The Cultural Critique of The Last Great American Dynasty

Welcome to the Swiftie and the Scholar, the podcast where we examine the lyrics, lore, and literary legacy of Taylor Swift. I am Angela McDowell, the Swiftie. And I am Jerry Coates, the Scholar. Oh, hello, Uncle Jerry. Hello, Angela. How you doing today? You know, it feels like a long day already. It certainly does. So let's make quick worth of this. Okay. Okay. I feel like maybe you've changed your tune, no pun intended on this song, but we'll get into it. I have no idea what you're talking about. Okay. Okay. But before we get into that, we are discussing today the last Great American Dynasty. And the reason we are talking about this one today is the last song for us to cover that Taylor submitted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame to be inducted. And we do now know that she was inducted. Is this Taylor? The ceremony will be in June or something. But whether or not we agree that these five songs are her best work, which I would say probably are not, it worked. You know, I would have listed So Long London and Peter, but you know, that's okay. But I do have thoughts that we'll talk about at the end of why these five specifically, why I think these five were chosen, you know, how they kind of highlight her range and her depths and her lasting impact. But yeah, this one is such this is so classic Taylor to me, this kind of song. And so I'm excited to hear what you have to say. This is, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Are you really excited? I'm excited for what you have to say, but not yet. This was written by Taylor and Aaron Dussner. This is from Evermore. Sorry. Folklore. This is from Folklore and produced by Aaron Dussner. And I think we will hear later that Aaron Dussner had this track completed and sent it to Taylor and then she wrote the song to the track. Oh, okay. So he wrote the music. Right. All right. Yeah. Okay. Now I'm ready to hear what you have to say. Okay. First of all, I would like to, I was reminded when I said, oh, so he wrote the music. I did want to respond to something one of our listeners wrote. And that is, you know, if I, if I were to listen to the chorus on this song and when I was reading that, I thought, you know, you do know that I have never heard these songs before. So I look at them purely as poetry. So that's what we do here. Yeah. That's what we do here. And so the last great American dynasty, I've never heard this song kind of interested to hear. You know, I, I'd have no clues. I mean, it sounds like a kind of a pompous title, but it works for the story. So yeah. So okay. Jumping in. Yeah. What did you think when you heard the title, when you saw the title? I really did think about, I made a list of Rockefellers, the Vanderbilt, the Kennedys. Right. I thought about great American dynasties. And, and I did think about if Taylor Swift was going to kind of prefigure herself into that group because, you know, she's created a music dynasty. She owns all of her music now, the rights to all of her music with, you know, something that artists have been doing more and more of lately. I certainly empathize with any artist who has their music taken away. And you know, the more I've learned from you about what's happened to her music through the record companies, the more I have become attuned to that kind of thing. Same. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's interesting because I heard an interview with Don Henley, you know, of the Eagles in case you haven't heard of the Eagles greatest hits, by the way, past 40 million album sales. It is the number one selling album in world history. That's crazy. Well, it's their greatest hits. But he was talking about how he struggled with record companies early. You know, they kept trying to tell him what to do and how to phrase and what types of music were going to be successful. You know, so I do empathize with that. So yeah, when I saw the last great American dynasty, I wondered if she was kind of placing herself in this group. It also reminded me of of a former time in our cultural history here in America. I have to specify here in America because. Because we're so international. So international. We had Chile. Yeah, the people from South America, listening Germany, all kinds of different places. It's so fun. So fun to see you guys. Reactions. So, you know, earlier in our century, when we had the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilt and the Kennedys, you know, obviously people amassed great wealth and lived very lavish lifestyles. And so I wondered if it was harkening back to that former time period. OK, yeah. And then I started reading the poem. Yeah. And guess what? It kind of does. It really does focus on the 1940s, 50s. You know, so it starts off with Rebecca Road up on the train, the afternoon train. It was sunny. So clearly a kind of biographical tone. And I wondered who's this Rebecca. And then I thought, oh, wait, last great American dynasties. They couldn't be talking about Rebecca Harkness. Yeah, so I had never heard of Rebecca Harkness before this came out. So when I first heard her talking about Rebecca, I'm like, who's Rebecca? What are we talking about? So I understood once we got to the to the bridge exactly what she was talking about, but I had to go like research who Rebecca Harkness was. But it makes sense to me that you know who she was. Well, you know, I think one of the reasons why I know who she is is she married into standard oil, right? And so, yeah, I taught that in an American history class. But I also had observed our dance teachers as the dean of liberal arts. It was my job to go in and make evaluations on different professors on campus. And I went into dance appreciation courses and they talked a little bit about dance and fissarios and her name came up. And I was kind of interested. There's a there is a biography, Blue Bloods written about her. I have not read the biography and no, I don't have a copy. They're waiting to see you reach back and just pull it out. No, I don't have a copy, but and that's OK. But, you know, she was a dance of fissario who supported a number of different dance companies, including her own. And so it became really clear four lines in who this was. And she kind of lived an infamous life. But but we'll talk about that. Yes. OK. So Rebecca wrote up on the afternoon train. It was sunny. Her salt box house on the coast took her mind off St. Louis. OK, so you know, one of the things I like about her writing is and the more often, OK, I'm going to confess, when Angela first gave me this, I said, really, this is one of the ones she gave for her best song. You know, just it's kind of a biographical thing. And the writing is really good. Yeah. Yeah. So she you salt has a taste in your mouth. Salt box. You're on the coast. You can hear the ocean. You can see the White House, you know, so she's attacking our sensor. Sensory imagery. It's sunny outside. It's sunny. You can picture that. And you can feel the warmth on your skin. You know, so she's got a lot of sensory imagery already in the first two lines doing what she does really well as a writer. So, you know, I think my first my initial first read through was this is OK. Yeah, because it's simply written. It's written in plain language. Like this isn't like a poetic masterpiece, you know. But but there is right. There is something there. Yeah, about the third or fourth time I'm reading through it. I'm thinking, oh, this use of imagery here is really nice. And I started wondering about the salt box house. So I used to live in Arlington, Virginia, and we would go up in that direction with my my dad on vacations. And a salt box house, if you don't know, is one of those houses with where like one side is bigger than the other side. So literally, they used to have a salt box, which had a slanted lid. And you would put salt down and you'd like lift the lid and get the salt. So it's one of those can't a lever houses. And it looks like it's off kilter. Yeah, like it's tilted or twisted. Yeah. And I thought, oh, I wonder if she means this as a metaphor for her life. That right. That Rebecca lived a sort of off balance. Interesting. Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. And I thought, you know, it if she doesn't, if she didn't do that intentionally, it really works. Yeah, it still works. Yeah, as an image because of the asymmetricality. I say that good grief. No, thank you. Of it is really cool when you compare it to Rebecca's life. And then later on, we're going to compare it to Taylor Swift's life. And the way external parties view her life is that she's off kilter somehow. She's she's twisted. She's contorted. So interesting. OK, I love that. I like it. Yeah. So this is a biographical narrative. It's also a culture critique. And one of the things I like about it is she puts in her album Folklore. OK, so if you take that apart and make two words out of it, it's Folklore. So who's talking about Rebecca? It's the townspeople. It's all the gossip. Right. So. Do we ever get to hear from Rebecca in this whole never? We don't. Do we ever get to hear from Taylor Swift herself? Yes. OK. Yeah, but only at the end. But I don't know her at all. Like, you know, the example I always use is I don't know what she eats for breakfast. You know, I don't know. I have no idea. Would love to know what Taylor eats for breakfast. You think? Genuinely. Is she cuckoo for Coco Pops? Maybe. Yeah, you know, the that's one of the cool things about the poem. So she meets Bill, who's the heir to the standard oil name and money. OK, so she had actually been married before. She lived in St. Louis, where she grew up. Her her father was upper middle class, you know, fairly wealthy. And she'd married, got divorced. And she marries this extremely wealthy man. And the town said, how did a middle class divorcee do it? And the implication is she's a flawed character. Yeah. Right. She's middle class. So she's not like us. She's not like Bill, who's upper class. And she's a divorcee. So she's tainted. Two strikes. Exactly. It's literally two strikes on her. And the town throws this label out at her. OK, so to use the phrase, the town is personification. It's also a kind of apostrophe where an inanimate object makes makes an address. OK, OK. Yeah. The town literally cannot speak. OK. Yeah. Right. You know, it was at this point, I really thought of a short story titled A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner. I don't know if you've ever read this. In A Rose for Emily, Emily lives a secluded life in her own house. And no one's ever been inside the house. And everybody wonders what it's like in there, what it's like in there. And they're shocked when they finally when Emily dies because all the gossips of the town go rushing in because they want to see it. Right. And so, you know, one of the themes of that particular short story is you just don't know what goes on next door. Right. You don't know what the other person thinks does. They don't know Rebecca Hartness. No, you know, they don't know her husband. They don't know how and why he came to fall in love with her. You know, but they speculate and they pin labels on her. You know what that line makes me think of when it says and the town said and then they're like disparaging to women is the opening of Beauty and the Beast. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's what I always picture is like that little town, you know, like, Marie, the baguettes are yet like I always picture them like, yeah, that's right, talking about her. But she's walking through the town. They all speculate about how she's airheaded and she's always got her nose in a book. And yeah, they don't know her. Yeah. Yeah. So so, yeah, this is sheer speculation. The wedding was charming, charming, if a little gauche. OK, so we've got a really nice, I sure are there. And, you know, so we go from one direction to another direction. Right. And so, you know what that makes me wonder? What? What is Taylor Swift's wedding going to look like? Probably charming, but a little go. But will it be filled with celebrities? I'm sure it will. I would assume, yes. Yes. Is there going to be a flashing diamond ring that's for sure? Absolutely. Yeah. You know, is it going to be an exotic location? Yeah, that I don't know. I have no idea. I feel like no. I'm going to guess she's not going to go to, I don't know, the just the piece. Well, no. Or maybe she's booked a suite in Terre Haute, Indiana. Yeah, beautiful there, right? Not that there's anything wrong with Terre Haute. If you got married there, let us know. So the wedding is charming, if a little gauche. There's there's only so far new money goes. So it's like, you know, she's just new money. She doesn't have that much experience. They don't have that taste. Right. No taste. They picked out a home and called it Holiday House, which sounds a little frivolous to the townspeople. Their parties were tasteful, if a little loud. Again, we had this nice, sure. And you notice how they objectify this newly married couple. They picked out a home. Their parties were tasteful. So the doctor had told them to settle down. It must have been her fault. His heart gave out. So poor old Bill, Mr. Standard Oil died about nine or ten years after they got married and they used to have wild parties. And so the implication is she just wore the man out. It's all her fault. Yeah. So if we go back up through the stanza, I do like the juxtaposed terms. He's an heir. She's a middle class. The wedding was charming, if a little gauche. The parties were tasteful, if a little loud. And later on, we're going to find out at the end of the chorus that she had a marvelous time ruining everything. And so, you know, people acknowledge that things are pretty amazing, but they find flaws in everything. And I wonder if this isn't going to become a theme, dear readers. You know, I think this is one of the themes of our poem. For sure. Right. That that looking inside from the outside, their perspective is always going to be skewed. Always. Yeah, they just they really don't know. We don't know. And so all we see is the glitz and the charm and the beauty. And so we have to find fault because that helps makes make our pitiful little lives. Yeah, I'm a little bit better. Yeah, like I don't have all that money, but it's fine because I'm not, you know, gauche, at least I'm not like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I didn't kill my husband because I wouldn't stop