Tbh I Can See This Being The Way Haylor Ended But I Think They Broke Up And Didn’t Try Again Because

I feel like fine line vault will have the most experimental songs. He was gravitating towards pop with adore you and WS while staying near his comfort zone that was rock. Sunflower was probably a turning point in deciding hsh sound.

sonical things aside I want to listen to his bitter songs about camille's nepo boyfriend and his art gallery lmao

there's a lot of fusion across sounds and genres that happens on fine line and i am in love with it forever. the initial high and glitter and infatuation and freedom and revelation of the first four tracks, the groovy guitar and the gospel choir, swooping down into the sweetbitter sting of cherry and its delicate acoustics and its tinged pink atmosphere (pathetic was his word, regretful is mine), and then the full scale piano soaring vocals drowning heartbreak ballad of falling (that plea: what am i now? i cannot), and then the cheeky/resentful self-deprecating ukulele match strike of to be so lonely, and then the more hs1 old-fashioned rock epic in she, and then sunflower comes in and goes, "hi, so we've been moping for a while, it's time to get psychedelic with it."

sunflower is the light switching back on (lights up and you know who you are, do you know who you are?), some recovery, some happy memories, still the yearning, but it's giving way to something else. the genius of "does he take you walkin' 'round his parents' gallery?" transforming into "i've got your face hung up high in the gallery." HELLO? nepo boyfriend can take you to SEE the art, but to harry...you ARE the art. he's still self-criticizing and reflecting, but in a less harsh way (not the wandering hands or arrogant son of a bitch, just trying hard not to act a fool). kiss in the kitchen like it's a dance floor! keep it sweet in your memory! we're finding our way through! the silly bizarre nonsense mushroom noises because his humor is sparkling back into view. and then! suddenly! bursting onto the scene in screaming bright color, guitars and dulcimer and whistling and sunshine, is canyon moon, and we're going home!!! an old lover's hippie music! you do not understand (actually you probably do), i love the storytelling that happens there SO much. i LOVE the way sunflower was a turning point in the writing and sits as a turning point on the album itself, where it's like, we've grieved, we've paced, we've been lost and questioned everything, we've felt it all, and now it's time to find the sun again. (take me back to the light...i've been thinking back to a time under the canyon moon. golden is answered in sunflower and canyon moon.) i'm going home and looking to treat people with kindness, in spite of everything. go home and take a deep breath and reflect on everything that's happened, and feel that hurt and that mysterious pull, and remember the love that was there, in six minutes and eighteen seconds of catharsis, and it's all just such a fine line. crisp trepidation (the vocal layering and harmonies there. then the horns at the end!), because the fear is crystalline, but we keep going anyway. that's what we always are, constantly walking along it. we'll be a fine line, over and over, in different ways. maybe that's okay. maybe we'll be alright.

perfect album i am so serious.

ALL that said, because it is such a perfect album and told in such a specific way and follows a story, anything extraneous or that didn't directly enrich it, or was TOO cutting or too sorrowful, he took out, which objectively i understand for the sake of the art, but subjectively and selfishly, i want to know what it was. I NEED. i'll take the even more experimental ones, the bitter and angry songs, or sad ones, or earlier adoring ones, please give them all to me immediately. the fact that this will probably never happen??? i can't think about it!

*jenny slate meme* i had to stop thinking about fine line because it made me too crazy! harry would just be like, "loving you's the antidote -> you've got my devotion, but man, i can hate you sometimes." or "i know that you're scared because i'm so open -> spreading you open is the only way of knowing you..." and i was like, "SCREAMS!!!"

