Taylor Swift has no shortage of sad lyrics. If she knows anything, it’s how to inject a hefty amount of emotion into a song—chief among those emotions is heartache. It’s a hard crop to narrow down but find four of our favorite tear-jerking lyrics, below.
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1. I made you my temple, my mural, my sky / Now I’m beggin’ for footnotes in the story of your life (“tolerate it“)
Many of Swift’s saddest songs come in the heartache persuasion. Swift is undoubtedly the breakup song queen, dredging up a seemingly endless amount of personal “romance-gone-awry” stories. However, one of her most powerful effigies of a broken heart comes from third-party inspiration: “tolerate it.”
Swift was inspired to write this song after reading the classic novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier wherein a woman must tussle with the ghost of her husband’s first wife. No matter how hard she tries she can’t seem to get him to notice her. The lines above cut deep, explaining that inner turmoil to a “T.”
2. So I’ll watch your life in pictures like I used to watch you sleep / And I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe (“Last Kiss“)
It’s never easy to be the one in a relationship that can’t move on—particularly if the other party is finding it a breeze. That’s the scenario Swift describes in the bridge of “Last Kiss.” She juxtaposes the happy times of her relationship (I used to watch you sleep, I used to feel you breathe) with the distance they now have (I’ll watch your life in pictures, I feel you forget me). It’s a brutal reality that Swift, somehow, grins and bears.
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3. I can go anywhere I want / Anywhere I want, just not home (“my tears ricochet“)
When your closest confidant becomes your biggest enemy, it can feel like losing a home. That’s the allusion Swift makes in the lines above. She can never return to that comfortable place with the subject of this song. She has free roam, but the one place she wants to go is off-limits. It’s the kind of betrayal that isn’t easily dusted off.
4. You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath (“All Too Well (10-Minute Version)“)
The entirety of the 10-minute version of “All Too Well” is like a punch to the gut. But, if we had to pick one line that instantly summons up all the pain Swift felt while writing this track, it would have to be, You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath. It perfectly captures the difference between Swift and her partner.
Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
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