We left off Part 4 having finished the TTPD depression playlist tracks, so we’ll be wrapping things up in Part 5 with the acceptance playlist tracks. Before we do, in case you have not read Part 1, that’s where you’ll find an overview of the Kübler-Ross model of grief, its pros and cons, and the way in which it was utilized as a framework for Taylor Swift to create five heartbreak playlists for Apple Music, starting with denial, and the eight tracks listed on it, which are each explored through the lens of that first stage. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read it before proceeding.

In case you don’t, a quick review of the fine print. From here forward, I will use “her” to refer to the narrator of each song rather than Taylor herself, unless otherwise mentioned. Similarly, I’ll use “he” for references to romantic partners. Please read Part 1 if you’re interested in my reasoning.

Acceptance (“I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”)

Acceptance is the action or state of being in which a person recognizes the reality of what has happened or is happening and has come to terms with it without trying to change it, fight against it, or make it go away. That does not mean that the person likes it, of course, or that they do not still wish it had never happened, though in some cases, acceptance can involve the realization that what happened is for the best, particularly with a break-up. It’s important to note that acceptance does not always feel good, and it certainly does not equate to feeling happy, per se. It may come with a sense of peace and of recognizing that the 20/20 hindsight of looking back offers far more insight and perceived control than you truly had while going through it. I like to tell people (and myself) that you did the best you could with the information you had at the time. And, if perhaps you still believe there’s more you could have done based on what you did know, forgive yourself. You aren’t perfect. No one is. Commit to doing better next time. Acceptance is making peace with what is, not what we wish it to be.

Keep in mind, though, that the feeling of acceptance, or the so-called stage, may be fleeting. While the stage model is presented linearly, the reality of grief is not. A person can experience acceptance one moment only to be thrust back into depression, denial, or whatever else a moment later. Like the ordering of the TTPD tracks, which jump from one stage to another in a somewhat incoherent and chaotic manner, grief is complicated, messy, and unpredictable. It is far from orderly. I believe the apparent lack of cohesion in TTPD is deliberate. A concise, precise, and neat album would not reflect the kind of heartbreak and emotional vulnerability as well as the vacillation and contrast between songs do. It also would not as accurately represent an “anthology” of poetry, which tends to offer thematic and stylistic variety, and in many cases, different authors throughout.

Acceptance, whether related to grief or any other life experience, is powerful. And, like all great things, it’s often hard to achieve. Acceptance in terms of grief and heartbreak can be particularly challenging because it can incorrectly imply a sense of consent or approval. Instead, acceptance is truly acknowledging reality and giving up resistance to what is outside of your control. That can sound fatalistic, but it’s not. The key differentiator is “outside of your control.” Of course, you should combat, oppose, contest, defy, and resist what you have power over that you believe would make your life (or someone else’s life) better to change. But, when that’s not the case, accepting it is the best option. That means allowing your thoughts, feelings, and sensations to surface while recognizing that you can’t change the past, but you can take what you’ve learned into the future (and perhaps make different choices next time).

As a former practicing psychologist and marriage and family therapist and current mediator and coach, acceptance has played a large role in my work (not to mention my personal life and wellbeing). The more we’re able to embrace life and all of the thoughts, feelings, and sensations within and around us, the more energy we free up for what matters to us. When it comes to grief, acceptance is being present with yourself and everything that comes up for you–the good stuff, and the hard stuff too. There is a lot of pain that comes with having a full life. Don’t let that stop you from having one. If you’re finding that difficult, please know you aren’t alone. Therapy may be a good option, but it can be out of reach for some. If it’s not accessible or simply not what you want, you can also make headway by practicing mindfulness, compassion, and gratitude. You might be surprised how far a non-judgmental, loving, and grateful attitude can bring you.

Like the denial and depression playlists, the acceptance playlist title does not contain the song that includes the lyrics “I can do it with a broken heart.” As you may recall, those lyrics are expressed in the track bearing the same name, which is located on the denial playlist. In “A Message From Taylor” that opens the playlist, Taylor says:

“Hey Apple Music, you’ve made it to my ‘I Can Do It With a Broken Heart’ playlist where we finally find acceptance and can start moving forward from loss or heartbreak. These songs represent making room for more good in your life. Making that choice because a lot of time, when we lose things, we gain things too.”