Something something about Harry possibly realizing the gravity of their love and how it still affects her now to an extent…idk not to be a haylor haylor, but WAKE UP. The fact Taylor was willing to ridicule herself just to be together because she knew his perception of her trumped the medias’ is something so special to me

it really makes you wanna go put question on and like actually ask him the question.... did you regret it you fucking idiot?????? cause like!!!!!!! she was so in love with him and was willing to throw herself into a fire for him and he was just so oblivious to his impact!!! with red tv we heard her call his laughter a disaster... she was so taken by him immediately. this was falling in love in the cruelest way. and he had her so hard she missed him so much and then he came back and she got spooked and he just....... bowed out. he started fucking around and jerking her around and that just was how they went for 2 fucking years.

it's heartbreaking and infuriating and i'm SURE that, just like when he hear question the first time a year ago, he is kicking himself for being such a dumbass kid back then

I just keep thinking like, how much Joe helped Taylor become herself and grow as a person - not in the way that like, a man deserves all the credit, but it is so clear that he and their relationship helped her get to a place where she could discuss the topics on folklore / evermore / Midnights, where she could make her political post, hell even the amount of seductive choreo skyrocketed from 1989 to rep and then to Eras because she feels so comfortable with herself, and I don’t doubt that he was a part of that journey. Even if all he did was stand by her, he gave her the confidence to do it all and having that rock really deeply helped her. And like, whatever happened, but it’s clear to me that relationship made her into the best version of herself she could be, and that’s what any wonderful relationship is supposed to do and that is both beautiful and so fucking heartbreaking. And no matter what happened I am so grateful to him to have given those gifts to her.

when do you assume two ghosts was written and when they fell apart? i just have a hard time believing it was harry the ultimate factor to them breaking up and i think maybe yes, he wasn’t sure he could do a committed long term serious relationship because he knew their careers and their situations didn’t allow them that. so he couldn’t make promises he might not be able to live up to and didn’t fight “harder” to make it work instead of accepting their circumstances

well i have settled on a full story of haylor’s end. like not a “here’s a couple ideas but we’ll never know the full story.” question gave me the whole story

in january after the party, she asked him to try again. for real. because she was in a better place and she wanted to try, she didn’t want to live her life the way she had resigned herself to only having casual hookups.. she wanted to try something real again. And he basically said that he couldn’t. that he was willing to be her “good time guy” (stealing phrasing from private practice). And she was like “I want more than that” and he was like “I can’t,” which is where we get Perfect. He might never be the guy who is there for something real, but he can be the guy who can deal with the camera flashes and the songs for some troubled fun confined to the liminal spaces of hotels. And then she was like “okay well no” and then he didn’t think she would move on………… but she did. and fast, even. and that’s why calvin was so devastating for him. Because he genuinely thought he was calling her bluff. and then there’s this song where she’s like “you know what you little twerp. you healed something in me for half a second and I saw colors I’d never seen before and not seen since. I thought we had something. but when it was too much for me, you let me walk out, and then you never fought even when I wanted to try again so where do you get off getting upset that there was no bluff to call? I hope it feels nice to settle, because you chose this.”

Do we think it’s somewhat rude Harry wasn’t there for the release in LA? Or no? Not rude.. but maybe just solidifies they aren’t in communication. I thought he would at least show up for her as a friend

I cannot stress enough: I think his absence and commitment elsewhere was a STRATEGIC DECISION.

Blondie has 3 exes who are not awful and with whom we have proof she interacts. All of whom have one (or more) songs on particular albums/behaviour in particular eras for which they are know: Joe Jonas, Taylor Lautner, and Harry Styles.

NONE were involved in release announcements. But when they albums came out?!?

In the depth of the pandemic, Sophie and Joe got in on the action supporting Blondie’s Fearless TV release:

Cosmopolitan

Sophie Turner’s Reaction to Hearing Taylor Swift Drag Joe Jonas on “Mr. Perfectly Fine” Is Priceless

Twitter, naturally, is liiiiiving for it.

And we just saw Taylor Lautner’s triumphant moments in July for SN:

And her interactions with Harry? Stratospheric interest. No one talks about anything else.

This?

And this?

