Anaphora
A rhetorical device in which a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive lines, clauses, or sentences. Distinct from epiphora, which is repetition at the end of lines.
Anaphora creates emphasis, rhythm, and thematic focus through the hammering repetition of the opening word or phrase, and the pattern of what is repeated can reveal what the song is really about. The device also unites disparate individuals into a single collective voice: by hammering the same pronoun or phrase at the start of successive lines, anaphora draws every listener into the repeated word's claim - 'we' repeated becomes 'we' felt, binding the audience into the movement the speaker is declaring. The technique's home is oratory: Churchill's 'we will fight them' speech uses exactly this mechanism to bind a wartime audience into a single body. In Taylor's writing the device works in both registers - 'I'-led anaphora that reveals self-focus, and 'we'-led anaphora that constructs a collective - with the choice of pronoun doing as much analytical work as the repetition itself.
Appears in 10 songs
“Said you were gonna grow up Then you were gonna come find me”
Uncle Jerry explicitly identifies the chorus as 'filled with anaphora', the repeated phrase 'said you were gonna grow up, then you were gonna come find me' appearing three times in each chorus. He connects this to the story of Peter Pan promising to return each year. Community readers hear the threefold repetition as structural, mirroring Peter's broken promise across the three generations of Darling women in Barrie, Wendy then Jane then Margaret.
The anaphora drives home the weight of unfulfilled promises through sheer repetition, each iteration making the broken promise more painful.
Uncle Jerry notes the anaphora of 'I'm' in the chorus: 'I'm running, I'm having, no I'm not, I'm telling, no I'm not.' He identifies this as a continuation of the self-focused anaphoric pattern from verse one, characterizing the narrator as 'very self-focused' in a way consistent with teen narrative voice.
The sustained anaphoric 'I'm' in the chorus reinforces the narrator's insistent self-assertion against the community that is trying to define her.
“I forget how the West was won I forget if this was ever fun I just learned these people only raise you To cage you”
Uncle Jerry identifies the repetition of 'I' at the start of successive lines, 'I forget, I forget, I just' and later 'I just', as anaphora. He notes there are four instances of 'I' starting sentences in the first verse, creating a self-focused teen narrative voice. He further identifies this anaphora as working in balanced contrast with the epiphora (the repeated 'you' endings), creating a deliberate separation between the I and the you. Angela & Uncle Jerry also note the anaphora of 'I'm' in the chorus: 'I'm running, I'm having, I'm telling.' Community readers set the verse's "I forget, I forget" against the catalogue's recurring "I remember" - the many times the speaker has insisted elsewhere that she, or he, remembers - so the anaphora announces itself by reversing a signature memory-claim mode, forgetting where she has always remembered.
The anaphoric 'I' establishes the narrator's self-focus characteristic of a teenage voice and creates a structural tension between the speaker (I) and the forces trying to control her (you), enacting the desperate space between them.
Angela & Uncle Jerry identify the repeated use of 'I' at the beginning of lines throughout Verse 1 as anaphora. Uncle Jerry states: 'you notice the use of the I that resonates throughout the entire verse. So she's using anaphora.' He notes this anaphoric 'I' establishes the first-person address of the mirrorball speaker.
The anaphoric 'I' reinforces the speaker's insistent self-identification as the mirrorball and establishes the confessional, introspective tone of the work.
Angela & Uncle Jerry note anaphora in the bridge section as well. Uncle Jerry says: 'please let's not forget the anaphora in the bridge', referring to the repeated 'I'm still' constructions that run through the bridge.
The anaphoric 'I'm still' in the bridge reinforces the theme of persistence and continued effort despite the shutdown of the performance world during COVID. The repetition enacts the speaker's refusal to stop trying.
“Please, take my hand and Please, take me dancing and Please, leave me stranded”
Uncle Jerry identifies the repetition of 'please' at the start of the bridge lines as another instance of repetition serving a structural purpose. He says 'you also have the repetition... Please take my hand. Please take me dancing. Please leave me stranded.' This is anaphora, the repeated 'please' at the start of successive lines.
