Keys & Locks
Locks and keys are about who gets in and who gets shut out. Across the catalogue the image works at a threshold: a door locked against someone in a fight, as in All You Had To Do Was Stay and If This Was a Movie, or a key turning to let a loved one in, as in Hits Different. It also goes inward, standing for the private self kept under lock, the secret gardens in I Hate It Here that need a key to reach, or the longings sealed in a vault in Guilty as Sin?. Sometimes the lock means commitment, locking it down in I Think He Knows and cowboy like me, and sometimes it means power: the kingdom keys she no longer holds in Look What You Made Me Do, the golden gates she once had the keys to in long story short. It sits next to Door / Threshold and Hallways as the part of the home that is less about the room than about who is allowed inside it.
Locking and unlocking is how the speaker controls closeness. To lock someone out is to punish or protect herself; to let them in, or hand over the key, is to trust them with the part of her no one else sees. A broken or cracked lock reads the other way, a boundary forced or a bid to break free, as in High Infidelity and Guilty as Sin?. When the key stands for power, losing it means losing your place: the keys that once belonged to her, the gates she is now locked out of, belonging turned to exclusion.
Appears in 17 songs
“I dream of cracking locks, throwing my life to the wolves or the ocean rocks”
Cracking the lock is the fantasy of breaking free, forcing her way out of a life held shut to chase the longing instead.
“I keep these longings locked in lower case, inside a vault”
The vault keeps her desire sealed and out of sight, a feeling locked away rather than spoken.
“Is that your key in the door, is it okay?”
She listens for his key in the door, half hoping, the sound of the lock standing in for whether he is coming back.
“I heard your key turn in the door down the hallway”
His key turning in the lock is the sound of him being let in, a small domestic noise carrying all the weight of access and intimacy.
“I don't like your kingdom keys, they once belonged to me”
The kingdom keys are power and ownership, a status she says was hers first, the key standing for who holds control.
“You asked me for a place to sleep, locked me out, and threw a feast”
Being locked out while he throws a feast is the image of betrayal, shut out of the warmth she once helped build.
“'Tis locked inside my memory And only you possess the key”
The key represents access to the speaker's interior world, the locked space of memory and romantic hope that only the beloved can open. This inverts the Hamlet source where the key represents patriarchal control.
“Years of labor, locks, and ceilings in the shade of how he was feeling”
The locks belong to the prison metaphor running through the song, the relationship she has been serving time in until her release.
“people need a key to get to, the only one is mine”
The secret gardens of her imagination are locked, and she holds the only key, the private inner world kept for herself.
“Locked me up in towers but I'd visit in your dreams”
Being locked up in towers casts her as the imprisoned figure of legend, shut away yet still reaching the one who locked her in.
“She paces the floor, closes the blinds and locks the door”
Locking the door is Emma sealing herself off, a guarded heart shutting out the world before she lets anyone near.
“Lock broken, slur spoken, wound open, game token”
A broken lock opens the run of things going wrong, a boundary forced in a relationship coming apart.
“But that was all before I locked it down”
Locking it down marks the turn from a drifting con artist to someone who has chosen to stay, the lock as commitment rather than escape.
“Missing me at the golden gates they once held the keys to”
The golden gates are the place she was once let into and now locked out of, the lost key marking a fall from belonging.
“He'd better lock it down or I won't stick around”
Locking it down is the dare she sets him, asking him to commit and claim her before she walks.
“I'm shaking my head, I'm locking the gates”
Locking the gates is her shutting people out for good, a flat refusal of access once the trust is broken.
“Then why'd you have to go and lock me out when I let you in?”
The locked door turns the whole argument of the song: she opened up, he shut her out, and the lock measures the trust that was thrown away.
“Turn the lock and put my headphones on”
Turning the lock is a small private ritual, shutting the world out to be alone with a song no one else understands.
“Before the fight, before I locked you out, but I take it all back now”
She remembers locking him out in anger and now wishes she could undo it, the lock standing for the moment she closed the door on the relationship.
“You got the keys to me, I love each freckle on your face”
Handing over the keys to me is the figure for total access, telling him he can reach the part of her she usually keeps guarded.