partying. Right. Yeah, really, he that she killed him. He died of a heart attack because he had such a good time. Yeah, poor guy. And so we get to the chorus. And they said right again, that outside perspective, there goes the last great American dynasty. Who knows if she ever if she never showed up, what could have been? It's like, oh, she just stayed out of his life. You know, where might his life had gone? There goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen. OK, we talked about madness last time. We did mad women specifically. I pulled out my copy of, you know, the Mad Woman of the Attic by Suzanne Gilbert and Gubar. You know, I think that that's a really interesting thing that tends to run through her poetry through Taylor Swift's poetry. Yes. And I'm very sorry, everyone. They all got so mad at me for not mentioning in the episode that on this album, there is a song called Mad Woman. Oh, so I had no idea. Yeah. Yeah. So you see, that's fun. I mean, you know, Mad Woman of the Attic is just perfect. It's that evaluation of 19th century writers and some of whom I know she knows. She she knows the Brontes and she knows Emily Dickinson. For sure. And so, yeah, I think that she likes that characterization. Yeah. And it's that idea that that, you know, powerful and maybe sometimes eccentric women are somehow mad or expressive women are mad. Yeah. Loud women. Just loud women. Yeah. So she had a marvelous time ruining everything. And I haven't been talking a lot about the poetry. You know, there's not there's not a lot. I went I went through and looked at a rhyme scheme, you know, Sonny Lewis, Money. So Sonny and Money Rhyme, It, Go, Sh, Goes, House, Loud, House and Loud. Kind of have a little slant rhyme going on down against that rhyme, but not not a lot of rhyme until we get to the chorus. We have Dynasty been seen rhyme in the middle of the chorus, but the rhyme is is kind of subtle and a little bit withdrawn. So it's kind of the opposite of the blank space where that was so and that's what we talked about. Like this is from Folklore, where everything was a little, you know, looser. It was not the straight pop album. And so she has more fun with the rhymes on all of these songs as compared to like 1989, where everything was like pop, you know, radio friendly. Yeah, she's still hitting on alliteration. You know, so if you look at the lines, she had a marvelous time ruining everything. You look at the R's and the ING's, you know, so that that the consonants really tie that that line together. And it does. It's really nice when you just read it aloud. Marvelous time, ruining everything. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun to say. It's it, you know, dances trippingly on the tone. So, yeah, it's pretty nice. Yeah, agreed. And then things go dark for our girlfriend, Rebecca. First two. Rebecca gave up on the Rhode Island set forever. So goodbye to all that. Thanks, townspeople, for characterizing me as a mad woman and for killing my husband. You know, you don't know how much she loved him and he loved her. We don't know. Yeah. We don't know that he didn't want to stop the party. Right. Yeah, absolutely. We don't know any of that. She flew in all her bitch pack. Bitch pack friends from the city. Oh, no, not the city. The city girls. Yeah. So again, you see the juxtaposition of town versus city. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we've talked about this before. Yeah, one's one's bad and one's good. Right. Yeah. Town bad. I mean, town good, city bad. Town, pure, innocent, loving folks. City, jaded. Yeah, we talked about this with Tiz the damn season because she was going back to the big city and she was in her hometown and, you know, it's like the the trope of the Christmas movies. Right. Poor Los Angeles. It really takes it on the chin. Just must be an awful place to be. I do have to say. I have a group. There's a group of four of us that we met on the Internet and we've become friends and we are friends because of Taylor. And our group chat is named bitch pack friends because of this line. And I do have a bracelet right here from one of them that says bitch pack friends. Does your mama know about this? Yeah, I think she's seen the group chat. Oh, OK. I think she said that girl's an adult. She can do whatever she wants. Right. But also, I still barely can say a bad word on this podcast because of her. Yeah. You know, it is it is interesting how we how we manipulate words. You know, when I was in high school and college, I used to be on debate teams. And you know what you call a really good guy, or at least we called a really good male debater was called a killer. That guy's a real killer. OK. You know, what you call a really good female debater? A bitch. A bitch. Yeah, she's a bitch. You know, and if you think about the pejorative use of the term, you know, why isn't he something something a lot worse that starts with the B? Yeah. You know, and it's because we have, I think, two different valuations of males and females in our culture. We absolutely do. Yeah. So too bad. I think it's something that she acknowledges. I think that she uses bitch pack pretty proudly here. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of women have kind of taken that back and, you know, they call their friends, you know, they're like, hey, bitch, you know, like, and it's like turning it into like an endearing thing rather than a at no time have I ever called my friends. No, no, I could try it. Hey, John, you bitch. I don't like that. I'm going to have to tell him. I saw him. Good. I don't know if you watch this. But I'm not making that up. I do have a friend named John and so hey, John, you really did subscribe. Yeah. I should also say that this is biographical. So Rebecca's group of friends were called the bitch back. Right. So so a lot of what we see in here is pretty strictly biographical, literally her friends. And, you know, one of the reasons why they were called that is they were kind of infamous for playing jokes on people. Oh, OK. So although I haven't read the book, I, you know, I did read an article about her in the context of being a dance emphisario. And one of the things that they said that she and her friends thought was a funny thing to do was put put mineral oil into drinks at parties. Which makes I actually read the same thing. