Teardrops on My Guitar
Mash-ups & Live Pairings
- Teardrops on My Guitar / The Last Time (Eras Tour, Hamburg)
Hidden message
He'll never know
Encoded in the album’s liner notes.
“So I drive home alone, as I turn out the light”
The song ends on the speaker driving home alone and turning out the light, the small last action that closes the night on a love that was never hers. Switching off the lamp is the surrender the whole song has been moving towards, the light out and the hope with it.
“I fake a smile so he won't see”
The speaker holds a smile in place so the boy she wants cannot see what lies beneath it. It is the early-catalogue instance of the worn public face, the performance kept up for the very person it is meant to fool.
“So I'll drive home alone, as I turn off the light I'll put his picture down and maybe get some sleep tonight”
Driving home alone as the daily ache of unrequited love; he is the song she keeps singing in the car, and the drive home is where she is left alone with it.
“I'll put his picture down and maybe get some sleep tonight”
Physical picture being put down as the speaker tries to release the relationship. Full analytical context awaits the Teardrops on My Guitar episode extraction.
tears / crying
“He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar”
“And the users are losing me / my tears ricochet” — my tears ricochet
Angela keeps coming back to the debut single: the tears that ricochet onto the man are the same crying he caused in Teardrops on My Guitar, grief turned into the song itself.