In the good boy, that's right. Listen. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I like it when she's singing with-- who is it? It's the national-- but whose voice-- Matt, that's who it is. Because they're typically-- when you have a guest artist, you're usually singing harmonies, but they're singing an octave apart, which is-- that basically the same note, but she's singing a little bit higher. So instead of two different notes that sound nice together, they're singing like a dough and a dough at the same time. Wait. It's so crazy. They're like parallel. They're a universe of way, if you will. Oh, there you go. Because of the lyrics. So instead of being on the-- like, they're on the same page, but out of step, just like in the song, literally. Yeah, they never meet. They never meet. They never meet. They get meet. Like, were you waiting at our old spot, the note? But I'm up here, and you're-- Wow. It's like, yeah, it's like those movies were like there in different timelines, right? And they can be at the same place. But they're never going to see each other, because-- oh, my gosh. Yeah. That is so cool. I've never-- which is very funny, because I play clarinet, and I was in band for many years. And I still-- I have such a hard time hearing melody versus harmony, unless someone isolates it. So I didn't realize that they were on the same-- like, they're not harmonizing. They're singing the same note. I didn't realize that. I thought you were playing that. Yeah. If that's why you're listening to music, then I feel like that you're not having the full experience that the composer intended. So this is where I have to kind of shut things off in my brain before I can access the emotion, because I'm so into the analytical bit. And this is entirely from my job. I've had to predict what chord comes next. So I don't lose my job. And that's what's kept me high-rival is that I-- it looks like sorcery, but I'm like, oh, no. I know that if you played this, this is coming. But it also means that I miss a lot of the emotional stuff. So don't stress too hard about if you can find the harmony or the melody, because it just means you're enjoying the song. It's a little bit of a Taylor scholarism. So now I'm like, OK, I can hear it here. Because again, it's unconsciously developing the fact that they're separated. Because if they were in tune with one another, someone should be harmonizing. Perhaps he should be harmonizing under her, because typically it's the other way around, but whatever. If we want to-- No, I love that. Because now I'm going to go through all of her duets and listen to see if their harmonies are melody. Or like, oh, that's a good tap. But I have a question about Coney Island and Champagne Problems. And this-- I just made a video because I have a theory that I'm not going to talk about, because it might be completely out of the blue. But I wonder if they're related in any way. Coney Island and Champagne Problems. And there's another one on this record. You know how there's the folklore trilogy? And then some people ask me, is there anything musical connecting those three songs? And I found-- OK, yes, there is. Well, I heard something musical on three of the songs and evermore, but I don't think they're actually related. But I want to know then why did Aaron Desner do what I think he did. Oh, well, tell us what you heard. I know I put a mystery out here. Tell us what you heard, because-- No, I can do it. I can do it for anything. But listen, because one of the things, especially with evermore specifically, because there are some songs that Taylor on evermore was like, these are related Dorothea to the damn season are the same story. And a lot of people forget that for some reason, because they forgot that they read the prologue. But I can be the case for Coney Island and Champagne Problems, even if it's just these are parallel stories. This is the post of it all, like the post story, like the epilogue of Champagne Problems. Right. People, they never meet again, and they're pondering, like, did I ruin this? Did I shatter you? Did I put your hand while dancing? OK, I do feel like-- Well, I do feel like this album has a lot of-- it is about endings. But there's also a lot of regret on this album. Right. I would say that Champagne Problems, right? Like, am I going to regret not holding your hand, and taking the ring? It is a damn season. Do I regret leaving my hometown? Do I regret leaving you? And tolerate. Am I going to regret pulling this dagger out of me? Coney Island, like, all-- you know, people say this kind of like a mashup, a lot of the relationships she's had, right? Or just like, you know, just images in those things. Even a song like "Marjorie," I would say, is regret, right? Like, I should have kept every single scrap-- Every single grocery store's seat, right? Like-- Yeah. I bless that. - Bless the Earth. That's the third of the Oh, I'm here is Marjorie. But it is that regret the All of them have either These questions slash these I did a thing to you. I dropped your hand while dancing. I coax you in a paradise And left you there. I complained the whole way there Instead of listening. And oh, all of them are not nobody's Listening to anybody in all three of These songs. I should have been Listening. What did you do? I have to tell us what you Know I'm not going to. I'm not so Cool of me. But I did want to make Sense the note. I just said why Did I write shares eight of the same People as tis the damn season. It's because of what is the door Thea and tis the damn season being Related to each other. They the players on the songs are Mostly the same. Oh, that's cool. And there's lots of different Things like that. Because Marjorie's apologetic. There is literally the apology that is in Coney Island. The sorry. I for not making you my centerfold. And then there's also like the. The persona in champion problems is very Apologetic that they cannot say yes. It's like an embarrassed this person in front of their whole family. That they brought out and they bought the expensive wine and now nobody's drinking it and now i'm. Ruining the vibes on a nighttime trade. So I think it's very interesting to connect all of them. Yeah, maybe there isn't like a. It's not a super connection like Lyrically, but I wonder if Aaron was picking up on like a vibe. That Taylor had. And was like, ooh, like. I and like kind of played with it. I know that. Other Taylor Collabritor Jack and Tenoff he does that a lot like his sense. Like some of the synth notes that he uses for both his band bleachers and for Taylor. And other places like he has he like hears different. Fibrations and they mean certain things until he'll reuse them in certain songs to give that feeling of like. And so I wouldn't be surprised if there is something similar that maybe Taylor's like, hey, I like that. And Aaron's like, oh, I will note that. Right. Do I bring it back in this one? And she's like, oh, as you like it, maybe. Maybe something like that. See, that's kind of where I was thinking. And so I'm not going to say what I'm thinking because it. My gut tells me it's just a cool producer choice. Oh, okay. I want to just kind of make sure that I'm. I will at some point like write about it. But I don't. Yeah, but I like this as a good. That was a good exercise though, because. Yeah, that's the kind of stuff we love. Like, is there a connection? And you know, yeah, a lot of record. Evermore definitely, I think maybe one of the reason my Taylor doesn't talk about it so much is it kind of like. Speaking out where it was kind of like she didn't know it at the time, but it was a pivotal album that. Yeah, was going to set up the next thing in her life in like. It had to break some things and reshape some things. And so. It's so fun that it comes before midnight because Hannah knows that I wonder if you've picked it up musically midnight as an album. Taylor was doing a lot of digging and breaking some bones. She didn't realize that we're broken until she had to re break them because they didn't hear right. And she had to like, it was it's a whole lot. It's actually midnight. It's very complicated deserve the album of the year that it got. And I am thinking about all these regrets and I think it's really funny because the song that's next up on the list. I be. I don't since much regret in I be at all for the actions that. The narrator tapes. She's just mad at him like, oh, you just ruined everything, but she has no regrets. Well, she doesn't regret the fact that like that I'm covered in you now, like there's not a regret in that and I wonder what are you hearing musically in Ivy? Like is I found like the audit be. He's all you be very lush like Ivy and like, but I'm wondering what you think. Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of things going on in the song. This one for me was like looking through a kaleidoscope. There was just so much in every direction. And a lot of interesting sounds that don't return like they'll come in on beat two for a few measures in the middle and then disappear. And so then I you know, I spent way too much time. There's something that sounds like a glitch sound or a hospital machine beeping it like somewhere. What I clock out like I have 228 written on my notes. Sometimes I write these notes and they don't make any sense later, but there's a couple of like weird staccato sounds that come in. My favorite is like, there's that random like violent. Yeah, like I love that. I love that. Yeah, it's it's a chaotic recording. It's it's you know, a lot of people say that music is organized sound. And this is like, what's your pattern here? What's going on? It is one that was written by all three Swift, Desner and Antonov. It was only produced by Aaron, but I do feel like it's got a little chaos because it's got a little bit of all of them. Right. I was wondering what that dynamic was like. Oh, I wish I could be in front of the wall. I have a question because me and Hannah have noticed this when we're talking about the specific part in the pre-chorus where she starts rolling like a stone like the old widow goes to the stone every day. But I don't I just sit here and wait and then it stops and I wonder what's going on in the music that's keeping it that keeps the pushing. I didn't clock that. I'm going to have to open it up now. Yeah, so in the old goes to the stone every day, but I don't I just sit here and wait. Right. Living like it's like the music as well as the it's those that are making it roll. Right. I don't know if I can do that. I'll get it down until it stops at the but I don't and we don't get that. Oh again, is it every PCORIS pre-chorus? Sorry. Um, I'm is the three more. That's right after that first verse. I'm not one I know. And then I don't think we get. We don't get it again. Actually, that's funny. So that's the thing. Like the patterns that you expect don't happen in the song, which maybe is the whole idea. I'm not going to say that. You know, I'm not going to say that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot happening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot. And then you've got like. Just in verenancing in the background. More sleigh mills here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You would expect things to come back. And they're not. And it's just very. Wow. What a song. Yeah. It is. There's this is one of those where. I talked in the beginning. How there's. 40 instruments on this album. And yet it's not a big album. But this song. Is busy. Yes. I like it a lot. But it's. There's a lot happening that. My brain has to keep track of. And it's. It's harder to listen to. And I. I had a really, really tough. We all had a tough pandemic thing. But I was going through cancer. I'm fine now. But like 2020 was just not a. I was grieving lots of things. And this was not an album. I was going to put on. Yeah. It took me a couple of years to come to it. And then I still hadn't. Really listened to it in order intentionally. Until rather recently. So I'm still learning. I'm so glad. And now cowboy like me. Let's keep it going. This song. Let's talk about busy. Yeah. Yeah. And I still haven't. And I don't know. But I don't know. I don't know. But I think it was a. I don't know. Let's talk about busy songs. I love this song. I like to start right in the middle of a sentence. And I wonder. Is it starting right in the middle of a. In measure. Like what's happening? Oh, because this song I'm so struck by the lyrics. I don't think I've ever noticed. What's going on beyond like the guitar. It does start in the middle of a measure. Yeah. So it starts in the middle of a measure. It also starts in a chord that's in the middle of. It's not in the middle of a measure. It's not in the middle of. It's not in the one chord. It starts on the two chord. Yeah. It's also starting in the middle of the story. Like you walk your walk into a bar. And this the person's art. The bar is already in the middle of like the Odyssey, right? It's like when Odysseus is meeting the cyclops or something. You know, like it's. Yeah. Yeah. You're just thrown into a world. It isn't. And it's got the. The lap steal again and the upright base. So it sounds country. More country than a lot of the things do. So, is it just another way instrumentation can kind of provide setting in place and also trigger your own memories? Also, she brings back the guitar solo. She hasn't really done a guitar solo a lot, but this one has a quite like a quite a few measures, you know? It's. I have a note on here that says this, I wondered if it was actually written for debut. Yeah, I guess this could have been on her first album, but it also kind of shows how much she's grown. So, like, it's just so, I think of that bridge all the time in the way the bridge does this thing where to me the music, and I know I said earlier, like I'm not really paying attention to music, but I am, because in the bridge it's like, listening like the skeletons and the old men and the women, and then it gets as part where it goes, but that was all before I locked it down, and like, it feels like it slows, like it slowed down, and then now you hang from my lips like the gardens of Babylon. Yeah, I love that line. And I'm like, oh, it feels slowed down, and when they performed it, which he performed it with Marketsmunk Bird at the Ares tour, he like did this thing, like he locked it down with like a twang, and she like, she was talking to the song, and when he performed it, he also like always like comes to like a stop there. And I think it's very funny to have this like stop in a song. I love when songs stop on the word stop, but I also love when they stop like thematically, like all of our movement around with other people has stopped because we're on this. Yes. Yeah, and this song, the chords too, are basically a circle. They're not the entire circle of keys, but they go two, five, one, four, jumps around. It's that same as that new Harry Styles and Chloe and Sam and Sophia and same chords as that too. I like the melody on the song a lot. It's a lot busier. Yeah, it's yeah, this one also does, she's kind of knows the rules of songwriting, but then kind of breaks them in, so I'm like, I don't know what's a verse or what's a chorus. And she just kind of like meandering around. That's funny. I had this same note here. I said, I love the melody in the chorus, or is it a verse? Yeah, yeah, and I think it's a testament to like her understanding how a song works, but also like then you can twist it to, you know, to make it more interesting. And I am looking excited. It's kind of wind of because she's in the song and her as a performer, she's