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they got the label maybe for reasons other than they were just pranksters. Yeah. Yeah. That's a little bit silly. It is rude. I mean. And they fill the pool with champagne and swam with the big names. OK, so I love this, you know, because to swim with the big fish is a cliche. And they fill the pool with champagne. And this is this is our typally Taylor Swift, where she takes a cliche and she has to play with it. She has to change it somehow and it makes it better. You know, it makes it not a cliche, but she owns it. Also, you like the reference to champagne. Yeah. I think she has a song about that. Doesn't she? Just a little bit. Yeah. Problems. Yeah, that's right. And I, you know, I like that. Do the champagne is emblematic of a wealthy class. And, you know, so she's just throwing money away. Yeah. And she I think she really did this. This was real. Apparently she really did this. Yeah. Filled up a pool with champagne. And now now you have to realize I just said she was throwing money away. Right. But. Was she I mean to you or to me that might be throwing money away, but I don't know. When you're the inheritor of the standard oil fortune. Yeah, kind of doesn't matter. It really doesn't drop in the bucket to fill your pool with champagne or a bottle in the bucket. Oh. Again, we're making a value, you know, valuations of her behavior from the outside. Right. We don't know who suggested the champagne of the pool. We don't know to what extent she bought into it. It may have been her and certainly it was her money. And they swam with a big name. She had a, you know, an aid list of friends. And it's kind of like what you think about Taylor Swift. I mean, obviously, I'm not the Taylor Swift fan. You are. But I'm sure you could name ten different people that she knows or has been seen or photographed with by paparazzi. Which makes me want to sing the song paparazzi now, but I won't. Because we know you're a low monster. I am. Yeah, I get your paws up. And she blew through the money on the boys and the ballet. So, yeah. She did like ballet groups. She supported the Joffrey Ballet. She supported Jerome Robbins. She supported her own Harkness Ballet Company. She some people said that she did extravagant things like she not only bought them dance venues, but she also bought them places to stay in New York. She at one point she tried to open a home for retired dancers or dancers who had been injured. Well, you know, I don't understand why that's excessive. Yeah, I mean, this is taking care of people who's already like, right? Yeah. Yeah. And if you love ballet, if you love dance, you know, I have, I'm going to say I have two very good friends, both of whom are dance teachers. And, you know, as they have hit, hit 40, you know, they get tougher. It gets hard. Yeah. I mean, I've observed their movement classes and and I watched them and I think, man, I could not do that at 45. You know, I couldn't walk in that class and conduct a, you know, a one and a half hour, a three hour workout session. And with their with them leading and setting work on a dance group. And I do know that they have from time to time suffered different leg ankle injuries, knee injuries. And if you love dance, if you love ballet, if you're empathetic to the relative longevity of that career, which can be very short, why would you not try to open a kind of home or a place for them? Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense to me. If I had all the money in the world, sure, like, you know, again, you know, this is us looking from the outside. Oh, she spent money on the boys and the ballet. You know, let's not pass up the alliteration. Yes. Right. And blue through the money on the boys and the ballet, the BBB. Yeah, so nice. And you remember alliteration just sticking a bunch of consonants together is not artful alliteration. Right. Right. You want to use alliteration so that the sound that it resonates creates meaning in the sentence. And so the B's, the B, B, B, B, right, are kind of like hard, bouncy, you know. And I think it's supposed to be the harsh evaluation on the way she blew through money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. So it's it's perfect alliteration. Can you feel a high mark coming from? I can. And I'm so happy. Poetic elements. Yeah. And losing on card game bets with Dolly. OK, she knew Salvador. Yeah. OK, wait, can I show off? Yeah. OK. Excuse me. Oh, it's right there. Right here. This is my copy of Macbeth. OK. So it's a box copy of Macbeth. I know. Look at the funky illustration. Can you see the funky illustration? So the illustrations, this is a first edition of 1930. And it's all the illustrations are done by Salvador. What? Yeah, it's it's a very freaky, funky, cool. Fun. Oh, yeah, there we go. So it's it's a copy of just Macbeth, but with pencil illustrations drawn by Salvador. 1930. Uh-huh. Yeah, it's fun. It's a nice box book. Cool. So she knew Salvador. Dolly. Um. He did work for her. He kind of famously designed a brooch. I actually read about this when it was resold. So it was resold, I think, in twenty twenty three. He designed a starfish brooch that she wore. And so, of course, it's covered with diamonds and other precious gemstones. And it's in the shape of a starfish with two detachable butterflies. I know. That's what I thought, too. Charming if a little ghost. Charming exactly. Charming if a little ghost. That's great. You know, who bought it? Why? I don't know. No, I don't know. I'm wondering. Yeah, it was sold. And I don't. I mean, so for a million dollars. That's crazy. So I thought, who has that kind of money? Oh, wait. Yeah, I know a girl. Yeah. Taylor Swift, do you have that brooch? Tell us. And detachable butterflies. I mean, I saw a picture of it. It's got these little butterflies that clip on two of the arms of the starfish. So interesting. Butterflies and a starfish. They don't. Those don't live together. It's Salvador Dali. Right. So Salvador Dali would frequent her house. They did play cards. They laughed about how they cheated each other. He designed her funerary urn. Oh, yeah. She loved dance. And so she wanted one that spun around. And so Dali created this funerary urn with all kinds of gemstones on it that cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Now, once again, that was way back in the day, though, right? Well, I don't know, 1960 or so. So that's a lot of money. I don't know exactly when. Yes, it's a lot of money. Yeah, I'd be like spending a couple, you know, a couple of million dollars on on your finner area. And the story goes that when she died and the cream made her not all of it fit in the urn, so she couldn't all dance and they took some back to her house. Apparently, I hope it wasn't her feet. Yeah, so I don't know. Oh, yeah, the. The starfish sell for a million dollars. Dali made a sketch of the starfish. He was getting ready to design it. The same person bought the sketch for forty two thousand dollars. It's an original Salvador. I mean, that's cool. Forty two thousand doesn't seem like that crazy to an original dolly. I know. So I have forty two thousand dollars. But yeah, so if you're going to call Rebecca Harkness crazy, I mean, you got to realize that somebody just a few years ago was still wanted. That yeah, was just as crazy. Yeah. So yeah, I guess it really depends on how much money do you have? You know, like, like I said, three or four times through, I got these echoes of the great Gatsby. Don't you know, the great Gatsby. There's a passage in the great Gatsby about putting champagne in the swimming pool and women wearing outlandish outfits and crazy jewelry. There's Taylor's a couple of songs that are that have illusions to Gatsby. And she does have another a song that where she says we were swimming in a champagne sea. Oh, really? Yeah, from reputation. So before before this, but that song feels very Gatsby to me. Right. And Gatsby has that same kind of narrative style where it's told through the eyes of Nick Caraway. But, you know, although he walks with Jay Gats, he listens to Jay Gats and he interviews people who knew him. We don't really know Jay Gatsby. You know, we know that he won a Daisy, but we, you know, we don't. We don't even know their mysteries. And that's one of the things Nick always says is where did he get his money? Yeah. People said he got it making bets with Myra Wolfe's shine in the novel. But we don't know. Yeah. You know, like Nick Caraway, we're on the outside of that immediate group. Right. He sees it, but doesn't know it. And I kind of got echoes both in the extravagance of the use of money, but also in the narrative style. OK, yeah. In the looking in. Yeah, the looking in. OK. So let's see that we get to the. Oh, they're they said there go the most shameless woman this town has ever said. Oh, she's shameless. She was the maddest. She's the most shameless. So she's bad. She's shameless. I know it sounds like I mentioned that very famous characterization of Lord Byron, you know, where he's mad, bad and dangerous to know. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Very Rebecca Harkness, very Rebecca Harkness. She's mad, bad and dangerous to know. Well, then we get to the bridge. Yes. And once again, we start with they. They say she was seen on occasion prancing or pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea. Oh, like an old ghost. No, it's pretty nice. And, you know, again, you get this the language that use a lot of imagery, right? You hear the ocean, you see the midnight. Yeah, you can see the the moon shining down on the on the water. And she's just like in a night down like, you know, you know, and the noise of it, the the fact that she's pacing the rocks. And so the ocean is breaking against rocks. You know, again, with the use of imagery. Um, a mediocre writer will say the ocean broke loudly against the rocks. Yeah, she doesn't have to say that. She says that there were rocks and she says that she's at an ocean. And she shows us. She doesn't tell us. So there they are. And we get to hear it. And in a feud with her neighbor, she stole his dog and died at Key Lime Green. And again, that's a biographical note. Yes, except that he was a cat. Oh, was it really? Yes, it was a cat that they died. Key Lime Green. Yeah. The tailor's a cat lady. And I think she didn't want a cat to be died. Key Lime Green. So she changed it to dog or it's some sort of weird, unreliable narrator thing. Really? Wow. Oh, I like that. That's kind of fun. Yeah, maybe it is an unreliable. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. No, but it sounds like the kind of thing that Taylor Swift might do. No. Fifty years is a long time. I like that line. It's so simple. And I have to say it's one of my favorite in the poem. OK. And the reason is because she reminds us very simply. And I mean, just look at that line. Fifty years is a long time. And there's it's so straightforward and without pretense. You know, Rebecca Harkness lived this long life and she did these many, many things. And she knew these many, many people and how many of us really knew her. You know, and you might think about summarizing a person's life with a few catty remarks. She was gauche. She was shameless. She was mad, but 50 years is a long time. Yeah. No one is gauche for 50 years. She did a lot of things. Yeah. No one is mad for 50 years. No one is shameless for 50 years. Holiday House sat quietly on that beach. So I love the contrasting imagery between the loud crazy parties and the quiet house. The saltbox house just waiting. Free of women with madness. I know when I need to pull out my copy of the woman in the attic. There are men and bad habits. OK, so who had the bad habits? The men or the mad women? So I was just about to ask you. I think it's ambiguous. I think it's intentionally ambiguous. And then it was bought by me. What? We have the introduction of the first person narration. How did she get there? She just shifted narrative voices on me. I like genuinely whenever this happened, whenever I remember I could tell you exact. I'm not going to go into it, but I could tell you exactly where I was listening to this for the first time because it was during the pandemic. And I was like, oh, this is I was understanding when she said Rhode Island. I was like, oh, this is about that house that Taylor has there. And then when she switched it to then it was bought by me, I like my brain exploded. I'm like, what are we doing here? But I love when she does this. And this is a thing that she does often where she tells a story of someone that came before her. And then at the end of the song, it's like, oh, she's telling that person's story while she's telling her own story. Yeah. I am going to have to admit that my first time through, and you got that reaction. I did, I did. Yes, I know. When I said, I don't understand. Why is this a great poem that she throws out there for a competition? And I think I said that she feels a little self important because she always has to interpose herself. So here she is. And I bought it. And that is just such a typical male thing. And I do apologize. The more times I read it, the more I understood how she was making their two lives relevant one to another. And the more I really, really put myself in Taylor Swift's sizable shoes, I have big feet. I was 14. So yeah, the more I did, the more I thought, you know, this is really good. I liked the turn and the shift of the first person narrator. But it took me a few times. So, please forgive me for being slow on the update. I mean, I honestly, this was not one of my folklore favorites whenever this album came out. But this one had to grow on me too. But now, and each time I hear it, I'm like, everyone be quiet. We're listening to this story right now. But I didn't love it at first either. I think it took me a minute to understand, like, oh, like what I was just saying, like this is, these are the things that all the people have said about Rebecca, but now these are also all the things that they have said about Taylor. That's right. Yeah, it took me a minute. Yeah, and my knee jerk reaction is, oh, this feels self important is just one more thing that people say about Taylor Swift. I know I fell right into that groove, didn't I? And so, but I jumped out. The other thing that I will admit is that I don't do research for these things. Like I don't do biographical research. I want to read this just as a poem. But then I, but I knew about Rebecca Harkness and I knew something about her life and career. And I did respect her as a ballet infusario. I like ballet and used to take students to ballet. But I thought, what, does she really buy that house? And I looked it up. Yeah, so she used to have, which we'll get to in the next chorus where she says, there goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen. So she used to have these huge, they're like fourth of July parties with like all of her friends, her celebrity friends. It was like, you know, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively and like, you know, Tom Hiddleston was at one of them, all these models that she was friends with and they would have these huge parties and like at the end of the night, they would all be singing karaoke, you know, with, you know, cause like Ed Sheeran's there. And they, you could hear, there's videos where people are standing on the street, like down the street from this house and you can hear them like singing