Her words convey one of the most powerful aspects of acceptance, which is the paradox of making space for the bad actually opens up space for the good, too. Moving forward does not depend on happiness with the outcome, but with accepting it. And when we look at life from that standpoint, it invites and welcomes more peace, more connection, more gratitude for what we have, and more intentionality for the future. The Apple Music playlist description further echoes this sentiment: “The fifth and final stage is acceptance, when we fully come to terms with our loss–and maybe even find peace.” Inner peace is found through willingness to be aware and present during the hard times, and cherishing the contentment that comes in the good ones without holding on too tightly to it. Now that we’ve reviewed acceptance, let’s look at the final six TTPD tracks on the acceptance playlist.

“So High School”

As you might expect from the title, “So High School” is chalk full of nostalgia and references to teenage-like romance. I’ve seen criticism that it comes across as immature, but I think that’s exactly the point. Young love is new, exciting, all-encompassing, and tantalizing. It’s often the first romantic connection and a time of experimentation in which flirtatiousness transitions to more passionate expression of physical intimacy. A “bittersweet” period of growth amidst the challenges of adolescence. As a 1989 baby, high school for people around Taylor’s age was a time of “watchin’ American Pie,” playing “truth” and “dare,” and blushing “cheeks pink in the twinklin’ lights” (a potential nod to this portion of the lyric video that shows only the letters TK and TS tinted pink next to the football lights, evidently confirming the popular interpretation that this song was written for and about Taylor’s current partner, Travis). Speaking of deliberate choices, I also don’t believe it’s a coincidence that both this song and another song on this playlist, “So Long, London” both start with the same word. Whereas this song uses “so” as alike to a great extent, the other track uses it as goodbye after a long time in a particular place with a romantic partner. This comparison highlights the healing nature of regaining one’s youth after walking away from a long-term relationship that felt like it robbed you of it. Being so youthfully in love that it feels “so high school every time I look at you” may touch on one of the good things mentioned in the playlist introduction that came about once she reached acceptance of a challenging one. He’s restored her youth, at least in part because he finally provided the sense of relational security she’s been seeking.

In addition to the nostalgic references, there’s also mention of another facet of adolescence, which is the lustful nature of being unable to resist physical manifestations of desire, regardless of who’s around to potentially see it. She’s “tryin’ to stifle my sighs” while his “friends are around” and she beckons him to “touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto.” But, she’s quick to point out that the relationship is not just physical. Before he pulls “me to the back seat,” he gets “my car door, isn’t that sweet?” She also pulls out a double reference to a youthful game that not so coincidentally has led to a resurfaced media interview with Travis in which he was asked to play with three celebrities, including Taylor, whom he chose to kiss: “Are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me? It’s just a game, but really. I’m bettin’ on all three for us two.” She’s in it for the long haul with their “fingers entwined” and high on “smokin’” his “jokes all damn night,” a nod to his intelligence and sense of humor. They have their differences in that he knows “how to ball” and she knows “Aristotle,” playing on his background in sports and hers in philosophy and other more literary and creative pursuits. But that pales in comparison to what he brings to the table, which is that, unlike earlier love interests, he “knew what you wanted and, boy, you got her.” He did not pretend to be a lion, he is one. And unlike past lovers who “never even scratched the surface of me. None of them did” (as stated in the album’s “In Summation” poem), he endeavors to know her deeply. The apparent irony that a high school-like love also appears to be the most mature and secure. This “brand new” love is different in the best way.

