Hell
Hell, devils and damnation are Taylor's go-to for suffering that feels total, the kind you can't climb out of. Sometimes it's a state she's stuck in: in All Too Well every memory drops her into "a new hell". Sometimes it's done to her, the hell "you gave me" in my tears ricochet (part of a run of fire and ashes imagery in that song), or the partner who "took me to hell" in loml. In Anti-Hero she imagines her future daughter-in-law saying "She's laughing up at us from Hell", picturing how she'll be resented and talked about once she's gone. Clara Bow flips it into the price of fame, where being treated as heavenly is "hell on earth". It's the companion to Heaven: where heaven is the promise, hell is the suffering and the punishment.
Hell lets Taylor describe a private misery in the biggest words available. Whether the hell is handed to her, chosen, or pinned on her by other people as what a "monster" deserves, naming it hell lifts ordinary heartbreak into something epic and deserved. Paired with heaven, it completes the picture of love told as salvation on one side and ruin on the other.
Appears in 10 songs
“All the hell you gave me”
Hell is both the suffering inflicted on the speaker by the antagonist and part of a coherent fire/hell/ashes cluster that positions the antagonist as the cause of damnation.
“Devils that you know raise worse hell than a stranger”
The line turns the proverb about the devil you know, and Uncle Jerry traces it through Trollope and Macbeth. Here the familiar devils raise the worse hell, the danger coming from the ones already close.
“They say all's well that ends well, but I'm in a new hell Every time you double-cross my mind”
Hell as the speaker's ongoing state after the breakup, each time she remembers, she enters a new hell. Uncle Jerry identifies this as both metaphorical and as an internal rhyme with 'well.'
“It's hell on earth to be heavenly”
The paradox of fame: being elevated to heavenly status creates hellish conditions on earth. The line holds both the religious imagery (heaven/hell) and the lived reality of celebrity's demands.
“Well, you took me to hell too”
Hell is the destination after the fake heaven, the partner who sold counterfeit impressionist paintings of heaven also dragged the speaker to hell.
“She's laughing up at us from Hell”
Hell as the speaker's imagined final destination, confirmation of her self-identification as monstrous and terrible, but delivered with vindictive humour rather than grief.
“Hell was the journey but it brought me heaven”
The road to happiness is named hell, the suffering gone through before the love arrived.
“Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes”
Devils and angels are set at the gaming table, fate and disapproval watching the reckless summer play out.
“Hell is when I fight with you”
Hell is redefined as the fights themselves, the lovers' own quarrels standing in for damnation.
“Praying the floor won't fall through again”
The floor giving way opens onto a descent, and the direction of travel is what carries the meaning. Downward movement in this register reads as a fall towards hell rather than a change of altitude.