Before I begin, one thing you should know about me is that I LOVE Taylor Swift. I became a swiftie early this year when her album Midnight came out, and I haven’t looked back ever since.
I’ve found escape, relief and self realization just by listening to Taylor’s songs. Although I can’t lie to you and say that I’ve listened to every single of her songs and albums, but the few I know, I hold them close to my heart.
These days I’ve been stuck on a particular song of hers, and the more I listen to it, the clearer it becomes to me. It’s why I decided to talk about it today.
Disclaimer : I’m not a professional music critic. This is just my personal interpretation of the song, and it may vary to others.
Daylight is Taylor’s last and 18th song in her 7th album; Lover – which is one of my favorite albums by the way. I also recommend you listening as you read through, for clearer understanding.
The first part of the song talks about Taylor’s misfortune to finding genuine love, and the vulnerability that comes with opening up when she finally found what she believes to be true love.
‘My love was as cruel as the cities I lived in.’
‘I’ll tell you the truth, but never goodbye.’
These days, you’ll think twice before telling your partner about your past. Everyone says over sharing is bad, which to an extent I agree. However, I don’t think true love happens without you being vulnerable, and it’s a really brave thing to do when you finally break down your walls, tear down your defenses and be completely emotionally naked to your partner just because you feel safe to. Of course it’s up to them if they still choose to stay with you. But what’s love without risk?
Taylor goes ahead to tell us how totally captivating her lover is, and how he’s the center of her universe, which struck me again because I translate it as love being so consuming, especially when it’s real, after waiting for so long. It’s like holding a breath you didn’t know you were holding, when you finally release it, you feel relief. It’s like been stuck in the dark for so long and suddenly seeing light.
‘I’ve been sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night, And now I see daylight, I only see daylight.’
The jungle of love is a treacherous one and you’re bound to fall and get injured several times. Taylor explains this in the second verse. It’s very easy for people to deceive you, and it’s even easier to trust them foolishly. I’ve had my own fair experience of entangling myself with toxic men and liars. At the time, I didn’t know I was being manipulated and it felt normal to me. When I finally realized, I got heartbroken. Your experience might be similar to mine, and you may have given up on ever finding love. But Taylor assures us that love will come, and it’ll be the best experience ever.
‘Luck of the draw only draws the unlucky.’
‘And I became the butt of the joke.’
‘I wounded the good and trusted the wicked.’
Now, my favorite part about this song is when she explains love using colours, which I find freaking brilliant. Taylor says that she once believed love would be black and white. In my understanding, black and white here is used to describe something dull and stripped of colour. It also means something lifeless.
I mean, you remember those really old movies in black and white that lacks life and is just visually uninteresting? Exactly.
What could’ve lead to her saying such is probably because of frequent heartbreaks that just kept on sipping away her hope in love, which I can totally relate to. When you’re a lover boy or a lover girl and you keep on meeting principalities and abominations in form of people, it’s easy to conclude that love is an illusion.
The next line; But its golden sounds like an excited realization from Taylor and all I can think of is a colour blind person seeing colour for the first time. Such a person would be speechless, in awe and completely thrilled at seeing yellow, red, green, blue etc after being used to seeing just black and white.
Gold is a gorgeous colour — so stunning that it’s used to portray royalty. Additionally, gold itself is precious. A golden coloured love to me is indescribable. It’s so beautiful, valuable, captivating and so pure that only a foolish person would let go of such. I honestly can’t wait to experience this type of love.
‘I once believed love would be (burning red)’
This is another line that captured my attention. To me, the colour red in this context is used to portray lust, infatuation and passion which can often be mistaken as love. You know that moment of delusion when you start developing feelings for someone and you can’t see beyond wanting to be with them physically and sexually? Exactly.
Taylor tells us that true love is more than just the physicality aspect which most people are obsessed about. It’s golden.
Overall, I think it’s a cute catchy song about transitioning from heartbreak, bad love experiences to actual genuine, safe romantic love.
If you loved this piece, don’t forget to clap as many times as possible and let me know what you think.
Are you a swiftie too? Do you have a favorite Taylor’s song?
