Streetlight
The streetlight is the public lamp a relationship is remembered under: not a signal that tells anyone what to do, but a light that simply shines on the scene. In Taylor's writing the streetlight stands over the warm, slightly drunk nights a couple wants to hold on to, and it goes on standing there once they are over. The folklore triangle returns to one streetlight from two sides, cardigan dancing in Levi's and drunk under its glow, betty stopped beneath the same lamp admitting how much he misses her. Elsewhere the streetlights point the way home like an arrowhead in Cornelia Street, or dim low as a night turns romantic in Hey Stephen.
Where the traffic light decides, the streetlight only witnesses. It is the light a private moment happens under when there is no other, and because it belongs to the street rather than the house, the memory it lights is a public one, open to being recalled by more than one person. The same lamp that warms a scene can later show how exposed the couple always were: the light that once lit the dancing still burns over the place after they have gone.
Appears in 4 songs
“Drunk under a streetlight”
cardigan remembers the relationship at its warmest as dancing in Levi's, drunk under a streetlight. The public lamp lights the scene the whole song aches for, and betty later stops beneath the same streetlight from the other side of the triangle, so the one light holds both the memory and its answer.
“Stopped at a streetlight You know I miss you”
Told from James's side of the folklore triangle, betty stops at the same streetlight cardigan dances under, and what surfaces beneath it is how much he misses her. The lamp that lit the couple's warm night now lights the missing that follows.
“As if the streetlights pointed in an arrowhead leading us home”
The streetlights on Cornelia Street seem to point in an arrowhead leading the couple home, ordinary roadside lamps read as though they were guiding the lovers back. The light decides nothing; it simply lights, and blesses, the way home.
“They're dimming the street lights, you're perfect for me”
The streetlights dim as the speaker decides Stephen is perfect for her, the public lights lowering as the private feeling rises. The dimming lamp sets the romantic scene rather than signalling anything.