performing it as a con artist. So it's like, what's your expecting? I got some tricks up my sleeve. There's another trick. Yeah, love it. Yeah, it's it's classic. Yeah, she does that on lots of her later albums, but this is a song that's so obviously about that, but it's even better. And that you're right, this song has so many instruments, harmonica, mandolin, cellos, and other strings, and wow. That's, that's, and yet it's gentle and easy to listen to. Yeah, it really feels like I'm can walk into like a bar, and this is be the song someone's playing on the guitar, and they have like a couple, you know, sessioners behind them, and they're just, you know, twang in a way, and I could just sit and listen for hours. Absolutely. A whiskey at 2 a.m. Yeah, it's actually the lyric video has. I think they're like, it's like a whiskey bar. No way. That's funny. Yeah. This is my favorite song on evermore. I think I think it's really depending on the day when you ask me, but almost all the time because they're just, she's just really lovely. I love whenever Kayla brings up stars, and she has the eyes full of stars, but I also love the forever's the sweetest con. I think that's one of the greatest, sweetest, most beautiful lyrics she's ever written. And I, again, I just like the way it sounds because it does sound like it's taking you into this soundscape of your box to hear a bar tell you the story. Listen to it. Let's get into the story about how they, they're, they're, their greatest con ever was falling in love with one another. Well, that's actually great. So Bridget, I don't know if you know this, but there's like a debate within the Swiftie community, whether this is a happy song or a sad song, because they're like, oh, is she going to get conned again? Right? Or is it saying forever, sweetest con as in like, we are going to be forever. Like, yes, one of us is going to die, but, you know, we're together and because like, we're, like, musically, are they resolved? Or are they, is there like a, a minor hidden somewhere in there? Right. There's one minor chord and it's the first one in the whole song. But I, yeah, I think musically the song resolves. It ends on the one. I think, yeah. Yeah. Never gonna love. Yeah. It ends at home. So when I say the one. Thank you. Thank you. That was all it. Yeah. You cited with the Taylor seminars on this. I think what people are missing, they are hearing the forever's sweetest con and then not seeing the fullest picture. The full picture. I'm like, these are con artists. Conn is the art that they perfect. So if something is a sweet con for them, they're like, oh my god. Yeah. This is the greatest. My greatest trick is falling in love with you. And I'm never going to have to do it. I'm never going to love again. I'm never going to do this again beyond you. And of course, I just love that it resolves at the end because of the intro. We're popped in the middle. Like it's like, boom. Right. This is the middle. And most songs on this album do not resolve. So it's nice. I just had to listen again and confirm to make sure I didn't cause a giant rift in the Swiftie first. But it does. And then it, I love that too. You saying that a lot of songs don't resolve, but this one does. All right. Exposit. We're doing it. We're doing good. And you know why else? I think probably this is one of the ones that resolves is because for a lot of the songs, we have to get like the beginning, we're in the middle of a story in a lot of the songs, but this song starts us in the middle of the story and takes us to the end. Yeah. So it's like, this is the almost into the into an epilogue where everybody else, like we're in the midst of conflict in all these. These are past the point of conflict. Like the conflict. The climax, if you will, we're in the day, new mom, the falling falling out. Not that. And another song, I think that's happy is the next one. Long story short. This one. Yeah. We've gone through a lot of uncomfortableness, but long story short, very reminiscent to me. I think I mentioned this earlier, the last great American dynasty, that kind of, um, chugging beat. And, uh, yeah, this one's this one's very happy, very upbeat and, uh, lively, right? Because Dioire Thea was also John, John T, but not necessarily like lively. What do you think about this version? Yeah. Sonically, this one I had to actually download and then put it into my digital audio or station to tempo check it because it kept feeling like it was getting faster, but I don't trust my ears because I know that most people record songs to a metronome that never changes. And so what I've decided about this rhythm is that it's recorded. It's completely in the whole time. 79 beats per measure, the whole song through, but it sounds like they're still racing against the time here. Yeah. Does that make sense to me, especially it always feels like it speeds up around the, and I fell from the pedestal, right down the level. But the drum comes in a little bit ahead of the beat. And so it makes you feel like it's faster, but then it kind of pauses to wait back or whoever's playing everything. Like if you can picture lines that represent beat one, two, three and four, and then ideally you want the drum to enter, you know, or whatever, the rhythmic exactly. But people are human when they play. So sometimes it's a little ahead or the idea of a backbeat too is kind of just a little bit behind and it just kind of keeps things in the pocket as we say on the stage. But this one, the drum, it's like playing with a drummer who's trying to rush it. And then you're like, dude, slow down, slow down, slow down. I love that. That's interesting. And I wonder if it's like, you know, it's like, yes, we're in our happy labor after, but I have to be ahead of things just in case like when someone comes at us this time, I'm ready because I'm a step ahead. Like she's like, I've got caught slacking one time and I will always be one step ahead, even though the boat is not rocking, but I'm here with the front. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. And this one, okay, Bridget, I did look at the credits for this one. And someone plays something called croat croat, crottalies. Oh, I looked at that earlier today too. Because then I, when I, the pronunciation thing, it said it was like crotles. Oh, is it crotles? I've never heard of that. I don't know. That's what I must have clicked on it from Wikipedia. And it led me to a phonetics thing. And I was like, I can't possibly be, oh, crotles. Yeah, no, I'm now I followed you to Wikipedia. Crot, crotles. It looks like, yeah, it's basically like a xylophone made of tiny symbols. Oh, is that what I've actually heard and even, yeah, I've never heard someone say that word out loud or I haven't heard it correctly, but it's a percussion instrument that, yeah, so it's got, you know, like a piano has two black keys and then three black keys and then a whole line of white keys. Yeah. These are all just like teeny symbols. It looks like a kinder gardener had a drum set and shrunk it and then just like, stack it on sticks. That's so cute. Yeah, it's an adorable. I've never played one, but now I'm like, child is in a percussion group and I'm like I wonder if they have one and I should look up how to pronounce it because I'm staring at the phonetic thing going what is the horseshoe sound like? Yeah but this one I mean it's it's all this one also sounds very I wouldn't say lush it's not like gold rush but it is a very full you know like the poppy is song on the album right? you know what I'm like what is that word for not victorious but it sounds like like triumphant? oh yes I think triumphant is the word I'm looking for it does no she made it to the other side it doesn't resolve though Fla does it ends on it's very interesting like the way it sounds like it's speeding