Daily Song #153: Dear John
Strap in folks, get some snacks, because much like Dear John, this guest post is gonna be a long one!
"Dear John" is titled in reference to historical "Dear John" letters written by divorcees to their absent spouses in wartime explaining why they have left. Clocking in at an astounding 6:43, it is the second-lengthiest song in Taylor Swift's discography and a true Track 5, serving as the emotional decoding ring for its parent album. The resemblance of the guitar to John Mayer's playing style is a well worn comment - and that's about as much of this work as I care to "credit" to him - so I would instead like to call attention to the song's 3/4 time signature (i.e. a tempo counted out ONE two three ONE two three ONE two three). This sets a waltzy, deliberative tone. It's the detective's determination at the end of the mystery - with all the pomp, circumstance, and shocking reveals that entails.
One such rug pull is the opening line, "long were the nights when my days once revolved around you". This sets up a verse pattern of Taylor introducing a sentence and spinning it around, much like her "John" did with her head time and time over. "Counting the footsteps, praying the floor won't fall through" - pause for dramatic effect - "again". Then "my mother accused me of losing my mind but" - surprise negation - "I swore I was fine". Taylor Swift follows this up with another loaded spin around the chamber: "You paint me a blue sky / and go back and turn it to gray". The idea of painting in emotional colors and the mixed meanings of that concept (vision, creation, imposition of will) are so evocative that Taylor will return to this metaphor throughout her career.
Now that we've established one rhetorical device, let's get into another. I want to call attention to Taylor Swift's careful pronoun use, as the next few lines focus on Taylor's internal state. I lived in your chess game. I wondered which version of you I would get on the phone each night. I should've known.
But then I-I-I starts unspooling to the sound of you, you, you.
You and your sick need to give love and take it away. You add my name to your long list of traitors. You are never impressed by me acing your tests. You burnt them out. Colonel Mustard! In the conservatory! With the candlestick! You!
But then, in another voila moment, the missing "I" returns, suddenly triumphant. I took your matches and I'm shining like fireworks over your SAD! EMPTY! TOWN! Then a long note like a cathartic wail as the electric guitar soars.
This line might seem a bit lame as a blow to some but as someone who, unfortunately, had their own "John" in high school, I absolutely adore it for that. The thing I always tell people about my experience with my internet "John" is the moment I met him in person, I just had a realization that he was a complete and total... loser. The college graduate who said I was their everything, their savior, was a lazy ass loser who couldn't even put together a itinerary for his supposed GF visiting. And he thought it went soooo well. Oh my God. Sad empty town is so spot on! That's the kind of person who isn't mature enough to date people their own age.
But we still aren't done, because Taylor Swift has one final magic trick in store for the outro, and this is the best one yet. The "girl in the dress" motif of the song has been used to signify Taylor's youth and naivete as a means of shaming her much older partner, but her demure image is about to be his doom. "The girl in the dress ... wrote you, a, song" she intones, sweet as antifreeze. "You should've known".
You should've known I was too young.
And you should've known I was Taylor Swift, musical assassin.
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That line is why I chose to represent this song with a triumphant photo of Taylor smiling in front of fireworks at her biggest tour yet. The message of Dear John is that all the time you spent living under your abuser can never outshine what you've achieved for yourself by walking away. On a metatextual level it's a statement that the muse is never more powerful than the artist because the artist defines who that person is to us. She turns the mortal, immortal. Taylor Swift seanced this ghost twelve years later just by self-quoting "19". Her words. Not Mayer's words, nor any of the other older guys she pined for in her youth. Her words.
"Because I'm proud of it as a song", Taylor says to the Eras crowd, "I am going to play Dear John".
Favorite Line: "The girl in the dress wrote you a song" (but an honorable mention to "never impressed by me acing your tests" which is usually when I start happy crying)
10/10