Life was a willow
#1
First, I’m into Taylor’s song, willow, it feels different from her others songs, which mostly are breakup songs. It’s not the first time, but out of the blue, I found myself listening to it for more than one hour looping. I’ve knew that willow is a name for a tree. But, why did Taylor put it as a title for her lead single?
So, I went to look at what the willow meaning is.
Willow is a hardwood tree with great resilience and high tolerance to stressful environments such as floods, saline, droughts, etc. If we plant the willow branch on the ground, it will grow as a new plant on it. So, the willow is a symbol of fertility and new life. How the willow life in any condition, shows that we can grow up in any circumstances
The one famous is the weeping willow tree, which has long branches with a “weeping” shape, formed a beautiful green canopy arch. As it looks like bowing, in Chinese a willow tree symbolizes humility.
That’s a big meaning of a willow tree, isn’t it?
Back to Taylor’s
Willow is the first lead song in her 9th studio album “evermore”. In an interview, Taylor explained that “willow” is a song about wanting someone, the start of falling in love. She said,
“‘willow’ is about intrigue, desire, and the complexity that goes into wanting someone. I think it sounds like casting a spell to make somebody fall in love with you (an oddly specific visual)”
“evermore” possesses a strong relationship with the previous album “folklore”, so Taylor called it folklore’s sister record. She announced,
“I’m elated to tell you that my 9th studio album, and folklore’s sister record, will be out tonight at midnight eastern. It’s called evermore,” she wrote. “To put it plainly, we just couldn’t stop writing songs. To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in. I’ve never done this before. In the past, I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved on to planning the next one after an album was released. There was something different with folklore. In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning. I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So I just kept writing them…………………
Certainly, there was an enormous of fans’ theories about this song, since everybody on the earth knows that Taylor’s fond of keep making her fans busy and invite to dig into the rabbit hole together. Moreover, she’s absolutely never told obviously whom the songs were towards, or what exactly happens at the time, then it brings a bunch of easter eggs afterward.
Throughout “willow”, Taylor narrates her romantic life as like a willow tree. She’s pictured herself as a willow tree that has tremendous branches that bent to the ground. Although it looks vulnerable to the wind, willow planted with strong roots sturdily.
Rather than interpret this song as for a lover, I would like to interpret it towards “everything that attracted me”, whether someone or something.
“Life was a willow and it bent right to your wind”
Taylor portrays her love life is like a willow, she moves by the wind of his presence and bent right towards him. It seems to relate when we start liking anything, we will move by its presence and focus to sweep it up.
“The more that you say
The less I know”
When we start interested in something, the more we explore it, the more we realize our nescience. So, we will go deeper dive into it.
“Wherever you stray
I follow”
Whenever it takes us, we are ready for it as a consequence of liking it.
“I’m begging for you to take my hand
Wreck my plans
That’s my man”
Maybe these lyrics are mean Taylor proposes to the man. She gives all of her to the man, her heart, her entire time to someone she loves.
Yeah, those are what absolutely we will do when we are obsessed with something, ain’t it?
“willow” was definitely perfect as an opening to invite us to explore the folklorian woods. We should wander deeper in and enjoy the adventure.
Anyway, that’s all only my opinion. We can learn every single thing in a simple way on a daily basis, we can learn everything from everything, as long as we do not create any burdensome. Like how Taylor metaphors her romantic life as a willow tree, like how we are immersed in what we are fond of, like how we take, construe, and recall any moments in our life. We could be a willow, vulnerable but strong, droop but resilient, and stand firmly but still humble.
In very short, I say to myself hardly, “You can live like a willow if you don’t know where you have to go, still planted your foot to the ground even you’re weeping, you’re precious but you don’t know”.
Thank you for reading :)