His certainty about her coincides with Taylor’s comment that Travis was “metal” for sharing about how he was rejected from giving her a friendship bracelet with his number at her show, demonstrating that he could be the one to “change the prophecy” and be someone who actually “wants my company” as described in the bargaining track, “The Prophecy.” And, to solidify the Travis interpretation for her listeners, she throws in lyrics that are common Travis vernacular, like “you already know” and “full throttle” as well as nod to him doing an “impression…of your dad again.” There’s also mention of what is likely a reference to his brother’s story about meeting his wife for the first time on an episode of their podcast in asking him to “tell me ‘bout the first time you saw me.” In an album full of despair, anxious rumination, fury, and attempts at running from pain when not drowning in it, this song serves as one of the bright lights of acceptance–the depth of love and safety that can arise when we face the past, deal with it, and move on from it. To be resuscitated “in a blink of a crinklin’ eye” after what feels like the death of who you were, and ultimately, finding love as the person you are now. And, perhaps, acceptance of everything that came to be in light of everything that came from it. The “invisible string” described in folklore before they’d ever met–the thread of events and people that eventually brought them together, fulfilling the romantic hopes illustrated in songs scattered throughout her discography.

“thanK you aIMee”

Taylor is known to offer hints by way of unusual use of capitalization. “thanK you aIMee” is no exception as it not only applies to the title of the song, but is also presented throughout the lyrics when K, I, and M are nearby each other. If Kim Kardashian does not immediately spring to mind, I encourage you to review the background provided in Cassandra (Part 2: anger playlist). Further alluding to Kim is that Taylor refers to her mom as “saintly” (Kim’s son’s name is Saint), that “she wrote headlines” about Taylor “laughing at each baby step I’d take,” that “one day, your kid comes home singin’ a song that only us two is gonna know is about you” (seemingly a reference to the viral TikTok of Kim with North singing 1989’s “Shake It Off”), and “that there wouldn’t be this if there hadn’t been you” (not many people are in the position to affect her career trajectory to that degree). There’s also reference to “our town” which “looks so small from way up here,” narrowing down the possibilities to other people in her celebrity circles. In any event, while the song appears to be specific to Kim, it is generalizable to any bully who eagerly torments, minimizes, taunts, and humiliates, so we’ll look at the track from that perspective.

The song begins with how the narrator thinks about their shared history: “When I picture my hometown, there’s a bronze spray-tanned statue of you. And a plaque underneath it that threatens to push me down the stairs at our school.” The comparison to school highlights the narrator’s vulnerability, setting the stage for the listener to understand how she was impacted, causing “searing pain.” To cope with the hurt, she dreams of being able to say she was “buildin’ somethin’,” so she “pushed each boulder up the hill” hearing her words “ringing’ in my head.” Instead of letting that voice drown her, she used it as fuel for her success, motivation to become even greater. In the chorus, we learn that the pain is viewed as unforgivable and left “scars,” but she’s also able to acknowledge that she “can’t forget the way you made me heal.” In facing something so intensely destructive at the hands of the bully that her mother “used to say she wished that you were dead,” she’s challenged to grow, to fight harder, and to truly face her demons. By the time we reach the bridge, we see she was successful in doing so. Despite the bully’s view of her songs being “uncool,” the narrator has “built a legacy you can’t undo.” She’s not the vulnerable person she once was, and there’s nothing the bully can do about it now. Her legacy is not only success, but perhaps more importantly, the sense of belonging no one can take away from her.

She has owned her power and built herself and her career into something the bully can’t touch. But, while the narrator has evolved and matured, she does not believe that the bully has. She’s not even sure that the bully is honest with herself about what she has done. She sings, “And maybe you’ve reframed it and in your mind, you never beat my spirit back and blue. I don’t think you’ve changed much.” Followed, somewhat sarcastically by, “And so I changed your name and any real defining clues.” She wants her to know that “all that time you were throwin’ punches, it was all for nothin’.” She wasted her time and energy, and perhaps even worse, actually unintentionally helped her achieve a new level of success. While earlier in the song, she’s cursing to the sky about the bully, the song ends with the truest manifestation of acceptance: “thank you.” Gratitude for what she’s learned, what she’s achieved, and how she’s been able to “heal” herself and become the best version of herself through, and perhaps because of, the adversity. As with all acceptance, it does not imply approval or forgiveness. It simply means that she’s able to make peace with what happened, and again, to discover the good that finds its way into your life when you’re able to make space for it.

