Lover Analysis- Part VI: "Cornelia Street"

Fun fact, MONTHS after you posted this (I'm new to your patreon and catching up, soooo sorry if I end up commenting on multiple 'old' videos), Taylor actually DID rent a place on Cornelia Street while she was having her New York apartment renovated.

Amanda M.

I YouTubed a live version, and you are SO RIGHT! Wow! You can feel the vulnerability so much! Thank you!

English Teacher KP

love this video! it’s not as apparent on the album version of the song but in the live version you can really sense her desperation when she sings the “i don’t wanna lose you” line which adds so much to the song for me because it does expose that vulnerability.

Emma Laudermilch

Hi! Someone else in the comments said something similar, so you're not alone! I love this interpretation, and I can totally see it. For me, though, the song is more powerful if I imagine that Cornelia Street is a real place. I love the idea that places can hold memories and emotions.

English Teacher KP

Loved this video, as always! I’m not completely sure where I got this idea from, but I always felt like walking Cornelia street was a metaphor for falling in love. Like, if I ever lose you I’d never fall in love again.

Andrea

No worries! I'm sorry that I did not see the other comment! I didn't mean to make you repeat yourself. Thank you for the help!

Deborah Nicholas

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!

English Teacher KP

Hi there! Like I said in an earlier comment, I'm not sure what happened; I had everything set the way I normally do, but for some reason the audio came out super uneven. This has happened once or twice before, but I am not sure what the culprit is. I am looking into it. Sorry for the inconvenience.

English Teacher KP

Great analysis. I really loved the lines where she talks about packing her bags and leaving before he knew she was gone and then he called, showed his hand, and she turned around before she hit the tunnel. That imagery is beautiful. I could see the entire scene in front of me. It really makes me think of the song Delicate for some reason. She is so into him but she is trying so hard to play it cool, delicate, and to not show her hand too soon in fear that she would lose him forever. This is song is full of imagery and storytelling. Thank you so much. One thing, English Teacher KP, could you please work on the volume of your videos? There is discrepancy between the song and your voice. The song is very loud but when you speak it's in a normal range so I am constantly having to move the volume up and down on my phone. Don't get me wrong, i love to blare a TS song but it would be helpful to not have to mess with the volume so much so I can focus on the song and your analysis at the same time.

Deborah Nicholas

I really love your analysis. It is very close to my interpretation, because I paid more attention to the word choice and grammatical elements. I haven't understand the line "you showed your hand" (maybe because I don't play poker) and this was mind blowing for me. I would just say that whatever the interpretation is, what actually is important to me is the way in which the songs resonates with our feelings. Thank you so much, as well as all of these interesting comments' and clever people of your community. This so fun to watch and read.

Yay! This comment makes me so happy ❤❤❤

English Teacher KP

I never understood why so many people love this song so much. Clearly I was missing the meaning of the different lines, I can appreciate the song so much more after the analysis and all the different comments. Thank you!!!

Claudia L

I completely agree! I love that image of them sitting on the roof!

English Teacher KP

I don't play poker, so I didn't even think about "call" being a pun, too! But you're right! Wow! I'm even more obsessed with this line now!

English Teacher KP

Totally agree, call has multiple meanings. I think that she was leaving because she thought she cared more than the other person and she wanted to slip away to avoid revealing her feelings to them, as if she is bluffing, saying "whatever, this was just casual, no big deal", and then they called on the phone and also called her bluff. Saying they showed their hand is basically like they said, "Hey, I am in this for real. Are you?", so she turned around and went back, and then the next line of "sat on the roof, you and I" is maybe describing the first moment together after they have both admitted that they actually were a "you and I".

Leijette Riopel

Love the video! Also with the pun on "Then you called, showed your hand" one of my friends recently taught me how to play poker and I just realized the "called" part is also part of the pun. (If you meant that it was part of the pun as well as the hand part and it just went right over my head then I'm sorry for my unnecessary post lol) When you're betting you either fold, raise, or call. Fold meaning you drop out and lose everything, raise of course meaning you're betting more, and then call means you're matching the other bets. When everyone has called, meaning match the same risks as the other person, then everyone has to show their hand. I think this is where "calling someones' bluff" comes from, because if you think someone is bluffing about their hand pretending it's better than it is, you can call their bet and force them to show their hand, because if everyone just folds the winner doesn't have to show their hand so you never know if they were bluffing or not. So it's like you were saying with the literal part of him calling her on the phone and then giving her his hand to hold like when they walked down the street, and then also like you were saying with the card game part of him "calling" her bet of their relationship as is (at least that's what I'm understanding they're betting) and then revealing what was in his card hand to her

Poorly Fleshed Skeleton

Oh wow! I forgot about that song!! Great connection!

English Teacher KP

Great video as always! In the line “we bless the rains on Cornelia street” I think of the song Africa by Toto and gave me a great image of them dancing around to that song in the apartment

Eden McFadden

Yes!!

English Teacher KP

There's also a lyrical parallel to reputation's "King Of My Heart" with "Up on the roof with a schoolgirl crush". And here, "sat on the roof you and I"

BratNDaHwz

Yes! The badboy/cowboy motif is so much fun! I love it, too!

English Teacher KP

I love this song so much! I think it is so raw and honest, it's like all of her cards are layed out. And it always reminds me of my own relationship because my boyfriends and I spent part of the quarantine together at my family's beach house and I remember writing him a letter a day before we came back saying "Now there will always be a piece of you in every room of this house because you've made it your own" and I think that's it, it's how people just take places in our lives in such a way that they can't be forgotten. And I just LOVE the player/cowboy/kinda bad boy motif going on in her most recent projects. The significant other in a lot of her songs (to me they are about Joe, but anyways) is described very similarly in several songs since Reputation. It's like this handsome player who she saw as an equal adversary at first and then she ended up catching feelings and got afraid to be defeated in her own game.

Ingrid Veiga