The Intertextuality of ‘Tis the Damn Season

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Yeah, you don't want to meet our family members. No. Not all are as charming as we. But if you observe the solstice, then by golly, you know, get the barley cakes and roast the pig, light the yule log. I actually do observe the solstice. Which of those three things are you going to do? I usually light something because I'm a bit of a piramanian. So Leslie and I will light something. The solstice actually occurred this morning, but, and you know, there were like tens of thousands of people out by Stonehenge today. Watch the sunrise. That's cool. That is one of my. It's going to say. It's a bucket list thing for me. Yeah, I'm going to do that. Yeah, I want to be there someday when they do that. But, but Leslie and I are actually going to a concert tonight. Oh, yeah, we're going to go see Pink Martini. Oh, where is it? Oh, at the Windspear. The opera house. Yeah, so that place is cool. Yeah, I love it. And I like Pink Martini. So fun. I'm going to get this over with so you can go to your concert. I know we need to do this and get out of here. OK, then let's just do it. We're doing the happiest Christmas song in all the land today. Oh, I don't know. Yeah, when I first saw the title, I thought, really? Oh, the season of joy and Tiz, the damn season. Yes, Taylor has a Christmas like EP from the early her early career. And there are like two or three original songs on that that I actually really like. But I mean, she was like she was so young. So they I'm hoping we get those again someday. But I don't think we will. A Taylor's version. But then a few years ago, she came out with a song called Christmas Tree Farm that I think is so much fun and so full of joy. And so I said, we're not going to do that one. We're going to do a happy song. We're going to do the tragic one. So this is like really a Christmas song. This is on we're doing Tiz, the damn season today. This is from Evermore. Evermore came out in December of 2020. I think it's like December 9th or December 10th. And this was when she she had written Folklore and then those three Taylor, Jackie Antonoff and Aaron Destner just like kept writing and kept going. And so another whole album came out. So she probably wrote this like right before Christmas time. OK. Yeah, this is just her and Aaron Destner. Written by the two of them produced only by Aaron Destner. And yeah. So should I charge forward? You actually answered my my last question. Oh, OK. So you went all the way to my second page where I wrote down, is this a Christmas song? OK, I mean, that's a that's a good question for the people because. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. It feels like no, but I don't know. It's not a traditional Christmas song. So I have my Christmas bell on. People are going to love that. Well, we got so we take the kids we every year we go to locally, we have a train like an old fashioned train in the Christmas capital of Texas, Great Vine. And we they have a polar express. So you get on the train. It's all decorated inside with a thousand lights and each of the cabs has its own song and dance team. Yeah, I've never done that. Oh, it's lots of fun. It's really nice. I saw the pictures of you, though, in your jammies. Oh, yeah, we wear our pajamas. So it's polar express, right? If you've ever seen the movie, they wear their pajamas. So we wear our pajamas and if it's really cold, pajamas in a row. But we we try to buy matching Christmas pajamas and we get on. And, you know, they song and dance us and they serve chocolate milk and cookies and then Santa or Mrs. Claus comes through and talks with every single kid. While we're on the train, we ride halfway to Dallas and back. And it's something that just turned around and come back. And they give you these bells. And of course, in the movie, you can only hear the bell ring if you believe in Santa Claus. So did you hear it? I heard it. OK. OK, so I'm festive. This song. Not so much. Not quite so festive. No, no. So I read, you know, my my method is you send me the song, I get the pen out, I mark it up. And and sometimes I try to try to hang the conversation on some particular aspect that I see. But this, you know, this is a nostalgic holiday romance and nostalgic, not in a great way. Agreed. Yes. Right. Yeah. So I want to talk about a couple of literary terms that people may or may not be familiar with. You know, I use the term trope a lot. So, you know, if you've never looked trope up, it's simply a motif. It's a recurring habit in a piece. So something that goes over and over again, maybe inside of a piece or inside of the literature. So a common trope about holiday literature is the return home. Right. I mean, you think about the number of different movies you've seen, you know, things like of Sweet Home, Alabama. Yeah. You know, she goes home, she's got the old boyfriend. They meet the question is, oh, is she going to abandon the city boyfriend for the country boyfriend? Yes, it's like the Hallmark movie. The Hallmark movie trope is like you, you know, you have the evil boyfriend in the big city, but you have to go home and save your uncle's Christmas tree farm or whatever and fall in love with the guy there. And