“The Manuscript”

As the very last track of the double album, “The Manuscript” offers a look back at earlier work and provides a new perspective about how those events and the songs built around them are viewed differently over time. For me, this song is a perfect encapsulation of the creative benefits of Taylor’s re-recordings. After releasing Red (Taylor’s Version) with “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)”, Taylor endeavored to direct her first short film entitled “All Too Well: The Short Film.” In it, she visually brings to life the story described in the song, generally attributed to her romance and break-up with Jake Gyllenhaal who was in his early 30s while she was in her early 20s. I’ve questioned whether the song is meant to be broadly related to her past or specifically about this relationship and the creative aftermath of it. I lean towards the latter because she refers to the short film as “the manuscript” in her Directors on Directors interview. If it’s more broad, it would also likely refer to her earlier relationship with John Mayer (who had an even bigger age gap with her), the subject of much of Speak Now, including “Dear John,” which was also re-recorded in the past few years and may have inspired her to write Midnights’ track “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” a scathing account from her point of view at his age then of the heartbreaking impact he had on her at only 19 when he stole her “girlhood.” Suffice it to say, there’s a lot of history that’s pertinent to this song, but there’s also a lot of generalizable elements about accepting the past and moving on from it.

“The Manuscript” begins by orienting the reader to the context of the song: “Now and then, she rereads the manuscript of the entire torrid affair.” She goes on to describe an interaction between two people best characterized as manipulative considering that “he said that if the sex was half as good as the conversation was, soon, they’d be pushin’ strollers. But, soon, it was over.” There’s a sense that she’s being told that she’s mature for her age based on her ability to have these great conversations, and that the spark she’s feeling is real to him too. But, presumably soon after they are intimate, he pulls the rug from under her despite her best efforts at wishing “she was thirty” and that she “made coffee every morning in a French press.” She seems to believe that if she were only a little older and more sophisticated, he would have been more interested and invested in her. After it ends, though, “she only ate kids’ cereal and wouldn’t sleep unless it was in her mother’s bed.” She was only a child. And, when looking back from a more mature perspective, “she thought about how he said since she was so wise beyond her years, everything had been above board. She wasn’t sure.” There’s at least a part of her that questions whether any of it was real, and an even larger part that knows it was wrong either way.

In the aftermath of their relationship in which she wrote and performed songs that she later embodied again to re-record and then direct the short film, “the years passed like scenes of a show.” There’s a certain detachment from her own narrative that it’s almost like watching someone else’s story. But there’s also a part of her that struggled to leave it behind her and fully let go. She seems to have received advice that she needs to sublimate those experiences into her creative pursuits–to “write what you know” because “lookin’ backwards might be the only way to move forward.” So, she does. She directs “the actors” as the “were hitting their marks” and “the slow dance” of the actors in the kitchen under the refrigerator light “was alight with the sparks” as “the tears fell in synchronicity with the score.” And in doing so, she realizes “what the agony had been for.” Those dark times brought her here. They were the threads that she wove into a beautiful tapestry, and they were the stories that brought connection and hope to millions of fans. She ends the song by telling the listener that “the only thing that’s left is the manuscript.” It’s the “last souvenir from my trip to your shores”–from going back to those stories to relive them fully. She’ll continue to “reread the manuscript” sometimes, likely when performing, “but the story isn’t mine anymore.” The story belongs to her fans. She has accepted her past and how it has influenced her present. She’s grieved for her inner child, and she has released the pain and anger associated with it. There’s appreciation for how she’s grown through it, how she’s transformed darkness into beauty, and for who she is now.

“The Alchemy”

“The Alchemy” plays on the multiple meanings of the term, including chemistry, conversion of base metals into gold, an ancient branch of philosophy, an occult science, and a mystical process of transformation (a potential callout to Paulo Coelho’s book, The Alchemist). Each of these interpretations work as a metaphor for love between someone who “knows Aristotle” and compares herself to witches “levitating down your street” and someone who was “metal” for pursuing her publicly (and who’s team color includes gold). And, perhaps as a couple, they have transformed each other and their futures together. Taylor also uses color to evoke sensation, and gold is often used to connote love. She begins the song by sharing that this kind of chemistry is rare and when it happens, it feels as though “these chemicals hit me like white wine,” evoking a sense of lightness and brightness compared to red wine’s heavier and darker quality notable in songs like Midnights’ “Maroon.” It’s even more miraculous considering her state when he first reached out to her after a presumably metaphorical stay in the “hospital” which “was a drag, worst sleep that I ever had,” likely referring to the same asylum visually depicted in the “Fortnight” music video and Eras stage production, and lyrically referenced in “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” She’s been down and hasn’t “come around in so long,” “but I’m coming back so strong.” And who is she coming back to? The person she “circled…on a map” while she was away, who has a “sign on your heart” that “said it’s still reserved for me.”

