Taylor Swift's sixth music video from her hit alum 1989 for 'Out Of The Woods' premiered last night at 10:50pm on 'New Year's Rockin' Eve.' After posting a few stills from the video over the past few days, Taylor's fans could not wait to see what visual masterpiece Taylor would produce this time and, boy, did she deliver.
'Out Of The Woods' has always been one of my favourite songs from 1989. It’s catchy but also has deep messages, which were all portrayed in the music video, if you looked hard enough.
I for one admittedly over-analyse songs and music videos far too much
but I can't help it! I guess this comes from always being an English lover at school.
I really enjoy trying to depict the message from videos and found it rather
easy to do so from 'Out Of The Woods.'
If you haven't already watched the video, please do so by clicking HERE before proceeding to read the rest of this blog post!
The video begins with the words 'SHE LOST HIM' and then shows Taylor
standing alone on a beach, looking lost and vulnerable, setting us up to
believe she doesn't know who she is after separating from the man she loves and
that the video is going to show her as weak. She is wearing a long, blue dress,
representing the love that she lost and can't let go of.
Branches and vines then begin to grow from the sand which, cleverly
spell out the words 'Out Of The Woods,' but blink and you'll miss it!
Taylor is chased by foxes (a sneaky but smart reference to her other
song from 1989 'I Know Places' and its lyric "they are
the hunters we are the foxes, and we run") which represent the media and
the public, trying to catch a glimpse of her relationship. They try and try to
grab onto her dress, her love, attempting to take a peek behind closed doors
and gain knowledge about something they really know nothing about, but Taylor
doesn't want them to, she wants the love to be private. She then falls down,
perhaps representing a time when she let her guard down for a moment and
allowed outsiders to know more about her love, maybe believing that speculators
will back off if she did, but no, the foxes continue to chase her, showing
nothing will ever be enough for them and they just always need to know more.
Taylor then, ridiculously beautifully, falls into the snow, the icy
scene representing how cold a love can get. She tears the necklace, given to
her by her love, from her neck. If you have seen Taylor's music video for
'Style,' you will have seen her holding onto that necklace, however, now, we
see her throwing it away as she is finally learning to let go. At this point,
she also no longer seems to care about the foxes chasing her. She has learnt to
tolerate them and has accepted that people will always strive to know more
about you than they deserve to. Taylor attempts to grab the necklace as it
falls from the cliff (a reference to a lyric from 'Wonderland,' "I reach
for you but you were gone, I knew you had to go back home") but then pulls
her arm away, now knowing the love has to go and it will kill her to hold on
any longer. She shows, sometimes, we have to let go of the thing we love the
most in the world, no matter how much it may hurt. She watches it fall, then
jumps into the ocean.
I don't know about you, but I see Taylor smirking as she plummets into
the sea. Once again, she attempts to reach out (a big reference to 'Clean' and
the lyric "the water filled my lungs I screamed so loud but no one heard a
thing") but no one comes to help her, perhaps representing a difficult
time in a relationship when she needed saving. When she realises that no one is
going to help her. she floats freely in the water, as she is 'clean.' She is
then seen to be lying on the land, free from the ocean, showing how she had to
drown to be pure.
We see Taylor face yet another battle. She becomes frozen as her hands
are covered in icicles. Could this represent how she is being portrayed in the
media? As icy, cold, spiteful and manipulating? Yet, Taylor herself is frozen,
she can't move, showing how, no matter how hard she tries, she cannot change
people's perceptions of her. She is helpless and is also frozen in a love she
can't bring herself to try and escape from.
Then, Taylor unfreezes. The look on her face as she does this is one of
determination and strength and this expression continues as she drags herself
through the mud.
Her movements seem restricted by the mud, once again emphasising the
fact that she is stuck in a toxic relationship and is being controlled by
outsiders. Yet, her face remains strong and she doesn't stop trying to pull herself
through.
As her arm reaches out, we see her no longer covered in mud, but being
elevated by the branches wrapped around her. The branches, representing the
relationship she should no longer be in and the public, trying to trap her in
that relationship, yet they are also lifting her up towards the light, they are
helping her to become a better person without realising it.
After this, a close up of Taylor's eye fills the screen. This could be
showing how she has finally come to realise what she needs to do, that she
needs to let go and she has to save herself. As this moment of realisation
occurs, the video proceeds to show Taylor having flashbacks of the relationship,
as all of the times she fell down previously are reshown. It was an important relationship
in her life, how could she just forget it? Of course, she will have flashbacks
of it. Although, it could also be showing how the public just cannot let go of
this relationship she was in. It is brought into everything she does, so how
could they expect her to let go if they can’t?
As she is having these flashbacks, we see Taylor battling her final
element, fire. She is standing in her own fire, because the two are angry, the
two people in the relationship can't quite communicate what they are feeling to
each other. Yet, the fire is burning, the love somehow made her feel so alive,
although it may have been wrong.
One of the final things we get the pleasure of witnessing is Taylor
picking herself up all of the times she fell down, no matter what situation she
was in or what element she was battling. She was damaged beyond repair yet,
somehow, managed to find the strength to put herself back together.
The final scene of the music video is one of the most beautiful things I
have ever seen. Taylor leaves the woods, she leaves that relationship, she
leaves behind all of those feelings she had, and arrives back where she
started, on the beach. Yet, it isn't the love she once believed she couldn’t
live without waiting for her, it is herself. We don't see Taylor and her former
flame ride off into the sunset together. We see the woods disintegrate behind
her and her walk back over to the person she used to be. The woods fall apart
as the relationship is over and Taylor has moved on and the woods have done
their job in the form of making Taylor into who she ought to be.
Taylor reaches out to her former self as she has found who she needs to
be. Her dress is short as the weight of the relationship has been lifted, yet
the dress of who she used to be is repaired and beautiful. She found herself
and the noise of the outside is gone.
She shows how important it is to never lose yourself for the sake of
something you love.
That was my interpretation of the music video. I would love to know if
you have any other ideas so we can swap notes! I felt as though this music
video was too good not to write about and it certainly deserves way more
appreciation than many may think. Taylor's videos are always so much more than videos;
they are like mini movies, this one in particular. The camera work, settings, everything
has been planned out so carefully. Just like in a film, everything in a Taylor
Swift music video is there for a reason, whether you realise it or not. This
music video stars an exceptionally smart lady who sure knows how to bring a
song to life.
There are many messages behind this video, but the key one being that
you have to fight your battles yourself. In the video for 'Bad Blood,' we see
Taylor fighting with an army, which we do sometimes need, yet, here, she
picks herself up, she fights the demons herself and, by doing that, she finds
herself and becomes who she should have been all along. She shows it is okay to
lose yourself if it means you learn from it.
Taylor, thank you for such a stunning video. I am unable to put into
words how many Goosebumps it gave me, how many tears I cried when I first
watched it, or how many times I have already hit 'replay.' You never fail to
create works of art for both our ears and our eyes. The 1989 era
has been a magical one indeed and you have ended it on the highest of highs.
Bless you.
She lost him, but she found herself and, somehow, that was everything.
Let me know your thoughts on the video
and what your favourite songs from 1989 are! <3
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