Captain's Log, Day 26: This Track-by-Track Review Will Go On for "evermore"--Part 1: "willow," "champagne problems," "gold rush," "'tis the damn season," and "tolerate it"

Date: December 21, 2020

Time of post: 4:20PM

Quarantine Day: 271

Last Song I Listened To: “tolerate it” by Taylor Swift

Last Person I Communicated With: group text with Jacque and Mikayla

Last Thing I Ate: Jack's chicken biscuit

Last Thing I Read: something a friend wrote (that’s all I can say)

Current Mood: content

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: finished this blog

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: probably help Mom bake Christmas cookies

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: Aren't we all perpetually stressed about COVID?

One Reason I’m Happy Today: I currently have three cats (Minnie, Toothless, and TomTom) napping on my bed with me.

 

Dear Apocalypsers,

I'm grateful for evermore; really, I am. But releasing an album 3 days before I was meant to drive home for Christmas (a very busy and involved holiday in my family), means that I haven't had the time to both process the album and write up all my feelings on it. And once I did start writing, I couldn't be stopped. I literally wrote 1000 words about "'tis the damn season."

So, I've broken this post up into 3 posts, each one discussing 5 of the 15 songs from the standard album. For fun and posterity, I've included my handwritten notes from my first listen-through. ("I shouldn't be surprised you're taking notes," Dustin said to me when he saw my pen and notebook during our Zoom call.) I've also given some brief connections between the evermore song, other evermore and folklore songs, and any other Taylor Swift songs, because she really seems to be revisiting ideas from older songs in a lot of these tracks. Every once in a while, I even throw in a fun conspiracy theory because I can.

Now, I by no means am claiming that my connections are correct or that the connections I've made are the only connections. I listened to her entire discography on my drive home, and I tried to make mental notes when things stood out, but I was also trying to not to cry and/or crash.

So, if you're ready for a more-detailed Taylor Swift journey than you've ever been on, let's go! The rest of this post will discuss the first 5 tracks: "willow," "champagne problems," "gold rush," "'tis the damn season," and "tolerate it."

I took "real-time" notes while doing my initial listen-through of the album, so here they are in all their shorthand, unfinished thought glory.

Track #1: “willow”

Favorite line(s): “I come back stronger than a 90s trend”

Initial thoughts and feelings: I watched the music video first, and I was floored by it! The white dress and mandolin echoed her “Mean”music video so painfully—because that’s the scene where she gets stuck and can’t get to her love. The “‘Mean’ scene” is also where we get the iconic, “I come back stronger than a 90s trend” line, and that smirk to the camera is art! And I love that we’re starting to see her acknowledge her own past accomplishments. Her comeback with “Look What You Made Me Do” is going to be a historic pop music moment. It’s iconic—and the way she went about deleting and recreating her whole social media aesthetic ahead of the video dropping is also iconic—and I love that she knows that and is embracing it, even if it’s in a kind of cheeky way. And then the witches!!! I would join Taylor Swift’s coven in a heartbeat! I’m so glad that she has more input in her music videos now, because she’s legitimately brilliant. The different scenes that she walks in the “willow” music video represent different songs from folklore: the two kids in the tent are “seven”; what I’ve been calling the “‘Mean’ scene” is “mirrorball” (also the scene that represents how she feels about celebrity—trapped and on display); the witches represent “mad woman” (“women like hunting witches, too”), and the “exile” reference—which didn’t come as readily to me, honestly—could be a few different things. The opening scene (which is exactly the same as the “cardigan” music video) could reference the lyric “I think I’ve seen this film before.” Her escape from the glass cage of fame could reference the lyric “So I’m leaving out the side door,” and there’s something about the end of the witch scene where Taylor is walking away and her love interest pulls off his mask that reminds me of “exile”—just the whole watching your love walk away thing. And, of course, there’s the “single thread of gold” tying them together the whole time. It’s like we got a bonus “invisible string” music video, too!

Top: a scene from Taylor Swift's "Mean" music video from her album Speak Now (2010)
Bottom: a scene from the "willow" music video from her album evermore (2020)

I love the guitar in this song. It gives the song a wistful, almost fantasy-like vibe. I want to be a fairy dancing in the woods casting morally gray love spells on beautiful men just for the heck of it. The music also reminds me a lot of “Safe andSound,” which is another wistful, woodsy folk-ish song. I think “willow” does a great job of leading us into another chapter of Taylor’s fantasy world of characters and stories, and given that evermore, I’d argue, is even more fictionalized than folklore, it feels like a good gateway into this magical world.

Connection to other songs on folklore & evermore:

“cardigan”: As we know by now, Taylor released a cardigan as part of her folklore merch and as a tribute to her lead single “cardigan.” The cardigan—which, I did buy, and I love so much—has 3 stars on each elbow as a reference to the lyric “You drew stars around my scars / and now I’m bleeding.” In “willow,” then, we get the line, “Show me the places where the others gave you scars.” I don’t know if the implication is that the narrator wants to draw stars around those scars, but I definitely can’t hear the word “scar” without thinking about “stars” ever again.

“hoax”: In the same vein as “cardigan,” “hoax” also references scars in the line “You know it still hurts underneath these scars from when they pulled me apart,” so, in “willow,” her love’s scars could be from a similar pulling apart.

Track #2: “champagne problems”

Favorite line(s): “Your mom's ring in your pocket / My picture in your wallet / Your heart was glass, I dropped it ” or “You had a speech, you're speechless / Love slipped beyond your reaches / And I couldn't give a reason” or "Sometimes you just don't the answer til someone's on their knees and asks ya"

Initial thoughts and feelings: Well, I have some strangely personal connections to this song, but since it's about a close friend, I won't share them on the very public Internet. But just know that as soon as I saw what this song was about, I immediately thought of her. There was definitely some screaming involved.

I will, however, relate a story from 20 or so years ago that has subconsciously shaped my life. I have a vivid memory of being around 6 or so and asking my mom, "If a boy asks you to marry him, do you have to say 'yes'?" And my mom, already raising a strong-minded, independent feminist, was like, "No. But usually that's something two people talk about before it happens." Cue "champagne problems," where it doesn't look like they had that conversation.

Me hearing the line
"Your mom's ring in your pocket"
for the first time, probably

Y'all. This might be one of Taylor's saddest songs. From the references to mental illness--""This dorm was once a madhouse" / I made a joke, "Well, it's made for me" and "'What a shame she's fucked in the head' they said"--to the narrator's sadness at rejecting her lover. I'm going to forever be thinking about the lines "And I couldn't give a reason" and "Sometimes you just don't the answer until someone's on their knees and asks ya." It's not like her now-ex did anything wrong; she just couldn't say "yes." And that's so painful to me--that some things just don't work, and there's not really a reason. I also think that one of my biggest fears in life would be someone proposing to me and suddenly realizing that that wasn't what I wanted. 