Controlled the news cycle for 2 days only 6 months ago, more than his AOTY won and RedTV finally getting a Grammy. Tree had to put out a press release about their long-standing, peaceful friendship (maybe bc a certain YB threw a tantrum?)

And not supportive or not in contact? Disagree. Here is what he wore in Frankfurt in his concert hours before SN dropped:

The entire lighting scheme, the band accessories - all purple. He wore purple tones the concerts before and after too.

Last night was a TRIUMPH for Blondie. Final night of an unprecedentedly successful US tour celebrating her entire career, featuring stolen music she is reclaiming. Continued dominance on the charts and in international and domestic concert ticket sales.

And now - she gets to reclaim her first iconic album, the one that changed everything for her. The one that contains almost exclusively and still routinely charts…songs we all know are about Harry Styles. Style is *currently* her 4th or 5th highest charting single NINE YEARS after the album came out.

After the year she’s had, do you think she wanted to risk last night being overshadowed by a man?

And Harry Styles has ALWAYS stood back to let her shine, praising her and supporting her in big and small ways. He has NEVER said anything even remotely bad about her publicly, while she has *never publicly said his name aloud*.

The is exactly ZERO chance that Harry does not get pulled into this dialogue in the coming months.

Let’s sit back and watch it play out. Being a Haylor involved a lot of patience; let’s flex that muscle now.

The way she loved him so much to the point where she would have been okay with being called a slut if that meant she could have him! And the way she is possessive over his couch and snarky that he is dating her clowns while wondering why he didn't say I love you

I KNOWWWWW she was so fucking in love with him and felt insane. i am thinking about her ayhtdws speech on tour. the one where she said that people deserve more than someone who can't make up their mind and say they love you. he hurt her so bad and the worst part is in all his songs after that, he didn't ever seem to notice. he speaks so frequently of his hurt. she sings of his hurt a couple times (particularly in ootw and question). but when does he ever mention hers?

it's a tragic thing in their story where she was always more aware than he was and always more emotionally intelligent.

Do you know where Taylor said she was giving up on relationships for a while? I feel like I remember that but can't find it

it was in her rolling stone cover story! (a lot of the press she did at that time is tinged with things that are saddening to revisit, but also clear on what her perspective was. the vogue 73 questions is another one):

"In fact, she suggests, she hasn’t dated at all since breaking up with One Direction singer Harry Styles more than a year and a half ago. “Like, have not gone on a date,” she says. “People are going to feel sorry for me when you write that. But it’s true.” Swift says dating is hard for her. For one thing, there’s the logistics. “Seventy percent of the time, when a guy asks me out, it’ll just be a random e-mail,” she says. Some movie star will get her address from his publicist and e-mail her cold. Usually she politely rebuffs them – but even if someone did penetrate that line of defense, building a relationship is hard. “I feel like watching my dating life has become a bit of a national pastime,” Swift says. “And I’m just not comfortable providing that kind of entertainment anymore. I don’t like seeing slide shows of guys I’ve apparently dated. I don’t like giving comedians the opportunity to make jokes about me at awards shows. I don’t like it when headlines read ‘Careful, Bro, She’ll Write a Song About You,’ because it trivializes my work. And most of all, I don’t like how all these factors add up to build the pressure so high in a new relationship that it gets snuffed out before it even has a chance to start. And so,” she says, “I just don’t date.” (That goes for hooking up as well. “I just think it’s pointless if you’re not in love,” Swift says. “And I don’t have the energy to be in love right now. So, no.”) Truth be told, Swift sounds a tiny bit jaded – which, for a “self-professed hopeless romantic,” maybe isn’t the worst thing to be. “It’s not like I’ve sworn off love,” she says. “My life is just not conducive to bringing other people into it right now. I’m very childlike and romantic about lots of things, but I’m realistic about this.” [....] it’s not bad that I’m not hopelessly in love with someone. It’s not a tragedy, and it’s not me giving up and being a spinster. Although I did get another cat.” She laughs. “I asked around: I was like, ‘Does two cats count as cats?’ But then I thought, what imaginary guy’s perspective am I thinking about this from? Someone is going to think I’m undateable for a lot of reasons before they think I’m undateable because I have two cats.”"

