This week we're going line-by-line through Taylor Swift's "Cruel Summer" (Lover, 2019). This episode turns into a deep dive into fever dreams, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, attachment theory, and the surprising twist that the real red flag in this song might be Taylor herself.
Apple Podcast Subscribers can now listen ad free with a paid subscription!
🫶 Thank you for reading and listening. We’re a fully independent podcast: we write, produce, edit, and promote every episode ourselves, no team behind us.
If you’re able to support that with a paid subscription, here’s what it gets you: bonus episodes, our full Extra Credit archive, extra subscriber-only content, and a real say in what we cover next.
First 50 annual members get 40% off with our Wi$h Li$t Discount
Get our Wi$h Li$t Annual Discount
Listen on Apple Podcasts? Paid subscribers there get ad-free episodes, early access, and bonus episodes too
Become an Apple Paid Subscriber
💚 Engagement matters: a paid subscription isn’t the only way to help. Leave us a review on Apple or Spotify, drop a comment, subscribe for free, tap the heart, or send this to a Swiftie who’d love it. Every bit of it helps us reach more listeners and keep making the show!
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Not sure where to start listening?
With over 130 original episodes, it can be hard to find exactly the episode you want to listen to. So we’ve created Spotify playlists by era and theme to help you find the perfect AP Taylor Swift episodes to listen to!
🤠 Debut Era ⭐ Fearless 🎆 Speak Now 🧣 Red 🌃 1989 🐍 reputation 💗 Lover 🪩 folklore 🍂 evermore 🕕 Midnights 📖 TTPD ❤️🔥 Showgirl
Book Episodes (Books, shows, movies) | Literary Theory & Rhetorical Device Episodes | Theme Episodes
This Week’s Extra Credit by Jodi
🫶 One of our new Substack Paid Subscriber benefits is access to some of the original lyrical analyses I do to prepare for our episodes. Today I’m sharing my “Cruel Summer” annotations for everyone, but if you enjoy it and want to get access to upcoming lyric annotations, consider becoming a paid subscriber!
We first covered “Cruel Summer” as part of our Shakespeare episode, so you’ll notice in my annotations a lot of references to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” That comparison remains one of my favorite literary/lyric comparisons because once you see it, you can’t unsee it!
When we started this podcast, I knew immediately that I wanted to annotate Taylor’s lyrics the same way I annotated my books in high school and college. That means color-coding, symbols, and lots of arrows and circles to make the page look like ravings of a mad man.
But the benefit of annotating lyrics (or a text) is that I am pulled to patterns and symbols that I would otherwise miss. In “Cruel Summer” for example, I use red to annotate anything that feels negative or dark, and I learn just how much is negative in this boppy, poppy song: “caught” “Killing” “devil” “kill me” “blue” “cruel” “breakable” “dying” “knife” “cut to the bone” “bleed” “cried” “scream.” Taken out of context, those words sound like they’re something out of a horror film!
But this isn’t a horror film—it’s a song about a crush. So what do the two have in common?
Falling for someone is scary! It’s unknown, it’s unrequited until you admit your feelings, admitting your feelings for someone is terrifying, and keeping your feelings a secret is almost as agonizing. What’s a girl to do?
If you’re Taylor, you turn it into a song.
Do you annotate your books? Leave a note or a photo in the comments!
AP Taylor Swift Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.