You thought this was it? Only 2 posts? FUCK NO. I’m just getting started. This Neutral Milk Hotel shitshow has completely taken over my life, and I’ve gone off the fucking deep end. Every goddamn day, it’s the same bullshit. I try to stop listening, but it’s like these songs are fucking embedded in my soul.
I’ve tried everything to quit. I deleted the albums from my phone, blocked them on every streaming service, even tried listening to other music nonstop. But it’s no fucking use. I end up right back where I started, with "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" blasting at full volume. It’s like this goddamn band has cast a spell on me.
It’s gotten so fucking bad that I’ve started carving their lyrics into my goddamn walls. My house looks like a fucking shrine to Jeff Mangum. "Two-Headed Boy" lyrics on the bathroom mirror, "Oh Comely" scratched into my desk, "Holland, 1945" scrawled across the fucking kitchen cabinets. I’m losing my mind over here.
And it’s not just the walls. I’ve scribbled their lyrics on every piece of paper I can find. My notebooks, bills, even my fucking grocery lists are covered in Neutral Milk Hotel quotes. It’s like some kind of sick compulsion I can’t control. I wake up in the middle of the night with lines from "The King of Carrot Flowers" running through my head, and the next thing I know, I’m writing them on the fucking walls.
I tried to distract myself by picking up other hobbies, but every fucking time, Neutral Milk Hotel seeps back in. I took up painting, but all I ended up with were canvases filled with their album art. I tried writing, and it’s all just fan fiction about meeting Jeff Mangum. I even tried to learn a new instrument, but guess what? I’m only playing NMH songs. It’s fucking hopeless.
People think I’m crazy, and maybe they’re right. My friends have staged interventions, my family is worried sick, but what the fuck am I supposed to do? It’s like this band is a part of my DNA now. No matter what I do, I can’t get their music out of my head.
I’m at my wit’s end. I don’t know how to break free from this obsession. I need an exorcist, a shrink, or a goddamn miracle. Until then, I’ll be here, surrounded by walls covered in lyrics, living in a world where Neutral Milk Hotel is the soundtrack to my fucking madness. Fuck my life.

R&B to me is the genre for love songs. So many songs capture the feeling of love. It's going to be tough to name one, but it'll be fun trying.

A joint research effort of u/sc127 and u/lemonsaltwater
Throughout Seasons 2 and 3, swans are a recurring theme in Colin and Pen’s story, both in terms of explicit imagery/sound and allusions to swan behavior and stories. There are so many allusions that it is clear the showrunners, and Julia Quinn,* want us to make these associations, as every detail is intentional.
(\while neither of us have read the books, but based on character names, as well as references to the books on this sub, we can assume this. If you've read the books, please comment with more swan references! We do not present this as something hidden/new but rather for the fun of finding all of the references.)*
The biggest allusion to swans is how swans mate for life and form into bonding pairs quite young, well before mating age. Trumpeter swans bond as young as 20 months — but then wait several years and don’t mate until at least the age of 4-7. Colin and Pen meet at a young age and form a friendship but it then takes several years for it to become romantic.
Let’s plunge our beaks underwater and dive into how these associations play out for Colin and Pen individually and then as a couple.

Colin’s character as a swan

Colin has always been a swan, even if he didn’t lean into it. It shows up in a variety of character traits throughout the seasons.
Male swans are fiercely protective of their partners. We see Colin’s protectiveness over Pen show up multiple times. I did a longer post on the evolution of Colin's protectiveness a few weeks ago, but here are some scene highlights:

• Ep 1x01: After Penelope beams at how happy she is to be wearing a pink dress, Cressida then spills her drink on her. Colin feels defensive of her, and rejects Cressida's bid to dance (big social no-no!) and dances with Penelope instead
• Ep 2x07, 2x08 (Cousin Jack’s scam): He not only gets angry at Mondrich for insulting the Featherington family, but also at Cousin Jack for taking advantage of the Featherington women

https://i.redd.it/3fwzxihqji5d1.gif

• Season 3 has multiple examples of Colin protecting Pen: after his dating help is revealed, balloon, protecting her from a mistake. It is notable that the few times we see Colin angry, they are all related to Pen’s feelings.

https://i.redd.it/u18mhwo8ri5d1.gif
We'll likely see more of this in Part 2 (and various book spoilers indicate this as well).
Male swans are also one of the few species of waterfowl that take an active role in rearing children. Male swans will sit on the eggs and protect them, unlike other waterfowl. In Seasons 1 and 2, Colin is often seen playing with his younger siblings. We see the male swan’s interest in child rearing most obviously in 2x02 when Eloise recoils from Daphne’s baby and Colin swoops in to tenderly and lovingly hold him.
https://i.redd.it/vce8xkfeli5d1.gif
Swans are known for mating for life and for being dedicated partners, unlike other species of waterfowl. Colin “My Wife” Bridgerton, hello. But even before Season 3, we see this in Season 2 when Colin is the only one in the front row who appears happy at Anthony and Edwina’s wedding, and according to Luke, Colin is actually crying because he loves love so much. He delights in love.
https://i.redd.it/xgsjjbu1mi5d1.gif
Afterwards, Colin finds himself somewhat depressed and “searching for answers at the bottom of his flask” after their “bungled nuptials.” For someone who sees love as "the one thing in life that holds genuine meaning," to see an engagement broken off at that point is deeply distressing. (We'll return to Anthony's wedding later.)
His recurring appearance changes after his extended travels: Swans shed all of their feathers during their annual summer migration period. After his travels between S1 and S2, he returns with facial hair. After his travels between S2 and S3, he returns with new clothing.