so the trappings, you know, that surround this motif are always that the city is bad and that the country is good and sweet and pure. And I mean, we kind of have that trope rolling on here. If you've ever seen the family man with Tia Leoni and oh, that other guy whose name I never remember, but he's the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola. You know, he's Nicholas Cage. Nicholas Cage. That's it. Yeah. Thank you. Nicholas Cage is in the film. You know, Nicholas Cage is a is a wealthy, you know, financier. And he lives in New York and in a high rise apartment, something you could relate to. Yeah. And. But instead, he he goes back and he lives another life. It's a little bit like the Jimmy Stewart movie. It's a wonderful life by, you know, by Frank Capra, who I actually once took a course from. What? Yeah. The advantage of going to the big school. It's cool. Yeah. And he talked about the film a lot. So it's that trope. She's going home. She's visiting the the person in the country and the family and that whole business. So I guess one of the first questions that I ask is, is this autobiography? Is this fiction or is it kind of like a third middle ground that we call auto fiction? OK, so if you put autobiography and fiction together, you get auto fiction, which has nothing to do with automatic fiction. It's it's literally creating a fictional story, but based on your own life experiences. Right. So I don't know. I don't know if she ever had the experience of going home. Yeah, I don't think so. I would assume that this is a this is what I feel like for a lot of the songs on folklore and evermore is that they are based on her actual feelings and, you know, feelings that she's had, but she's putting them into fictional scenarios. OK, yeah. Well, that's I mean, yeah. Obviously, I couldn't pick up a clue in the text as to whether or not this was something that directly applied to her life or, you know, is it is an auto fiction or does it push all the way over into the fictional realm? So, yeah, I'm really not sure either. OK, they'll have opinions, though. Yeah, you guys tell us. OK, so, you know, start with the title. I did like the the ambiguity of the title, right? Tis the damn season. So I mean, we don't have to ask what does word damn mean, but why the word damn? Right. You know, there are times when family obligations call you to come home or or require you to show up at an event and your response as well as that damn time again. Yeah. Yeah. And you just go, could I just not have the day to myself or could I just not? You know, can Chase and I just not go home together and enjoy the day together? Maybe with the dogs. So it could be Tis the damn season because she doesn't really want to go home. It could also be Tis the damn season because it's literally really cold. You know, you have a northern setting here. It's really cold and it's like she's shivering, saying it's a damn season. You know, so it could be it could also be ironic, right? She could be saying, well, it's that damn time of the year again when we do the same old thing every year. But you don't back into patterns. Yeah, but you don't really mean it, right? I mean, you just it is the regularity of those patterns that we all enjoy. Yeah, right. That's what I enjoy. So yeah, well, I mean, see, so there are lots of different meanings to the title. I like them all. You know, that's one of the things that Taylor Swift does in her later work is she gives us ambiguity and, you know, I'm a fan. So, you know, I'm a big fan of the ambiguousness, you know, in the text. So then she starts off in verse one. If I wanted to know. OK, does she want to know? No, no. I do like that. You know, so snarky right off the bat. It is right. Right off the bat, she says, you know, it's like if you've ever read Oh, Holden Caulfield, you know, he says, if you really want to know a character, a fictional character, any of you know Holden Caulfield. Yeah, you know, he says he doesn't really want to tell you, but he does. Yeah, if if I wanted to know who you were hanging with while I was gone, I would have asked you, but she doesn't really want to know that crap. Yeah, like stop. Stop talking. Yeah. I mean, she kind of does, but she doesn't. Yeah. Right. And and again, I like the word hanging. You know, there's a lot of hanging going on in the holiday. Right. It's called hanging of the greens. Yeah. Right. The hanging of ornaments. So it could be interesting. Yeah, it could be relevant both to who is he hanging around with, but it could also be relevant to the Christmas season. Interesting. Right. So that's kind of fun. I mean, I hope that she likes that ambiguity. And if she intended it, great. And if she didn't still like it. Yeah. Right. And if she wanted to know, I would have asked you and so she didn't. It's the kind of cold fogs up window, shield, glass, really nice imagery. Right. One of the things I do complement her frequently for in her later work is use of imagery. So we have both visual imagery. Everybody knows how irritating it is when you get the fog on the window shield. But also everybody knows what the cold feels like, what the wet window shield feels like when you're trying to wipe it down. So she gives us, she mixes up both visual and