base talk Terrible lyrics from TTPD: a compilation

[OrgVisual]

3 minutes ago, NEX said:

Updated the OP with the "poetry" from the album's prologue. Swifties have been very hush hush about the prologue and I think it is because of this particular line:

 

"And so I was out of the oven and into the microwave"

 

Here she's referring to her relationship with Joe as the oven and with Matty as a microwave. It's not hard to understand what she is trying to say here: it takes longer to cook something in the oven than it is in the microwave, i.e 6 year relationship vs 3 month relationship. But just because something can be explained/understood doesn't stop it from being bad. That's what most Swifties in this thread don't get - they think we don't understand those lyrics, that we are too dumb for those metaphors, that we lack reading comprehension etc etc. Any type of excuse or personal attacks, but to admit that this album has many terrible lyrics scattered all around it. 

This line can't be real

[Atlantis]

Them still thinking we drag her lyrics because we don't get it Swifties really are the Rick & Morty fans of music.

[Badgalbriel]

8 minutes ago, NEX said:

Updated the OP with the "poetry" from the album's prologue. Swifties have been very hush hush about the prologue and I think it is because of this particular line:

 

"And so I was out of the oven and into the microwave"

 

Here she's referring to her relationship with Joe as the oven and with Matty as a microwave. It's not hard to understand what she is trying to say here: it takes longer to cook something in the oven than it is in the microwave, i.e 6 year relationship vs 3 month relationship. But just because something can be explained/understood doesn't stop it from being bad. That's what most Swifties in this thread don't get - they think we don't understand those lyrics, that we are too dumb for those metaphors, that we lack reading comprehension etc etc. Any type of excuse or personal attacks, but to admit that this album has many terrible lyrics scattered all around it. 

But haters are indeed too dumb to understand it lol

[Robert]

I agree it isn't her best album but some of the lyrics in the OP were good and it's clear they're taking them way too literally like WAOLOM is a very camp theatrical song. It's not that serious. 

[NEX]

8 minutes ago, Kavish said:

These are my takes:

 

We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist  - It's not a bad line, people just don't agree with the statement. Charlie Puth also covered "Something Else" by The 1975, so Taylor and Matty might have actually talked about Charlie at some point.  That line is also no different from people saying "My (favourite artist) should be a bigger artist". 

 

I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever  -  "Tattooed" describes his edgy and offensive character, while "golden retriever" describes his cute and loyal side, and she is basically saying that she somehow has this complex person at the tip of her fingers: I scratch your head, you fall asleep.

 

At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger, and put it on the one people put wedding rings on & Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies-  The same reason she used "my tears leak acid rain" instead of "I cry".  They can be wordy and seem forced sometimes, but I think these two instances are more of a technical choice to fit the melody.

 

Did you really beam me up in a cloud of sparkling dust just to do experiments on?  & Now I'm down bad, cryin' at the gym  - The song is not about the actual "down bad" slang.  It's a play on words.  She's recounting her experience of being high on love and getting back to reality once the relationship ended by using alien abduction imagery.  Did you really beam me up (Did you really lift me up (your spaceship/emotionally)... in a cloud of sparkling dust (where things look great in the relationship)... just to do experiments on (just to play with my heart)... Now I'm down bad (now I'm back to Earth and heartbroken).  

 

So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street & You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me - She obviously had a good life and career, but metaphor is a tool to portray how she felt in those specific situations.  "Gallows" paint a desperate and hopeless place, while "asylum" paints both a protective and insane place.

 

We would pick a decade / We wished we could live in instead of this / I'd say the 1830s but without all the racists -  Thoughts of living in a different decade and then realising that that decade had its fair share of horrible stuff as well is not uncommon. She even agrees in the following lines that the 1830s or wishing to live there is a terrible thought: "Everyone would look down cause it wasn't fun now. Seems like it was never even fun back then. Nostalgia is a mind's trick. If I'd been there, I'd hate it". 