up like she's trying to get ahead of it trying to get ahead of it just even in the song like in the lyrics she's like I threw out like myself but someone comes at us this time I'm ready like I'm getting ahead of it it's not resolved and the last one she sings is I survived right long story shirt I survived and she's gonna have to keep surviving right like it's gotta keep going very interesting to have the long story short that doesn't survive especially with hindsight which is like because right after this we get the great war oh yeah you mean like next album yes yes yes yeah we get like the literal song the great war comes immediately after and then yes it's very interesting to have a song about how you survived and you got through it to not resolve because it's like yes I have to continue surviving did I actually go through and dig up all those memories to make sure that we're safe and all of midnight says I need to dig up the memories because maybe we're not safe maybe there's something in there screaming from the crypt that I can't find so it's very very it has to try and put song that is still ending dot dot dot like yes and it is a dad that I need to listen to this again because I also have a note that said it's my least favorite but I then I say it's mostly because of the it jumps ahead of the beat so it makes me it makes me nervous but this goes to why certain songs you just don't like and everyone else likes them and it's usually some sort of neuroscience memory attachment to something in there that's yeah that's possible and I think it's like PTSD for me of being on stage with a band that won't slow down and I'm just like guys you're going way too fast it's like you know kids that acquire when they're like an ac capella song and you're like oh no they are rushing yes that's the feeling I have when I listen to this song I feel like oh someone is playing it that's the feeling I get with fresh out the slammer of this song is making me nervous but I like that it's like making me anxious and nervous and like oh god we're headed we're like you slow down I do like that if you can kind of you know be aware of what it is then do you can sit back and just enjoy the feeling which is something I often forget about music and I think I know that by now but it's like oh yeah that's the intention like and this is why we listen to music to feel human again yeah so I just can't stop thinking about the the percussion being ahead like one step ahead because this is the mindset like of the of the narrator of the singer of like I gotta stay ahead because there's no more to the war I just keep you warm instead of us warm like she's doing I do once I've had to be protective to protect this and protect us and you have to think like being if the drum is too ahead of music for too long that sounds very exhausting like I feel like the song if it were longer would get exhausting yes a lot of labor a lot of the feeling maybe yeah and they break exactly which instruments brushing because there's so many instruments on this song too and and they eventually all line up again but there's a drum machine and those don't ever make mistakes so it's got to be the human part or they or the producers intentionally like move the sound wave over something which is a really good mistake intentional yeah that's one of this records too is they leave mistakes in and they're not necessarily mistakes that seem like to back to go back to champagne problems and the sound of the pedal when I've done piano work in studios engineers are usually really intentional about Mike placements and doing tricks to get rid of those kinds of sounds but clearly that wasn't on their they they left it they could have gotten rid of the sound and they didn't so same thing here you know maybe somebody played too fast and they just left it I don't know yeah so now on a what are your thoughts about the music of Marjorie just jumping in huh I know jumping in Marjorie I'm looking at to see if I had any connections between the two not really okay Marjorie's beautiful and I think that I knew the story before I heard the song so that clearly affected me and I was waiting for the voice of her grandmother to sing which I so I play the musical saw which sounds like a drunk soprano really yeah so I was playing a Taylor Swift song and everybody kept jumping in going like you should play the Marjorie part on it and I think that's rather insulting to Marjorie she sounds a lot better than a saw but I really love how it's put together I think it's stunning I think it's musically related to champagne problems and conical and for reasons that I will not disclose yet I think on it I got it let us know it I'm thinking yeah I will it starts kind of weird and digital and sympathy and then there's like a kick drum that comes in probably before most of you noticed it comes in about 30 seconds really really soft and so it's low in the mix there's a drone that almost reminds me of a stage that's just there the whole time and which again and this is where since I knew the story first I was kind of like oh is this me projecting a stage and an opera singer and such but you know Taylor knows the song too and so when she chooses a lot of these songs sounds and the orchestration it's usually intentional so yeah I enjoyed listening to things but I feel like I had I wish that I hadn't know what it was about first when I was listening I think we got hit by this blower yeah going into this song blind and you like because again you don't become aware of what she's talking about until like the bridge yeah we had an inkling because it was named Marjorie and we knew she had a grandmother that name Marjorie but we weren't like like it like what exactly but then yeah as it slowly like the veil lifts and you're like oh my gosh this has very like repetitive right you pre-chorus in the course of like when I didn't say dead you're alive you're alive and then that advice but again it's not until the bridge where it's like she starts going in on her regrets of like I complained and I listen and ask you any questions and I should have kept the receipts and memorize how you sign like your signature and then like there is I wonder and I wonder what's going on musically but there is that beautiful part of like all your clauses of backlog dreams and how you left them all to move like that is yeah so like it and this is part of why I couldn't listen this out of me there is that so my to get super dramatic but I lost my mom and my dad back to back right before like the end of 2019 and I was spending 2020 recovering from that and in bed from on bed rest and going through my mom's stuff like literally her checkbook where she wrote checks to grocery stores and so that line destroyed me just memory like these little pieces of paper that you don't think you're gonna leave behind and you are and I mean the first time I heard this song I like threw away an entire closet desk drawer or stuff because I've got real literal and sad for my children I was like one day you're gonna find my grocery store receipts and it's gonna be you and again we all have our personal hangups and I never knew my grandmother is either so that this song is stunning and I my hope is that for Taylor it turned out exactly how she wanted it because when a song is this close to home and I know they're all close to home but when I have to feel that there's some sort of not pressure but she wants to do right by Marjorie and important and her mom is listening and you know I just every little second and placement is beautiful on this and I hope that she's happy she's if you're listening you should be proud of it it's just did you get to go to the air store? No I was so close we were in Canada my sons and actor and he was filming in between Calgary and Vancouver and like he wasn't filming it and he wanted