tactile imagery here. So really nice. But I felt it when I passed you, there's an ache in you put there in the ache in me. So we have right off the bat, we build a relevancy between the two of them. OK, so that's going to reappear later on. You know, we're going to see it down at the end of the second verse, but if it's OK with you, it's OK with me. Right. So she has this kind of echo of relevancy that goes throughout the poem. And I like that is so. But I felt it when I passed you. And then we go into the ache. She's talking about the cold. And then she's saying, I felt it when I passed you. And then she's talking about an ache. Like, is that she's saying I felt I felt the cold because it's cold outside and I felt like a coldness from you. Yeah, from the guy and that cold is like causing these aches. Then that's why she's wondering who you've been hanging with. But she's not going to ask. Right. Yeah. OK. Yeah. You know, I also had a question about this. And again, you guys can tell me, you know, the fogging up of the windshield glass also reminds me of hooking up in a car, right, because not that I've ever had this experience. But if you've ever had the experience of taking your girl out in a car and having a moment where you might spend some time kissing or doing something, it fogs up, especially if it's cold. And and so I was wondering if the narrative character here, the eye of our narrative is is thinking about how they hooked up, how they were hanging out or he was hanging out with someone else and the hanging out in a cold car would result in the windshield glass. So I don't know, you know, when, like on my 18th time, reading through, I wrote the little note, you know, is this hooking up in a car? Yeah, interesting. The fogging of the windshield glass. I mean, I didn't think so at first, but I don't know. Maybe so. Yeah. There's an ache in you put there by the ache in me. So she's so, yes, there's still a there's a relevancy between them, but then there's still a longing between them. But I think that this is to that greater trope of aching for a different life. Right. Yeah. Yeah, because she's she's clearly gone. She's left town. Right. She's and this is just her coming back. She's come home. Yeah. Right. So the chorus. So we could call it even. You could call me babe for the weekend. And again, you know, the even is that relevancy that she builds throughout the whole poem between the two of them, that there's always that there's been a connection and maybe there always will be. Yeah. And something has gone wrong and they've heard each other. Right. And now we're calling it even. Yeah. Yeah. You could call me babe for the weekend. So it's temporary. It's what what he used to call her. Yeah. And it's OK. You can return to that little habit, but it's it's only for the weekend. Don't get used to it. Right. I'm staying at my parents' house. OK, so the reference to the parents or to a past time, I think, is again, pervasive throughout the poem. She does it later on. She sleeps in half a day. You know, these are things that a kid would do. Yeah, when you're young. Yeah. Right. So I think that she is, you know, recasting herself or at least the narrative of character is recasting herself in the in the guise of being a kid. Yeah. Someone who's staying at the parents' house, someone who's sleeping in half a day. Yeah. You like I mean, I think that probably is going off to college, you know, and then you come home for your winter break or whatever. And you do I feel like you do kind of regress a little bit, you know, because you don't have anything to do. You don't have anything you have to do. So you're like sleeping in and you're hanging out with your old friends. You're like feel like you know, you don't have all these like school responsibilities and stuff. So yeah, you literally have a holiday. Yeah. So she's staying in her parents' house and the road not taken looks real good now. So obviously the road not taken as a reference to the Frost poem. Yes. So here's your next big literary term. Intertextuality. OK. OK. So intertextuality is simply the idea that texts will frequently be referential. So they may refer to another text. They may quote another text. They may be interwoven influences from another text. No one writes entirely in isolation. Right. No one. I mean, I could even I could pose the concept that no one's an individual because everyone uses a language that was taught to them by someone else that was taught to them by someone else and you can't have a thought without a language. I mean, try to think of something without applying a word to it. You know, so yeah, this is, I think, a work of intertextuality. You know, clearly the road not taken is pervasive throughout this whole poem. Yeah. So and I have the I have the text of the road not taken. Oh, nice. Yeah. I mean, we can we can talk about it maybe at the end. OK, perfect. I had to memorize this for like in like ninth grade English or something. OK, go ahead. I cannot. Come on. Nobody paid me a dollar per poem. So keep it up there. OK, so yeah, she's she's giving us the Frost poem, one of the most frequently misinterpreted poems, I'm going to say, in American literature is very commonly taught to ninth, 10th, 11th graders. And the road not taken looks real good now. And it always and it always leads to you and my hometown. So sweet. Going home, it's going home to the guy going home to the hometown. And again, it's this fictional character. Yeah. And that's not the road she chose. And she used to stay there with him. