Apostrophe
Apostrophe is the rhetorical figure of direct address to an absent person, an inanimate object, an abstract concept, or a divine or non-human addressee - making them grammatically and emotionally present in the discourse. Across Taylor's catalogue apostrophe is one of the most pervasive rhetorical operations, structuring entire songs as letters or addresses to named or implied addressees.
Apostrophe collapses the distance between speaker and addressee, allowing the speaker to confront, plead with, accuse, or commune with a figure who cannot answer back. In Taylor's writing the device often does the song's central emotional work: the addressee is the unfaithful partner, the dead beloved, the deifying or deified figure, or the speaker's earlier or later self - and the act of address itself carries the song's stance toward them. Where the addressee is divine or quasi-divine, apostrophe shades into the religious-imagery register; where the addressee is the dead, into elegy. Apostrophe can also operate structurally rather than as a single moment of address - sustained across multiple verses or stanzas, with the speaker turning to different addressees (one inanimate or personified figure after another) so that the act of address itself becomes the song's organising architecture. In this sustained mode the device shapes the temporal arc of the song: the sequence of addressees can mark the passage of time, or register the speaker's shifting position toward the figures she invokes.
Appears in 9 songs
“Hey, December Guess I'm feeling unmoored”
Uncle Jerry identifies this as a continuation of the apostrophe device from verse one, now addressing December. He says 'I think that she's taking that apostrophe and going verse to verse in using it.' Angela agrees it feels like she's 'talking to time as it passed, or her life as it passes her by.'
The verse-to-verse apostrophe marks the progression of time and deepening depression, November was gray, December is unmoored.
“Gray November I've been down since July”
Uncle Jerry identifies this as a second instance of apostrophe, connected to the 'addressed to the fire' line. He reads the opening as the speaker addressing November directly: 'November, you're gray and I've been feeling that way since July.' He notes the apostrophe carries across verses to 'Hey, December.'
Addressing the months directly personalizes the passage of time and frames the speaker's depression as a conversation with forces she cannot control.
“Writing letters Addressed to the fire”
Uncle Jerry explicitly identifies apostrophe here: 'any time you address speak to an inanimate object or a personified object, that's apostrophe.' He then says he looked for apostrophe elsewhere in the poem and found it, the speaker addresses the months ('Gray November,' 'Hey, December') as they pass. He says 'I kind of wonder if she's talking to the months as they pass' and 'I think that works.'
The apostrophe, addressing fire and the passing months, frames the song as a series of intimate addresses to inanimate forces, reinforcing the speaker's isolation and her sense that time is passing her by.
“Forgive me Peter, my lost fearless leader”
Angela & Uncle Jerry identify the song as an 'I'm sorry poem' or 'apology poem', the entire song is an apostrophe addressed to Peter. Uncle Jerry explicitly identifies this as a poetic tradition, connecting it to Emily Dickinson's 'I'm sorry for the Dead Today' and William Carlos Williams' 'This Is Just To Say.' The song opens and closes with direct address to Peter ('Forgive me Peter'), framing the entire work as an apostrophe to an absent figure.
The apostrophe to Peter structures the entire song as a one-sided address to someone who cannot answer, either because he is a fictional character, a past version of a real person, or a lost version of the speaker herself.
“Dear reader”
Uncle Jerry identifies the 'Dear Reader' direct address as the voice of the intrusive narrator, a device 'highly at use in the 18th century.' He traces it through Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne, Dickens, and Jane Austen, explaining: 'it's an intrusive narrator where the writer steps in and tells the reader stuff directly... it kind of performs like a chorus in a Greek play where the author steps in and tells you what you should be thinking or what might be coming or how you should be feeling.' The direct address to 'Dear Reader' frames the entire song as an apostrophe to the audience/reader.
The apostrophe establishes the song's central conceit, the speaker directly addressing her audience/fans, creating an intimate confessional register that the chorus then undermines.
“So (So) long (Long), London (London)”
The song is structured as a direct address to London, to the city itself, and through it to the relationship and life-stage the speaker is leaving behind. The personification of London identified by Uncle Jerry is the rhetorical surface; apostrophe is the underlying speech-act that organises the entire song as a farewell delivered to an absent, non-responding addressee. The title-line, the repeated 'so long, London' refrains, and the second-to-first-person shift across the choruses all operate within the apostrophic frame.
Apostrophe lets the speaker confront, accuse, and bid farewell to London without the addressee being able to respond, collapsing distance to a city/relationship/self-image that exists only in memory by the time the song is sung. The whole-song address frames every individual lyric as part of a sustained one-sided exchange.
“But, Lord, you made me feel important And then you tried to erase us”
Uncle Jerry identifies the grammatical structure ('comma, Lord, comma') as a noun of direct address, the speaker is calling the antagonist 'Lord,' making him the addressee of the entire passage. Apostrophe to the deified figure both names him and accuses him in the same gesture: the address itself frames what he did as a betrayal of the divine status she had assigned to him.
The apostrophe operation is what allows the speaker to confront the antagonist directly while also keeping him absent, he cannot answer, but he is grammatically present. The shift from address to accusation ('and then you tried to erase us') turns the apostrophe into an indictment.
“And the town said, "How did a middle-class divorcée do it?”
Uncle Jerry identifies 'the town said' as a kind of apostrophe, an inanimate object (the town) making an address. The town is given the power of speech and judgment throughout the song.
The apostrophe frames the entire narrative as being spoken by an entity that cannot literally speak, reinforcing the song's theme that the judgments placed on women like Rebekah and Taylor come from an impersonal, collective source.
Angela & Uncle Jerry note that the song repeatedly begins verses and sections with 'Betty', a direct address to an absent or present person. Uncle Jerry identifies this as 'pleading' and Angela says during the listening that she's 'never even really picked up on that before', the constant beginning with Betty sounds pleading. The apostrophic address to Betty structures the entire poem as a dramatic appeal to this one person.
The repeated apostrophic address to Betty establishes the song as a sustained plea, James is speaking directly to the person he has wronged, and the repetition of her name at the start of verses creates a pleading, almost desperate tone.
“Pad around when I get home I guess a lesser woman would've lost hope A greater woman wouldn't beg But I looked to the sky and said”
Uncle Jerry identifies the apostrophe: the speaker looks to the sky and addresses an unnamed higher power, 'Is she talking to God, talking to the stars, talking to the prophetic beings and elements? And the only thing she says is, please.' The address is directed upward to an absent, non-human, or divine entity.
The apostrophe frames the chorus as a prayer or plea to the universe, the speaker has no human interlocutor and must address the sky itself for help.
Angela & Uncle Jerry identify the speaker's direct address to the absent lover in the outro, 'But do you remember?', as a turning point where the monologue becomes apostrophe. Uncle Jerry says: 'she wants to know is, does he remember? Was it meaningful to him? Did he learn anything from the experience? Does he remember her at all? What does he remember about her?' The direct question to the absent other is an apostrophic address that cannot be answered.
The apostrophe transforms the private reminiscence into a directed question, making the absence of the addressee, and the absence of an answer, the song's emotional climax.