Liu Xingzhe/Visual China Group via Getty Images Walt Disney StudiosĪs Swift recently told a crowd at the Eras Tour, her 2014 breakup song "Wonderland" was inspired by Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel. "Wonderland" is the 14th track on "1989 (Deluxe)." The Neruda quote also opens the "All Too Well" short film, which shows Swift's proxy character falling madly in love, then spending years grappling with the aftermath.īoth "Tonight I Can Write" and "All Too Well" speak to the weaponization of memory, illustrating how sweet experiences with a loved one can become sharp and painful in retrospect - that even "the endless sky" (Neruda) or "the first fall of snow" (Swift) can feel sinister in their absence. The album is a collection of passionate ballads and breakup anthems, spanning the full emotional range that comes with an intense, ill-fated love affair. Similarly, Swift wrote "Red" when she was between the ages of 20 and 22. It was included in a collection titled "Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada," or, "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair," which is now known as his most celebrated work. Neruda was just 19 years old when "Tonight I Can Write" was published in 1924. The line is translated from "Puedo Escribir Los Versos," widely known as "Tonight I Can Write." In the liner notes for "Red," Swift included a quote from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda: "Love is so short, forgetting is so long." "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" is the 30th track on "Red (Taylor's Version)." In the latter, Swift's character takes the road more frequently traveled and later comes to regret it. This reference reappears much later in Swift's discography, in both "Illicit Affairs" ("Take the road less traveled by / Tell yourself you can always stop") and "'Tis the Damn Season" ("The road not taken looks real good now"). Frost's final line makes it sound like a brave and noble choice. In 12-year-old terms, "the road less traveled by" represents the life of an "outcast," someone who marches to the beat of their own drum. The poem's conclusion is often read as a celebration of originality and self-determination, teasing the reward that may come with great risk: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference." (I was personally introduced to Frost in fifth grade.) "I tried to take the road less traveled by / But nothing seems to work the first few times," she sings in the pre-chorus.Īnyone with a cursory poetry education will recognize the reference to Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," thanks to its popularity in elementary-school curriculums. She wrote the track for her debut album when she was just 12 years old, inspired by her experience of being "a complete outcast at school." "The Outside" is one of the oldest songs in Swift's catalog. "The Outside" is the sixth track on "Taylor Swift." Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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