The variety of football references from “touchdown” to “team” to “winning streak” to “warm the benches” to “shirts off and your friends lift you up over the heads, beer stickin’ to the floor, cheers chanted cause they said ‘there was no chance trying to be the greatest in the league.’ Where’s the trophy? He just comes runnin’ over to me?” seem to be explicitly pointed at Travis. Interestingly, the song was most likely written before the Super Bowl, so it’s either quite prophetic or lucky that it played out the way it did. Another interesting aspect of the song is the apparent comparison to an earlier muse who struggled with addiction in the lyric “he jokes that it’s heroin, but this time with an ‘E’,” seemingly suggesting that unlike her earlier love interest, she is the drug in this relationship. In turn, she doesn’t mind, and maybe even enjoys, the playful immaturity–”that child’s play back in school is forgiven under my rule.” Together, they need to “ditch the clowns,” also echoing back to the circus metaphors littered throughout “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?.”

Ultimately, the connection between them is so powerful, she asks “who are we to fight the alchemy?” Another song that highlights the acceptance of failed relationships with those “blokes” (a not so subtle jab at her British exes). Recognizing that acceptance of those difficult experiences have freed her up to find true love built on the foundation of not only physical chemistry, but emotional intimacy too. Connection that feels so powerful, it must be magic. And, notably, one of the few love songs in her discography that is not tainted with anxiety (she’s not asking, “Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close forever and ever?” as she did on Lover’s title track or “Help me hold onto you” on the same album’s “The Archer”). This relationship serves as the fruition of her pleas to change the prophecy. Someone whose heart is “reserved” for her and who truly wants to know her by scratching well below the surface. A love so rare that it only “happens once every few lifetimes.” Acceptance of not only what was, but of what is, and trust in what will be. Recognition that everything that has happened before brought her here, where she’s meant to be.

“Fresh Out The Slammer”

“Fresh Out The Slammer” describes a rebound relationship following the metaphoric prison of a stifling and restrictive long-term one. We know from the beginning of the song that the rebound “who my first call will be to” is someone she’s been with before–”fresh out the slammer” she’s “running back home to you.” Further supporting the rebound nature of the relationship, she describes the stale and tense ending to the previous relationship that “splintered back in winter, silent dinners, bitter” harkening back to tracks on folklore and Midnights like “tolerate it” and “You’re Losing Me” that detail the progressively detached and resentful festering of a relationship that is currently unraveling. During this time of “gray and blue and fights and tunnels” she felt “handcuffed to the spell I was under” meaning that she felt compelled to stay because of the hope they’d work and the time she’d already invested. All the “years of labor, locks, and ceilings” and being with someone who “don’t understand me” left her feeling imprisoned and his lack of apparent concern for her emotional needs led her to believe she was “in the shade of how he was feeling.” His needs were privileged above hers, so she escaped by having her rebound interest “with her in dreams” (an echo to “Guilty As Sin?”). At this point, she fantasizes about escaping, but has not yet done so. She is determined to bring her dreams to fruition, though, as evidenced by her statement in “imgonnagetyouback” that “even if it’s handcuffed, I’m leavin’ here with you.” Visually, the handcuffs and cold, prison-like environment is also depicted as the starting point of the “Fortnight” music video, just before she takes the “forget him” pill (that is, rebound) that seemingly frees her from the handcuffs. “Now we’re at the starting line” suggesting that the old has ended, and the new can begin. It’s also a potential nod to the band, The Starting Line, referenced in “The Black Dog.”