The repeated 'please' creates an escalating plea that moves from connection (take my hand) through joy (take me dancing) to abandonment (leave me stranded), with each request carrying equal weight and earnestness.
Uncle Jerry identifies the use of anaphora, the repetition of the pronoun 'we' at the start of lines, across both verses. He says 'you go back to the use of anaphora, that's the repetition of the pronoun at the start of the line. So look at we are born, we weigh, we show, we.' He explains this creates a collective voice: 'we are all in this together. We're all part of this movement... of the new Romantics. We're all together trying to move forward out of this ruin.' He compares it to Churchill's famous 'we will fight them' speech as a unifying rhetorical device.
The anaphora creates a sense of collective identity and solidarity, making the song feel like a group declaration rather than an individual statement, essential to its function as an anthem for the new romantic movement.
“They knew, they knew, they knew the whole time”
Angela & Uncle Jerry identify the repetition of 'they knew' as a notable rhetorical device. Uncle Jerry discusses how difficult it is to repeat the same words more than twice and make each repetition land differently, comparing it to Hamlet's 'words, words, words' and discussing how Mel Gibson and Laurence Olivier each handled the challenge differently.
The repetition hammers the accusation of complicity, the antagonists' knowledge was sustained, deliberate, and unforgivable.
Uncle Jerry identifies that each of the first four lines of verse two begins with 'I', 'I didn't opt in,' 'I founded the club,' 'I left all I knew,' 'I stopped CPR.' He says: 'normally I would say, she's really self-focused. But then you see what she's doing in the verse', the repeated 'I' reveals that the speaker is the only one working at the relationship. 'Who's working at this relationship? That's gonna be me, Buster.'
The anaphoric repetition of 'I' structurally enacts the one-sidedness of the relationship, the speaker is the only agent, the only one making effort, which is the song's central grievance.
Uncle Jerry identifies the anaphora of 'I knew' repeated at the beginning of lines throughout verse three, in lines 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 9. He calls it 'a very simple device, repetition, underscoring that now, in her adulthood, she knows.' He also notes the anaphora of 'I' at the beginnings of lines dovetailing with the epiphora of 'I' at the ends.
The anaphoric 'I knew' in verse three is the poem's culminating statement of mature understanding, the speaker in adulthood asserting her knowledge against the assumption that youth knows nothing.
“I dress to kill my time I take the long way home I ask the traffic lights if it'll be all right They say, "I don't know”
Uncle Jerry identifies anaphora in the song, the repeated use of 'I' at the start of lines in verse one: 'I dress, I take, I ask' and then the traffic light says 'I don't know.' He then traces this pattern back through the chorus ('I get drunk,' 'I look,' 'I can't') and forward through the song, noting the 'tumult of first-person pronouns.' He explicitly names the device as anaphora: 'a repeated sound or word at the start of a line.'
The anaphora reveals that the song is fundamentally self-focused, it is about the speaker's feelings, wondering, and thinking. The dominance of first-person pronouns, established through anaphoric repetition, shows this is a song about her experience rather than about the other person.
“Please, don't be in love with someone else Please, don't have somebody waiting on you Please, don't be in love with someone else Please, don't have somebody waiting on you”
Angela & Uncle Jerry discuss the repeated 'please' at the start of successive lines in the bridge and outro. While they do not name anaphora explicitly, Uncle Jerry calls it 'the prayer' and identifies the structural repetition as central to the song's emotional impact. The repeated opening word 'Please' constitutes anaphora.
The anaphoric 'please' creates a hammering, pleading quality that strips the fairy tale register back to raw emotional need, the speaker reduced to the simplest possible prayer.
“See the lights, see the party, the ball gowns See you make your way through the crowd”
Angela & Uncle Jerry identify the repeated 'see' at the beginning of successive phrases as an anaphoric repetition of phrasing ('CCC' as Uncle Jerry jokes). The repetition drives the visual imagery of the party scene.
The anaphora reinforces the dreamy, memory-replay quality of the flashback, the speaker is cataloguing what she sees as the scene unfolds.