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I dont know about you but I am, generally, very depressed.
Baby just sayyes, if you will.
I have been spending a lot of days sitting by my Christmas tree feeling quite down.
Which is why I must immediately thank Ms.
Which, frankly, might have been enough for me.
Much ofevermoresounds likefolkloresmore upbeat sister, the one who has got her SSRIs sorted out.
Thats a mood, but its certainly not the mood Im in.
tis the damn season, however, strikes just the right chord.
I wish I could have blasted this song when it happened.
But then you get to dorothea, four songs further in, and it all clicks together.
Frankly, shame on me for even thinking it could be so.
In dorothea, youll find none.
Instead, its a story told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator in Dorotheas hometown.
Dorothea moved away to seek fame and fortune in Hollywood.
Hey, Dorothea, do you ever stop and think about me?
You got shiny friends since you left town.
A tiny screens the only place I see you now.
Over on Twitter, a chorus of shouts emerged.
dorothea, they claimed, was for the sapphics.
betty dorotheabeing for the sapphics
By verse two, I was yelling right with them.
In it, the narrator talks about how Dorothea skipped prom to piss off her pageant-loving mother.
Blowing off heteronormative tradition?
And damn, Dorothea, they all wanna be ya/ But are you still the same soul?
I met under the bleachers, narrator Swift sings.
What is in the water in this town?
Theres an ache in you, the narrator sings.
Put there by the ache in me.
Whats gayer than shared trauma, I ask you?
With dorothea, Swift revives the same narrative rig she employed on betty.
Like betty, Swifts co-writer on the track is a man in this case, the Nationals Aaron Dessner.
(For betty, it was William Bowery a.k.a.
Honestly, I love this for them.)
But when you boil it down, its Swift doing the singing.
At the very least, its Swift singing in drag.
(And its that vagueness that makes dorothea a beautiful Swift classic.
Your a queen sellin dreams, sellin makeup in magazines, she sings to Dorothea.
From you Id buy anything.
She might be tall and professionally attractive?
Ooh, and youll go on with the show.
Is the show perhaps the lie youre living, Dorothea?
The act, the fakery of a life youve concocted for yourself?
Its never too late to come back to my side.
The stars in your eyes shined brighter in Tupelo, the song concludes.
Also known as the queer side.
Which brings us back to tis the damn season.
Listen to it again.
Does this make any sense in the context of the film?
No, absolutely not.
But will it bring you mental joy?
Time flies, messy as the mud on your truck tires.
Now Im missing your smile, hear me out, Dorothea sings.
We could just ride around, and the road not taken looks real good now.
And it always leads to you in my hometown.
Of course, this teenage love drives a truck!
Dorothea admits its more than just a hookup of convenience.
That she might stay if asked, might not go back to L.A. and her so-called friends.
And the heart I know Im breaking is my own.
Ahem, youre breaking your gay heart andmine, Dorothea.
Remember that annoying tweet back ten thousand years ago in March that said Shakespeare wroteKing Learwhile in quarantine?
Turns out, somebody (Swift) really took that to heart.
See, Shakespearewasrelevant here.