“But it’s gonna be alright, I did my time.” She’s waited long enough, feeling bored, pushed away, unloved, and unappreciated. She’s ready to “toss the ashes off the ledge.” And as she’s seemingly shared with him “in my letters,” “now that I know better, I will never lose my baby again.” She will not tolerate another relationship where she puts her needs aside “for just one hour of sunshine” and “just one glimpse of his smile.” This time it’ll work. She’s accepted that her previous relationship was unhealthy and unsatisfying, and that her friends that “tried” to tell her that they were watching “me daily disappearing,” were right. She wasn’t ready to listen then, but she sees it now. And what kept her going during those hard times? Having “swirled you into all of my poems”–fantasizing in dreams and in writing about being together. And now that she’s free and “did her time” she’s “runnin’” “to the house where you still wait up and that porch light gleams,” seemingly referencing back to folklore’s teenage love triangle involving “James”– the boy who leaves her for another woman, but wants her back. The “one who says I’m the girl of his American dreams” and who she “used to sit on children’s swings wearing imaginary rings” with, also echoing back to the empty promises of a man who would move her ring to that finger and who would tantalize her with talks of rings and baby cradles (and perhaps to the one she’d “marry…with paper rings” from Lover).

In addition to a variety of other related songs, this track also seems relevant to the album’s “In Summation” poem. We are meant to know that the rebound was “not a love affair.” It was the hot and fast contrast to the cold and slow she had previously. It was “out of the oven and into the microwave” and it was “out of the slammer and into a tidal wave.” And, she confirms again, that he tried to play the part of the brave warrior he never really was able to be. He wanted to “save the empress from her gilded tower” but he was “swinging a sword he could barely lift.” Nonetheless, her desperation born of boredom and loneliness set the stage for a “mutual manic phase.” She concludes, in retrospect, that “it was self harm. It was house and then cardiac arrest.” After a fun start of playing pretend, it ended as quickly and abruptly as it (re)started. As is usually the case, the red flags are easily spotted with the informed vision of 20/20 hindsight. Sometimes lust and passion are mistaken for the magic of true love. And, sometimes we’re simply so desperate for change that we romanticize the option that we hope will get us there. This is particularly alluring when the person is love bombing and making promises that have been so deeply craved. Like “The Manuscript,” Taylor sees the silver lining in her ability to channel this experience into her music–it is, after all, “the worst men that I write best.” Presumably, the song itself was written from a place of accepting that the long-term relationship was done and not quite at the point of realizing that this too was “ill fated.”. There’s acceptance that the rebound was what she needed to motivate her to walk away, for the lessons learned, for the fact that she tried as best she could, for starting over with hope that it’ll be different this time, for being brave enough to keep trying.

“So Long, London”

“So Long, London” is the standard album’s track 5 (see “How Did It End?” discussion in Part 4 for a quick overview on the relevance of track 5 in Taylor’s discography). It’s also the final TTPD track presented on the heartbreak playlists, demonstrating that she views it as the pinnacle of acceptance in her grief following that relationship. The song begins with harmonic singing of the title with bells chiming in the background. The bells are reminiscent of both wedding bells and of London’s cultural icon: Big Ben. Like the bells, London itself seems to represent both the place where she lived as well as the person she lived there with (that is, Lover’s “London Boy”). There’s also an interesting sonic similarity to the intro of reputation’s “Call It What You Want,” perhaps suggesting that this song serves as a bit of a bookend to the same relationship that was initially chronicled on that album, not to mention the myriad of references to weddings scattered in the following albums like “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” (Lover), “champagne problems” (evermore), and “Lavender Haze” (Midnights).

In the first verse, we learn more about the dynamic of the relationship. She “saw in my mind fairy lights through the mist,” eliciting the sense that memories and fantasies were all that were keeping her going at the end. So she continued to play the role of the faithful “bravest soldier” (Midnights’ “You’re Losing Me”) as she “kept calm and carried the weight of the rift” and “pulled him in tighter each time he was driftin’ away.” But, she increasingly came to realize that she couldn’t carry them both, so she “stopped tryna make him laugh, stopped tryna drill the safe.” In the chorus, we learn more about why she gave up. She was “thinkin’, ‘How much sad did you think I had, did you think I had in me?,” again harkening back to “You’re Losing Me” when she asks “How long could we be a sad song til’ we were too far gone to bring back to life?” At this point, she can no longer bolster both of them and she’s exhausted from trying to meet the depth of his needs. While she used to say she “don’t want no other shade of blue but you” (folklore’s “hoax”), she no longer wants to be “with you even if it makes me blue” (Lover’s “Paper Rings”). She goes on to say that she “stopped CRP, after all, it’s no use,” again taking the story from “You’re Losing Me” another step further from where she left off saying she “can’t find a pulse, my heart won’t start anymore.”