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So first two. I parked my car right between the Methodist and the school that used to be ours. So I really did wonder why, you know, I think this was for me, but you go ahead. This is for you. Yeah. You want to talk about it? Yeah. Go ahead. So growing up, my fifth and sixth grade school, which we called the Rock School, because it was made of rocks, was at the end of this road. But to get to it, you had to drive past my church, which was a Methodist church. OK. And so I always get such a picture of that specific road of her tailor like parking her car in between those two buildings. I see. And so I feel like she did that for me. And you grew up in a thriving metropolis, a giant city. Giant city. No, it was the tiny town. So, yeah, I mean, that was my impression is this is supposed to, you know, again, give us a small town reference. Yeah, small town in the Bible belts. Right. You know, like there's a church on every corner. This one just happens to be Methodist. Right. Yeah. That's what I always picture. So I mean, you you grew up Methodist. I married the Methodist church. Yeah. Since your aunt was the daughter of a Methodist minister. I it was pretty clear I was going to be a Methodist. Yeah. So yeah. So, yeah, I mean, you know, small town America. I also, you know, honestly, I wondered about parking the car between the Methodist and the old school. And now it's all me because your aunt and I used to go parking after youth on Sunday night. Out in the Methodist Park. No. Scandal. Well, yeah. And the windows would get fogged up. You know, so I wondered, wait a minute, is she is she remembering finding a secluded spot between the church and the school to go parking? Maybe so. I don't really find ourselves in this poem. I know. I know. You know, so I don't know. Yeah, I think it's it's more about seclusion than it is about finding a secluded spot to. Yeah. You know. Or, you know, this just came into mind. This just occurred to me. Could she be parking like her car away from his house so like nobody knows that she's actually there? Yeah, she's walking a little bit of ways to her to his house. Yeah, I think that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fun. I'm going to park it on the next block over so nobody knows I'm at your house. Yeah, I think all of those work for me. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, again, there's nothing wrong with a little ambiguity. That's what makes it fun. We can all insert ourselves into the poem. And the holidays linger like bad perfume. You know, for me, this is one of this is maybe the best line of the poem. I like it, too. Yeah. I like it because I think everybody's experienced that. I mean, I love the smell of evergreen and, I don't know, cinnamon and ginger and a cooking turkey or whatever it is that you make on a holiday. But, you know, every time I try to buy a candle, it's like we'll be we'll be shopping and I'll open up a candle and hold it up to Leslie. And I say, how about this one? And she smells good. Oh, no. You know, nothing quite smells like an evergreen tree. I mean, you know, your Yankee candle. Yeah, no, I don't know. I don't want to say anything bad about a product like Yankee candles. Smells like an evergreen candle. Right. Yeah. So I mean, I love the line because I always think of of, you know, those lingering fragrances that sometimes they go together and sometimes not, you know, you can run, but only so far. You can run from the perfume. You can run from previous flames. You can run from memories of the old hometown. Yeah. Right. So run from all of that. And again, ambiguity, I think that's lovely. I escape it too. Remember how you watched me leave. But if it's OK with you, it's OK with me. So mutual loss, mutual resignation. Yeah. So I love the way that mutuality binds together the poem. I think that's well done. Me too. And then the chorus. We could call it even, you know, back to the evenness of their mutuality. You call me bang for the weekend. It's only temporary to the damn season. She says, write this down. You know, so writing is a way of memorializing something. So you write it down so it's inescapable. It's like a contract. I don't know. I thought about the phrase, write this down a lot. I have to. And I can't really decide like what she means. That was my first thought was that, OK, write this down because this is going to happen every year. Maybe, you know, I'm back for Christmas every year. And like we're going to keep lingering like the bad perfume, you know. But yeah, I couldn't really come up with anything else. Well, that's what I kept thinking. Well, it's like a contract. It's like a again, a memorialization. You know, I also thought about it's being kind of like, you know, get get this get let's get this straight. Our relationship is never going to be rekindled. You know, that this is a temporary weekend. It's a weekend thing. You know, what we had over our youth is never going to come back to life. So write it down. This is this is all it is. That's rough. Well, you know, it's it's what it is. Yeah. She's staying at her parents' house. You know, it's it's a it's a regression to childhood. And it's not really what happened because she took another road. The road is taking looks real good. But time flies, of course, a metaphor and, you know, messy as the road, as the mud on your truck tires. So we have another metaphor here. And I think that it's messy as the mud because her life is messy. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And situations kind of messy. Right. Yeah. It's just kind of a little messed up having to go home again. Yeah. But also the truck tires, like kind of again, ties it into small town. Yes. Everybody drove the truck. Small town. Yeah. So is it is it time to pause and talk about cars? OK. You know, so I started I started thinking about the number of times she mentions she does. Doesn't she automobiles? Yeah, I mean, in the very first stanza, she's got fogged up window glass and then she parks her car beside the Methodist and then there's mud on his truck tires. She's pretty fixated on the road. Oh, the road. Not taking. Congratulations, Angela. You have made that connection. Yeah. Yeah. Now, admittedly, OK, let me just say that I've been reading your comments. Thank you very much. And one of the comments was you'd like to see me do what I do live, you know, so it would be fun just to watch me get one of the poems and just start taking it apart right there. You don't want to spend that much time. That would be a week long video. It really would be like I read it once and I go, huh, and I put it down and then like then I come back to it and I read it a couple more times and I go, OK, and then I put it down and then I and then I come back and I pick it up and I pick up my pen. I start marking obvious things, you know, and yeah, again, about the eighteenth time around I looked at that and I thought, OK, windshield and car and trucks and oh, she's on a road. Yeah. Yeah. So we have lots of auto references. Yeah. These don't things come. These things don't come quickly. No, I didn't put all that together the first read. It is true. I am very smart. I am not that smart. Well, I've known this song for five years and it didn't occur to me until when you started talking. Well, you know, I mean, it's it's one of those things where you do it over and over and over again. And if if you really do closely read, you can begin to put puzzle pieces together. So yeah. So we go on to the next. The next bit of that is now I'm missing your smile. Hear me out. We could just ride around and the road not taken looks real good to me. So they're riding, right? And they're on that road and, you know, just being with them, watching a smile, the word smile also reoccurs in the poem. It always leads to you and my hometown. So yeah, there's there's a sense of wistful happiness applied to this as well. Yeah, they used to be happy, I guess. Right. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. OK, the bridge. Sleep in half a day just for old time's sake. Again, like a kid, I won't ask you to wait if you won't ask me to stay. Again, that level of mutuality it echoes, you know, it echoes the other line. There's an ache in you and an ache in me. And if it's OK with you, it's OK with me. And now I won't ask you to wait if you won't ask me to stay. So the parallelism of lines. I mean, that's the kind of thing that that tickles me as a reader. Me too. Yeah. I think, oh, that's fun. So I'll go back to LA. Oh, LA, you know, LA is that monster. And it just devours people. It's so fake. And, you know, again, it's that it's that knee jerk trope. And I have to admit, this is the thing I didn't like about the poem. Yeah. Is it it felt reminiscent of a hundred other stories and movies and, you know, big city bad, little country good. So I'll go back to LA to the so-called friends. Yeah, everything is fake in the big city. Who will write books about me, you know, if I ever make it. So, you know, they're going to use her as, you know, and maybe this is a little auto fiction because she has been used. For sure. Yeah. You know, you could say we're using her right now. Yeah. Oh, sorry. But it's but it's so much fun. And we live in a small town and we're not being fake. But I mean, I think that she's tapping into that trope. I wonder about the about the only soul who can tell which smiles I'm faking. So there's that word smiles again. And you you refer up to the previous stanza, I'm missing your smile. Right. So maybe he's that only soul. Yeah, they used to smile together, but now she's faking them. And he's the only one that knows that she's not actually happy. Yeah. So the heart I know I'm breaking is my own. So by leaving, she's breaking her own heart. Maybe he'll be happy to leave the warmest bed I've ever known. And I and I made a note out or imagery. And I made a note like cowboy like me. I don't know why. Oh, you know, I. Now that I've read 21 of her poems, I'm going to do a little intertextuality myself. And, you know, she talks about the boots by the bed and cowboy like me. That's interesting because when I was saying I've done like a 180 on who I think cowboy like me is