to spend his entire paycheck to go and I said we can't do it and I don't know if that was a good mom or a bad mom but no there's something about being in the audience when you get to hear Marjorie and also get to hear the live instrumentation and also then being surrounded by the light. It just really comes alive in this really interesting way. And like you can see it when you watch it like the tour film. But there was something about like being down there and like hearing margaries voice echo through the entire stadium. This is what's called the backlog dream. It was like you left with me but look you're here. And again, it's like that musical stage that she literally set up. And she's like, you're on a stage now. It is. And you know, lyrically to go back to what I talked about in the very beginning, which was all that Taylor's done for women in the industry on the shoulders of all the women who tried to do it before she did. And her grandmother was one of those women. And you know, of course, then she didn't get to do the same things that Taylor has gotten to do for so many reasons. And it's just a cycle of tears. Oh, incredible. You know. And so this one I'm guessing doesn't resolve, right? But you're still around. And then now I think it ends on the very much the we're almost home. The same chord that cowboy like me ends on oh, I mean, triple. I mean, the same functional chord. I don't know that's it's in a different key. Cool. Oh, yeah. OK, so it ends. Oh, I have the first chord that you hear as a D minor, even though the song has a sound of an F. And I have a note because it sort of ends. It ends open ended, I guess. Let me just OK. Which makes sense. Which makes sense. I think open ended makes sense because it's like, I think you're still around. I feel like you're here. You're not gone. You know, I was not like I've accepted it at the end. Yeah. Well, it's the unresolved note that's hanging. But then there's a hint of the home also that just kind of comes in. So yeah, where are we? Are we there? We're sort of there. There's an echo. There's a ghost. It's like you're with me. You're with that. You're still around. Well, there isn't ending though in closure. There's a ghost. That one is so cool. So exquisite and I in a previous episode defended this song because we think it's so fun. Yeah. You know, you got to, you got to just get over the pots and pans of it all and just really understand that she's mad as hell. And so she is going to break something. 100%. Yeah, this song reminds me, I thought it was Tom Waits at first. The opening is, you know, it sounds like it's hitting on garbage cans and where are we going and what it's another one that's in five, four times. And yes, the opening sounds are chaotic. But then there's a nice piano chord. It's just like a D major. So it's hard to keep track of, hard to predict. I love that. The rhythm of when she says the word closure is very unpredictable. And the ending is open. There's just so many different notes that it's hard to identify what chord is going. So is there closure or is like, can you identify what it is or is there just too much going on it? Honestly, it reminded me of a jam band like on stage just that kept going and looked at each other like they're all trying to follow what chord are you going and then they all go to the wrong one. And then they look at each other and then they switch and it's just like ending up in different places at the same time. And it leads out forever for like 20 seconds or something. I know. I love that. It just feels like the music is ranting with her. Like she's like, we're all mad. Whole house. I love it. Oh, it's like Beauty and the Beast Castle, but like all the furniture is angry and they're like attacking or they're attacking the townspeople. Well, the townspeople, they're defending themselves. I love the townspeople. I love the streets, but there's a yeah, everyone's bad. Yeah, that's such a fun image. That is so great. And my favorite part is that I'm fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candles. Like she just keeps adding the. She's done. And also there's this weird musical thing that I can't like put in the words because it's not my thing that comes right after that. I can feel you smoothing me over and in my head, the music sounds like it's smoothing. Yeah. Something to her voice. They definitely like did some find out what it is. Where is that about anyone having time? It's to I can feel you smoothing me over. Yeah, verse two is going to be halfway a little before halfway. Right. I got it. I can. Oh, yeah, they leave space in there. Oh, I wonder if there's distortion around it. Yeah, there's definitely some different effects there. Yeah, I'm seeing. But you're right. It's not. Yeah. It sounds more smooth at that moment. The background pots and pans stuff kind of fades back in it so you get this nice piano moment. That's fun. I love it. I love the piano in this. And I think it also goes back to what you said earlier about juxtaposing kind of these synth electronicy sounds with more classical sound. Like this one is like, what if we just heightened everything with, but I don't, but without, is there guitar in this? Not now. I need to look at it. I know I can't, I can't. There is. I don't think there's guitar. There's a violin in a cello. Yeah, but it's not like, yeah, but it's very piano driven and then distortion and there's some. There's some. There's some panning at trumpet. What? I know. As with those funny things that happen after you record everything where there's everything on a different channel or track and you get to choose what's loudest and what's not. And then it can change over the course of a song. So you go in there and, you know, you might play a accordion on an entire song and then they just like gently faded in and then faded out. So sometimes you don't even notice this song is so full of drones, this album is so full of drones, which are things that you would miss if they weren't there, but you wouldn't notice when you're listening. Yeah, they just add like a layer, like a texture layer or pad or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Are we ready for, well, so let's move on then. We're almost there guys. But just the last track of the standard album, the title track evermore, this one, another piano heavy song. And then she does that crazy thing where in the bridge, it suddenly like shifts. We get another one of those like perspective shifts that she's just done several times down in this album with Justin Vernon and it, I guess it speeds, it's got some kind of either time signature change or a tempo change and then it slows down again and goes back to the piano. So this one has a lot of decisions. It does. Yeah, so what is having musically is that in that bridge section, it gets faster, it just absolutely gets faster. And you guys can tell me what that represents because all I heard was what's going on. I'm so confused. It's funny. We haven't like done her evermore episode. Technically we have it. That came out. It's we're doing that order. Right. No, we're putting on the order. No worries. They don't. But I think like, well, they will know we've already like discussed it, but there is this thing with the music where she is like almost like at the bottom of a pit, like of despair and like this pain is going to be forever more. It's going to be like terrible. Like I had to feel it's a peculiar feeling that she's like, it's a weird feeling and in the music gets weird and it speeds up. And then while it's speeding up, you have Justin Vernon being like, can we get a pause to like think about where we're at? Can we think this out? Like what do I need to do? And then suddenly she's like, I was ship direct. Like there's mess everywhere. And then I thought of you. And so like him coming in, like he's like