There's something about this album that just feels like it could be set in my hometown. Something about the "hometown skeptics" gossiping about the rejection and making fun of mental illness and the dorms being decorated after it all. I don't know what it is, but evermore is a "small town album"-- even more so than her debut album. 

A friend recently asked me what I think about when I hear Taylor Swift songs about breakups and exes, because I don't have any experience with that--and it's a valid question. It helps that I'm really empathetic, but I usually think about friends who have gone through these things. Not having firsthand experience really doesn't deter me much. Sometimes, though, I hone in on one or two lines that do fit my life, but in a different way. For instance, I will never get over the lines, "How evergreen our group of friends / Don't think we'll say that word again / And soon they'll have the nerve to / Deck the halls that we once walked through." Living in a college town has always felt very transitory; people would always come and go, but I would be always be here. Then I went to college in my hometown, and I felt like I had an even deeper claim to the city and the school--until I left, too--and then life just kept going and what had been mine for 22 years cycled through to another group of people, and it almost felt like it wasn't ever really mine to begin with. And I made incredible friends in college, friends that I swore I'd have forever; if you had asked me, say, sophomore year, I would have sworn we were evergreen. And that's not always the case. I still talk to most of the individually on occasion. A couple of them regularly. But we're not the unit we once were. And the another group of friends probably lives in our dorms room, never knowing about the nights we stayed up until 3AM contemplating life or finishing term papers. It's kind of hard to cope with the idea that maybe we were transitory, too. 

So that's a fun example of how I can relate to Taylor songs that I have absolutely no real-life connection to.

Other T. Swift songs it evokes:

"New Year's Day" (reputation, 2017): The Internet has already mashed these two songs up, and I'm MAD ABOUT IT. I get it. The piano is very similar. I made a note of that on my first listen-through. But do not corrupt my sweet, innocent, lovestruck "New Year's Day" with your heartbreaking "champagne problems." I'm aggressive about this. "New Year's Day" is about wanting the glitz and glamour and good parts of relationships and being willing to do the hard stuff, too, and "champagne problems" is just...sad. I don't want them together. I am a toddler, and these songs are two different foods on my plate--they shouldn't touch.

"Tim McGraw" (Taylor Swift, 2006): The last time Taylor specifically mentions a Chevy truck was in her debut single: "Just a boy in a Chevy truck that had a tendency of gettin' stuck on backroads at night." And then she brings the brand back in "champagne problems": "Your Midas touch on the Chevy door / November flush and your flannel cure." Now, this is either a clever ad for the Midas auto service chain or a reference to the Midas myth and how her love could turn even the worst things (like an old Chevy that maybe got stuck on backroads) into something good--and, like Midas, this story has a tragic ending.

My most ridiculous conspiracy theory about this song: Quite simply, it's that the boy from "Tim McGraw" reads the letter left on his doorstep, and they get back together and date throughout college, only to become the couple from "champagne problems." Conversely, you could set "Tim McGraw" after the events of "champagne problems," and then the lines, "But in a box beneath my bed is a letter that you never read from three summers back" could be about the proposal, and all the "When you think Tim McGraw, I hope you think my favorite song / The one we danced to all night long, the moon like a spotlight on the lake" could definitely parallel to "I dropped your hand while dancing." You're welcome for that pain.

My initial thoughts on Tracks 3-5

Track #3: “gold rush”

Favorite line(s): “I don’t like that falling feels like flying til the bone crush” or “My mind turns your life into folklore”

Initial thoughts and feelings: Can you say “relatable”? “gold rush” is a daydream montage straight out of a teen movie…or my middle school diary. I picture her walking the crowded streets of New York (post-COVID), bumping into a beautiful stranger, and in the space of a few seconds, Taylor daydreams about their whole life together, only to realize that he’s literally walked away. When I first listened, I was skeptical about the opening lines; I wasn’t sure what the vibes were going to be, but then it got “boppier,” and I immediately recognized it as a Jack Antanoff tune—it’s super catchy in the way that the Taylor x Jack collabs are, and I think it’s one that people will really gravitate to even as the album ages. I think the dreaminess of the intro and outro work so well to transition the listener (and narrator) in and out of the daydream (almost like the transition music from Hannah Montana), and I think the pep and bop of the verses and choruses really reflect the excitement of the fantasy. I mean, who hasn’t casually noticed a stranger and subsequently planned out your entire lives together? Oh, wait, just me? Is this another Pisces thing?


And the lyrics: "everybody wants you / but I don't like a gold rush." I'm thinking about the actual gold rush when people flocked to the West Coast, and it was frenzied and chaotic and dangerous, and most people didn't actually find the riches that were supposedly there. And that's not what this narrator wants. She doesn't want to be caught up in something just because everyone else is, especially if it may end up being "fool's gold" (if I could extend the gold metaphor a little). That's why she snaps herself out of the daydream. I think we're all guilty of talking ourselves out of a crush because we're a little bit afraid of it--and that probably is for the best most of the time; like, I don't think many people have honestly missed out on the love of their lives just because they decided not to pursue someone for whatever reason (because love is a team effort and takes two people working together and communicating with each other, so you shouldn't be the only one pursuing it)

In a YouTube chat leading up to the premiere of "willow," Taylor answered some fan questions, including telling us that "gold rush" is Jack Antanoff's favorite song on evermore.

Connection to other songs on folklore & evermore:

*Okay, she’s used “gold/golden” a lot since the reputation era—“you left your mark on me, a golden tattoo” (“Dress”); “my love had been frozen, deep blue, but you painted me golden” (“DancingWith Our Hands Tied”); “I once believed love would be burning red, but it’s golden like daylight” (“Daylight”); “one single thread of gold tied me to you” (“invisible string”), just to name a few moments—so I’m not going to reference each of those songs; just know it’s a continuing trend.* 

“evermore”: The ending track is painfully beautiful, but the second I heard the line, “And I was catching my breath / Floors of a cabin creaking under my step” I thought back to the “gold rush” line “I see me padding across your wooden floors.” And I just really love the idea of love moving from a daydream to a possibility. That feels like a good arc. Because there's been pain this whole album, but there's also been growth and healing--and it's all bee real, as opposed to daydream of "gold rush." And I especially like the connection is made in the third verse when she changes the lyrics from "I had a feeling so peculiar that this pain would be for evermore" to "this pain wouldn't be for evermore." It makes it all retroactively feel more hopeful, like maybe that daydream is possible after all.

