In this week’s blog post I am switching it up just a little bit. Instead of analyzing a song from Taylor Swift’s reputation album, I am going to be discussing a song named “Happiness” off of her album, evermore. So many lines in this song could be related back to The Great Gatsby but the line that I will be focusing on first goes,
“I hope she’ll be a beautiful fool”
As soon as I heard this line I immediately thought of the line in the novel where Daisy is talking about her daughter and says “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool-that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” This quote has always stuck out to me as it showcased a crucial character development for Daisy. She realized that it is better to be a fool in their society as her daughter is less likely to be hurt the way she had been. This is important in the song as it is showing a character development for Taylor as well. The lyrics indicate that she has been through a tough breakup but takes the high road to forgiving him.
We see this attempt of forgiveness when she says,
“All you want from me now is the
green light of forgiveness
You haven’t met the new me yet
And I think she’ll give you that”
I interpreted this as yet another Gatsby reference to the notorious green light, except this time from Daisy’s perspective. The green light represents Gatsby’s dreams with Daisy that he had waited so long for. Fitzgerald wrote, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.” All he wanted was for that light to turn on as he believed it was a sign from Daisy; but it never did. For Daisy, I think she knew what the green light meant for Gatsby and she knew she couldn’t fulfill that dream for him. This verse does a great job at showing Daisy’s internal conflict with the green light. The conflict mainly being, what Gatsby wants, Daisy cannot do, even if she wanted to. Now to relate this to Taylor, she is saying she really doesn’t want to move on but she knows she must; hence the “new me” phrase. Daisy knows she cannot leave Tom and she knows she must move on and with that she must diminish the green light forever.
The last important piece of this song to note in the end of the chorus. This part goes,
“Haunted by the look in my eyes
That would’ve loved you for a lifetime
Leave it all behind
And there is happiness”
I think this is the goodbye that we can visualize from Daisy’s perspective. Basically saying she would’ve loved or perhaps wanted to love Gatsby, but she couldn’t. She was “haunted” but as she turns the green light off she “leaves it all behind”. This was the moving on neither one of them truly probably wanted to do; but is what needed to happen. Taylor brightens the mood by saying there was happiness in the time that they loved each other and hopefully there will be happiness again.
Comments by Kynli Jones