eta: the above still applies, but i was actually remembering her glamour magazine interview with this -

"Yeah, I do feel jaded about relationships, to be honest. I think the media has sent me a really unfair message over the past couple of years, which is that I’m not allowed to date for excitement, or fun, or new experiences or learning lessons. I’m only allowed to date if it’s for a lasting, multiple-year relationship. Otherwise I’m a, quote, ‘serial dater’. Or, quote, ‘boy crazy’. The narrative has been so wrong, every time it was the same. It’s 'Taylor spotted talking to this guy, she’s chasing him.’ They create a beginning to the story that didn’t happen most of the time, so then they have to create an ending. So they always go to the same fabricated ending that every other tabloid has used in my story, which is, 'She got too clingy’, or 'Taylor has too many emotions, she scared him away’. Which has honestly never been the reason for any of my break-ups. You know what has been the reason? The media. You take something very fragile, like trying to get to know someone, and it feels like walking out into the middle of a gladiator arena with someone you’ve just met. And all of a sudden the public and the media are allowed to say thumbs up or thumbs down. So I just don’t try it anymore."

i keep watching videos of people going to the eras tour, girls dressing up with their friends, trading friendship bracelets with strangers, crying to surprise songs, holding each other during their favorite set. singing, and dancing, and screaming, and crying and all of it just feels like pure happiness. there's something so special about the unapologetic way girls get to just purely be themselves at the eras tour and it makes my heart so warm inside.

and it's not a gender thing, but the way teenage girls have constantly seen their interests diminished and overlooked makes this sense of community so much more special.

for so long i felt like there was something wrong with being stereotypically girly. god forbid pink is your favorite color, or you listen to pop music, or you have a stan account and posters of a boyband on your bedroom wall. god forbid you're still strong, and smart, and interesting.

and maybe it's because i'm in my twenties now, and i'm finally figuring out who i am, because fuck, being a teenager sucks, but i can look at the girls crying from their nosebleeds seats at the eras tour, or the girls dancing in line for a harry styles concert, or the group of friends that yelled "hi barbie" to me from their pink dresses on the other side of the street, and feel like there is a part of current pop culture, of mainstream media, that is finally, finally, allowing girls to experience girlhood without shame.

we love taylor. we love each other. look at us and the cute bracelets we trade with strangers. look at our pink outfits to go watch barbie at the theatre and our feathery boas at harry concerts and our kindles full of romance books. look. it's all so pretty.

i spent all my money on concert tickets, i'm going to the eras tour next year. i already warned everyone i'll cry during long live.

i'm making bracelets. i have a pinterest board for my outfit. i'm sharing ideas, because everyone else is doing the same. i made a playlist of my favorite songs and named it after taylor swift. i found an old one direction poster and put it back up on my wall. i learned how to crochet, and the first thing i made was a flower. the yard is pink. it's my favorite color.

i did my makeup. i read my favorite sally rooney novel on the train, with my headphones in. i'm twenty and i'm thirteen, and i'm nine, when pink was still my favorite color. i'm all of those girls, and all of them are me.

it really is the girlhood no one can't take away. it was ours first. we're taking it back.

i just have to disagree with anon about ayhtdws and wonderland being the saddest songs out of 1989. ootw at the grammy museum personally crushed me. that’s when you realize the song stripped bare from its heavy production, is actually a very sad song about somehow sensing that this love you held was doomed from the start. trying to protect something you hold so dear and that could break at any moment due to its fragility and then it finally breaking because outside forces ultimately won and you had to give up what you were fighting for because it was too hard. it makes me so sad :(

