illicit affairs
A quiet, devastating portrait of a secret affair, shame, secrecy, and the particular damage of a relationship that cannot be acknowledged.
“Take the road less travelled”
the secret-affair vocabulary
“You taught me a secret language I can't speak with anyone else / Take the road less traveled by”
“you can call me babe for the weekend” — tis the damn season
Community readers find the two songs sharing a private vocabulary of forbidden intimacy. The "secret language" of illicit affairs answers the host's point that a language is always taught by someone else; its "road less travelled by" and its refusal of pet names ("don't call me kid, don't call me baby") sit directly against 'tis the damn season's "road not taken" and its permission to "call me babe for the weekend". The earlier song's clandestine guilt reads as the same feeling, named more plainly.
clandestine
“clandestine meetings and longing stares”
Angela notes the vocabulary of secrecy the two folklore affairs share, the word clandestine surfacing in illicit affairs alongside august's hidden summer romance. Community readers extend the pairing into a sequel: what began in beautiful rooms ends years later in parking lots, illicit affairs heard as the same affair gone grey. Taylor performing the two songs back to back on the Eras Tour is offered in support.
the clandestine affair, sister to sister
“Make sure nobody sees you leave / Hood over your head, keep your eyes down”
“On moments that we stole, on begged and borrowed time” — ivy
Community readers pair ivy with illicit affairs as sister songs, each the tenth track of its album and each anatomising a secret relationship lived in stolen, furtive moments. ivy renders the affair in pastoral and funerary imagery where the earlier song renders it in motel-room concealment, but both turn on the cost of a love that cannot be acknowledged.
the lie repeated a million times
“But they lie and they lie and they lie / A million little times”
“You said I'm the love of your life / About a million times” — loml
Community readers hear the partner's "love of your life… about a million times" as the counterpart to Illicit Affairs, where lovers "lie and they lie and they lie a million little times" — the same count turning a declaration into evidence against itself.