Taylor Swift - ivy (Official Lyric Video)
A song that seems to be heavily inspired by Emily Dickinson’s relationship with Sue Gilbert. This song was featured on Taylor’s album ‘Evermore’, which was announced on Dickinson’s birthday, 10th of December. The word “evermore” is taken from a poem that is considered one of Dickinson’s “smoking gun” poems in terms of revealing her sapphic relationship with Sue, as it is her only poem that mentions Sue by name: https://poets.org/poem/one-sister-have-i-our-house-14
Emily Dickinson and Sue Gilbert
Excerpt from “One Sister Have I in our house”
| Ivy Lyrics | Queer Analysis |
|---|---|
| “My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand | |
| Taking mine, but it's been promised to another” | • Women’s hands are colder than men’s hands |
| • Reference to the speaker in the song being engaged to someone else, much like Sue was engaged (and later married) to Emily’s brother, Austin | |
| “What would he do if he found us out?” | |
| “He's gonna burn this house to the ground” | |
| “He's in the room Your opal eyes are all I wish to see He wants what's only yours” | Further references to the danger & anxiety that comes from this affair given the speaker’s commitment to her fiance/husband |
| “Your touch brought forth an incandescent glow Tarnished but so grand” | |
| “I wish to know The fatal flaw that makes you long to be Magnificently cursed” | Lyrics that seem to reference something that is different/out of the ordinary about this love or these women |
Taylor Swift - Dress (Live at #reputation Stadium Tour 2018)
Dress is a song with strong themes of secrecy, pining and a lover that sees the “truth in [you]” despite your “worst lies.” It is a song that easily lends itself to a queer interpretation of the experience of a closeted sapphic couple. When Taylor performed this song on her Reputation tour (live performance linked above), she dedicated it to Loie Fuller (1862-1928). Loie was a pioneer in dance and theatrical lighting and was also an openly lesbian woman in turn-of-the-century America and France. Read more about Fuller’s creative and queer legacy here: https://queeratorial.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/loie-fuller-the-lesbian-electric-fairy-of-the-belle-epoque/#:~:text=Interweaved among these acheivements lies,the-century America and France.
Taylor’s recognition of Fuller at her Reputation tour - note the bisexual flag lighting
Dancers on Taylor’s tour doing Fuller’s serpentine dance
Loie Fuller - Serpentine Dance
| Dress Lyrics: | Queer Analysis: |
|---|---|
| “Our secret moments in your crowded room | |
| They got no idea about me and you” | |
| "All of this silence and patience, pining in anticipation | |
| My hands are shaking from holding back from you” | |
| "Everyone thinks that they know us | |
| But they know nothing” | These lyrics indicate the secrecy of this relationship and places focus on the effort and restraint needed to ensure that the couple remain imperceptible. |
| “Carve your name into my bedpost | |
| 'Cause I don't want you like a best friend” | Taylor touches on a prominent Sapphic theme in this lyric: how heteronormative society can view lesbian relationships as “just friends” but also the struggle that lesbians can face when determining if their love interest sees them as “just a friend” or something more. |
| Girl In Red is a lesbian artist that has recently become a modern sapphic euphemism, similar to “Are you a friend of Dorothy?” the gay euphemism used from the 1950s onwards to subtly determine if someone was gay. Young lesbians will use the phrase “Do you listen to Girl In Red?” to try and determine if someone is lesbian/queer too. In one of her most popular songs, “I Want To Be Your Girlfriend” she explores this theme: “I don’t want to be your friend I want to kiss your lips” | |
| Arlo Parks’ song, “Eugene”, also explores pining for a friend: “we’ve been best buds since 13” and “I kind of fell half in love and you're to blame, I guess I just forgot that we've been mates since day” | |
| “Even in my worst lies | |
| You saw the truth in me | |
| And I woke up just in time | |
| Now I wake up by your side | |
| My one and only, my lifeline | |
| I woke up just in time | |
| Now I wake up by your side | |
| My hands shake, I can't explain this” | • To find queer lovers, closeted individuals rely on other queer people to see through their “lies” (maintaining straight appearances), to see the “truth” - that they are queer. |
| • It is common for people to describe discovering their sexuality as a “sexual awakening” - so Taylor’s use of the phrase “woke up” could be interpreted as her discovering her sexuality in time to make the muse of this song her lover. | |
| • “I can’t explain this” - again could link to her inability to speak freely about her sexuality as a closeted person |
Wonderland is a song that draws heavily on imagery from Alice in Wonderland, the 1865 novel by Lewis Carroll that was animated by Disney in 1951. Many of the themes in Alice in Wonderland and Taylor’s song can be interpreted to describe the confusing nature of a first queer relationship - how it feels like your world has “turned upside down”, the rabbit hole representing the curiosity that led you to your sexuality and finding queer community.
| Wonderland Lyrics: | Queer Analysis: |
|---|---|
| “We took a wrong turn and we | |
| Fell down a rabbit hole” | • The phrase “wrong turn” lends itself to a queer interpretation in two ways - first, the adjective “wrong” indicates that this decision could’ve been accidental but also could indicate how others would view the couple’s choice to take this turn. Second, the noun “turn” could indicate that the couple are no longer travelling straight down the original road, similar to Taylor’s lyric from the same album: “we’re a crooked love in a straight line down” |
| • “Down the rabbit hole” has become an English idiom that means “getting deep into something, or ending up somewhere strange.” In reference to Alice in Wonderland, the rabbit hole symbolises Alice’s curiosity and signifies crossing the threshold from normal life to a queer, strange place. This symbol can readily apply to the experience of discovering your sexuality, especially given that Alice doesn’t completely know what she’s getting involved in when she first crawls through the rabbit hole. | |
| “Didn't they tell us don't rush into things?” | |
| ”Haven't you heard what becomes of curious minds?” | |
| "But there were strangers watching | |
| And whispers turned to talking | |
| And talking turned to screams” | These lyrics indicate other people’s opinions on how this couple should approach their relationship, as well as warnings that sound very similar to how heternormative ideals are pushed onto bicurious young people: “Haven’t you heard what becomes of curious minds?” |
| Being told not to “rush into things” could also be interpreted as a warning given the stereotype of lesbian relationships moving quickly, a slang term for this in America being a “U-haul lesbian” | |
| "Too in love to think straight | |
| All alone or so it seemed” | This lyric cleverly lends itself to both a heterosexual and homosexual reading. The lyric “all alone or so it seemed” could represent how isolating the queer experience can feel at first until you find queer community. |
| "We found wonderland | |
| You and I got lost in it | |
| And life was never worse but never better” | The contrast of “never worse” and “never better” indicates the extreme feelings of the situation - how dangerous it felt or how much hardship queerness brought into their lives but also the amount of enjoyment it brought them at the same time. |
| “Didn't it all seem new and exciting?” | This lyric posed as a question indicates that the speaker is wanting to check that their experience of this time was the same as the muse’s experience. The word “seem” indicates that the feelings of it being “new” and “exciting” were the preliminary feelings before discovering feelings that were more negative. |
| ”in the end in wonderland we both went mad” | LGBTQ+ people throughout our history have been considered mad. For example, in the 1950s homosexuality was included in the DSM, a list of mental illnesses. |