Thread by @tweetsricochet

Interrupting our #MidnightsTS series, I bring you a seasonal special: 'Tis the Damn Season, a line-by-line lyrical analysis! So buckle up, wipe the mud off your truck tires, and come on the road less taken with me. A 🧵:

1) "If I wanted to know who you were hanging with while I was gone I would have asked you." As we all know by now, the narrator of this song is Dorothea: the girl who left her small town for a big life and big dreams in LA. The story begins with her return home over the holidays.

2) The stage is set with confrontation. On first encountering her old love, she is instinctively angry and defensive. She shields herself from any knowledge of his life and new friends without her--she doesn't want to know, to be pained by how he has learned to live without her.

3) "It's the kind of cold, fogs up windshield glass, but I felt it when I passed you." At first glance, her description of the cold weather also has a double meaning as the coldness which has developed between them since they have separated. But it is also more than that.

4) The cold is specifically "fogging up the windshield glass." The driving metaphor pervades the entire song, and it starts here by implying that the iciness between them is obstructing their vision--it prevents them from reconnecting and seeing each other for who they truly are.

5) Additionally, it fogs up the windshield glass--taking this a step further in the context of a car ride, it means they can't see the path forward. This coldness in their relationship is preventing them from moving forward together, from seeing (and choosing) the road not taken.

6) "There's an ache in you put there by the ache in me." Here, she begins to thaw, reminding herself that the coolness between them is a consequence of the pain they share. On one level, "put there by the ache in me" indicates that the breakup was her decision, for her career.

7) But on another level, she isn't just describing the pain of her decision to leave him. She means her ache for something more than the small town--her ache for her art and her career. That ache had overpowered the heartache she felt in losing him, propelling her to leave.

8) "But if it's all the same to you, it's the same to me." Here is the first olive branch she offers, a tentative invitation to rekindle their relationship. On one level, the phrase "if it's the same to you" shows her nervousness, her attempt to appear calm and unbothered.

9) "If it's all the same to you," is typically offhand and nonchalant: "if you don't mind," "only if you want to," etc. She doesn't want to invest her feelings again just to get hurt, and she doesn't want to show just how much a reconnection would mean--so she tries to be casual.

10) But the true, yearning meaning of "if it's all the same" is in the subtext. Is our relationship still the same to you? Do you still feel the same love for me as you did before? Are you still the same soul I met under the bleachers? Which brings on the following invitation.

11) "So we could call it even, you could call me babe for the weekend." Dorothea abandons her hesitations and opens up about her true emotions. She wants to go back to when their relationship was simpler, back before the conflicts over her move and the baggage of their breakup.

12) She wishes they could just "call it even:" to forget the ways they both hurt each other and just be able to love again without blame or judgment. Even if just for a weekend, she wants to be able to experience the simple, uncomplicated, youthful affection they once shared.

13) "'Tis the damn season, write this down." On one hand, she ironically quotes this corny holiday saying as a reason to reunite. Isn't this the time of year we are supposed to forgive and forget? Let's just call it even, pretend away our pain and join in on the holiday spirit.

14) But there is also a deeper level of urgency hiding behind the irony. Holidays are about connecting with the people you truly care about--the people who feel like home. That is who he is for her. She needs and misses him, and the holidays have exacerbated this need.

15) This more urgent meaning makes even more sense when we consider the later content of the bridge, when she reveals how empty the new relationships in her life are. The season for love and family has come, and what she needs more than anything is the person who loves her most.

16) "I'm stayin' at my parents' house, and the road not taken looks real good now." As many of us have experienced, coming back to her parents' house has brought on an onslaught of her old feelings. The constant reminder of who she used to be has made her yearn for her old life.

17) The "road not taken" is a direct reference to the Robert Frost poem, and the added context of this poem adds enormously to Dorothea's layered, deep, regretful feelings. She had two roads to choose from, and she chose the road less traveled--to LA, and her new life and career.

18) I think she still feels that the road she chose was the correct one for her, but now that she is home, directly faced with the more comfortable, well-trodden path of her small town, she also wishes for just a taste of the simple, familiar pleasures that would have entailed.

19) "And it always leads to you in my hometown." Whenever she is back home, and the reminders of what her life could have been are in front of her, she's also reminded that if she had stayed, he would have been her future. Their love was very real, and it may have lasted forever.

20) "I parkеd my car right between the Methodist and thе school that used to be ours." The specific use of the church and school reminds us how conventional her life would have been had she stayed. There'd be no glamor, no makeup and magazines--just home, family, and tradition.

21) "The holidays linger like bad perfume, you can run, but only so far." On one level, she describes the pervasiveness of the nostalgia induced by the holiday season. She begrudgingly knows she can only run so far from the old familiar feelings that are being rekindled for him.