about. And because now I do feel like it's a little bit more kind of like you're saying like auto fiction, like this scenario didn't actually happen, but she's placing her feelings into this scenario. And I was I'm kind of feeling the same thing about this song, too. Oh, you think it might be auto fiction? Might be the same person. Oh, OK. That's making her feel these like unresolved, lingering feelings throughout. And cowboy like me is from the same album. Oh, is that right? Oh, I forgot that. OK, yeah. No, I didn't make that connection. Oh, OK. Yeah. Well, hmm. I did wonder why it was the warmest bed. You know, obviously, I wondered if she's talking about her childhood bed that has such warm memories. I'm wondering if she's talking about the bed she's leapt in with this guy in the past, or did they have a tryst that weekend and now she's leaving? Yeah, I always assumed it was that he's just like. He's the warmest person. Right. Yeah. So warm is figurative and not literal. Yeah. And that could be too. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I've always taken it. But it could be all of those things. I think so, too. Yeah. You get to play the game. So we could call it even. Well, they've been even throughout the whole song, right? Because of the reciprocity of the relationship. And then she picks up the word even and cleverly uses it to start the next line even though I'm leaving. And I'll be yours for the weekend. Tis the damn season. And then she goes down through the chorus and, you know, we don't get a lot of new information in the chorus. No, she kind of weaves the lines back together with the whole road not taken. Looks real good now. Yeah. OK. So the road not taken. Yeah. Talk about it. So, yeah. I ran it off for us. So hopefully you've read this poem before. Should I read through it? Yeah. It's two roads diverged in a yellow wood. So again, a rural setting. I'm sorry, I could not travel both and be one traveler. So you can't. Bifurcate yourself. Right. And go down both roads. Long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth, then took the other as just as fair and having perhaps the better claim because it was grassy and wanted wear. Though as for that, the passing there had worn them really about the same. So everyone always tends to say, oh, this was this was a more, you know, wild road. This was an untrod road. But he says no, you know, the truth is they'd been worn about the same. Yeah. Yeah. And both that morning equally lay in leaves. No step had trodden black. So they're both leaf covered and no one's been over them in a while. They're equal in that regard. Oh, I kept the first for another day, yet knowing how way leads on to way. I doubted if I should ever come back. So, you know, you tell yourself, I'll try that some other time. But, you know, there probably won't be another time. You get one shot to make your decision. And so the last stands, I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages. Hence two roads diverged in a in a wood and I. I took the one less traveled by. Oh, remember, it's not really. Right. Right. He's just using that as an excuse. And that has made all the difference. OK. Has it been a better life that he took that road? Well, he doesn't know. You can't know. Right. And he doesn't say in the poem, people always tend to. I mean, when I've taught this, students always get a. You know, the impression that life has been better because she took that choice. This was the better road to take. It's made all the difference. And I have to try to remind them that this is Robert Frost. And he's not always the happiest poet around. I mean, try reading Fire and Ice and you tell me if that's happy poem. You know, or read Mending Wall and and it turns rural personages into old stones, savages armed. Yeah, Robert Frost is not the the happiest poet around. What he says is you make decisions. You can't go back on those decisions and they have an irrevocable impact on your life. And it doesn't mean it was for better or worse. Yeah, it just was. It just was. That's so interesting, because that final line and that has made all the difference does sound hopeful. You may be hopeful if you want. But yeah, but yeah, it it. It doesn't like who knows what he is not by necessity, either sad or happy. It's not it's not either hopeful or despairing. It's just you take that choice and that's what happens happens. Yeah. So, you know, I think there's a little bit of that in this poem. You know, she makes the choice, although I think in this case, she is nostalgic about the old hometown. You know, so themes. Yeah. Themes I wrote down a few homecoming the collision of two different worlds, right? She of the city, he of the country, the road not taken theme, the different life, the possibilities of divergence. And also what is the price of fame, right? Because she's she's in LA or this character is in LA now. It's a bittersweet regret that she has false friends in LA and she doesn't have the warmest person. You know, so we have a number of themes that are are pretty nice. There is another intertextual moment for me. OK. You know, intertextuality is is kind of one of those things that's in the eye of the beholder. You know, we if you haven't read it, you haven't read it. Or