Other T. Swift songs it evokes: 

"Lover" (Lover, 2019): In her title track from Lover, Taylor famously said, "And I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you," and, to be honest, the knowledge that Joe Alwyn sings, plays piano (very well!), and writes some absolutely beautiful songs does make me want him a little bit. Those are some great skills! Twitter likes to make fun of these "everyone wants him" lines, but Twitter's full of jerks. Joe's attractive, talented, and treats Taylor well, so he seems like exactly the kind of partner you should want. But no one should want to break them up. That's rude.

“Jump Then Fall” (Fearless: Platinum Edition, 2009): This isn’t the first time Taylor Swift talks about a love interest’s hair. In a bonus track from her first Album-of-the-Year-winning-record, she says, “Well, I like the way your hair falls in your face,” and it’s honestly one of my favorite lines in the song because of the way she delivers it. “Jump Then Fall” is criminally underrated, by the way. The opening and closing lines of “gold rush” also evoke this song: “Gleaming, twinkling eyes like sinking ships on waters so inviting, I almost jump in.” In “Jump Then Fall,” she’s encouraging her love interest to jump into a relationship with her; in “gold rush,” she’s saying, “I almost want to, but I won’t”—because, let’s face it, sinking ships aren’t exactly a place you want to be.

My most ridiculous conspiracy theory about this song: I don’t want to say this—but I think Twitter probably already has, because Twitter is pretty relentless—but I think people will say this is about Harry Styles. I mean, the man has perfect hair that often falls into place; he definitely knows what it’s like to grow up that beautiful, and his latest music video was for his song “Golden,” which, besides the obvious similarity to “gold,” was also filmed in a coastal town in Italy. It’s also fairly common knowledge that the pop-rockstar likes the Eagles, reflected in the lyric “my Eagles t-shirt hanging from the door”—heand One Direction bandmate Niall Horan went to a concert last year—and, he’s British, so any reference to “day-old tea” will evoke her love-affair with England, even if it’s not about her ex. Also, the whole idea of “I don’t like a gold rush” reminds me that Harry has had an incredible year even with the pandemic. His late-2019 album Fine Line is Grammy-nominated, and he’s really just exploded recently—I don’t think it’s wrong to say that everybody wants him. Again, I don't believe this is the case AT ALL, but it's 2020, so enjoy a completely wild conspiracy theory since there are no rules anymore.

Left: Harry Styles performing at the 2020 virtual iHeartRadio Jingle Ball, his hair clearly falling into place like dominoes
Right: Harry Styles during the filming of his "Golden" music video on the Amalfi Coast of Italy.
Both images show that he has certainly grown up beautiful

Track #4: “‘tis the damn season”

Favorite line(s): “We could call it even / You could call me ‘babe’ for the weekend / ‘Tis the damn season” or “I parked my car between the Methodist / And the school that used to be ours” or “Time flies, messy as the mud on your truck tires” or “I escaped it, too / Remember how you watched me leave”

Initial thoughts and feelings: I write all this while back in my hometown for the holidays, and, write this down, staying at my parents’ house: “’tis the damn season” might be my favorite. While I’ve come to love the first 3 tracks probably by the second listen through, there was something about the way she says, “We could call it even” that made me gasp on that first listen—and let’s be real, I was predisposed to like it because of the title. It’s not a love song’ it’s kind of a hookup song, but, at its core, I think it’s about wanting to be loved—especially at Christmas, and it’s just a little sassy with the “’tis the damn season” hook. Like, I want this song to be used during the dramatic climax of a sad Hallmark movie! It’s a whole story about coming back to your hometown and trying to reclaim something that you know deep down isn’t there anymore. Something about coming home always makes me a little uncomfortable about coming home; businesses close and open; people move away, but some things stay resolutely the same. I’m the same; I’ve changed in so many ways that coming home sometimes feels like putting on an old pair of pants that are just a little too short and tight—but I also fall right back into old friendships and find comfort in the familiarity of the roads I used to travel every day.

Top: The Jacksonville First United Methodist Church (where my family are members)
Bottom: "The old" Kitty Stone Elementary School, which I attended as a child; it's no longer in use because of the asbestos in the building; the city built a new school across town.
The two buildings are literally across the street from each other.

For me, the strength of this song is that the setting is just so real and vivid, something I’ll be saying about a lot of these songs. I mean, the line “I parked my car between the Methodist and the school that used to be ours” could literally be about Jacksonville. The Methodist church is literally right across the street from the now-empty old elementary school. When I was in school, we used to walk to the church for Wednesday-night-church-kid-things. The character is so rich, too. She’s [see next point for why I’m using feminine pronouns] making this after choice to have a fling with her old love (yay for women making decisions about their bodies and embracing their sexuality), but the songs also laced with so much melancholy, from her reference to Robert Frost’s “The RoadNot Taken” with the line “and the road not taken looks real good now” to the bridge: “So I’ll go back to L.A. / and my so-called friends / Who’ll write books about me if I ever make it / and wonder about the only soul who knows which smiles I’m faking.” I feel like she must be in her mid-to-late 20s, because that kind of regret and “what if?” mentality has big quarter-life-crisis vibes.

Drunk in the middle of the night feels like the only way to write a song about going home for the holidays as an adult. https://t.co/AF1K4JDgbQ

— Katie Cline (@katiebethbug) December 19, 2020

Connection to other songs on folklore & evermore:

The way I desperately want a High School Musical-esque movie-musical about this high school and these students!

“dorothea”: In her album letter, Taylor says, “Before I knew it, there were 17 tales, some of which are mirrored or intersecting with one another […] Dorothea, the girl who left her small town to chase down Hollywood dreams—and what happens when she comes back for the holidays and rediscovers an old flame.” The narrators in both “’tis the damn season” and “dorothea” refer to their loves as “soul” (“and wonder about the only soul who knows which smiles I’m faking” and “Are you still the same soul that I met under the bleachers?”). Using “souls” just makes them feel connected on a deeper level, like maybe they’re constantly being pulled back to each other in a never-ending “right person, wrong time” scenario.

“betty”: In the YouTube chat prior to the “willow” music video premiere, Taylor said that she imagined that Betty, James, August Girl (also called Augustine or Augusta, according to the Long Pond Sessions on Disney+), and Dorothea all went to school together—which would mean “betty” is canonically set in Tupelo [see “dorothea” entry in "Part 2" for more]

Other T. Swift songs it evokes:

“Babe” (Bigger by Sugarland, 2018): This song was considered for Taylor Swift’s Red (2012) album, but she ultimately sold it the country duo Sugarland and was featured on the track when it was released in 2018. The line in “’tis the damn season” that says, “You can call me ‘babe’ for the weekend” evokes the title of this track, which details the fallout of a relationship when one party cheats.