And now that she’s done trying to change that, and the reality that this long-term relationship really is over is truly setting in, she’s “pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free.” She gave so much and in the end, she feels she lost such an important part of her youth (which, we know she regains based on “So High School”). The “stitches undone” mentioned in the next chorus also revisits the Midnights’ track “Glitch (“I’m fastening myself to you with a stitch”), demonstrating that while she felt tied to him for so long, that connection has come undone (and perhaps, like removing stitches, quite painfully). His “blue” and/or her decision to finally call the relationship off did not just hurt one of them, but both of them. There were “two graves” caused by “one gun” (perhaps the same grave the “waves” crashed over in “Guilty As Sin?”). The next layer of insight comes in the bridge when she shares a bit about his perspective compared to hers. “And you say I abandoned the ship, but I was going down with it. My white-knuckle dying grip. Holding tight to your quiet resentment.” He has accused her of abandoning them, but she knows deep down that she could not hold on any longer. She was drowning in his resentment. Sometimes it’s what isn’t said and what isn’t done that is the demise of the relationship. She could no longer “be scared” in a relationship where she’s “not sure if he wants to be there.”

So, she asks, “how much sad did you think I had…just how low did you think I’d go ‘fore I’d self-implode? ‘Fore I’d have to go be free.” She begs him to consider how long she was supposed to hold on before she would be justified in removing the shackles in order to regain her freedom. Because, ultimately, “you swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? I died on the altar waitin’ for the proof. You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days.” He wasn’t a bad person, but he was too consumed with his emotional state to be present with her and to have the bandwidth to focus on knowing her and connecting with her; to give her what she needed. And after a period of mourning, she’s “just getting color back into my face,” meaning that she’s coming back alive from the “gray” face she had during the relationship (“You’re Losing Me”), but also still “mad as hell ‘cause I loved this place for so long.” Knowing she made the right decision does not alleviate the pain of leaving someone (and some place) you built a life with and believed would be your future. They had a “moment of warm sun” (harkening back to the “one hour of sunshine” in “Fresh Out The Slammer” and perhaps the “Daylight” that inspired the track on Lover), but that moment could not sustain them.

The song concludes by reiterating that he’ll “find someone,” which earlier in the song she also recognizes that she will too. She knows now that she’s “not the one,” which hard as it is to accept, also gives her permission to move on knowing it’s actually best for both of them. Sometimes you just have to acknowledge that a square peg does not fit in a round hole and stop trying to carve out pieces in order to make it do so. That sometimes you have to accept that he didn’t “get your shit together so I can love you” (from “Renegade” by Big Red Machine featuring and co-written by Taylor), and that perhaps he couldn’t be who she needed, and that’s okay. She wasn’t what he needed either. Acceptance that they were not the right match. That despite all of the beautiful memories created, they have to stop trying to force it to work. That the sunk cost of the “so long” they were together, needs to result in a “so long” to each other (at least, romantically). That they had a “good run,” but it’s time to go their separate ways and find happiness elsewhere. That sometimes the kindest thing to do is set each other free. As she wrote on evermore’s “it’s time to go”: “Sometimes, givin’ up is the strong thing. Sometimes, to run is the brave thing. Sometimes, walkin’ out is the one thing that will find you the right thing.” She presumably did not know it at the time, but she was coming to the conclusion that it was getting to be time to go. Time to find what she needed and let him find his, time to be fully and freely herself, time to be loved and cherished for who she is, time to love herself again, and time to give that love back to someone who wants to receive love in the way she gives it.

This brings us to the end of the heartbreak playlists, which includes every TTPD track with the exception of “Peter,” which unfortunately is not listed as that would have been interesting to break down too. This has been a fun and interesting project. I hope it’s been as positive for you as it has been for me. Thanks for reading!

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