Month: November 2023

For one of my last blog posts of the semester I wanted to come back to the Reputation album Taylor dropped in 2017. Out of all of her albums, I feel as though the Reputation lyrics relate to the novel The Great Gatsby the most- so it is only fitting I close out my blog with another song from the EP. The song “Call It What You Want” describes one of Taylors’ obsessions, explaining how she does not care about anything else when she is with her love interest, Similar to Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy.

The song has an overarching theme of fixation on a person, and not caring what outsiders might think of her relationship. The lyrics state,

“All the drama queens taking swings
All the jokers dressin’ up as kings
They fade to nothin’ when I look at him”

The quote struck me as something very similar to something Gatsby would say about Daisy, in fact, I went to the novel itself for this blog post to find a similar quotation. Just as Taylor states “They fade to nothin’ when I look at him”, Jay Gatsby says about Daisy “There I was, way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn’t care.” 

Both Taylor and Gaysby became so fixated on someone all of the outside factors, drama, and parties going on around them did not matter.

Her lyrics throughout “Call It What You Want”, along with many of her other songs curate a persona of a reckless lover. Her fixations are further described in the song in the bridge. Not only is the bridge extremely catchy (my favorite part of the song), but it gives her perspective on how infatuated she had become with her love interest, the lyrics stating,

“I want to wear his initial
On a chain ’round my neck, chain ’round my neck
Not because he owns me
But ’cause he really knows me”

The obcession described in her lyrics can also be seen in her song “King of My Heart”, also from the same EP. Though the name of song says enough, the lyrics state,

“And let the King of my heart
Be the wind inside my sails
The anchor in the waves
Oh oh, He is my song”

The obsessive themes from The Great Gatsby are also reflected in Taylors’ Lyrics. The Great Gatsby narrative follows a tragic love story- The parallels to Taylor Swift’s lyrics, which are adorned and related to millions, lead me to believe the obsession Gatsby experienced is more common than one might think.

Taylor released “High Infidelity” on her 3 am edition of the Midnights album in 2022, this song describes cheating and leaving a loveless relationship. The Midnights album is one of my favorites by her, and always one of Taylor’s newest music releases.

The song itself is one of the more meaningful or “sappy” songs on the album, due to the idea of being in a loveless relationship can be rather hopeless and meaningless. The song itself parallels the plot in The Great Gatsby because Daisy Buchannan is in a loveless relationship with Tom. I imagine Taylor’s lyrics in this song would have resonated with her- This is another blog post about a song I imagine would have been on Daisy Buchanan’s playlist if her character had gotten the chance to listen.

The verse that I think resonates with Daisy most states,

“Dragged my feet right down the aisle
At the house lonely, good money
I’d pay if you’d just know me
Seemed like the right thing at the time”

Daisy’s marriage in the novel is based around money and reputation, She was with Tom to maintain the wealthy lifestyle she had grown up with, resonating with the lyric “seemed like the right idea at the time”, while throughout the narrative of The Great Gatsby, we learn she also resonates with the lyric, “at the house lonely, good money”. This is because Tom takes care of Daisy financially, but he constantly cheats on her and she knows about it. The big empty house is something that is so saddening- and truly shows money cannot buy happiness, which is also a major theme of Fitzgerald’s novel.

Another lyric that relates to The Great Gatsby is,

“Your picket fence is sharp as knives”

The term picket fence is often associated with the American Dream. Having a nuclear family, and living in a house with a picket fence- putting a twist on this by saying the fence is “sharp as knives” parallels Fitzgerald, as he also used his narrative to criticize the American Dream.

Fashion has been a way that people can display how they want to be perceived for as long as it has existed. Rather it is used for you to identify with a specific culture, or to express your individuality, people use fashion as a way to affect how others perceive them. A major theme of The Great Gatsby is his experience with false reality while trying to work his way into the elite social class of New York.

Fashion, and fashion trends throughout time are way more important to the socioeconomic ladder than we consider day-to-day. The biggest way to determine a time setting for a film is the clothes the characters are wearing, this also goes for determining the economic class of the characters being introduced. Though it is never mentioned exclusively in The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby had to have been putting effort into the clothing he was wearing to both business meetings and parties to be perceived in the way he had hoped for. Daisy is described in the first chapter wearing all white to represent purity, and in the newer version of the film Gatsby is shown wearing a white suit that portrays him as wealthy.

My film pitch will emphasize fashion and the trends that led to the trends that Jay Gatsby had to embody and use to climb the social ladder and eventually achieve his goal of being enough for Daisy Buchanan.