“Blank Space” (1989, 2014): In her massive 2014 hit that parodies the media’s view of Swift’s “serial dating” habits, Swift sings “I can make the bad guys good for a weekend.” Like “’tis the damn season,” the narrators know the relationship won’t last, but “Blank Space”’s woman takes a sick amount of joy in her manipulative ways, while Dorothea’s weekend fling makes the listener…sad for her.

"The Outside" (Taylor Swift, 2006): Throwing it all the way back to her debut, "The Outside" also reference's Frost's poem in the lines "I tried to take the road less traveled by / but nothing seems to work the first few times / Am I right?" Anyone who's studied this poem in a poetry survey course (like I did my sophomore year of undergrad) has had this conversation: we always interpret the last lines (And I--/ I took the one less traveled by, / and that has made all the difference) as meaning the road less traveled by is the better one and that the difference is a good difference, but that's not necessarily the case, as the narrator/Dorothea touches on in "'tis the damn season." It more means, "You made your choice, and that's affected your life--for better or for worse." And it's really cool to me to see those two interpretations reflected in different songs at opposite ends of her discography. "The Outside" very much feels like she's trying to do the right thing, but it doesn't always work, and she feels like an outcast because she's taking the "wrong" road, and then "'tis the damn season" shows that doubt and uncertainty, like, "Maybe the road less traveled by was less traveled by for a reason; maybe I messed this up."

My most ridiculous theory involving this song: I don’t think this is an actual connection, but there’s the line in “no body, no crime” that goes, “And I noticed when I passed his house / His truck has got some brand new tires” I’m not saying that Este’s husband cheated on her with Dorothea and then murdered Este and dumped the body, thereby making his tires “messy” like is mentioned in “’tis the season,” but I am saying that that’s a wild conspiracy theory, and I won’t tell you not to entertain it.

Track #5: “tolerate it”

Favorite line(s): “I know my love should be celebrated / But you tolerate it” and also the entire bridge into the second chorus, but especially "What would you do if I / Break free and leave us in ruins / Took this dagger in me and removed it / Gain the weight of you, then lose it? / Believe me, I could do it"

Line that hits way too close to home: "Always taking up too much space or time"

Initial thoughts and feelings: Okay, so there are a lot of fan theories around "tolerate it," from it being  about Princess Diana and Prince Charles to it being about someone coming out as LGTBQ+ to their family--but, frankly, I couldn't pay attention to any of these theories because I was too busy SOBBING. I'll be honest, "my tears ricochet" didn't hit me as hard as I expected it to the first time I heard it (it's grown on me since), so I wasn't super sure what to expect from this track 5, BUT WOW. This is what a "Taylor Swift Track 5 song" means to me. This song takes every nerve ending in my body and exposes it. This song physically rips me open and feeds my heart to the wolves. This song reads my diary, emails it to the whole school, and takes out space in the local paper to publish it. 

I love it. 

Me and Jennie, summer 2015
 (just after our freshman year of college)
Sorry, Jennie! It was already on
Facebook, thought!

So, I've been slowly getting my friend/college roommate Jennie (yes, one of the ones I talk to regularly) into Taylor Swift. It didn't necessarily start out that way, but, eventually, everyone I know finds at least one Taylor Swift song they like. So Jennie messaged our group chat not long ago to inform me that she "really likes evermore" and gave me a list of her favorites, including "tolerate it," which she said "definitely brought a young freshman Katie to mind." And I'm simultaneously like, "That's terrifying," but also like, "It's true." 2020, in particular, has been a year of working on setting personal boundaries, because I do tend to give too many chances, especially to friends. And while this song is absolutely heartwrenching, I'm obsessed with the fact that she knows her love should be celebrated. Like, "Yes, girl! Know your worth!" And I've definitely given my love to people who haven't celebrated it, and I'm trying to stop doing that. 

Connection to other songs on folklore & evermore:

"invisible string": Like with "New Year's Day" and "champagne problems," I don't want to make this connection, but Taylor doesn't exactly write about barbed wire very much, so when the line in the bridge goes, "Where's the man who threw blankets over my barbed wire?" I immediately thought of the bridge of "invisible string" where there are the lines "Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire / Chains around my demons, wool to brave the seasons / One single thread of gold tied me to you." I also don't want to mention that both songs open with lines about reading: "Green was the color of the grass where I used to read in Centennial Park" in "invisible string" and "I sit and watch you reading with your head down" in "tolerate it." However, for personal reasons, I refuse to believe that that beautiful song about Joe and Fate and true love being real and everything working out the way it's supposed to could ever devolve into a cold, loveless relationship like in "tolerate it."

Other T. Swift songs it evokes:

"Paper Rings" (Lover, 2019): Listen. I'm aware that I probably need therapy for drawing connections between two of her happiest love songs in her catalogue and this heartbreaking song, but hear me out. In "Paper Rings," she says, "Now I wake up in the night and watch you breathe," and in "tolerate it" she says, "I wake and watch you breathing with your eyes closed." How am I not supposed to draw those parallels??? Again, "Paper Rings" is clearly about Joe, and "tolerate it" is a story about characters--maybe people she knows, maybe characters from books or TV shows or movies, maybe historical figures. I refuse to pair them together. But wouldn't it make for the saddest movie soundtrack ever if you started out with songs like "Paper Rings" and "invisible string" and then transitioned into songs like "tolerate it"???? 

"All Too Well" (Red, 2012): Possibly her best song up to 2020, and definitely a fan fixation, "All Too Well" has been the pinnacle of vulnerability for 8 years. And maybe it's not actually that similar to "tolerate it" except that they both make me cry and happen to be Track 5 songs, but I think they complement each other. "All Too Well" is definitely a "I want to sit in my sadness and be sad because how could you do this to me" kind of song; it has some anger and frustration to it for sure. And "tolerate it" is a quiet kind of resignation and despair, but the second chorus (referenced in my "favorite line(s)") shows the listener (and maybe the narrator, too) that she is capable of breaking free and leaving this relationship. "All Too Well" is about being left and not knowing why you weren't enough and fixating on it, and "tolerate it" is leaving and not knowing why you weren't enough and accepting that you deserve better. And it's that bridge and second chorus that makes all the difference for me. In my opinion, "All Too Well" says a lot about the ex, while "tolerate it" says more about the narrator, and I think that's something really important to acknowledge.

So those are my many, many thoughts (only about 4800 words! #whoops!) on the first 5 tracks of evermore! Part 2 (Tracks 6-10) coming soon! (Update: It was posted on December 26th, so you can view it here.) If you made it this far, I'm impressed. Let me know if you have anything to add or if you want to co-write a Taylor Swift book with me!

