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thisselflovecamebacktome · 3 years

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My personal connection with Taylor’s discography, part five: Marjorie

Basically this is just a series I’m doing where I write down my feelings on what each of the Taylor songs means to me personally on a line to line basis both for my own sake to have it somewhere and for anyone who wants to know anything further about me. So with that in mind, let’s get started.

Marjorie

This song is a little weird for me because as a whole, it’s about losing the almost romanticised view I had of my family. Like most of the people I think of when it comes to this song are still very much alive, but our relationship reached a point where I will never speak to them again. But despite our relationship being like that now, much like most kids, I grew up thinking these people were near perfect and those memories don’t go away just because I’m not on good terms with them now. Because of that, this song has been a very bittersweet song for me and one of the harder Taylor songs to listen to.

Never be so kind, you forget to be clever

When I was younger, I was one of those kids who never wanted to see anyone hurt and would give up if it meant someone else was happy. And that cost me a lot of opportunities. And a remember each time I’d do it, my mother and paternal grandparents would sit me down and remind me that I am a female and that the world is harsh and doesn’t give us as a gender many chances, so I shouldn’t be throwing away chances like that, especially to people who were more likely to achieve those goals through different means. I particularly remember having one of these talks in the third grade when I asked the teacher to allow my competitor in a maths competition to have a second try when he got an answer wrong only for him to quickly declare victory when I messed up a question later. Let it be known that I will never again forget that 7x8 is 56 and that even if I still have issues with it, I do not need to make things harder for myself by giving a leg up to people who would keep me down given the chance.

Never be so clever, you forget to be kind

As much as I tried to be nice as a kid, I definitely grew up with some privileges and a bit of a god complex when it came to my academic skill. Cringily, up until like 9th grade I was that kid that gloated about their grades and was like “well if you just tried harder, you’d get these grades too!”. I was particularly like this with my sister given my parents spent our childhood pinning us against each other and that was the only “win” I could take, especially in terms of my mother. Except it really wasn’t because my mother was also someone who hated school and didn’t do well through no fault of her own. As a result, “You’re smart Jessica, but there’s always going to be someone smarter and nobody is going to care how good you are if you can’t be nice” was a common phrase I heard as a kid. Whether or not it’s true is yet to be seen given some of the biggest names in the world are assholes, but I’ve definitely come to a place where kindness will always outclass cleverness in my life.

And if I didn't know better, I'd think you were talking to me now

When I have a hard decision to make or I feel like I’m making the wrong choice, I still imagine these idealised versions of my family were still in my life and talk myself into what I think is the next right move. Is talking to yourself still counted as being crazy? Perhaps, but it works and is weirdly comforting given everything that’s happened.

If I didn't know better, I'd think you were still around. What died didn't stay dead. You're alive, you're alive in my head, so alive

Despite everything that happened, my anger towards it, and the way I’ve tried to put it out of mine, I still look back fondly on these memories with these people before they showed who they actually were.

Never be so polite, you forget your power

Like I said, as a kid I hated inconveniencing anyone. This meant I ate a bunch of food I hated, did activities I didn’t want to and even went out while sick because I didn’t want to ruin the day for anyone else. In particular, I remember getting a big stomach ache while on holiday at my paternal grandparents’ house but still trying to get ready and go out to the beach for the day. When he immediately realised something was wrong was told that I hadn’t said anything because I didn’t want to ruin the day, he sat me down and reminded me that it was my holiday too and that was my body so I could and should take control of that and say no sometimes, even if it is just because I don’t want to do something.

Never wield such power, you forget to be polite

For all their flaws, my mother’s side of the family did teach one one thing. I came from nothing, and even if someday I broke the poverty cycle, I was not above anyone else. A lot of conversations with that side of the family was about how oftentimes it was “higher class” people who refused to tip or use manners and felt above it all. Also, when I was a smartass about my grades and jobs I wanted to get, I was reminded that even if I had the best paying job in the world, I would still need the “lesser” workers in order for my life to run smoothly. While the words “class struggle” never came into play, these conversations very much helped to form a lot of my beliefs and remind me to stay humble.