Penelope: Duck => Swan

Penelope, meanwhile, needs to go through a transformation in order to become a swan.
(There are a lot of motifs used for Penelope throughout the show: butterflies, cake, etc, but here we’re going to focus on ducks and swans.)
Let’s start with her name. To get all Colin-season-2 for a moment, “Penelope” is believed to derive from the Ancient Greek word penelops, which means “duck.” In modern language, “pen” is the official name for a female swan. And her last name is Featherington.
Something that starts as a duck and becomes a swan… that sounds a lot like the HC Andersen short story The Ugly Duckling, which is about a duck who is cast aside by society for being ugly, only to later learn that the reason it looked different was because it was actually a swan.
While Colin and Pen are more likely to quote Byron than Danish fairy tales, the allusions to The Ugly Duckling are quite strong throughout Penelope’s character arc. (And indeed, fantasy plays a huge role in their worldviews.)
This is directly referenced in the book:

“I thought you believed in me," she said, "that you saw beyond the ugly duckling.”

For a brief refresher on The Ugly Duckling, let’s take Wikipedia’s summary and annotate it:

After a mother duck's eggs hatch, one of the ducklings takes longer to hatch and is bigger and perceived by the other animals as an ugly little creature. It suffers much verbal and physical abuse from its mother and siblings, and has an absent father.

Penelope is the youngest of three children. From the first episode, it is clear that her mother regards her as less desirable and less beautiful than her sisters. Her father is neglectful and largely absent. She is repeatedly subject to unkind comments and treatment by her mother and sisters. To take just one example, when suitors come over to meet Marina, and her mother closes courting hour, she says “Please feel free to bid farewell to Phillipa or Prudence, or even Penelope.” (Colin is the only one to take her up on this.)
Portia also insists that Penelope wear bright yellow dresses even though she herself prefers pink. Yellow is the color of baby ducks. Portia tends towards green, often in iridescent fabrics, which roughly maps to the coloring of several types of adult ducks (even females). (In the Ugly Duckling, the ugly duckling is gray rather than yellow like it’s siblings. However, they’ve taken a bit of artistic license here to reinforce the duck imagery.)

It wanders from the barnyard and lives with wild ducks and geese until hunters slaughter the flocks. It finds a home with an old woman, but her cat and hen tease and taunt him mercilessly, and once again he sets off alone.

We don’t have a direct literal correlation to the cats and hens, but we can interpret “leaving the barnyard” as Penelope being too early presented in society, and the “cats and hens” being the multitude of catty comments and “clucking hens” (judgmental, gossipy mothers) of society.
It’s also interesting how Cousin Jack is presented quite clearly as a hunter in Season 2, and the gun rack on the wall clearly makes Portia uncomfortable. There aren’t direct references to duck hunting, yet that was a common hobby. (We admittedly don’t know anything about rifles and can’t figure out if any of them he displays on the wall are specifically for duck hunting, but would love it if someone knew!) Cousin Jack, of course, nearly destroys their family.

The duckling sees a flock of migrating wild swans. It is delighted and excited but cannot join them because he is too young, ugly, and unable to fly. When winter arrives, a farmer finds and carries the freezing duckling home but he is frightened by the farmer's noisy children and flees the house. The duckling spends a miserable winter alone outdoors, mostly hiding in a cave on the lake that partly freezes over.

We can read this as being when Pen watches Colin leave for Greece, and when she looks at the happy Bridgerton household. She is also too young and immature to fervently declare her feelings as she states one should. Nicola plays her as immature (the little hop when she speaks, high voice), and she is trapped in her mother’s house.
The allusion of the migrating swans is also interesting as one could see all of the Bridgertons as swans who glide gracefully on the surface of society (“pretty Bridgertons”). While not all of the Bridgertons exhibit swan-like behavior, Violet and Edmund do (but more on that below). Note how in 3x02 Penelope says the place she feels the most comfortable is/was the Bridgerton Drawing Room at Sunday tea -- surrounded by the flock of swans.
We could be a bit literal with our interpretation here and say that Colin’s protection of Pen with the Ruby scam is equivalent to the farmer’s care, and then is scared off not by children but his own friends. But I think we can look at it more broadly to say that Penelope goes from thinking she will be cared for — as Colin says during their dance in 2x08 — but then feels cast aside.
She then spends a miserable summer alone, without Eloise or Colin.