May we all come back stronger than a 90s trend,

Katie

Captain’s Log, Day 25: “long story short,” Taylor Swift Says “‘tis the damn season” for Surprise Albums, and I’d “tolerate it” for “evermore” Because She Brings Me So Much “happiness”

 Date: December 13, 2020

Time of post: 3:32 AM

Quarantine Day: 263

Last Song I Listened To: “evermore” by Taylor Swift

Last Person I Communicated With: Noelle Braaten on Zoom

Last Thing I Ate: butterscotch candy

Last Thing I Read: fanfic (that's all I read these days!)

Current Mood: pretty shook about 2 T. Swift albums in 2020, if I'm honest

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today (technically yesterday): finished the box of wine I got at Thanksgiving!

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: finish packing

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: packing

One Reason I’m Happy Today (technically yesterday): The English Department had its holiday party over Zoom, and I got to be part of the reading! (I played Miss Prism in our abridged scenes from The Importance of Being Earnest)

 

The cover of Taylor Swift's 9th studio album, evermore

Dear Apocalypsers,

She. Did. It. Again.

About 7:45AM the morning of December 10, 2020, I was rather rudely awoken by the persistent buzzing of my phone—a group chat was going off…and going off…and going off. It was too early, so I almost just silenced my phone without checking it, but then I saw two words guaranteed to make me pay attention: “Taylor Swift.” Apparently, my friends have grownup jobs that require them to be awake before 8AM on a weekday, so they got the Tay news as soon as it dropped. Meanwhile, I had been awake until 3 or 4AM and wasn’t planning on being awake for another 2-4 hours.

My friends get me

“What ‘Tay news’?” you ask.

Taylor Alison Swift announced her ninth studio album, evermore, and my friends were right—I did break when I found out.

Please ignore my typos;
 I was half-asleep and freaking out.

This woman has put out 3 albums in 15 months: Lover (August 23, 2019); folklore (July 24, 2020), and evermore (December 11, 2020). [Side note: if I was a hardcore Twitter Swiftie—which is its own specific vibe—I’d say something about how releasing Lover in August when all her previous album releases were late October or November was an Easter egg for the song “august” on folklore.]

Peep what I changed
 the groupchat name to

I’m going to be honest—I’m still processing. She’s written (at least) 34 songs since late April, created 2 music videos, and filmed one concert/documentary for Disney+. Now, I haven’t been unproductive, necessarily, but I haven’t done that!! There are days where I just feel sad and blah and lay on my couch in the dark until my phone needs charged, and then I go lay in my bed while it charges. But if we date the beginnings of folklore from her now-infamous “not a lot going on at the moment” Instagram post on April 27^th (which Aaron Dessner has confirmed was around the time they started collaborating), then there’s only 32 weeks and 3 days between that post and the evermore announcement. That means that she’s written more than one album-quality song a week during the pandemic…and I’m in shock.

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A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

I will never be able to reiterate enough that Taylor Swift is a musical legend. And I have literally cried about the fact that not only am I alive at the same time as her, but I’m in the right age group to be her fan. I remember watching her first music videos on CMT when I was 11. (“OurSong” is particularly special to me.) I remember wearing out the repeat button on my purple portable CD player listening to “The Other Side of the Door” the Christmas that the Fearless: Platinum Edition (2009) CD was released. I remember buying Speak Now (2010) with my own money and immediately putting it into that same purple portable CD player as soon as my family got into our minivan. And that CD player was the first place I heard “All Too Well”—and where I replayed it dozens of times upon first listening to Red (2012). I remember Taylor’s transition to pop music my freshman year of college and watching the “BlankSpace” music video on my lofted dorm room bed. I remember forcing my non-Swiftie best friend to watch the “Look What You Made Me Do” on the floor of her apartment our senior year. I remember the K*nye drama and the ridicule and Taylor deleting her social media. I remember letting my students watch the “ME!” music video in class when I was a GTA and, the next semester, using “The Man” to talk about gender in our visual analysis unit. And I remember (vividly) the delirious elation I felt when she announced folklore this summer. (Relive it with me here.)

This is, in many ways, a thank you letter to Taylor. Her music is what I've been turning to for almost half my life, and these 2 latest albums have been highlights during the most difficult year of my life. I think what drew me to her originally were her lyrics. Even at 15 & 16, she was writing these stories--about love and loss and pain and life--with the sweetest, most specific details that made me feel like we were part of each other's lives, like I knew her and she knew me. (I wonder if she would have done that had she known all the hell she'd get for it from critics. I like to think she would. She's a storyteller, and the haters really are just gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.) I mean, sure, there is a lyric in "A Perfectly Good Heart" that goes "It's not unbroken anymore" which isn't exactly Shakespeare, but that album also gave us "So you come away with a great little story of a mess of a dreamer with the nerve to adore you" ("Cold As You") and "I guess it's true that love was all you wanted / 'Cause you're giving it away like it's extra change / Hoping it will end up in his pocket / But he leaves you out like a penny in the rain / Oh, 'cause it's not his price to pay" ("Tied Together With a Smile")--which I think are two of the most viscerally painful lyrics at least of her country albums. 

For me, Taylor understands what makes us human, and she articulates it better than people with 2 or 3 English degrees. You don't even have to be going through a breakup to understand, "And you call me up again just to break me like a promise, so casually cruel in the name of being honest" ("All Too Well"). The imagery, especially in her country days, is delightfully specific--and somehow universal in that specificity. To use "All Too Well" again (partially because it's considered by a lot of people to be her best song), the second verse opens like this:

"Photo album on the counter

Your cheeks were turning red

You used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin sized bed

And your mother's telling stories about you on the tee ball team

You taught me about your past thinking your future was me"

 And the second chorus goes:

"'Cause there we are again in the middle of the night

We're dancing 'round the kitchen in the refrigerator light

Down the stairs, I was there

I remember it all too well"

You might not have those specific moments with an ex-love, but you know that feeling of learning about each other's lives and meeting their families and trying to fit yourself into their world. You have those moments of intimacy where it was just the two of you and it felt like the whole world.  Hell, I don't even have an ex-love, and I can relate to that feeling! I've lost friendships I thought would last forever. I've watched friends get hurt by their own Jake Gyllenhaals. 

Taylor has gotten a lot of flack for writing about her love life, and I could go on and on about how sexist that is, but what you learn from all those heartbreak songs is that she wants what we all want--to be loved. That's the topic of some of the greatest poems and plays and novels and films in history. And Taylor's love songs--including break up songs--are just her trying to find that love, even "when it's hard or it's wrong or [she's] making mistakes" to quote "New Year's Day."