Sorry about the haylor in your asks but if it is atleast partly inspired by him that means that there must've been more to it than we knew. Like I still can't believe AYHTDWS was the saddest song she could come up with in 1989. I think that she locked her sad songs in vault because she wanted a fun pop album. Especially after people dragging her for red aka heartbreak album in that era. Even wonderland (arguably the saddest one in 1989) is bonus that didn't get much attention. Man I can't wait for 1989 tv

from what we've heard of his side, there was definitely strong emotion, and the fact that she addressed that situation on midnights (and potentially folkmore) at all lends itself to the idea that there could be more beneath the surface there. we know they went back and forth for quite a while. as you mentioned, something i feel is important to recognize about 1989 era is that she was projecting a polished, perfected image on purpose. she had exposed real devastating heartbreak before and been dragged through the mud for it, as far as the media goes, and the response to red back then was quite different than it is now, and we also know about her then making that conscious decision to pivot - into pop, into a "cohesive" sound, into sort of glossing depth on the album in order to seem more...assured and effervescent. she suppressed her romanticism and she attempted to hide how she was struggling. i know i've mentioned that era was really hard for me and i stepped back for a few reasons, but it's more clear now how she was grappling with a lot of difficult things. this is totally subjective, but i've always thought the most emotionally vulnerable song on the record was this love (or at least it's tied with clean), and it's telling it was originally a poem written earlier. she tried to shed that signature heart on her sleeve (even in interviews, 1989 taylor was often at her most cynical), and the sadness and struggles and pressure she locked up tight. it's still good writing, it's fundamentally a perfect pop album, but it's at a bit more of a remove, layered with the slick production, and more weighted with anxiety than sadness. and you're right, some of that was to keep it fun - if you strip AYHTDWS or IWYW or OOTW or I Know Places or Wonderland down to bare acoustics, they'd sound a LOT more sad. i am very curious if the 1989 vault has any of the more vulnerable writing, or if she didn't really lean into that aspect of her pen at the time because of what she was focused on creating. we don't know anything about the songs that could be there, i don't think? it'll be so cool to hear what she held back from that time, and interesting if it illuminates/redefines any of the album the way Red TV did!

I know nobody here really cares that much, but since 1989 (Taylor’s version) came out my fyp has been all about her & Harry, and so many of the videos are like “GASP was Harry one of the bad boyfriends?!”

And as someone who’s never felt any type of way about Harry, I think I like or at least respect him a little bit more after the vault tracks? Especially “is it over now?” Because I’ve seen a lot of clips of this man talking about Taylor over the years, and I’ve never seen or heard him say something disparaging or complaining about her writing songs about him. In fact, I’ve only ever seen him be like “hey, it’s her life and if she’s written anything about me, I’d be flattered. She’s so talented.” And this isn’t a new reaction, like there are interviews from that year where he says something to that effect and honestly?? Pop off, Harry.

They’re friendly enough that I’m sure he’s heard these songs before, or at least knew that she had some less than flattering ones in her back pocket, and was still like “yeah, no, I’d be honored. Are you kidding?” Like he was 20 or something when they were together and 20 year old boys are awful and shitty and apparently he’s talked about the fact that he’s a bad boyfriend before, so I love that this entire time he’s shown a level of emotional maturity and respect for her that fucking John Mayer refused to. It would’ve been so easy for him to be a dick about it, and he never was! It seems like he just went “I treated you like shit. You’re totally valid in this. Go off, queen.”

I’ve been laughing imagining him listening to the vault tracks and the “if she’s got blue eyes I can surmise that you’ll probably date her” line and being like “fuck, bro. She really called me out like that on main? Damn. I should send her flowers or something.” And then “now that we don’t talk” I can literally see him hearing the line about her mom and going “aw, Andrea. I always liked her. I hope she’s well. Fuck it, somebody send her flowers too.”

As somebody who knows nothing about him and never really got into 1d or paid close attention to his career, only passively enjoyed his music, I think these song’s coming out vastly improved my opinion of him 😂