To a Mouse

“And all of those best laid plans”

Angela & Uncle Jerry identify 'best laid plans' as a direct literary allusion to Robert Burns' poem 'To a Mouse,' in which a farmer plowing his field destroys a mouse's home and reflects that all plans, of mice and men, end in grief and pain. Uncle Jerry argues the allusion is perfect for the song: the man has torn apart the speaker's world and left her to die like the mouse whose home cannot be rebuilt before winter. He notes that Taylor hits the allusion with just three words, and that the subtlety is characteristic of how allusions create community, 'if you know, you know.'