today’s daily song is  Peter! The 28th track (my favorite number) of TTPD. Now I did not pick Peter because it’s the 28th track but rather because there’s A LOT to talk about this song. 

Now many people speculate the muse of this song but I rather talk about the theme because I think it does a great job exploring the loss of youth while waiting for something (in Taylor’s case a partner to grow up) which I can relate to a lot even though. The podcast “The Swiftie and The Scholar” points this out in their video: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=caI\_NIkCqcg&ra=m](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=caI_NIkCqcg&ra=m) (highly recommended it). I’m gonna write about my interpretation of this song which is not something I normally do for daily songs but I really want to showcase Taylor’s story telling here. 

The song starts with the lyrics “Forgive me, Peter/My lost fearless leader/In closets like cedar/Preserved from when we were just kids/Is it something I did?” Which shows to me a really self conscious way of approaching the muse (who we will call Peter). It feels mature that she is trying to ask Peter if she did something wrong but in reality she is putting herself down, and while the intro lyrics was pretty grounded as you get further into the verse she starts talking about this mythical goddess of timing showing that she isn’t actually in a mature space when she is interacting with Peter, she has to talk about make believes things cause that’s the only way Peter will understand, he isn’t grounded in reality he is stuck somewhere where he is allowed to not grow up and still live in a fantasy while Taylor deals with reality. The refusal of him to grow up is why their love is never to keep despite the promise he made to her.

There is definitely a hint of the female experience in this song.  When I say the female experience I am not trying to act like that every women goes through this however gender roles do unfortunately play a large role in society and I do believe that Taylor does address that with the lyrics “I’ve heard great things, Peter/But life was always easier on you/Than it was on me”.  Even though later on that verse she writes “We both did the best we could do/Underneath the same moon/In different galaxies” showing that both she and Peter tried, Peter gets praised while Taylor doesn’t. The different galaxy part is very interesting to me because what does she mean by that? Social circles? Fame? Gender roles? It also reminds me of the song Question…? (Esp the lyrics “Caught in politics and gender-roles”) Continuing on the theme of how women are expected to grow and mature faster than men, I also find it interesting how in the bridge she wrote “Lost to the “Lost Boys” chapter of your life” (obviously referencing Peter Pan) but then wrote “But the woman who sits by the window/Has turned out the light” (referencing Wendy in the end) showing how how Peter is allowed to still act immature and childish but the narrator must grow up even as she waits for Peter. The use of women in contrast to “lost boys” in particular show this concept really well. It’s the small details like that which makes this song great. 

I also want to talk about the use of the imagery of Peter Pan in particular. Taylor referenced Peter Pan in Cardigan before and I find it interesting that both song is speaking to a muse who is much less immature than the narrator. Peter Pan can famously fly and Taylor references that a couple of times in the song that Peter is up in the sky, away from a grounded reality. Taylor was also there, she did not want to come down but she had to. She wished that when Peter did come down he would tell her all that he learned from maturing but he never did, he never came back as a matured man and found her like he promised he would… Compare this song to the another anthology song, Robin, and I love how one is about protecting kids from growing up to fast while Peter is about when a grown man refuses to grow up. 

The songs’s production is a nice and somber piano ballad that fits well with the lyrics of the song. It definitely has a depressing atmosphere. My favorite lyric is probably the “And you said you'd come and get me, but you were twenty-five/And the shelf life of those fantasies has expired” or the same moon/different Galaxy lyrics, (which side note: this song had fantastic imagery. I know I mostly focused on the storytelling but the imagery enhanced the storytelling a lot.

Final rating: 9/10

Daily Song #142: Peter