and having fun and stuff. And so I think probably her neighbors are like, get this woman out of here. Like we don't want her here. And so it's, yeah, it's just kind of the same. It's like a woman comes along and doesn't fit into this exact mold that people want. And so we're gonna say the same things about you and this house that, you know, 50 years before we were saying about that lady. Right. Yeah, that's, you know, that's exactly what I read. Yeah. But I assumed you would tell me about it. Yeah. Yeah, that these fourth of July parties that the neighbors complained that they apparently shot fireworks and they had loud music and they really complained about the paparazzi. Yeah, of course. You know, just hundreds of people would show up to take photographs and try to force their way in and around the neighborhood. And of course, it would be so intrusive. I would hate it. Yeah, for sure. Plus I wouldn't be invited. I would hate that. Invite us to the party and then we won't be mad. Right. So, yeah, I had no idea. Yeah. So I thought that was such a fun turn. And so, yes, I broke down and I looked up Wikipedia. Yeah. Did she really buy the Harkness house? And I'll be darned. She actually did. And then I read that she also bought another one in Los Angeles that was a historic home. And she's renovating it. And in the original 1920s, 30s style and the historic foundation there has given her lots and lots of compliments and advice. They're very happy she's there. So. Yeah. Okay, so we dive into the first person narrative. Who knows if I never showed up, what could have been? There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen. It's like, yes, I am and I own it. I had a marvelous time ruining everything. Yeah, I ruined your peace and quiet. And boy, we had fun. Yeah, I love the way that she's echoing, the juxtaposition of terms is done here in whole stanzas. It's kind of fun. And then in the outro, she says, I had a marvelous time ruining everything. A marvelous time ruining everything. Marvelous time, it was a marvelous time. I liked it, I liked it, I liked it. I'm having fun, I don't know about the rest of you. Yeah, so I wrote my notes that Taylor Swift and Rebecca Harkness, they shared a house, but they shared the same scrutiny. They shared the same judgment. They shared the same criticism and they shared the same labeling. Interesting. Yeah, the labeling of mad and loud and shameless. Those labels fit both of them. But so does the label marvelous. Ooh, that's cool, we'll end there. Yeah, don't say anything else. Well, themes, obviously we have a strongly feminist theme. How does society react to powerful independent women? Well, they shouldn't be spending their money that way. Well, they shouldn't be living their lives that way. Really, have you heard about Epstein? I mean, women tend to catch this, the idea that it's just a wasteful, wasteful life. I made another note, Holiday House serves as a narrative anchor. It's the lynchpin in the poem that connects both ends of the narrative. The Rebecca narrative and the Taylor narrative are both pinned together using Holiday House. And she didn't come up with a name, but she could have. Yeah, absolutely. Because from an external point of view, their lives are like a holiday. They have no troubles. Really, have you heard her other songs? Yeah, I think that that the house itself transcends the decades and time itself. And that's why I like the line 50 years is a long time. Yeah, and you can also tie that into talking through a feminist lens. 50 years is a long time. 50 years ago, they were saying these things about a woman living a certain way. And now all these years later, a long time later, they're still treating me the same way. But we're acting like things have changed. Yeah, oh, we're so modern now. No, we're not. We still buy swimming over the head just because they're independent and they have a sense of self worth and they have real genuine worth. Right, right. Monetary worth. OK, so I'm going to say one more thing. And that is, I did feel one sense. You know, it's so funny because people who buy expensive homes or historic homes and that kind of thing do come under a level of scrutiny and criticism just because of the extravagance. You know, the idea that you would buy this brooch designed by Salvador Dali. Yeah. But it's funny because this week I was watching television. I was watching a soccer game. So I'm a huge soccer fan, football to the rest of the world. Yeah. And yeah, I love it. I love the sport. You know, I love it that you don't have to be this giant, massive, hulking thing to play soccer. All you have to be is, you know, slick and quick and good. Yeah. I mean, you can be Leo Messi. Yeah. Shout out to Argentina. And I really like Newcastle because I was there a few years ago, did some work at the Durham University and Cathedral Library, and I went up to Newcastle and looked at the stadium. And one of my favorite players is Gordon, who's one of their strikers. And I read that he got a new contract. And I thought, oh, I'm just going to look him up. And yeah, he's making like 20 million pounds, 15, 20 million pounds a year. And I thought, man, what kind of house could I buy with that sort of money? And I got on this website called On the Market, which sells English homes. And the first one that pops up is a 20 million pound home that's a grade two listed historic house built by the former mayor of Newcastle back around the year 1800 with 11 bedroom, seven baths, and an indoor swimming pool. That could hold everyone I know. And I thought, you know, if I had his kind of money, I might buy that. Absolutely. Like a historic house that you could work on and like restore to its former glory. How fun would that be? Now, I have no need for a giant house. I couldn't keep a giant house. I mean, you and your husband are looking at homes. I mean, if you had Taylor Swift money, yeah, what would be your budget look like? Yeah, it would be a lot different. And it would I wouldn't be buying a house. I would buy one house here, but I would buy a lot of houses. Yeah. Yeah, it would be fun. Yeah. So I began to be a little less condemnatory of Taylor Swift. Yeah, like, of course, I got to spend the money on something. Right. I got to I got to make investments in real estate. It's a great way to do that. Gordon, by the way, has a 25 year old making 15. I hate that guy. Well, look at all those all those guys in the Premier League or in La Liga or places like that. They pulled down some coin for sure. Yeah. Well, shall we listen? Yes. OK. OK. We are going to watch the Lyric video. And then we are going to watch from the Long Pond sessions, which I think I've showed you one thing before, where Jack and Aaron and Taylor all sat around and played the whole album. Oh, yeah, cool. We're going to watch that as well. OK. OK, we'll be right back. Oh, a great story like Monsters Inc. Stays with you forever. And Disney Plus is where you'll find your next great story from the return of the award winning hit series, Rivals. Welcome to the naughtiest show on television to the unmissable crime drama, High Potential. Got a dead body. Got to go. A lifetime of great stories awaits this spring on Disney Plus. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Tell me about. OK, so, you know, I say this, I think, every other time, but I always learn things when I hear her sing it, because it's like listening to the poet read their poetry. You know, their intonation is never quite exactly what I would have read. Right. Which is why I love to go to hear poets read their poetry. You know, any time there's a poet in town, man, I'm there. So, yeah, Rebecca rode up on the afternoon train. And then there's a Saishira. It was sunny. Yeah. Right. And so why sunny? Well, sunny's bright. Happy. Happy. Right. It was no one had bad ideas. No one had bad feelings. No one was calling her mad. Yeah, I liked that. I like that very much. It's separated from all the feelings that the town would have later. Right. Yeah, well, and because it goes from sunny to then, we're like at the midnight sea. Yeah, she's like in the dark. Yeah. Yeah, and I hadn't noticed that until I heard her say it was sunny. She calls us. It was sunny. I love the way she says money. Yeah, she says Bill Bill was the heir to the standard oil name. And money. And money. Yes, it's like, oh, there's that. So here's the real source of jealousy. It's the money. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, people who hate Taylor Swift, give me a break. You know, have you really listened to her music? Have you really analyzed the lyrics? Or do you just hate the fact she's got two billion dollars and holiday house and the other several other houses? Several other houses. Do you just hate that? You know, does it somehow rankle you? Yeah, I love the and she does it again. She she sings the word money differently and blew through the money. She like got a kick. Yeah. And I was through the money on the board. Yes, she almost laughs about it. It's just like money here. Yeah, it's like that thing, right? So, yeah, I just I don't know. It was fun hearing her sing that. Yeah. The other thing I really liked was the when she says and then it was bought by me and then the percussion drops out. Yeah. Yeah. So it's much more personal, right? It's it's all this sort of acoustic feel with no percussion, no dress. It's like she's undressed. You know, this is just this this part is all just her. Yeah. And so, you know, who knows if I never showed up? What could have been, you know? I also like the way she says she sings, who knows? You know, because I guess I the Saishura there, I was reading past it. Who knows if I never showed up? But she says, who knows if I never showed it? Yeah, because, in fact, we don't know, you know, we don't know what happened because she showed up. Right. Because the bottom line, one of the themes is we don't know. You know, let let people live their lives without trying to make make evaluations. I also like that the outro kicks up an octave. You know, that's kind of fun. Yeah. But I really like the money and the it was sunny, you know. Yeah. Fun. Well, yeah, that was fun. Fun. OK, I want to read this real quick. Because this song for me, like, like I said, it wasn't one of my very favorites from Folklore. But now it's pretty high up there on the list. But this is from a music critic talking to pitch pitch for her name is Anna Gossa. Gossa, I don't know how to pronounce that, G-A-C-A about the best, the 100 best songs of 2020. OK. And she says, a highlight from her summer quarantine album, Folklore, that traces the glamorous troubled life of 20th century heiress Rebecca Hartness with the intrigue of a story song and the intimacy of a biography. Swift delves into socialite anthropology and returns with an epitaph for a woman she'll never meet. The real magic is the winking humility of the image in the mirror. A woman criticized endlessly for being too rich and too gauche, who knows that living well is still the best revenge. It's I wish you hadn't read that because I was going to say exactly that. That's that's a that's a lovely way to. Yeah, I just really liked that when I was like researching for this episode. And a lot of people, there were a few different quotes about this song saying that it's like one of the best she's ever written. And I don't know if I agree with that, but I do think it's just such a perfect little like nugget of a story and the way that she tells stories. It's just my favorite. And that's why we're here, really, you know, so. Yeah, I think that's why I say I really got it, you know, after I read through it again a few times. So I'm going to throw a literary term at you one more time. And that is this is this is also in the genre of auto fiction. Yes, yes, yes, right. So autobiographical fiction. So it's auto fiction. She takes a, you know, a story about someone who's actually, you know, we could write a biography about and then she applies it to herself. But it's couched in this weird fictional world where we're not really sure. We just don't know. It's I think she's sure. And and what's wrong with living well? Right. You know, it's kind of like I said, you know, I would be duplicitous if I didn't admit that when I saw that mansion in Newcastle. Like, oh, man, I do wish that I had that. I know just for a moment, I thought an indoor swimming pool in a historically listed building in England in the north of England. You know, I love Northumbria. I love Southern Scotland. I just I wouldn't have trouble. I can jump on the train and ride down to Durham and use the library. Yeah. You know, you could go out to Time Moth and take a walk by the sea and get fresh seafood. Oh, that would be rough. Yeah, tough life. Yeah. You know, I just need the money. Yeah. Yeah. One day we'll get there, right? I'll still visit. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. OK, and I also just want to chat about these five songs, taking it back to the Hall of Fame. OK, good. The Songwriters Hall of Fame. So I wrote some notes because I just have to. So first of all, let's talk about the five songs. They were All Too Well, the ten minute version. Brilliant. Yes. Blank Space, Anti Hero, Love Story and then The Last Great American Dynasty. So I wrote notes on like what I think, like why I think she chose these five and the different things that they do. So if we talk about All Too Well, this is like. Like an epic. Like this is a ten minute long song. This was never a single. But people just loved it so much. And then she told us there was a ten minute version. We begged for it. We got it, you know, like ten years after it was originally written. It's just like the I to me is like the perfect narrative, emotional narrative songwriting. Like that is like a master class in breakup songs, I think, you know. And then we have blank space blank space, which came out in 2014. And that is like pop perfection, a huge pop hit, but also takes her writing and she's like, OK, I'm going to write a satirical version of myself. I'm going to take what people are saying and I'm going to write a song in that character, which I think is the first time she ever really did that. And then anti hero is kind of the opposite of that, which is it's more of an introspective, not what people say I am. But what I think I am, like I feel there's a little bit of argument about that, whether that anti hero is actually what she feels about herself or if it's her internalizing what people have said. But either way, I