There are plenty of Taylor Swift songs from her first 7 albums that aren't about romantic love, but I won't list them...yes I will: "Tied Together With a Smile," "A Place in This World," "The Outside," "Fifteen," "The Best Day," "Change," "Innocent," "Mean," "Never Grow Up," "The Lucky One," "22," "Welcome to New York," "Shake It Off," "Bad Blood," "I Did Something Bad," "Look What You Made Me Do," "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things," "The Man," "Soon You'll Get Better," "You Need To Calm Down" (and these are just the ones that are explicitly not about a romantic relationship; I'd also argue that "Afterglow," "ME!," "Clean," and "I'm Only Me When I'm With You" don't have to be read as romantic, either).

From my folklore inspired 
photoshoot in November: "I'm still
on that tightrope /I'm still trying
everything to get you
laughing at me" ("mirrorball")

I would, however, that all her songs are about love in some way--love of friends, family, self, music. Maybe that's why I love her. Because I've watched her grow from a kid looking for her place in this world and hoping to settle down with her own prince charming into a woman who knows her worth and has found someone who sees it, too. 

And I've grown up right beside her.

And this doesn't even get into folklore, where her storytelling returned with a vengeance and instead of giving us accounts of her private life, she gave us worlds with characters and settings that we could very well could find in our own hometowns. From James skating down the sidewalk in front of their ex's house ("betty") to a small town with a single movie theater screen ("this is me trying") to Centennial Park and the invisible string that ties two people together ("invisible string"), folklore just confirms that Taylor Swift probably has some kind of spellcasting magic in her blood with the way she manipulates language. She's certainly had me under her spell for a while.

"Please picture me in the weeds" ("seven")

"Please picture me in the trees" ("seven")

I’ve grown up with Taylor Swift, and I’ve loved her through every era—even when she “wasn’t cool” when I was in high school, even when she was “basic” in undergrad, and even when half the world thought she was a snake.

But now it’s 2020, and I think you’re the uncool one if you can’t admit to liking Taylor Swift, or, at the very least, appreciating what she’s done for the music industry. She’s fought for better artist compensation on streaming services and for artists to be able to own the rights to their own music (as opposed to their record labels owning them)—and good news! She outright owns all of Lover, folklore, and evermore after leaving Big Machine Records and signing with Republic. (There is so much drama around the masters recordings of her first 6 albums, but she is re-recording them so that she’ll own them, too!)

But, okay. Now we have folklore and evermore both released in 2020, and Taylor has called them sisters.

In a letter to the fans, she wrote:

“I’ve never done this before. In the past I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one after an album was released. There was something different with folklore. In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning. I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So I just kept writing them.”

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A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

As I write this, it’s just after 1AM on Taylor’s 31^st birthday. She’s been releasing music since she was 16, and I get the feeling that she’ll be doing it for—well—evermore. And, if I may paraphrase a song from her debut album, “When I’ll be 83, she’ll be 89 / I’ll still look at her like the stars that shine.”

Forever & Always, Long Live, evermore,

Katie

Captain's Log, Day 24: What Happens Tomorrow?

 Date: November 2, 2020

Time of post: 8:05 PM

Quarantine Day: 222

Last Song I Listened To: “Change” by Taylor Swift

Last Person I Communicated With: GroupMe groupchat

Last Thing I Ate: chips and queso

Last Thing I Read: oh, definitely some fanfic; it’s been a great coping mechanism

Current Mood: ANXIOUS AF

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: sent some emails I guess

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: dishes and cleaning, but that’s not happening today

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: Wow, I wonder…not like tomorrow if a defining moment of American history or anything…

One Reason I’m Happy Today: the Young Adult Studies Association’s conference is this week, and I’m presenting at it; Little Mix’s new album drops on Saturday!

 

Dear Apocalypsers,

It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? And a lot has happened—some things that I could talk about and some things that I can’t, but, in all ways, October was a long month.

And now it’s November.

Yikes.

November 3, 2020 was always going to be an important date. We’ve known that since 2016, but given every other indescribably shitty thing that’s happened this year—which, if you ask me, can all be tied back to T*ump at least in part if not in entirety—tomorrow is even more important that we could have imagined (if that’s possible).

Last week, Noelle asked in group chat if we wanted to Zoom on Election Night. And, for some reason, that really solidified for me what tomorrow could be. I don’t want to be hyperbolic or seem like I’m trivializing this moment, but it got me thinking, “Who would you want to be with if you knew the world was ending?” Dr. Tatonetti asked us that same thing on our first day of Apocalypse back in January—back when the concept of an apocalypse was more fiction than reality for most of us. Back then, we chose family members, friends, famous survivalists and athletes. We had reasons, both practical and sentimental, that were sometimes sensible and sometimes funny.

That feels like a lifetime ago.

Because, now, the fact of the matter is that we’re standing on a precipice, and we don’t know what America looks like after tomorrow. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe Biden wins and we can have genuine hope and optimism for the first time in years. (This is the only option I want to entertain.) Or maybe the unthinkable happens, and we have four more years of things getting worse—more racism and sexism and homophobia and transphobia and Islamophobia and violence and fear mongering and hundreds of thousands of more deaths from COVID-19 alone.

So who do I want to be with when I get that news?

Who do I want to be with when I breathe a sigh of relief or curl up into a ball and cry?

The friends I’ve made in grad school—these friends who are practically family now—are definitely a good option.

I remember the 2016 election. I was editor of my undergrad newspaper, The Chanticleer, at the time. It was actually my first semester as editor. We were still working on 2007 Mac desktops that crashed if you opened more than 2 tabs, so I designed the front page in advance: with Hillary Clinton winning.

I honestly didn’t think T*ump would win, but as my roommates and I sat up that Tuesday night, I vividly remember Jennie looking at me, her face white, and saying, “Katie, she can’t win. There aren’t enough points left.” And I said what I always do when I don’t want to believe something: “No.”

But she was right. And I’ll always remember that moment, because everything changed.

I’ve come a long way in the last 4 years. This is the kindest I’ll be to the year 2020, but it’s forced me to confront a lot of my innate biases. It’s forced me to be louder about social justice in public; I like to think I’ve been a pretty good ally on personal level for a while, but I realized that these are issues that need to be screamed about on every platform that I have. Because, yes, I’m a woman, and I have—and will continue to—face discrimination because of that, but I’m a white person entering academia. I have the opportunity ahead of me to support writers and creators and academics of color, to buy their work and write about it and cite their articles and tweet about them—and I can start doing that now. I should. And I can do the same with the LGBTQIA community. Some of the most talented and thoughtful and brilliant people I’ve ever met have fallen into one or both of these communities, and it’s a disgrace that they’re statistically less likely to be recognized than cisgender, heterosexual white people.

I can’t even imagine how hard the last 4 years have been for them and how I may have contributed to those hardships in small, unconscious ways.

But I’ve been trying really hard the last several months to change my behavior and to be more aware, to speak up when I have a political opinion, to be more careful and thoughtful about my purchases and where my money is going. And I’m ready to see that change on a national level.