cutting through that noise, which again reminds me of Willow of the rough on the surface, but you cut through like a night. Oh, that's good. That's good. That's good. Coming in. And it's the crack in the cracks of light. I dreamed of you. And then all of a sudden it like comes to this like gentle and I was catching my breath after this whole. It's like when I think about it, I think of the whether whether it be the frost or the violence of the dog days, I'm on waves out being tossed. And that when it's speeding up, I literally feel the winds picking up right of the chaos and the change and the and the conflicts surrounding me. Like long story short kind of vibes. It's just picking her up like a tornado and just kind of tossing her around. And then she's trying to whether the storm maybe in you know, tornado and I was like in a cellar and then all of a sudden the storm's gone. Maybe the rain has stopped and you see the eye and like you might mix metaphor over her being. Well, I would say like even past the eye because that I means it's going to be crazy again, right? I would just say like the dawn is breaking. And now like, oh, the skies are blue. We can rebuild. We can come out of the storm's hour kind of. I love the skies blue thing is there's a really nice harmony on the piano that happens after the chaos too. That just sounds pretty. I just. But I. Yeah. No, you got it. I just love it because again, in that literally in the lyrics, it had like you feel in the music and in the lyrics is the. It was real enough to get me through. I swear and he's going, is there a line that we can just go across and then it's like you were there. And then it clears. You were there in everything settles. It's beautiful. And then all of a sudden, oh, this pain won't be forever more. It's like light bulb blue skies. was crazy. Yeah, it's really long too as far as pop songs go. I mean, under this whole album doesn't follow the rules. Oh, you're right. Over five. I'm pretty long. And most of that time is being taken up by this chaos. Like you get the really sad, like, oh my god, I was catching remember, I'm catching my death outside right now barefoot cold freezing. I'm probably about to die. Oh, there's a storm and we're stuck in that storm in swirl, swirl, swirl. And I think it's very interesting because we also get Justin Vernon in his like, bony there high pitch that most people are used to with him. Right. That if you only know him from a Taylor Slifzong, you're not used to because he was for exile. So he's like, Oh, oh, and it's like, yeah, he's cutting through the noise. It's very interesting conversation of a not conversation because like, they're not because they're overlapping each other. And I feel like the music is all overlapping as well. It's like, they're not on these same notes unless they are. Are they like literally overlapping? I know, like the the words are all over intersect intersecting all over the place. Like, yeah, it's been time different times. Until they stop. Then they get, then they get on one page. I'm listening to see a thing. I'm seeing no, but yeah. She's so good. It's so good. It's so good. It is really good. I love her. Now that we all learn the word, Tamber, I can talk about his high pitched voice. They're sounds higher than hers, but it's not necessarily higher. It's just that's one of the things that Tamber, which you can think of as tonal color, can do. And music is make you think something's higher than it really is or make her you think she's singing lower than than the actual frequency is. But that to go back to it kind of overlaps. And is it what's happening? And this song's ending is the same. It's got kind of an unclear ending. It sort of ends on the four chord, which is like the dream light chord. But there's also the tone of the home. And it's hard to tell which is more powerful. There's two chords it could be. So I think what interesting, because in the song, she's actually not sure if he's there or not. Like there is. But the lyric is, I dreamed of you. It was real enough to get me through, but I swear you were there. Like we don't actually know if he's there. Right. Yeah. We're hearing his voice, but maybe he's not there. Yeah. And it's the idea is real enough. And it's very, we exquisite. And I think when we did the overview episode for this, we kind of said that like there's two. I guess this is the standard ending, but there's actually two paths you can go after this song, right? You, which we're going to talk about next. There's the right where you left me path. And then it's time to go path. So even there, there's like two ways you can see this ending. Yeah. Which also, I don't know. She loves to do that. And so, we're, I don't know if you've noticed this, but if you want to kind of play this game with Taylor albums, where typically what she'll do is she loves to end on an optimistic note. She does this in every album except folklore. She hides the optimistic note on folklore until the bonus, the separate one. Folk or she ends it kind of like. Oh my gosh. I have a whole like dissertation that I literally wrote last week on Folkmore and the endings of different albums. And so on and on and you need to go. Yeah. No, so yeah. So folklore standard and very sad actually. Or hoax is like, no other sadness in the world would do is the ending like. Oh, yeah. And then she's like, and then she's like, "Side, look, it's a luxe, like happy." I remember when Rob Sheffield wrote his review for folklore. He was actually very confused. He was like, "Why did it end on hoax?" And so he was like, "But as a reviewer, they gave me the leaks early." So I think when Taylor first released it, the only the physical copies had the leaks. So he's like, "I got to hear it because I got the review copy." And he's like, "This is so to him, he's like, okay, now it's a normal Taylor Swift album. But looking back now, he clocked it, right? He was like, "Oh, I love this song." I love this song. Yeah. So you should check out his original folklore review, but but that's why in this one, we have like the optimistic ending normal. But then there's two kind of like sad endings. Midnight's has the optimistic ending of a mastermind. But then the deluxe ending is actually very sad. Dear reader, TTPD ends with Clara Bo. But then the the manuscript is kind of happy. TTPD ends so sinister. Oh yeah, it ends. Yeah, you're right, you're right. It's the original sinister. And then the anthology ends with a, this is why I will draw this struggle. And then it's very interesting because Life of a Showgirl has no bonuses. And no, she's like, this is the ending of what this Life of a Showgirl song is. And it's just about like the Life of a Showgirl song is like, this is why I do this kind of like the manuscript actually. But in a different way, the manuscript, she's like, this is why I do this because of these people that hurt me. Life of a Showgirl, title track is like, I do this even though it hurts me. And I love it. And I love it. That's it's still, I love it. Like manuscript, I do this because I have to survive. And this is how I do it. And then showgirl's like, I love the pain. This, I love it. So sorry. And then so it's very interesting for evermore, which again, we have Taylor at this crossroads. And like evermore, the title track does have the, I swear you were there. And it was enough. And this pain won't be forevermore dot, dot, dot question mark the end movie. And then you enter right where you like to. And you're like, girl, are you okay? And the answer is no, I've been sitting at a restaurant and I can't leave. Because if I leave, then that means everything is over. Everything the life I built is actually. Well, this song, Bridget, I loved your thoughts about the structure of the song because again, it's like, where is the chorus? And she just starts jumping