Lightning
Lightning as sudden, electric, fleeting force - a flash that lights up or transforms but cannot be held. It works in a few directions across the catalogue: the speed and lightness of being "lightning on my feet," the fleeting success or love of trying to catch "lightning in a bottle," and the danger come through unharmed of "dancing through the lightning strikes." What links them is suddenness that resists capture - brilliance, speed or threat that arrives in a flash and will not be pinned down.
Lightning is the flash that cannot be held: brilliance, intensity or transformation that comes all at once and is gone just as fast. As "lightning in a bottle" it is trying to trap what resists trapping. As "lightning on my feet" it is pure quickness and lightness. As something to dance through, it is danger met head-on and survived. In each case it is the same thing - a force too fast and too bright to keep.
Appears in 3 songs
“you were dancing through the lightning strikes”
Lightning as danger come through unharmed: the addressee keeps dancing while the strikes fall around them, the reassurance being that it is alright, you moved through the worst of it and were okay.
“Thought I caught lightning in a bottle”
Lightning in a bottle is the idiom for capturing sudden, dramatic success, the speaker thought she had caught love/a relationship but it slipped away. The lightning image also connects to Taylor's recurring use of lightning across her catalogue.
“I never miss a beat I'm lightnin' on my feet”
Lightning here stands for speed and lightness, the flash quality of being quick on one's feet. Uncle Jerry reads it as hyperbolic and as kinetic imagery.