I don’t have much to say, for once. Just that I’m scared but I’m stubbornly optimistic; I’m a sick to my stomach but I’m gritting my teeth; and I have so much love and respect for the people on the front lines of this fight, from nurses and doctors to Democratic campaign managers in battleground (or historically red) states.

And to everyone T*ump and his people have hurt this year and the previous 3, I’m sorry. You deserve better. And I’ll keep saying that as long as I have the breath to do so.

So I’ll leave you with this goosebump-inducing political ad that dropped earlier this week featuring, for the first time ever, one of Taylor Swift’s songs.

 

And, now more than ever, may the odds be ever in our favor,

Katie

Captain's Log, Day 23: A Non-Football Fan’s Love Affair with Football

Date: September 21, 2020

Time of post: 10:40PM

Quarantine Day: 180

Last Song I Listened To: “The Boys of Fall” by Kenny Chesney (obviously)

Last Person I Communicated With: Meg McCrina via Instagram DM

Last Thing I Ate: cinnamon tea and a croissant

Last Thing I Read: my own essay that I was editing

Current Mood: ~n o s t a l g i c ~

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: made edits to an essay!

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: start grading some (more) papers…or maybe just HW assignments

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: so much to grade! And I just found out that I have about 2 weeks less time to work on a presentation that I thought I’d have

One Reason I’m Happy Today: spontaneous Zoom chat with one of my undergrad professors today!

Dear Apocalypsers,

We get a few days of 50-degree weather a couple weeks ago, and I get nostalgic. To be fair, nostalgia is my favorite emotion, so it doesn’t take much, but, every fall, without failure, you can expect me to wax poetic about some seemingly insignificant thing.

Since moving to Kansas in 2018, that “thing” that really gets me misty-eyed is…football.

I know, I know. The Alabama girl getting worked up about football is the most cliché thing ever. But you have to know me: I don’t like football.

Granted, my behavior might say otherwise:

Growing up in a college town, I was a fixture at JSU gamedays from the time I could toddle. (I didn’t pay much attention, but I really liked the mascot and the band.)

I went to every high school football game from 7th grade to senior year. (Years 8-12 I was in the marching band, though.)

I played on the Powder Puff team my senior year. (I was an offensive linewoman, FYI.)

Once I got to college—the same campus and stadium I frequented as a tot—I went to every home game for four years. (What can I say? My roommate was in the band; I like school spirit and winning.)

I hosted a “First NFL Game of the Season” party and a Super Bowl party for the 2019-2020 season.

But I’m still not sure I like football.

To be fair, I still don’t know all the rules. My brother literally taught me what the phrase “ice the kicker” means today—it’s when the other team calls a timeout right before the kicker kicks the field goal to throw him off his game. I didn’t learn what a “pick 6” was until undergrad—that’s when there’s an interception (the ball’s “picked off”) that’s run back for a touchdown (which is worth 6 points). Thank you to my football friends who patiently sat in the stands and explained football terms to me for 4 years. I’m still trying to learn the fouls and what they mean, but I usually just gauge my reaction on whether or not the home crowd boos.

But football, for me, has never been based off the sport. It’s the people. It’s the memories. It’s the nostalgia. Even my favorite teams are rooted in people. My parents grew up just outside of Pittsburgh, and we're big Steelers fans. I was really into Troy Polamalu as a kid. I think I liked his name. Or maybe his hair. My other team now is the Kansas City Chiefs, for the sole reason that they’re the “hometown team,” and I love a hometown team. Plus, Patrick Mahomes is such a cutie, inside and out. (Fun fact: I was once in the same room as Patrick Mahomes AND the Jonas Brothers. Okay, it was arena. For the Jonas Brothers concert last year. And I never saw Mahomes. Still, technically I was in the same room as them.)

My biggest NFL memories include youth group Super Bowl parties where we paid more attention to the halftime show and the commercials than we did to the game and popping into the living room on Sunday nights to ask my dad, “Who are we cheering for?” (For the record, the answer is “Not the Ravens” whenever the Ravens are playing. Same for the Patriots and the Cowboys. Dad has always liked an underdog, so we usually cheer for them.)

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed a few opinions, like how I think Russell Wilson (Seattle Seahawks) is a good guy or how like the Watt brothers (JJ for the Houston Texans and TJ and DJ for the Steelers) because of all the fundraising they did when Texas flooded. I melt at how much Patrick Mahomes loves KC, and I fume any time Jerry Jones’ (owner of the Dallas Cowboys) name is brought up because of how he spoke/speaks about the Black Lives Matter movement and forbids his team from kneeling. I’m a sucker for a human interest story, too. Catch me tearing up whenever a player talks about buying their parents a house or they air a heartwarming pre-game feature about a player who overcame big odds to play pro football. (Shaquem Griffin? The Seahawks’ linebacker who had his left hand amputated when he was 4? I actually cried the first time I learned about him.)

Even writing that previous paragraph, I had to look these players up. I couldn’t have told you what team Griffin plays for. I don’t even know what a linebacker does. Does it matter that he only has one hand? Does he ever touch the ball? I don’t know. It’s not about the sport.

When I was young, I liked the energy—the palpable crowds, the competition, wearing matching shirts, and getting to scream. Once I hit high school—and, even then, not until my Sophomore-ish year—it was personal. I knew people on the team. Come Senior year, it was REALLY personal.

My Senior year of high school was magical. (“As it should be,” my mom snuffled when I brought this up to her over the weekend.) Really, Netflix should have made a movie about the Jacksonville High School Class of 2014. The highlight of my Senior year fall was football season. The new administration reinstated the Powder Puff football game after a 6-year absence—there was some vandalism and destruction of property involved—only to try to cancel it a couple weeks before the game. We even had secret practices off-campus so the principal wouldn’t find out. And, during those weeks leading up to the Powder Puff game—which we didn’t even score during, let alone win—my class got closer than ever: football players and band kids and cheerleaders and popular girls and nerds and athletes. I talked to people I hadn’t spoken to since elementary school—and we got along. Shoutout to our coaches LaVonte, Reid, Payton, and Dominique, who showed us nothing but patience as they taught us all actual football terms and plays. (I remember the word “sweep,” but I couldn’t tell you what I was supposed to do during a sweep. Run left? Run right? Who knows?) They made sure we all had a position to play—even me, and I have NO athletic ability. 

Those same guys brought some of their teammates to a marching band competition later that season, and if anyone knew less about something than I knew about football, it was their knowledge of band. But they came. And the band took home some serious hardware that day.

(Can you spot the football players?)

