The Swiftie and The Scholar

We’re back and we’re kicking 2026 off with the three remaining tracks from Taylor’s submission to the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Spoiler alert: she was inducted! We’ll talk more about that in the final of these three episodes, but today we are focused on Anti-Hero. Uncle Jerry wonders about Taylor’s psychological status when writing this song and Angela has an A-ha! moment about how the music cues us to maybe feel differently than the lyrics alone would make us feel.

Works Cited:
First Person Deixis
Charles Barkley Nike Commercial
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Brigid Kaelin on Instagram
Taylor talking about Anti-Hero
Anti-Hero Music Video

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Happy New Year! With New Year’s Day on our episode release day, it only felt right to cover this masterpiece from Reputation. Uncle Jerry unknowingly connects this song with many others, blowing Angela’s mind once again. 

We’re taking a short break after this episode, but we’ll see you back here in a few weeks with more poetry!

Works Cited:
Nine Princes in Amber – Roger Zelazny – Aff Link
When Harry Met Sally (1989)
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens – Aff Link
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway – Aff Link
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning – John Donne

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Merry Christmas! Sorry for the sad song choice, but it just felt right. We’re trudging down the road not taken with evermore’s ‘tis the damn season. Uncle Jerry isn’t so sure about this one at first, but he comes around by the end. 

Works Cited:
Trope
Sweet Home Alabama (2002)
The Family Man (2000)
Frank Capra
Autofiction
Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger – Aff Link
The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost
Intertextuality
Fire and Ice – Robert Frost
Mending Wall – Robert Frost
Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe – Aff Link
You Can’t Go Home Again – Thomas Wolfe – Aff Link
Tis The Damn Season – Lyric Video

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This is one of our most requested episodes, and here it is, just in time for the holidays! Uncle Jerry picked up on something that Angela had never noticed in the poem, and they get into a bit of the Tay-lore about what inspired The Tortured Poets Department. 

Works Cited:
e.e. cummings
The Fates of Greek Mythology
Just Kids – Patti Smith – Aff Link
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do – Neil Sedaka
Water Lilies – Claude Monet
T.S. Eliot
Misery (1990)
Synecdoche
Epistrophe

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After all the talk about Romanticism in the last episode, we’re taking it to the New Romantics this week. Uncle Jerry teaches us all about the sociocultural movement of the late 1970s and 1980s called New Romanticism, featuring The Blitz Kids, the London club scene, and all the fun and freedom of the era.

Works Cited:
Neoclassicism vs. Romanticism
David Bowie
Boy George
Annie Lennox
The Blitz Kids
Sweet Dreams: The Story of the New Romantics – Dylan Jones – Aff Link
Spandau Ballet
Steve Strange
Best of New Romantics – Spotify Playlist
Road to Ruin – The Ramones
Heartbreak Is the National Anthem – Rob Sheffield – Aff Link
Adam Ant
Taylor Swift’s Manuscripts – Natali Barbani

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