Smile
The smile is the honest face, the one a person can't help, as opposed to the one she puts on. It's the flip side of the Mask: where the mask hides what someone feels, the smile lets it show. Most often it belongs to the person the speaker loves, and it's the thing that explains the attraction, a smile big enough to light up a whole town in You Belong With Me, one that lifts an ordinary day into a fairytale in Today Was a Fairytale, the smile that sets off the whole song in Sparks Fly. Once the love is gone, that same smile becomes something she grieves, coming back like a ghost in This Love or surfacing on strangers' faces in Is It Over Now? And sometimes the warmth goes wrong: the smile that slips into a smirk in happiness, the teasing Cheshire cat grin in Wonderland, or the moment in mad woman where you can't tell whether the smile is a smile or a curse.
At heart the smile is the face that tells the truth. What matters most is usually what it does to the speaker: a smile that pulls her in, keeps her hooked, or melts her on the spot, as in You All Over Me and Superman. Remembered, it turns into a keepsake of a love she's lost, the small detail she can't let go of in Back to December and 'tis the damn season. It has a darker side too, the real smile that turns sharp, or gets twisted by other people into a smirk, a snarl, or the glossy smiles of people enjoying her downfall, giving away threat as plainly as it once gave away warmth. It's the natural opposite of the Mask, the face that shows what the mask hides, and a few songs manage both at once, like the sequined smile in cardigan, equal parts real pull and put-on glamour.
Appears in 34 songs
“Does she smile, or does she mouth, “Fuck you forever”?”
“Tell me, when did your winning smile begin to look like a smirk?”
“Your smile, my ghost, I fell to my knees”
“watching the game from your brother's Jeep, your smile, miles wide”
“Watched me daily disappearing for just one glimpse of his smile”
“I was in my tower weaving nightmares, twisting all my smiles into snarls”
“I had to smile when it caught my eye”
“I see your profile and your smile on unsuspecting waiters”
“My smile is like I won a contest and to hide that would be so dishonest”
“You would break your back to make me break a smile”
“Yeah, all you did was smile 'cause I'm a mastermind”
“But I did, so I smiled, and I melted like a child”
“But don't you, don't you smile at me and ask me how I've been”
“Sequined smile, black lipstick, sensual politics”
“Now I'm missing your smile, hear me out”
“Lyrical smile, indigo eyes, hand on my thigh”
“He likes my American smile like a child when our eyes meet”
“Didn't you calm my fears with a Cheshire cat smile?”
“all I've seen since eighteen hours ago is green eyes and freckles and your smile”
“Should've burst through the door with that “baby, I'm right here” smiles”
“You've got a smile that takes me to another planet”
“'Cause I see sparks fly whenever you smile”
“I miss your tanned skin, your sweet smiles”
“he just might make me smile”
“Lurking in the shadows with their lip gloss smiles”
“And you smile and say, “How are you?”
“Every time you smile, I smile”
“You smile that beautiful smile and all the girls in the front row scream your name”
“And you've got a smile that could light up this whole town”
“God smiles on my little brother”
“He smiles, it's like the radio”
“The smiles, the flowers, everything is gone”
“And our mamas smiled and rolled their eyes”
“the way your eyes light up when you smile”