 

I'm so depressed I act like it's my birthday everyday - This song is about her tour and this line depicts how she should put a mask on even when she is unhappy. I'm so depressed that I'm going to act so happy that no one will even notice that I am depressed.  (You didn't have this one in the OP but I saw someone mention it in the thread).

 

"Who's afraid of little old me?" You should be & And you deserve prison, but you won't get time & He jokes that it's heroin, but this time with an "E"  & touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto   - I can decipher these as well but they are too unserious to actually think deeply of them.  She has those ridiculous one-liners in each album that are just hilarious to me.

 

Anyway, art is open for interpretation and those lyrics will either be good or bad depending on the listener. TTPD is not perfect lyrically but this album feels like she poured her whole heart out of her pen and hit the publish button before editing it.  I'm sure this was therapeutic for her, but let's hope all the criticism will fuel her to write an even better record.

I get all of your explanations and don't disagree with them. The problem is not understanding what she means by them. The problem is how they come across, how they sound in the context of the song and its soundscape. I didn't include the "birthday" line because I think it works fine within the context and sound of the song - the song is silly, the entire lyrics are silly AND crazy, and the sound of the song matches those lyrics well.

 

The entire bridge of TTPD comes off like a diabolical word salad. She should have reworked it or simply left it out if she was struggling to fit what she wanted to say to the melody. 

 

The metaphors in Down Bad aren't bad because I don't understand them - they are bad because they fail at conveying the actual meaning of the song clearly - the actual meaning becomes secondary and the imagery drawn by metaphors becomes the primary focal point of the song.

[jonapova]

1 hour ago, Arrows said:

Half of those lyrics are from TTPD (title track). The other half is genuinely great.

Reported for spam

[Badgalbriel]

1 minute ago, NEX said:

I get all of your explanations and don't disagree with them. The problem is not understanding what she means by them. The problem is how they come across, how they sound in the context of the song and its soundscape. I didn't include the "birthday" line because I think it works fine within the context and sound of the song - the song is silly, the entire lyrics are silly AND crazy, and the sound of the song matches those lyrics well.

 

The entire bridge of TTPD comes off like a diabolical word salad. She should have reworked it or simply left it out if she was struggling to fit what she wanted to say to the melody. 

 

The metaphors in Down Bad aren't bad because I don't understand them - they are bad because they fail at conveying the actual meaning of the song clearly - the actual meaning becomes secondary and the imagery drawn by metaphors becomes the primary focal point of the song.

It comes off as a word salad because that's clearly the intention........ If she wanted to write simple lyrics, she would, like she has done countless times in the past 

[suburbannature]

I forgot about that diabolical "racists" line

[StonedSoulPicnic]

She needs an editor. Liz Rose was her best co-writer.

[Bimbo]

But I thot she was supposed to be the songwriter of our generation  

[Arrows]

1 hour ago, halcyonday said:

Just @ me next time, okay?

Edited June 16 by Arrows

[sunbathinganimal]

[Arrows]

26 minutes ago, jonapova said:

Reported for spam

I've said it before and I'll say it again - report ATRL's servers instead!

[Apolonio ₃₄]

1 hour ago, Diesel is Desire said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, halcyonday said:

 

[DiabeticGrandpa]

I cant at Swifties thinking this is poetry or some high level of songwriting. 
 

Pop music is the lowest and the most basic category among music genres and Taylor Swift is the FACE of pop music. I dont know who they're trying to fool. 

Edited June 16 by DiabeticGrandpa

[ahauntingnearu]

I declared Florence Welch should be deemed the songwriter of our generation

[Achilles.]

You made some points with the first five and then not a single point afterwards.

[Chris]

The dedication made to this thread.

 

[Klein]

1 hour ago, NEX said:

I think I Hate It Here is the best song on the entire album despite that line. And less is more is 100% accurate with both lyrics and the amount of tracks.

 

Lyrics overall on this album are pretty good, aside from the obvious offenders. But personally I can't close my eyes and pretend those lines don't exist, so they drag the overall lyrical content from an A to like a C. 