into right where you left me like left and right. And I'm like, where, where am I? I don't know where I am. I had the same thing. And I didn't actually know this song until today. I will tell you because I was listening to the different version that didn't have this. Yeah. So probably the standard. Yeah. Yeah. And I love it. In fact, I wrote, did I write that this one might be my favorite? I think you are having a very common swifty experience where people, this is some people's like absolute favorite Taylor Swift song on the album. Really? Yeah. People have quoted this a lot in my videos, the help I'm still at the restaurant part. And so for me, it was kind of like, oh, that's what that's from. It's funny. But I have known who Taylor Swift was before her first album came out. And yet, there are still surprises for me. So yeah, it's it's been fun. But I'm there's a banjo, but there's also drum programming. But then the drum programming is playing the way that a country drummer would play like the same sort of rhythm that I would expect a live drummer to play. And usually the drum, the program drums are very obviously programs and you know, try to make them copy. So it goes again to the, is it human? Is it, or is it old? Is it new? And are we at a chorus or are we not, are we not? It starts on the five chord, which is usually the, it's the chord that makes you expect home next. But this one starts there. And this is super nerdy, but I was just noticing that that extra note that ends ever more is this is one of the notes that we hear at the beginning of the bridge. It's that confusing note where I was, I had to listen and go, is it here? Well, what function is it serving? Because it could either be a G flat major seven or it could be a defile. I get it. This is nerdy stuff. But basically, you have about 12 notes and then depending on it's, think of them like a sentence, you know, is it the first word of the sentence or is it the middle? They, they function differently. And so it's the same thing with music. Everything is different when you look at the, you zoom out, look at the album and think about context. So I have a question like, would they overlap? They maybe could. Yeah. Narratively, I guess it's like picking up on this is another ending. This is like, I thought it ended here. No, look. Yeah. Long time. She thought she survived, but no, she's actually still at the restaurant. Right. Is it all a dream? Is that? Yeah. It really is pulling your attention. What I am noticing and I went, I went to double track, right? I'm like looking through these. And the song is right where you left me and we get, but I'm right where you left me. Only twice. Like only twice in the first verse because what happens in the pre-course is, I set in, I set and stared right where and then basically there's like a hidden semicolon and it goes, you left me, you left me. It's not right where you left me. It's you left me and then she goes, you left me no choice. Like she's doing this thing where she's like changing and I think she talked about this in her New York Times thing, but she's changing the way, the word, where it's, because right where you left me a sentence, but she for the course is like, you left me no choice. You left me. You left me. You left me no choice instead of right where you left me. Such an interesting thing she's doing that's causing it to continue and it feels wrong. It's like no, the course should also have the right where, but it doesn't. None of the course have right where right you just left. I think she does the same thing with the chords too, where it's almost like there could be a semi-colon. I love that idea in between where the same chord goes on a little longer and you're not sure if it's part of the pre-chorus or if it's there's a pre-chorus in there. When you asked about structure, I was like, oh, I actually didn't take notes about structure on this one and I only heard it twice, but yeah, I know every note in the song, but I remember what order they coming. No, I think this song is it's also just I don't know, it sounds simple. Like it doesn't, the chords don't seem to change too, too much. Yeah, they don't, but which makes sense, everybody moved on, but she stayed there. She's like, I feel like the verse. Yeah, I feel maybe two chords in the verse that goes back and forth. There are four. Oh, there's a totally different one in the bridge. I was four and five. Oh, sorry. I'm going to freeze my head. Go to my mic. But yeah, no, I, yeah, I, the song is, this, this, this song is a really fun song because of all the word play. We'll, we'll, we'll get to the word play soon, exquisite. Yeah, tell me about the word play because I was lost in the boards and the bad. Oh, yeah, it's just that word play between like, you left me like you literally left me behind versus you left me no choice. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you left me. You left me and then there is these, these knows like this rejection and that's why she's frozen. She's like, you left me no, you left me no, and then she goes, you left me no choice. Yeah, so it's like, it feels like, this claiming like, what do you mean you left me? It's almost, you know, what it's very similar to, it's very similar to the torture post part of the short version, like the torture post from a title track, which is like the, like what? Hannah, do you remember what is the part and towards the intro to part of me where she's like, kind of aghast that he left her at her apartment, like, and that she was ghosted, like the torture post part of the song feels very like, what do you mean? The vibe? Yeah, yeah. Let me find one to know if they have the same chords. All right, you let us know and we will, we'll add it to the notes of the show, right? Different key. Yeah. Well, let's do the final. Who's going to hold you in the torture post part that I'm like stuck on? Like, who's gonna know you? Like, what do you mean you left? Like, you left your tight right? Like, this is ridiculous. And it's like, you left me no, that's not fair. That's not fair. It's that it's this like, you become a station. Yeah, like, you protest it so much that you get frozen. Like, this cannot be happening to me. And now I'm stuck thinking about it over and over again. We could have. Flight fight or freeze, right? And she froze. All right, go ahead. Love it. She know, just see it's another one that ends on the five chord would totally unresolved. And especially it's you left me. It's sort of like, you left me hanging and it does that music too. I love that. And it's the literally we're being left hanging in the line that ended is, but to stay here forever. Like, it's kind of hold like that. And that chord just holds forever. It's torture. It's torture. My kiddo did it earlier where he turned off the jeopardy or something right as it went, done, done, done, done, done. And then like the thing the music went off and everybody was like, we all need that closure. That's the same sort of feeling that happens when you end on this chord. Wow. I love that. What a good, that's a great parallel that they have to each other. All right, guys, we're almost there. Last one. It is time to go. I want to think all this time to go. I should say great. You guys. You're going to we're powering through. I'll do it. We are probably through. It is time to go. So let us, so this one has like that kind of like do do do do start that she's loved those little pulsing things. She's used it in like peace and folklore. It's a little bit of a margarine other places, but yeah, I feel like it's it's got a little bit of beat. What do you think, Bridget? I loved it so much because it is that same rhythm, but it's not a synth. There's a synth in there, but it's a cello. And usually, but it's a very electronic rhythm. It's not a rhythm you're used