But Powder Puff wasn’t the only football highlight of Senior year. Our football team was actually good. We’d been on the upswing for a couple years, following more than a few 2-8 seasons, but the 2013 season was *chef’s kiss*. We beat our arch-rival in triple overtime on Senior Night when their extra point kick bounced off the upright. It was magical. Then, we hosted the first round of 4A state playoffs for the first time in history, and we won. When we lost in the next round to the team that would ultimately go on to win State that year, I bawled my eyes out for the whole fourth quarter. When the players lined up in front of the “Do It For The Moms” banner on the sideline and cried while singing our alma mater, I was inconsolable.

Like I said, we were movie material.

Maybe it’s the culture of small Southern towns. Maybe if I had grown up in a different region, in a bigger city with more funding, I’d get teary-eyed over debate team scenes or that Scholar’s Bowl scene in _Mean Girls_. As it is, though, I romanticize the heck out of football now, and there’s no bigger football in the South than SEC football.

I have a distinct memory of being in third grade, and every day my teacher would have us answer a question, and we’d put a star with our name on it by our answer. This particular day, the question was, “Who’s your favorite football team?” Our choices were “Alabama,” “Auburn,” “JSU,” and probably “Other.”

Now, if you’re not from Alabama, you might not fully realize the significance of the Alabama vs Auburn rivalry.

It is a barely contained war. (Don’t even get me started on the Iron Bowl.)

Former Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville is runningfor Senate, and there are people who won’t vote for him because they’re Alabama fans. (That’s not why they shouldn’t be voting for him; there are endless otherreasons, but his football team association is what they’re basing it off of.) Alabama’s legendary (deceased) head coach Bear Bryant ends up a write-incandidate on ballots every election. There are babies born named Crimson, Tide/Tyde, Auburn, and Bear more often then I care to think about. A crazed Alabama fan poisoned the iconic 80-year-old trees in Toomer’s Corner on Auburn’s campus just because, “I wanted Auburn people to hate me as much as Ihate them.” And I’m very convinced that current Alabama head coach Nick Saban could start a religion to rival Christianity if he got it in his head to do so.

(PS, Alabamians reading this, vote for Doug Jones. Please.)

So back to third grade Katie. I didn’t care for either Alabama or Auburn, having Pennsylvanian parents who didn’t subscribe to either cult follow—I mean, fanbase. So I put JSU as my favorite team, because, again, they were the home team. 

I was one of 2 to do so. 

The older I got, though, the more I paid attention to college football and noticed that the names I’d hear praised by announcers on Saturdays often turned into names I’d hear on Sundays a few years later. (Like, you may or may not remember the “Scam Newton” scandal, but he’s playing for the Patriots now, and, honestly, that’s fitting. Cam Newton has the right energy to play for the Pats.) Even as a young high schooler, I thought it was pretty cool to hear about professional athletes coming from Alabama. (What can I say? It makes my heart warm to hear my home state on the news for something that isn’t our failing education system or misogynistic politics. And sometimes the pro players coming from an Alabama school aren’t involved in scandals…sometimes.) And when you’re 10/12/14/16, those 20 and 22-year-old Heisman-candidate athletes feel like adults. It’s only when you hit 18/20/22 yourself (and older) that you realize all this hype is about…kids.

And here’s where I’m going to get all sentimental.

I’ve seen football players at every stage: I’ve been 8 watching other little kids bumble around on the field in too-big shoulder pads. I’ve been 8 watching 18-year-olds sign to their dream college. I’ve been 18 watching other 18-year-olds get scouted by big schools. I’ve been 18 watching 22-year-olds win Heisman Trophies and getting drafted to the NFL. I’ve been 22 watching “that guy I had a COM class with once” play in national championship games or go to the NFL draft or get injured and end his career. Now, I’m 24 and teaching 18-year-olds with whole careers ahead of them, careers that have been and will continue to be full of grown adults literally assigning point values to them, comparing them to every other boy with a football dream in the country, putting the weight of a team and a university and a city and a region and a franchise on their shoulders sometimes, telling them how talented they are, telling them they’re not talented enough, screaming at them and tweeting at them when they have a “bad game.”

I sometimes wonder how many of the Patrick Mahomeses and Russell Wilsons and Payton Mannings and Aaron Rodgerses and Troy Polamalus and Watt brothers and Shaquem and Shaquill Griffins started playing football as little kids and never really had the chance to stop. Growing up in Alabama, some people will put their sons in peewee football at 3 or 4 years old, and they’ll play ball until they go pro or get injured. And when you do something for that long, it’s got to start feeling like the only choice, even if you love it.

I can’t even wrap my mind around that, around having an ideal life course set in place at 4-years-old. But I’ve seen it. As a Communications major in undergrad, I could have paid for college if I had a dollar for every football player who was a Broadcast major. Their plan was always to be an ESPN broadcaster after their NFL career ended.

(The football team and cheerleaders would always run over to the band at the end of the game to play "All I Do Is Win" (when we won) and/or the unofficial school song, "I'll Fly Away.")

None of them were drafted.

And I always wondered what happened to them or how they coped with life plans going so awry. I hope they found their worth outside of football.

One of the essays I teach in my freshman composition class is called an autoethnography. It asks students to write about a moment that they were made aware of a part of their identity in a way that they maybe hadn’t thought about before.

Every semester, I have an athlete who wants to write about being an athlete. We talk about it, and I almost always let them, because I know firsthand how important sports are to people, and, for some of these students, being an athlete is all they’ve ever known. It’s what they’ve been working toward for years, it’s why they’re able to afford college; it’s their identity.

But in my own little ways, I try to remind them that they’re more than an athlete, so in case they (God forbid) get hurt, they won’t see it as the end of their lives; so if they don’t go pro they won’t see themselves as failures; so that even if they become the hotshot star player with the eyes of every sports-loving fan in the nation boring into them every weekend, they’ll remember that their ENGL 100 instructor really only cared if they turned in their essay on time, and maybe they’ll find that a little comforting.

There I go again, romanticizing football. Being from the South, football tinges a lot of aspects of my life, even if I don’t retain the actual nuances of the game. I definitely spent a lot of time fighting against it, because how dare football get more funding than the Arts? I tried to be too cool for it, to shake the stigma that Southern football fans were just beer-drinking, tobacco-chewing, toothless, middle-aged white men who poisoned trees for the hell of it. But the truth is that some of my best memories from growing up come from football-adjacent events. From the people I spent time with while tolerating the thing I didn’t enjoy.

I don’t honestly expect my football players—or any of my students—to remember me. I won’t remember all of them. Even the ones I do remember now will probably fade if I keep teaching long enough. But, as a whole, I do wonder who those wide-eyed freshmen in my classes will grow up to be. I mean, someone had to be Patrick Mahomes’ freshman comp teacher, right?

May the odds be ever in our favor,

Katie