Blue
Blue as a recurring colour that holds two distinct emotional registers in Taylor's writing - the romantic blue (a partner's blue eyes, the colour of love) and the depressive blue (sadness, mental illness, despondency). The transition between the two often tracks a relationship's arc, with songs from the Lover-to-Midnights era moving from blue-as-beauty to blue-as-grief.
The colour functions as a dual signal - in tender register it marks the partner's beauty or the intimacy of the relationship; in its later register it marks depression, mental-health struggle, and the partner's emotional unavailability. The shift between registers carries the meaning: what was once cherished becomes the source of pain. In a number of these songs the blue sits on the sky itself: a blue sky painted then turned to rain, the bluest skies painted the darkest gray, the blues giving way to purple-pink. Read across the catalogue, the sky's shifting colour invites a reading some listeners make explicit, the sky as a screen for the speaker's mood, its hue tracking feeling from tender to despondent.
Appears in 31 songs
“You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days”
Blue evolves across the relationship from a romantic color (his blue eyes) to a marker of depression and sadness. In this song, the 'bluest days' represent his mental health struggles that he refused to address, which destroyed the relationship.
“And did the twin flame bruise paint you blue?”
Blue as both the colour of sadness/depression and the colour of a bruise, the relationship has physically and emotionally marked the partner. Uncle Jerry asks: 'Is blue the colour of sadness? Is blue also like a bruise? Like was she bruised or injured?' Angela confirms both readings.
“Blue dress on a boat, your new girl is my clone”
“If she's got blue eyes, I will surmise that you'll probably date her”
“Time, wondrous time gave me the blues and then purple-pink skies”
“Teal was the color of your shirt when you were sixteen at the yogurt shop”
“And maybe you've reframed it and in your mind, you never beat my spirit black and blue”
“Gray and blue and fights and tunnels”
“Aquamarine moonlit swimming pool”
“Looked up at me with honor and truth, broken and blue”
“Catastrophic blues, moving on was always easy for me to do”
“Sapphire tears on my face, sadness became my whole sky”
“I remember your blue eyes looking into mine”
“I could see this view a hundred times, pale blue sky reflected in your eyes”
“If your cascade ocean wave blues come”
“Don't want no other shade of blue but you”
“Did I paint your bluest skies the darkest gray a universe away?”
“And it's blue, the feeling I got”
“My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue”
“Lyrical smile, indigo eyes, hand on my thigh”
“I'm with you even if it makes me blue, which takes me back to the color that we painted your brother's wall”
“I blew things out of proportion, now you're blue”
“We're so sad, we paint the town blue”
“Oh damn, never seen that color blue”
“Ocean blue eyes looking in mine”
“My, my love had been frozen deep blue, but you painted me golden”
“Clear blue water, high tide came and brought you in”
“Just twin fire signs, four blue eyes”
“And all my walls stood tall, painted blue”
“Losing him was blue like I'd never known”
“You'll spend your whole life singing the blues if you keep thinking that way”
“You paint me a blue sky and go back and turn it to rain”
“He said the way my blue eyes shined put those Georgia stars to shame that night”