if you haven't experienced it, sometimes you just haven't experienced it. So years ago, I read. Oh, look, Homeward Angel and you can't go home again. I read Tom Thomas Wolfe. And this is a quote from near the end of one of those novels. Our character has been to Europe. He's traveled around and he goes back to his old hometown to try to re experience life as he remembered it. OK. And here is what he realizes near the end of that novel. You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glories and fame, back home to exile, to escape, to Europe, to some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake, back home to aestheticism, to one's youthful idea of the artist. And the all sufficiency of art and beauty and love back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting, but which are changing all the time, back home to the escapes of time and memory. Thomas Wolf, that's pretty. Isn't it beautiful? Yeah. And the memory tie in. I know. I know. I'm sorry. I thought of that. I thought of that when I was, you know, you can't go home again. Yeah. You know, when I was reading this poem, I thought, it's a hard thing to turn the corner on your current life and the choices you've made in the past and try to recover the nostalgia of the past. It's a hard thing. And and I think our fictional character here finds it impossible. Yeah. There on Folklore, the very first song that we did, my tears ricochet. She says, I can go anywhere I want, just not home. Oh, that's a great line. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we should pair that up with this poem then. Yeah. Yeah, that's nice. Well, it's good. Yeah, I thought this was pretty good. You know, my I am going to say my first two or three read throughs. I was a little disappointed in the poem because it felt referential. It felt a little kind of pedantic and worn out. Yeah, yeah, definitely not new. Yeah. Yeah. It felt cliched. And I think there is an element of the cliche in it. But but the intertextuality is something that worked for me. You know, the the linkage between the two characters worked for me because she kept coming back to it. You know, she didn't let it drop. It becomes thematic that you're always linked to your memory of the old hometown. Yeah. You know, and whether that memory is of a person or of a thing or an event or something tactile like the warm bed, you know, it's it's always that link. So it got better. It got better for me the more I read it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a grower. It's definitely a grower. OK, you want to listen? I want to hear it. OK, we are just, I think, going to watch the lyric video. Oh, and you know, I have guests, usually guests on what this is going to sound like. I ain't got no clue. I don't know. You know, I don't know what these memories of the old hometown are going to sound like. So I'll be interested. OK, we'll be right back. OK. All right, then. Tell me your thoughts. Oh, you know, maybe it's maybe it's better than my initial feeling. OK. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I didn't think it was bad or anything. I just I liked the way she opens. I mean, I could have predicted the snowy background. Yeah. Yeah. I liked when she uses the word wanted to know, you know, she kind of like almost cries wanted. And I like the way she divides the song up into kind of three sections, each of which end on the word hometown. So yeah, if you go back, it's verse one and a chorus that ends on hometown. And then you've got verse two and the chorus that ends on hometown. And then you've got the bridge and the chorus that ends on hometown. Interesting. Yeah. And I didn't, you know, again, remember, this is a process. We're still learning. So this is like the one hundred and forty second time I've read through it. And I didn't notice that. But when I heard the music, she says she sings the word hometown. And then she's got a couple of measures of open music, right, where nothing else happens. Almost like she's contemplating the word or she's contemplating you and my hometown. Yeah. And so she takes a minute to think and breathe. And then she goes on to the verse, too. And then she sings hometown and takes a minute to think and breathe and then goes on to the bridge, you know, and so I didn't pick up on that until I heard her sing it. Yeah. You know, and then I thought, oh, OK. So we have three sections and hometown ends each of the three sections. Interesting. Yeah, I like that. Well, OK, it gets better. Maybe if I read another, I don't know, 70 or 80 times. 100 across the board. Just like gas lights you into believing it's perfect. Good. I don't know. Well, yeah, but that's fun. And I did like that. It's almost like she's she's trying to show us that she has these moments of nostalgia, moments of memory, you know, and, you know, yeah, like what if I had never left? What if I had taken that other road? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, probably better than the movie Sweet Home Alabama. OK, but that is a great movie. Is it? I mean, it's a movie that I love. That doesn't mean it's great. You know, OK. Like you would never have figured out how it was going to end, right? Right. You never. Those those things you can never tell, you know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. OK, so this is a notch above cut above that. OK, good. Yeah. Or family man, which I mean, that's a guilty pleasure for me. You know, it's kind of a Christmas movie. I've never seen that. