Category: Reflections

I adore Taylor Swift a lot. I’ve seen her perform four times, and I know every song’s lyrics off by heart. Why is this significant? I was able to make parallels between Taylor Swift’s music and The Great Gatsby right away thanks to my familiarity with her songs and my ability to delve deeper into their meaning. The book follows Nick Carraway’s narrative as it tackles superficiality and the romantic conflicts of the protagonists. However, Taylor’s Reputation album highlights her experience with “finding love through all the noise,” which as I’ve read the book, I believe is exactly what Jay Gatsby is tirelessly attempting to do. Romantic hardships are at the heart of Taylor’s music.

Jay Gatsby is the protagonist of the novel and is madly in love with a false perception of Daisy Buchanan. Daisy comes from a wealthy family, giving Gatsby a motivation to obtain wealth and climb the New York social ladder during the roaring 20’s- He is “trying to find love through all of the noise.” A quote from Taylor to describe he intentions for writing the Reputation album. In this blog post, I will draw parallels from the song “this is why we can’t have nice things” I wanted to do this song first, not only because it is my favorite on the album, but because it directly references Gatsby in the lyrics. The song is about how bad behavior and distrust can ruin moments of happiness “nice things”, and references the novel in the first verse.

“And there are no rules when you show up here
Bass beat rattling the chandelier
Feeling so Gatsby for that whole year”

She uses the novel to describe her in the party scene in 2014-2015, but as the song builds to the chorus it describes how drama ruined it. The lyrics go on to say, “This is why we can’t have nice things, honey (oh)
Did you think I wouldn’t hear all the things you said about me?” Similar to Taylors personal experience, Jay Gatsby realizes throughout the novel that he also cannot have “nice things”- As he begins to see his love interest, Daisy’s, true colors and his persona begins to fall apart.

Taylor Swifts “Folklore” album was released in 2020 and explores a love triangle from all 3 perspectives. Each song in the album explores the emotions and experiences from one of the people in the love triangle, and truly explores how each person is both a victim and a wrong doer. The album was made to show the beauty and tragedy of young romance, and that is where I see the parallel between the album and The Great Gatsby. The tragedy behind the beauty.

The novel largely follows the love triangle of Daisy, Tom, and Gatsby. Daisy Buchanan is unhappily married to Tom, who is also unfaithful. The marriage is superficial and shallow, and I argue that both characters are in most relationships in their lives as well.

The specific song I want to pull parallels from for todays blog post is “Illicit Affairs”, is from the perspective of the person being cheated with, in the narrative this would be Gatsby. The song states in the first verse,

“What started in beautiful rooms
Ends with meetings in parking lots”

This verse almost exactly describes Daisy and Gatsby’s love affair. Gatsby would throw luxurious parties to catch Daisy’s eye, while the two were having to sneak around during her affair with him. The final verse of the song is, and read this in Gatsby’s perspective,

“And you know damn well
For you, I would ruin myself
A million little times”

Gatsby did ruin himself for Daisy. He jumped through numerous hoops just to have her back in his life. From buying a house in the west egg, throwing parties with celebrities, being willing to be an affair. His desire to have Daisy in his life causes him to lose all sense of morality for his own benefit, and as the narrative progresses he literally takes a bullet for her. The narrative also describes Daisy as selfish, which is tragic. As Taylor said the album illicit affairs is on describes both the beauty and tragedy of romance, as does TGG.