Definitions of Love
Songs in which the speaker explicitly catalogues, tests, or interrogates what love is - not merely experiencing love or its loss, but actively defining its qualities (oath, sacred prayer, masterpiece, real, rare, innocent) and measuring the relationship against those definitions. The song's argument turns on the gap between what love should be and what the partner offered.
Appears in 2 songs
Angela & Uncle Jerry read the song as fundamentally promissory, a resolution of love. Uncle Jerry frames the title's connection to New Year's resolutions as deliberate: 'she resolves the continuance of the relationship.' He identifies the chorus lines as 'a resolution, a promise', 'when things are beginning to unravel, when things are beginning to come apart a little, I'll stay.' The 'toast of the town' / 'strike out and crawling home' pairing is read as 'for better or worse,' and Uncle Jerry calls the whole song 'very promissory, very resolutionary.' The episode title itself, 'The Resolutions of Love', frames the song as defining what love is through the act of promising to stay.
The chorus pivots on a one-line definition of what love is for the speaker: not the celebratory peak (the midnight kiss, the party) but the willingness to be present for what comes after it (the bottles, the drudgery, the cleanup). Uncle Jerry reads the line as the song's promissory note, 'she will be there for all those years, for all those memories, no matter what they bring... even if it's bad or hard or wrong or whatever', and frames the song's title as deliberate: 'she resolves the continuance of the relationship' on the day traditionally given over to making resolutions. The speaker isn't testing love against an external standard but laying down her own: love is staying for the unglamorous side. The pairing of 'toast of the town' / 'strike out and crawling home' and the explicit 'for better or worse' register Uncle Jerry hears as wedding-vow language anchor this as a definition rather than a description.
Uncle Jerry identifies 'definitions of love' as one of the four major themes. He catalogues the song's various characterisations of what love is: 'an oath, a promise that it's sacred, that it involves prayer, that it's real, that it's rare, that it's innocent, that it's a masterpiece.' He argues the song explores the meaning, depth, and breadth of love, asking why the partner failed to recognise any of these qualities. Angela calls the secret/oath line her favourite Taylor Swift lyric ever written, emphasising the asymmetry between her sacred devotion and his casual concealment.