to hearing a cello doing. So I just love that. It was, you know, we're playing. Done, done, done, done, done. I love that you love the song because it's great. I'm going to have to battle for this song when we like to talk about it because Hannah has this and I wonder if you can musically defend this, but they're like the moment. Hannah doesn't like that it runs go go go. And also she doesn't like the repetition of giving up as the strong thing, the brave thing, the one thing, the right thing. You can write more things with thing. It adds an I and G Taylor. It's like it's like rock song. We were driving silly things and we were doing silly things. It's so annoying. It's at the same reason it was some summer song that came out where you sample one and run thing with thing. And it yeah, I also I don't want to be like, do I have to choose team Hannah or team exquisite? No, you don't have to choose. No, I don't like that either. Typically, but I also know that Taylor wouldn't like that either. So she must have a good reason for doing it. Yeah. She's just she knows she can run. I think she's just tired. She's just tired as hell. This is what Hannah's saying. The Hannah's vocal or stand. From like to me from right and I wonder if it's doing this musically too. The the repetition of like thing and go over and over again is this reassuring like this this self soothing of like, I don't need a rhyme. I just need the same thing. I need the same thing. Literally thing over and over again until I can get up and go like a mantra. Kind of right? Yeah. Right. I got to repeat you're okay. You're okay. You're okay until I believe it and then I can change it. She can't change it yet because she doesn't. She's not ready to go. So she's keep saying go. Girl, go. Girl, get out. And she's like, I'm not ready. I love that. I guess. It reminds me to of when you're like in a songwriting room with somebody co-writing a song and it's late. I mean, you're doing a podcast with somebody and it's late. And you're like, we we're almost there. We can get the perfect rhyme if we just spend a little more time, but man, it is time to go. Let's just leave it and let it go. That that could be it too. And you just go like that's how this long it. Oh, literally it goes. So then you go and then you go and you just go. Like that's how it is. You can't even like that again because she's no, I don't think there's a reason she's done it. Obviously everything's for a reason. But she I mean when she talked about real low, real slow. She doesn't like that. She really doesn't like rhyming thing with thing, which again means that it's got to be more mantra related and representative of I agree that it's probably that that's still don't like it, but it's okay. It's not in the versus. It's just in the chorus, which again to me just feels like she's like I have to affirmation this until I can just go. We'll argue about this more when it's time for this episode. But is that I have a musically too? Like are those same chords being repeated? I will say that this whole song is very hypnotic, along with several other songs on the entire album evermore. There are moments where you get lost in the rhythm and the repetition of the chords, the chord progression, which is just a pattern of chords that repeats over and over. And I definitely find myself feeling somewhat hypnotized at times. So she hadn't really done that lyrically. So maybe this is the song where she does it more lyrically because it's also a hypnotic song. It's onically. And if you watch those hypnotism videos or like any of those or if you look at visual things that hypnotize you, it is not a rhyme. It's a repetition. So it's like it has to be the same thing until it clicks. Like I have to really snap my finger exactly on the down beat over and over and over again until it locks in your brain, which is my defense and I'm sticking to it and I'm happy. I'm so happy for you. I am like of the very, very, very, very, very tiny minority that I'm like, I think a lot of people don't appreciate the verses of its time to go the way they should, because the verses of its time to go have so much tea in them. Okay, we'll get into it. We're going to do it now, but so that is 17 tracks. Good job. I'm so proud of us. That was a long album. The entire album, standard is 60 minutes and 38 seconds and with the deluxe, it's practically 69 minutes, it's 68, 58. So this is quite so brilliant. I'm very impressed that you listen to it so many times today. But any concluding thoughts about the album overall, like you, yeah, the floor is yours. Do you have an emoji? And then you have to add an emoji that it doesn't even have to be specifically about any, any, any emoji that makes you think ever more. That's, and then people just leave it in the comments. But before you do that, any thoughts you have about, you know, closing thoughts about the album sonically? Yeah, so I'll try to stick sonically with the vibe. It's lots of unresolved endings musically where you either get home when you weren't expecting it or you never go home, which When we get back to that ending of help. I'm still at the restaurant. She's not home or I can go anywhere I want but not home There's lots of drones. There's the whole thing opening with some sort of weather Texture I don't know the Russell of some sort of nature whether it's a willow branch or what Which is a natural thing so I love the whole contrast of real life organic Things and I think if a cello is kind of like that too these older instruments with the synthesizers and kind of mirrors that emotional discomfort and what am I supposed to think and There's so many hidden production details. I think that it's an album that you can just enjoy and listen to it sonically and Purely on vibe and you can kind of get the point of I think what the emotion of the lyrics say or you could dive deeper if you want And I I think that's one thing I really love about her last six albums in particular is the different layers that you can choose how deep you want to go and and I'm not even talking about Lore and and what is this about and who is this about? It's just oh I didn't notice that fun little trick or that Interesting chord or how this didn't end so I really love how she plays with harmonies and instrumentation to mirror emotional discomfort 100% agree that was that was wonderful. Yeah, and I can't wait to hear so many of these in my next ever more listen Bridget do you have an emoji so stressed about the emoji don't be stressed What do people choose is this like Because I want to get the right answer because I'm such a number of cheever It's no right how about there's 10 right answers that way you can feel like you got it, but like it's not like it's not like a Maybe she'd be too stressful. I want to do Is it too basic to do the like They're like smiley when it's like The grimza oh I love that I love that emoji. It's like the one that showing all its teeth, but like yeah No, I like that a lot because you're what we talked about like a lot of this album is very uncomfortable We don't know what if it's a good ending or bad ending and we feel bad for the protagonist in a lot of these songs Like I wish I could just hold your hand or give you a big hug. Yeah, I love I love that answer so Yes That was correct answer. Oh my goodness Well, thank you so much Bridget for joining I will put your socials in the notes But if you are have been to be on cheese Bridget be our IG ID K-Land K-A-E-L-I-N on TikTok and Instagram you could totally find her there She has tons of Taylor Swift related little musical things that are super fine to stick scroll through And thank you so much for taking out two and a half hours of your time I can't believe we're still talking. I know it was a blast. Thank you guys for having me. Thank you so much. See you next week everybody