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.