think it's like her fears about herself in a song. And then love story is just, you know, country songwriting couched in like a Shakespeare. Retelling, I guess, metaphor. I don't know what we would call that. I liked that song. I really did. Yeah. And that, you know, that's a song from the most awarded country song of all time that she wrote when she was a teenager. And then we have the last great American dynasty, which I think kind of is like shows off her like historical storytelling, I guess we could say. Absolutely. And how she and how she's able to insert herself into stories about all these people that have come before her. And so I think there's just a really big range. Also, somebody did point out that I didn't catch was four of these songs are from her four Grammy winning album of the year albums. So Folklore, one album of the year, 1989, one album of the year, Fearless, one album of the year and Midnights run album of the year. So the only one that didn't win album of the year was Red, which is what all too well is from, which I would argue is the best song on this list. So that's kind of interesting. But so I and also they span from 2008 all the way till 2022. All right. Yeah. So I think it really it just kind of it spans genres. She's switching from country to pop to whatever we would call this. I don't know. I mean, it's still pop, but it's a little bit folkier. It's really great narrative. It as you characterize really good storytelling. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also the span of her career, like 2008 to 2022. Like that's like kind of a lasting impact. And I think all of those things when I when I think about them as a whole, just kind of makes it make more sense a little bit, like explores her role as, you know, she's she's not afraid to like evolve her craft. She's not afraid to try something new. She's not afraid to switch it up and reinvent what she's doing and change the sound and change the style. And I don't know all that just like when I think of them as a whole, it just kind of makes sense to me. And I think it's even more telling that I think a lot of people would probably agree that all too well is one of her best written songs, but the other four. I mean, I think I would put four different songs there. And so the fact that she got in without using what most people I think would characterize as all of her best work, I think also says something, you know, but they do. I mean, I like the fact you point out they show a multifaceted writer. Yeah. Yeah. And I had no idea she won Grammys for four out of five of them. Yeah. Yeah. So she had. So first she was, I think at the time she was when she won for Fearless in 2000, I guess it would have been like 2009. She was the youngest person to win a Grammy, Grammy for Album of the Year. And then when she won in 2015 for 1989, she broke some record there. And then when she won her third one for Folklore, she was the only woman to ever win three Album of the Years and then win Albums of the Year. And then when she won her fourth one, she's the only person to ever do that. Wow. Yeah. Well, so, yeah, I know. How do you say no to that? Right. I mean, if you're if you're reviewing her application, you're right, right. four out of five Grammy winners. Yeah. Yeah. So you have predictions about Ophelia. Is it up next year? It'll be next year. Yeah. Yeah. So we have a whole year. I don't know. I'm not sure. You don't know what the competition looks like. Right. Yeah. Yeah. OK. You ready to grade? Oh, can I say one more thing? Yes, please. I'm a big, bad bunny fan. Oh, excited. I am excited about seeing the half time show. It's great. Yeah. Yes. I like I like who he is. And I guess I like his. His endorsement of his culture and of his locale. Yes, absolutely. Yes. Agreed. This will come out after, but. Yeah. We're excited to watch that tonight. As soon as we finish here. OK. Last grade American Dynasty. OK. Ready? Ready. Lyrical string. Oh, great storytelling. Ninety eight. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. OK. OK. Narrative and structure. I loved the, you know, I was at first turned off at the at the shift of first person narration. And then I really liked it. And I began to see how the two one reflected the life of the other. And so I'm going to say ninety eight again. OK. Then we have production and atmosphere. Yeah, I loved the the way the percussion dropped out when she comes into the picture. You know, she's she comes in with a with a cooler sense of innocence. And so I'm going to say ninety eight. I had to be redundant. And then lore and literary references. Oh, see, I really like Rebecca Harkness and her stories interesting to me. And I think almost anyone who I don't know who's a supporter of dance in in American culture over the last hundred years, they have to take a rap because people think that it's flighty or useless. Or, you know, one of my one of my bucket list things to do is to go to as a Jacobs pillow, which is a place where modern dance began in America. OK. So I'd like to take a pilgrimage to Jacobs pillow and to see see a performance there. So yeah, I'm pushing all the way to ninety nine. Oh, my goodness. This is not how I thought this was going to go today. And emotional impact. I still want that house in Newcastle. It made you want a house. It did. A different house. Well, it made me it made me respect her for, you know, I'm just going to say spending her money the way she wants to. I mean, go mind your own damn business. Exactly. You know, I'm sorry to have to cuss at all you people. Mind your own business when it comes to this. Ain't nobody got time for that. You know, let her let her spend her money on a on a fun, historic home if that's where she wants to go. Yeah. So yeah, I felt like like shaking my copy of Mad Woman, the Attic Attic and saying leave her alone. So yeah, ninety seven. OK. Yeah. That gives us a ninety eight. There you go. It's a ninety eight. That's this is very exciting for me personally, because I thought this was going to get like an award with this song. Oh, maybe so. You think? OK. Anything else? I think I'm done. I'm ready. OK. Well, then I think that's it. Please make sure. Thank you also for following. We just hit overnight. Twenty thousand followers on Instagram, which is crazy. And like last week, we hit fifteen thousand on TikTok. So thank you for following. And please do follow if you're not. I know we took a break and everybody was like freaking out that we weren't there, but I was posting on all the things and talked about taking a break and resting and stuff. So if you follow along, then you'll know those things, which hopefully we don't take too many breaks. But I thought for a moment, Taylor was going to call us, but she didn't. We came back in the neck. OK. And then make sure you're following everywhere on and subscribed on Apple podcast, Spotify and YouTube. You can find us on Instagram and TikTok at Swifty and Scholar Pod. You can now find Uncle Jerry. He has over a thousand followers on Instagram. He's posted one thing. I'm posting something else this week. I promise. OK. He is at Dr. Uncle Jerry, Dr. Uncle Jerry, and I am at Angela Wyatt McDowell. And we will see you next week for a new batch of songs. Alrighty then. Bye. Bye.