And if I didn't know better, I'd think you were listening to me now

When someone dies, a lot of people believe they send signs from beyond the grave. Sometimes these happen in the form of seeing associated animals on a bad day, sometimes it’s a random thing coming to you and pushing in a certain direction when needing to make a choice. And there are days when it feels the same with my family even though most of them are still alive.

But most of all, I think about this line in reference to my uncle who passed when I was 12 who always had mine and my mother’s backs. I remember driving home from my partner’s place during a depressive episode a few years back thinking about how my grandparents live in the same suburb and considering dropping past even though I had cut them off years before to have not only roadworks happen to be happening in a way to make me go past their street, but also their light being off implying they weren’t there. And despite not being a spiritual/religious person anymore, something about that felt very much like my uncle had heard me and was making it clear that his parents were out living their lives and I was making the right choice by doing the same.

The autumn chill that wakes me up. You loved the amber skies so much. Long limbs and frozen swims. You'd always go past where our feet could touch

This line screams my sister to me. The best thing about my sister and the thing that I will spend forever missing is how she got so excited about the little things in life. Doing her makeup or wearing nice clothes was exciting, listening to music was exciting, getting up early on special days to open gifts was exciting, hell even going to a concert for an artist she hated was exciting for her. She was also the biggest risk taker of the family. And given her auburn hair, the autumn/amber visuals just caps the whole thing off.

And I complained the whole way there; the car ride back and up the stairs

I was a whiny and impatient kid (who somehow turned into a more impatient adult, yikes). Looking back, I spent so many occasions with my family whining about little things or asking how long it’s going to take instead of just enjoying the moment. And ultimately, I think that’s one of my biggest regrets in life so far.

I should've asked you questions. I should've asked you how to be, asked you to write it down for me

Like most people, I really underestimated how much time I was going to have with my family and I took for granted the notion that there was always going to be a time that they’d be around to help and get advice from. So I never asked. And now I’m here, 25 and feeling incredibly unequipped for handling the world around me like I should and wishing I had taken those opportunities to ask for more advice. Likewise, while people make jokes that white people have no culture, I genuinely really feel like I don’t (and as a result struggle with my place in the world) because I didn’t bother asking about our history or the family members I never met or any of that and don’t have anything in my possession to give me that information.

Should've kept every grocery store receipt 'cause every scrap of you would be taken from me

Kinda continuing from above, I hated taking photos and really didn’t keep much that my family gave me growing up. Like realistically when it comes to the extended family, I have a few really low quality photos, a piece of art my paternal grandfather gave me before moving to the UK because I loved it as a kid and my memories. And even with my sister and father, I have a single box of things my sister left behind and one Taylor Swift fan book and a necklace my father gave me. That’s it.

I don’t have any family heirlooms, I don’t even think I have one picture of me with most the members of the family and I don’t even have the loving perception of them because that was taken from me in the fallout of the family. And despite everything that happened, that upsets me whenever I think about it.

Watched as you signed your name Marjorie. All your closets of backlogged dreams and how you left them all to me

To be honest, this line just reminds me of the women in my family and how much they sacrificed in order for me to get where I am today. Like both my grandmothers never finished school (with my maternal grandmother being unable to read) in order to get jobs to look after their families after both fathers abandoned them before marrying into abusive relationships. My mother quit her higher paying job to raise me and my siblings full time because my father had epilepsy and couldn’t. And my mother started working again in my teens in the form of cleaning the dirtiest of houses so I could go to Japan which was one of the happiest memories of my life. She also mentioned she wished I could have been a performer because she had always wanted to be. None of these women got to experience their dreams or even the lives they should have had all to make sure I had the best chance of living mine and again, no matter what happens, that will always be something I remember.

And if I didn't know better, I'd think you were singing to me now

Again, this line just screams my sister. Any time I hear one of her old favourite songs or a top ten hit I think she’d like, especially if it comes on shuffle or out in public, I think of her.

I know better, but I still feel you all around. I know better, but you're still around

Obviously I know these people are not talking to me. They’ve moved on with their lives and outside the moments where they feel the need to try PR the situation to keep me quiet, I imagine they don’t really think of me at all. Additionally, it’s hard to say that the idealistic versions of them I created in my head even existed to be around in the first place. And yet, I still feel their influence on me in my day to day life.

#taylor swift #marjorie #evermore album #about me

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