22) But on another, she offers us perspective on why she chose to leave. She uses the double meaning of "holidays" as a representation of home and family. The familiarity is beautiful, as fragrant and comforting as perfume--but for her, it can also be cloying and overwhelming.

23) This second meaning is supported by the next lines: "I escaped it too, remember how you watched me leave." As nostalgic as she now feels, she knows she never truly fit in to her old small-town life. Her longing for more drove her away, and it will keep her in her new life.

24) "But if it's okay with you, it's okay with me." Despite her conviction that she will never return, she can't help but still hope for just a small taste of that old, familiar intimacy. If he is okay with how this must end, she is also willing to break her own heart again.

25) The road metaphor is furthered by the second part of the chorus: "Time flies, messy as the mud on your truck tires." She reminds him that life is complicated, and relationships can be messy. But despite everything that happened, their time together still feels like yesterday.

26) On another level, this line reminds us that they BOTH have traveled different roads since they were last together. Her time and her decision-making may have been messy, but only as messy as the mud on HIS truck tires: aka, the roads that he has taken throughout his own life.

27) "Now I'm missing your smile, hear me out, we could just ride around." She knows that their paths long since diverged, and she can't retrace her steps. But she isn't asking to radically change paths--she just wants to ride around, to spend time together for old times' sake.

28) But this seemingly casual, no-strings request isn't as simple as she wishes it was. Because this line is immediately followed with "the road not taken looks real good now." Just "riding around" is dangerous, because it makes her wish they could also drive forward together.

29) "Sleep in half the day just for old times' sake." With this line, Dorothea tells us that she feels safe and comfortable in this old relationship. She can rest and relax around him, and remember what it felt like when she could enjoy her uncomplicated, secure love for him.

30) This is also in sharp contrast to her flashy, busy new life, where she has to strive every day to build her career. She no longer has easy access to rest and peace, and while she may not choose to return to this old life, she still misses the simplicity of the feeling.

31) "I won't ask you to wait if you don't ask me to stay." If they chose, they could BOTH retrace their paths and make sacrifices for each other. She could return to her old life and stay with him, but he could also wait for her to achieve her dreams, or perhaps even go with her.

32) But on her end, she knows that she isn't ready to change her path, nor does she want to. She knows she will go back to LA, and so she neither wants to be burdened by his unrealistic expectations nor ask him to make sacrifices for her. In this moment, she just wants to be.

33) And what will be the consequences of this decision? "So I'll go back to L.A. and the so-called friends who'll write books about me, if I ever make it." She is knowingly returning to the superficial relationships which could never be as meaningful as the one she is giving up.

34) "And wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles I'm fakin'." Not only are the people in her new life shallow and two-faced--they also can't understand her. She is losing not only the comfort of his affection, but also the benefit of his deep understanding of her.

35) "And the heart I know I'm breakin' is my own, to leave the warmest bed I've ever known." Dorothea knows that as much as she has hurt him by prioritizing her career over their love, she has also inflicted an even deeper wound on herself by losing his presence in her life.

36) Now that they have transcended the coolness which grew between them in her absence, and she is reminded of the warmth of their relationship, she has a new understanding of his importance. But the windshield is no longer fogged up--she knows the path forward, and it isn't him.

37) So what can they do, with the knowledge that they have to, at some point, leave the warm bed of their relationship and face cold reality? Dorothea can only offer the same, hopeful suggestion. "We could call it even. Even though I'm leavin', and I'll be yours for the weekend."

38) To make a connection to Midnights, this couple was the original Midnight Rain relationship. He wanted it comfortable, but she wanted the pain of her career. He wanted a bride, but she was making her own name--and now the only place he sees her is on his tiny screen.

39) But unlike the couple in Midnight Rain, it isn't true that "he never thinks of me except when I'm on TV"--as we know from "Dorothea," he too wishes they could take a path forward together. But while the path forward at the end of TTDS seems final, I think it is ambiguous.

40) When the holidays end, we know she returns to her new life. One day, she may tire of being known for who she knows and find her way back to the warmest bed she's ever known--but even if their roads never cross, their relationship has had an indelible imprint upon her life.

Thank you much for reading!!

If you relate to TTDS, sending you a big hug this holiday season because...ouch. 😵‍💫 And if you interested in more unhinged Taylor analyses, please see my Midnights series below!

https://twitter.com/tweetsricochet/status/1592155831004721152?t=Tu9UBt1fM8q3Tos8HKBPPg&s=19

And for @serenexevermore and @swftay13, I know this is an interruption in our SOTB programming, but I hope you find it in your evermore hearts to forgive me. ❤️❤️❤️

After a good reminder from @theswiftquill, I recalled that Taylor did not clarify the pronouns of the love interest in TTDS. In this analysis they are written as he/him, but this is by no means the only or correct interpretation! I will be more mindful of my assumptions ❤️❤️