Taylor Swift’s evermore: Part 3
The women of evermore love hard. But what happens when loving someone…ruins your life?
“Lay the table with the fancy shit” - tolerate it
Climbed Right Back Up the Cliff
Things were going downhill in last album’s song peace. A girlfriend felt guilty she couldn’t give her boyfriend peace. We get an update in evermore, on the track long story short.
The question, “Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?” is answered in long story short: “we live in peace”
The promise, “I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm” is fulfilled, “I just keep you warm.”
The partner’s “cascade ocean wave blues” are appeased, “my waves meet your shore.”
Basically everything—past relationships, past betrayals, a career hit, current relationship issues—is solved and summed up in long story short: “Now I’m all about you” and “long story short, I survived.” Sounds great!
Enter tolerate it.
The other women in evermore are relentless and guiltless. The narrator of tolerate it is the opposite. She sounds ready to give up. She is in love with her partner and effusive in her adoration, but receives only dismissive toleration in response, “I know my love should be celebrated, you tolerate it.” She’s unhappy, yet she stays.
Why??
"Were you waiting at our old spot, in the tree line, by the gold clock?" - coney island
Codependency
The narrator of peace wanted to give her partner internal contentment. Believing that you can make someone else happy—and that if you do, it will make you happy—is a slippery slope into codependency.
The term ‘codependency’ was coined in the 1970’s by Alcoholics Anonymous (Beattie, page 29*). They noticed the loved ones of alcoholics behaving similarly to each other: obsessive, resentful, controlling, yet infinitely accepting. The alcoholics were called dependent and this new profile was called codependent (Beattie, 29).
Codependency can happen in any relationship where one person doesn’t manage themselves and the other person becomes “obsessed with controlling that other person’s behavior” (Beattie, 33). This can be from alcoholism, addiction, depression (the list goes on). In Swift’s song, her partner’s “cascade ocean wave blues,” some sort of depression or inner-turmoil, would be his dependency (peace).
I think of codependency like bowling. Dependents are the bowling ball knocking over all the pins. They cause chaos. Codependents are the often-unnoticed mechanism that cleans up the pins and sets everything back to order. Codependents are the bottom half of the cycle. They fix everything, but there’s no change or long term progress.
I would argue tolerate it is about a codependent relationship. I think Swift’s ability to take a hugely complicated issue and synthesize it into a short song speaks to the power of her music and art in general.
“Your heart was glass I dropped it.” - champagne problems
Tell Me I’ve Got It Wrong Somehow
It’s a long list! But Swift packs this all into the song. The relationship in tolerate it suffers a quiet death of…
…superiority, “you’re so much older and wiser” and “I’m just a kid.” Superiority is the first step to contempt, which is the first step to the end of a healthy relationship (The Gottman Institute).
...hypervigilance, “I notice everything you do or don’t do.” Codependents are obsessively observant. Maybe because dependents dictate the reality of relationships, so if her partner is unhappy, the relationship will be unhappy.
…repetition. If effusive treatment (“I greet you with a battle hero’s welcome”) didn’t illicit a reaction the first dozen times, it won’t work the thirteenth. But around the cycle they go again.
…lopsided focus, “always taking up too much space and time.” Any humanity from codependents is inconvenient to dependents, who have overwhelming needs they fail to manage. If he can’t handle his own emotions, he doesn’t have the space or time to support hers.
…lack of reciprocity. The narrator will “sit and listen” to him. But when she’s upset, he just “assumes I’m fine.” The narrator will “take your indiscretions all in good fun.” But can she say indiscrete things to him? Probably not. That’s because codependency “prevents the open expression of feelings as well as the direct discussion of personal and interpersonal problems” (Subby*).
“Drawing hearts in the byline.” - tolerate it
…abandonment, “while you were out building other worlds, where was I?” She does everything to prioritize her partner and overlooks herself.
…loss of self to the relationship, “I made you my temple, my mural, my sky.” But what about her? This also speaks to his superiority.
…lack of validation, “if it’s all in my head tell me now.” He leaves her alone to decide what’s real.
...withdrawing affection. The true love in last album’s song invisible string—“Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire”—is no more—“Where’s that man who’d throw blankets over my barbed wire?”
…distortion of reality, “use my best colors for your portrait.” When things get worse and codependents don’t want to recognize it yet, they “erect barriers to acceptance such as justification, rationalization, denial and personal narratives that frame your story in a more palatable manner” (Durvasula, 163*). Instead of seeing her relationship for what it is, she embellishes.
...and threats, “what would you do if I break free and leave us in ruins…believe me, I could do it.” If your role in a cycle is to be present—to stay, accept, enable—your counter-action is to leave. But these threats are usually empty: “codependents are reactionaries. They overreact. They underreact. But rarely do they act” (Beattie, 36). The narrator doesn’t follow through on her threats. The song ends with her continuing to “sit and watch you.”
“Wait for the signal and I’ll meet you after dark” - willow. Graphic inspired by the ‘willow’ performance at the Era’s Tour. Video below!
Created with the assistance of Caroline Brauckmann. All Rights Reserved.
Clip of willow live at the Eras Tour in Zurich.
The video quality is bad but the performance is good!
Handcuffed to the Spell
The unsaid irony of tolerate it is that the narrator is hyper-aware of her partner, but doesn’t look at herself: “I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror” (Anti-Hero). The narrator focuses on her partner’s hurtful behavior without reflecting on her infinite acceptance of that behavior.
She begs him, “tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow.” She doesn’t want this to be their reality. But she can’t control it—he has to do his 50%.
Can we blame her for wishing this devolving relationship would turn into a happy love story? The alternative would be to end it—to face yet another shipwreck. The album evermore has been about the relentless aftermath of relationships gone wrong. The barrenness and chill characters are left with afterwards, alone. Then gathering the resiliency to somehow turn an emotional winter into a spring of rebirth. That takes a lot of strength.
Now, she’s gotta do that…again?
But unfortunately, the loving relationship she hopes for may be wrecked, whether she stays or leaves. Now, she must decide—abandon the ship or go down with it.
We’ll find out next album what she chooses.
"My love should be celebrated" - tolerate it
*Books:
Melodie Beattie, Codependent No More (1986), Chapter 3: ‘Codependency, A Brief History.’
Dr. Ramani Durvasula, It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People (2024), Chapter 5: ‘Embrace Radical Acceptance.’
Robert Subby, Co-Dependency, An Emerging Issue (1984).
This article is Part 3 in a three-part series about evermore.
All Taylor Swift articles
All music articles
