The Lizard Review of You're Losing Me (Patreon)

Sadly the first time that I heard this song was very, very muted on some girl's twitter space as her car keys jingled in the background, because as we all know, this song is still on SUPER limited release and was only available for purchase to ticket-holders at yesterday's show at MetLife. A lot of the lyrics and production were really hard to hear even with headphones on, but there I FUCKING sat, struggling to comprehend a single word of it. All that said - there was one lyric that literally LEAPED out, full volume surround sound, as though Taylor entered my living room and shouted at me : I WOULDN'T MARRY ME EITHER. 

There are a lot of ways to interpret this song. I've seen some people say they think it's about how Taylor fell out of love with him. I've seen some people say they think it's about how Joe stopped being the anchor and lifeline that she came to rely on so much during Rep and during quarantine, and instead became distant. 

My reading on the song is that it's probably a culmination of a great many things, some small and some big, but when I listen to it, I feel that it's about Taylor fighting for something that Joe gave up on a long time ago. I think that Taylor spent a great deal of time frantically trying to hold onto the relationship, all the while it seemed like Joe barely noticed how hard she was trying to make it work. 

The most interesting thing about this song is the big fat question of WHEN, exactly, this song was written. Taylor referred to it as a "vault" song, suggesting it was written during Midnights sessions - if it truly is a vault song written before October 2022, then that would mean it was intentionally held off the record to ward off any questions of a break-up. Which to me is the most insane timeline. Because Taylor was up there talking about Lavender Haze and her great relationship of six years on Tik Tok. One could argue the song isn't NECESSARILY a breakup song, at least not in the truest post-mortem sense of the word, and it could definitely have been written by her during a tumultuous period of the relationship, or a "break." Or, Taylor was putting on a brave face for promotional purposes. 

Personally, I think this song is NOT a vault track, and was written recently. Like, in the last couple of months. Getting into the nitty gritty of where Taylor was when, where Joe was when, what Taylor said when, etc etc is not something I care to get into because a lot of the moves she makes are pure PR and not worth dissecting - but Joe was FULLY at her Grammy's afterparty kicking it with her friends. And he was barely photographed, so that was not a PR thing. He simply was there. I don't believe they were broken up at that point, but I do think that this song could've been written AROUND that time. For some reason, and this is like my crackpot dumb tinhat theory, but I feel like this song was written like, directly after the Grammy's, within a period of weeks, even. Mostly because of the line where she says "I'm the best thing at this party," which is first of all true, and second of all, the sheer absence of Joe in any pictures is perhaps a suggestion of how little he wanted to be there, one of the final knives in the gut of their relationship. 

But what's truly strange is that Bejeweled reads as being about Joe, with all this new information. Bejeweled, again, doesn't have BREAKUP written all over it, but it does suggest unhappiness in a relationship. It feels BONKERS to release a song like that about him while they're literally still fucking together, but none of this really adds up 100 percent. I can't bother with the headache of getting out my fucking magnifying glass and analyzing how this all fell apart, and when, etc etc, so fuck it LMFAOO. Bejeweled is about Joe I don't know...fuck it...

There's some truly compelling little nuggets in this songs, most interestingly of all are the parallels between the lyrics here and the lyrics in some of her love songs about Mr. Turkey. 

I'm getting tired even for a phoenix, always rising from the ashes, mending all her gashes, you might just have delt the final blow // my broken drum, you have beaten my heart - I remember when Hoax first came out, a lot of people said that it was about Joe, and I thought that was whackadoodle time, because, again, they were still together, and apparently HAPPILY SO!! AT THAT TIME!!! HELLLOO INVISIBLE STRING, THE LAKES, ETC ETC....so I was like lmfaoooo yea right...HOWEVER...certain things have come to LIGHT....and now she has made DIRECT REFERENCE to Joe being the one who has broken her heart beyond what she can normally soldier through. Which is the exact same fucking sentiment she expressed in Hoax. Hoax is about a betrayal so deep it's like a death in the family. My question is, if Hoax is even KINDA about Joseph....why was the girlie trying so fucking hard to salvage this relationship??? She put so much into it, she put so much into HIM, and trusted him so badly because he was there for her in a time when so many people were leaving her in the quicksand of her cancellation, that I do almost believe that she could have allowed a betrayal to take place, and then gone right back into it. Dark, dark stuff...

Remember looking at this room, we loved it cause of the light, now I just sit in the dark and wonder if it's time // now I only see daylight - this one makes me want to kill myself. 

stop, you're losing me // help me hold onto you // I wake up screaming from dreaming, one day I'll watch as you're leaving, and life will lose all its meaning for the last time - this is SOOO fucked up, and also, the crux of the fucking song. In The Archer, she's deeply anxiety riddled, and I previously always read that as a result of past hurts from other people. I never once considered that her almost constant anxiety about losing Joe was because of something he actively was doing or had done to her. You're Losing Me sounds like it's about Joe DOING SOMETHING, not just passively allowing the relationship to fizzle out. She says STOP. Also, the "for the last time" in Anti-Hero is interesting if we consider the possibility that Joe and Taylor were on and off and we had no idea about that. 

Fighting in only your army, front lines, don't you ignore me // literally the entirety of the Great War - before all this, the Great War was a hieroglyphic to me, or at least was just about some almighty row they might have had. Now I'm sat here thinking to myself they literalllyyyy broke up and Taylor was fighting on the front lines and Joe was like, hooking up with somebody else. LMFAO.....well let's not linger on that!! 

Now onto the most painful of them all...

I wouldn't marry me either, a pathological people pleaser // I'd marry you with paper rings // I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover // I think he knows he better lock it down or I won't stick around // Church bells ring, carry me home, rice on the ground, looks like snow // I want to show you how forever feels // I vowed I would always be yours because we survived the great war. 

Or ALTERNATIVELY...

I wouldn't marry me either // all they keep asking me is if I'm gonna be your bride // storm coming, good husband, bad omen, dragged my feet right down the aisle // all that you ever wanted from me was nothing. 

The layers to be picked apart...honestly Labyrinth feels like a hieroglyphic now, too. Sweet Nothing feels like a post-mortem musing on a relationship that was once good and now no longer is. Hoax is slowly becoming less cryptic and a lot more obvious to decode. I can't even get into this. And this has already gone on for far too long...so I leave you with that...just something to suck on....xoxo