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's Christmas Eve and he's living his fast track life and an angel comes into his life and and shows him what it would have been like if he had married the girl in the old hometown and he had a family because he has no family. He is a rich entrepreneur, entrepreneur, you know, but no. And now he longs for the road not taken. Right. Yeah. So as we all do, you know, I know, I know. I think about it myself. Yeah. Yeah. OK, you ready to greater? Oh, sure. Sure. OK. You know, at some point, we ought to redo all the songs and then I'll redo the grades after my next reading. Oh, that's actually a fun idea. Oh, you know what? I mean, we're going to be doing this until I'm 90. If we do that. Yeah. Oh, no. OK, Fort is the damn season from evermore. Which is not a Christmas song. Yeah, I think we were doing it for Christmas anyway. It's at Christmas time. That's like, isn't that like the the argument that Die Hard is a Christmas movie because it takes place at Christmas time. This is. Wait, wait. That's not an argument. Oh, my goodness. We're about to have an argument. Die Hard is definitely a Christmas song. Then this is a Christmas song. Oh, yeah, it is. Whatever. OK. Lyrical string. Oh, you know, I didn't talk much about the Rhymes game rhythmic pattern because you can't talk about everything. I mean, unless we were going to do three hours on this song. Don't tempt them. No, we're not doing three hours. But but yes, I think I appreciate it even more noticing how the word hometown, you know, breaks it up into three sections and makes you think about it that way. Yeah, I liked it. Ninety seven. You did it again. Yeah. Ninety seven for lyrical strength for the last four. Oh, OK. Narrative and structure. OK, so, you know, the narrative form that's cliched, it's like I want to give it like an 88. You're allowed to. Well, but the intertextuality of using the poem from Robert Frost and the reminiscences that I feel from Thomas Wolf's work, you know, I mean, I just I kept hearing you can't go home again. And I kept thinking about these very famous last lines. Yeah, of our major character, George, in the book. You know, I appreciate it more. And so I have to give it ninety one. OK. Yeah. Production and atmosphere. Oh, yeah, kind of a I like the atmosphere of the song. I love the way she sang hometown, love the way she sang wanted. I love the way she sang at the end of the bridge. You know, we could call it even even though I'm leaving, obviously, in turn, run, you know, she slows down the pace. It's contemplative. You know, yeah, so I like that ninety six. OK. It felt like the lingering of bad perfume. You can run but only so far. Lore and literary references. Well. You know, I've I've said this before that she tends to refer to things that we teach in the high school curriculum. You know, I mean, she she refers a lot to Emily Dickinson, to Robert Frost, to Shakespeare. Yeah. You know, yeah, Peter Pan. But but I did like the way she used road not taken. So a ninety two. OK. And emotional impact. Oh, you know, I love your story. I do. I love that story that you go down there and park in by the by the old stone school and Methodist Church. Yeah. Yeah. I think it makes us all remember our hometown, you know, or our childhood, our growing up. Yeah. You know, so I'm not going to say it wasn't without an emotional impact for me either. So a ninety three. OK. Yeah. That gives us a ninety four. We're going to call it ninety three point eight. Solid. Solid for the saddest Christmas song ever. I don't know if these that is. Now, it's funny, too, because I don't think that would have been my first grade. But but it's fun to read and realize, well, this has a lot more merit than I thought. Yeah, I talked through it. Yeah. Let me get in your ear and. Right. Because I'm not I'm not saying anything anymore. After all, too well, I haven't said anything about how I feel about the songs. OK, yes, because I felt like I led the witness a little too much for that one. Yeah, but it's perfect song. Yeah, I was primed for the perfect song. OK, any other thoughts? I don't think so. It's fun, you know. I mean, all in all, I prefer Holly in the Ivy or maybe away in the major. Away in the major is my favorite. Is that right? Christmas song, like him, that way, is sing a church. Yeah, lots of imagery in that one. That's true. OK. Make sure you're subscribed to everywhere, Apple podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcast, please continue to rate and review five stars, please. You can also find us on Instagram and Tiktok at Swifty and Scholars, Swifty and Scholar Pod. We just hit 15,000 followers on Instagram and 14,000 followers on Tiktok. It's crazy. So thank you to everyone joining us there. You can follow me at Angela Wyatt McDowell on Instagram and you can follow Uncle Jerry down the road, not taken. That's a lovely ending. Oh, my gosh. I'm a pro at this. I love that. OK, Merry Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas. Yeah. Bye. Bye.