 

And ye, right from the beginning I've been saying that production is the main drawback of this album. I'm gonna do a comprehensive review of TTPD at some point if I find enough inspiration for it. 

 

One of my biggest issues with his album, which is luckily limited only to a few songs, is her excessive use of metaphors. Taylor's writing was always brilliant because she could convey meaning and emotion with simple words and then throw one or two powerful metaphors here and there for an extra punch. That's how metaphors are best serviced. The lyrics of artists like Katy Perry were always plagued by excessive use of metaphors - the poor woman couldn't write a sentence without using a metaphor. And that's a terrible way to write lyrics, because metaphors don't stack - they detract from one another - you have to start squinting really hard to follow the meaning once you start getting bombarded by them. I don't know what happened with Taylor on this record, but she decided to go all-in on metaphors on several songs and ended up with very Katy Perried types of songs like My Boy, Down Bad and So Long London. Maybe she thought it was a more poetic way to write and maybe, like you said, she would have benefited from an actual co-writer who would have pointed her in the right direction. 

 

@Dear Reader @Klein

Well it looks like you actually know how to explain your opinion on the album 1) without sounding like a hater and 2) without implying that if people like what you don't they are wrong. Congrats. 

 

I understand where the overwritten criticism of the album comes from. I just personally find that endearing so I don't share your perception of them. 

[More Than A Melody]

2 hours ago, Atlantis said:

It's so obvious she googles synonyms too, she's not very eloquent in the interviews I watched and speaks like the most basic American white girl ever. But it works I guess, her fans seem to think that more big words and useless metaphors means better writing and we just don't ''get it''. Those same people call Joni, Fiona etc ''overrated'' and ''Khias that we have to google'' too.

See, I think she probably uses a thesaurus as well, or something to that effect, but I don't think her vocabulary in interviews is bad or that it should be similar to the way she writes. I'm not an eloquent speaker but I am an eloquent writer (in English not so much, but I'm great in Spanish lol). I have a pretty ample vocabulary in my native language but I don't necessarily employ it when I'm just talking. It's like judging someone's grammar by looking at their WhatsApp messages. I don't really get this argument. I think she uses a thesaurus because she didn't use to write like this and she started to use purposefully complicated wording after Folkmore. It's like she thinks she has to. She used to write very compellingly but using less overcomplicated words, and that was the case until her mid to late 20s, so it doesn't really make any sense that so deep into her adulthood she just switched with no reason.

 

Anyway, I think you can find trite, cringe, and weird lyrics in most pop albums if you try hard enough. I think she probably does need an editor, and on a personal note, I find her wordiness exhausting, but this thread... You could make it about any other pop artist.

[Blade Runner]

And then you guys wonder why Taylor is the Alpha and the Omega of the music industry. A whole nasty ass thread just because you're mad. She won, and she'll keep winning. It doesn't matter how hard you f*cking cry. 

[More Than A Melody]

I will push back on this: Taylor you do not know Aristotle, other than "there was a philosopher by the name Aristotle at some point." I don't believe you.

[NEX]

1 minute ago, Klein said:

Well it looks like you actually know how to explain your opinion on the album 1) without sounding like a hater and 2) without implying that if people like what you don't they are wrong. Congrats. 

 

I understand where the overwritten criticism of the album comes from. I just personally find that endearing so I don't share your perception of them. 

Darling, you were the first person to derail this thread with your opening statement, which had nothing to do with my reasons for making this thread - I wanted to make it for a while now (same as my review thread, which is coming soon™). What I said in the TTPD album thread was "legacy isn't only about numbers and that the entire TTPD ordeal is damaging to her legacy", which I don't think was that bad, but of course those remarks were seen as highly inflammatory and unbearable. The entire album thread has become truly unbearable at this point. 

[RideOrDie]

give it up 

[justin.]

1 hour ago, Atlantis said:

Swifties really are the Rick & Morty fans of music.

The scream I scrumpt 

 

OT: Love Taylor, but this album has some of her worst lyrical offenses. I really hope she takes a break after the Eras Tour and recharges creatively.