What Might Have Been
What might have been is the counterfactual song in Taylor Swift's writing: the speaker imagines the alternate timeline in which the relationship succeeded, continued, or never ended. In Taylor's writing the mood is typically wistful rather than bitter: the lost future is held tenderly. the 1 and Would've, Could've, Should've sit at the centre.
Appears in 11 songs
“Can we watch our phantoms like watching wild horses?”
Angela & Uncle Jerry identify imagined futures as a central concern of the song, with Uncle Jerry noting that the phantoms are not just real memories but 'hoped memories, wished memories.' The bridge's journey 'down that passage in time back to the moment I crashed into you' traces a counterfactual path, while the final verse imagines alternate outcomes (selling the apartment, him having kids with an internet starlet) and asks whether these would make the memory fade. The chorus's 'just say you've always wondered' and the outro's 'will I always wonder?' frame the entire song as a sustained what-if. Uncle Jerry's summative statement names this directly: 'love rarely ends with complete understanding. Instead, its deepest legacy is the persistent act of wondering... who we ourselves might have become and how the relationship might have unfolded differently.'
The speaker watches a former partner's new relationship from the outside and imagines the parallel life she might have had. The counterfactual is present tense and ongoing, she is watching someone else live the timeline she did not. 'Do you just not think about it?' is the haunting question at its centre.
“And now that I know, I wish you'd left me wondering”
Angela & Uncle Jerry discuss the conditional if-then structure throughout the song as the engine of counterfactual thinking, what might have been if the relationship never happened. Uncle Jerry identifies how the conditional statements move from complete (if X then Y) to incomplete (if X...) forcing the listener to complete the then-clause. Angela notes the line 'I wish you'd left me wondering' captures the speaker preferring the what-ifs over the actual experience, and connects it to another Swift lyric ('I knew you'd haunt all of my what ifs'). Uncle Jerry adds that the what-if is preferable because she wouldn't have felt the pain or suffered the abuse.
“And the road not taken looks real good now And it always leads to you and my hometown”
Angela & Uncle Jerry identify the road not taken as the central organising principle of the song, the speaker imagining the alternate life she could have had if she'd stayed in her hometown with this person. Uncle Jerry explicitly names 'the road not taken theme, the different life, the possibilities of divergence' as a core theme, and the entire discussion centres on the Frost poem's framework of irrevocable choice and the impossibility of knowing whether the other path would have been better.
“You said you were gonna grow up Then you were gonna come find me”
Angela & Uncle Jerry identify the chorus as a sustained articulation of what might have been, a series of promises about a future that never materialised. Uncle Jerry describes these as 'promises made under false pretenses' and notes the repeated anaphoric structure as enacting the return of unfulfilled promises. The counterfactual register is explicit: if Peter had grown up, if he had come to find her, the relationship could have continued. The bridge's line about the shelf life of fantasies expiring directly names the moment when the what-might-have-been timeline becomes impossible.
“I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs”
Angela & Uncle Jerry identify the 'what-ifs' line as a key thematic element. Uncle Jerry describes it as one of his favourite lines in the poem, and Angela confirms she has quoted this line to Uncle Jerry outside the podcast context without knowing its source. The line captures the counterfactual dimension of the poem, Betty looking back and imagining alternate timelines. The hosts connect this to the broader trilogy's preoccupation with how different the story might have been, and to the indeterminate ending where the speaker imagines James coming back.
The counterfactual exists in present tense, the speaker stands inside the moment of decision: wanting to cross from friendship into something romantic but held back by the cost of losing what they have. Uniquely the 'what might have been' is a future not yet foreclosed; the song inhabits the threshold rather than looking back from the other side.
Contains perhaps the most direct statement of the counterfactual register in Taylor's catalogue: 'I'm addicted to if-only.' The speaker peers into others' domestic lives and imagines alternative existences, a sustained meditation on roads not taken and lives unlived.
A vault track about a relationship mythologised in retrospect, the suburban legend of what they were to each other, transformed into local mythology. The song romanticises an unrealised or ended connection precisely because it stayed unresolved.
The defining counterfactual song in Taylor's catalogue, the entire structure is built on 'if only'. The speaker explicitly imagines the alternate timeline where the relationship succeeded: 'If my wishes came true / it would've been you.' The mood is retrospective and wistful rather than bitter; the 'what might have been' is held tenderly rather than with resentment.
The relationship exists entirely in imagination, the speaker desires someone too sought-after and unattainable to pursue. The 'what might have been' is anticipated and mourned before it has even begun. Distinct from most of Taylor's counterfactuals in that the alternative timeline was never entered at all.
Looks back on a relationship that ended but was nonetheless sacred and real. The speaker is not mourning what was lost so much as honouring what existed, 'I was reminiscing just the other day.' The 'what might have been' register is present in the gratitude and wistfulness: the sense that this love deserved more time.