Loml by Taylor Swift is the 12th track of The Tortured Poets Department album. Many Swifties argue that is qualifies as a track 5 and I agree. It’s heartbreaking, and you can feel all the pain in the picture that Taylor paints with her words.
While many people are still trying to figure out who this song is about, let’s take time to delve into the beautiful but gut-wrenching lyrics.
“Who’s gonna stop us from waltzing back into rekindled flames
If we know the steps anyway?
We embroidered the memories of the time I was away
Stitching, “We were just kids, babe”
I said, “I don’t mind, it takes time”
I thought I was better safe than starry-eyed
I felt aglow like this
Never before and never since”
As usual, Taylor hit us hard with the first line of this song. Think of a relationship that has broken and amended a few times such that it’s now easy to get back together. Like the passion is always there and the reunions have been frequent such that it feels easy and casual. That’s the kind of situation the writer was describing in the first two lines of loml by Taylor Swift.
The line about being just kids seems to reference Patti Smith. This is likely making reference to Patti’s memoir Just Kids. A section of the memoir focused on her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and his painful death.
The quoted statements indicated that she was describing a specific moment. Although, she experienced something that has remained unique and special to this day, she choose to be realistic about her expectations instead of being dreamy or should I say starry-eyed?
Grand Promises
“If you know it in one glimpse, it’s legendary
You and I go from one kiss to getting married
Still alivе, killing time at the cemеtery
Never quite buried
In your suit and tie, in the nick of time
You low-down boy, you stand-up guy
You Holy Ghost, you told me I’m the love of your life
You said I’m the love of your life
About a million times”
You would think she was describing a love at first sight in the first line of her chorus. But it wasn’t long before we realized she was describing a dying love. An almost dead love that was just buying time.
A love that swooped in at the right time (nick of time), saying all the right things and promising things she had always wished for.
The Realization
“Who’s gonna tell me the truth when you blew in with the winds of fate
And told me I reformed you?
When your impressionist paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes
Well, you took me to hell too
And all at once, the ink bleeds
A con man sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme
But I’ve felt a hole like this
Never before and ever since”
The second verse focused on all the promises she got from the love that came by at the perfect time. But was the love itself perfect? Unfortunately, not. She talked about all his promises and the beautiful love he assured her of. And how they are all outright lies.
My favorite line is where she accuses this partner of being a con man and describes herself as a fool for believing his grand promises although they were far from realistic.
Here again, she had a unique experience, this time, it was a vacuum that this fake love created after she lost it.
The Regrets
“If you know it in one glimpse, it’s legendary
What we thought was for all time was momentary
Still alive, killing time at the cemetery
Never quite buried
You cinephile in black and white
All those plot twists and dynamite
Mr. Steal Your Girl, then make her cry
You said I’m the love of your life”
Taylor Swift has an intelligent way of using the same phrase to mean different things in different contexts. She did that with this chorus. Although she starts by describing a love-at-first-sight situation, she quickly went down the line of disappointment.
She was disappointed at how her partner stole her from someone else but couldn’t make her happy. In all these chorus, you will realize that she never used the phrase, “love of my life”, which we all assumed to be the meaning of the song’s title.
“You shit-talked me under the table
Talkin’ rings and talkin’ cradles
I wish I could un-recall
How we almost had it all
Dancing phantoms on the terrace
Are they second-hand embarrassed
That I can’t get out of bed
‘Cause something counterfeit’s dead?
It was legendary
It was momentary
It was unnecessary
Should’ve let it stay buried”
Getting broken-hearted from a love that started slow is painful but when you are love-bombed and then it all ends without any warnings, you feel like wiping that time of your life away completely. You are not only broken, it feels like you were dropped from a pedestal.
The bridge for loml by Taylor Swift painted this picture. They talked about marriage (rings) and cradles (babies) only for everything to end. She regrets reigniting the love since it didn’t go anywhere and left her with so much pain.
She discredits the love (counterfeit) and her embarrassment for crying over that kind of love.
A Not So Simple Goodbye
“Oh, what a valiant roar
What a bland goodbye
The coward claimed he was a lion
I’m combing through the braids of lies
“I’ll never leave,” “Never mind”
Our field of dreams engulfed in fire
Your arson’s match, your somber eyes
And I’ll still see it until I die
You’re the loss of my life”
The end of this relationship is not a simple goodbye. Taylor described how she watched the man she thought she knew gradually turn before her eyes. But then she realized he wasn’t as grand he described himself to be. He was in fact the person she is seeing now after unearthing all the lies he told her.
She brilliantly slipped in one of the lies he told her, that he would never leave. Then comes the saddest part, she watched their dreams engulfed in flames and you know who caused the fire? Him. He watched on as their dreams burn and the flames reflected in his eyes.
I love the play on words she used in this situation. Match – A matchstick for the fire and comparing their death of their dreams to the look in his eyes. A depressing, dull, and dark look. And in the last line, she tells us the meaning of her song title when she said “You are the loss of my life”.
Final Sentiments of the song LOML by Taylor Swift
In most parts of the song, she seems to be recounting a long standing on and off romance. Throughout the song her disappointment in her partner but she still calls him the lost of her life.
The first thought after hearing the phrase “loss of my life” will probably be “a great loss”. But is that what she actually means? Can a person who disappointed you so much leave such a vacuum in your life?
My wild guess is that, she was trying to negate the picture her partner painted with his promises. If the promises were fulfilled, he would have been the love of her life but they were not fulfilled so he becomes the loss of her life.