The duckling, now having fully grown and matured, cannot endure a life of solitude and hardship anymore. It decides to throw himself at a flock of swans, feeling that it is better to be killed by such beautiful birds than to live a life of ugliness.

When we first meet her in 3x01, it is clear she has had an awful, lonely summer. She is shown in her old clothing -- notably more pink but still yellow, a sign of the impending transition -- and looking shy and hunched over.
https://i.redd.it/b1fn60pwqi5d1.gif
But she resolves to fully break free of her family and marry. Her first dress is iridescent emerald green — the color of peacocks, which is likely the most direct motif given she hides behind a peacock in the garden, but it is also the color of adult mallards and several other duck species.
She throws herself into the fray at great personal risk rather than having to continue to live with her family of ducks that reject her. However, she is still awkward and unsure of herself. While she walks down the stairs with confidence, once she's on the floor, she isn't fully carrying herself with confidence, and sort of slides her feet along the floor in a slouchy manner. She then proceeds to bungle her conversation with the lords who approach her. In other words, she still sees herself as an ugly duckling -- or perhaps ugly duck since she's grown. But Colin is able to see beyond that and has the first glimmers of starting to notice her as something different than everyone else.
https://i.redd.it/i2dcbfb1qi5d1.gif
Part 2 speculation:

The Ugly Duckling is shocked when the swans welcome and accept it, only to realize by looking at his reflection in the water that it had been not a duckling but a swan all this time. The flock takes to the air, and it spreads its wings to take flight with the rest of its new family.

Penelope is shocked when Colin has feelings for her, and according to the trailer, is welcomed with open arms by Violet and the rest of the swan’s family (except Eloise, who does not exhibit swan-like behaviors herself, but that's a different topic). Given the focus on mirrors so far this season, perhaps this combined mirrougly duckling/swan theme will reappear. Penelope will then integrate herself into the Bridgerton family and identify more with them, rather than her family of birth. She thus gets both self-acceptance, a husband, a loving family, and freedom all at the same time.
Given the use of mirrors this season, I expect Colin will literally and figuratively help Penelope see herself in the mirror the way he sees her, in a parallel to what Colin says in S2 E2 about her letters:

Your letters were so encouraging. I thought, if Penelope can see me this way, then surely I can too.

A brief note on Penelope's clothing
We can see hints of this in her clothing. Over Season 3 Part 1, Penelope’s clothing changes from Featherington green to Bridgerton blue. Yet in the kiss scene and Colin’s dream, she’s wearing dresses that are such light blue/green that they almost appear to be white, and she doesn't seem to wear these dresses in other scenes. (The dream one is similar to the market scene, but the sleeve detailing is different -- it's much more feathery. Hmmm.) While white dresses can imply wedding, perhaps another thread to pull here is their swan-like whiteness. The moment when they kiss is the first time it occurs to him to see her romantically, and it is also the first time he sees her in a nearly-white dress. That she is in a feathery white dress in his dream reinforces the idea that, at least subconsciously, he has started to see her as a swan.
(Yet they aren't fully white — so there is still evolution to happen.)
https://i.redd.it/498qr6joqi5d1.gif
https://i.redd.it/a02jcjq5ti5d1.gif
Colin calling her Pen — "swan" — from the very beginning
And lastly, back to her nickname. The first time we ever see Colin talk to Penelope is in S1 E1 after Colin visits the Featherington house during courting hour for Marina, he refers to her as Pen. He refers to her again as Pen when they dance later in that episode. The viewer sees her transition from Penelope, a duck, and then becomes Pen, a swan. But Colin has always seen her as a swan, even if he didn’t realize it.
(We have not done a full analysis of the times he calls her Penelope vs the times he calls her Pen, nor of other people using her nickname.)

Audio and visual swan references

So, Colin is always a swan, and Pen transitions from duck to swan. Several times throughout the seasons, we see direct and indirect nods to swans in terms of imagery, dialogue, and other scene elements when Colin and Pen are together.
It’s notable that, as far as we can tell, swans and swan noises largely only show up when Colin and Pen are together. (There is one exception, discussed in the next section.)
The most obvious is in 2x05:

COLIN: After all, everyone else is finding some purpose to their lives. Anthony is to be married. Benedict has his artistic pursuits. And, well, here I am... feeding the ducks. [Looks at a swan as he says this]
PENELOPE: I am sure the ducks are most grateful.

https://i.redd.it/53fkdvblui5d1.gif
https://i.redd.it/0lqr6dxnui5d1.gif
The implication being, of course, is that Colin does not realize he's not looking at a duck but at a swan. His feelings for her aren't romantic yet. But he is really looking at a swan — Pen. And that she, not the ducks, is grateful for his company and conversation.
Interestingly, quacking is heard in the background. It’s hard to say whether it’s ducks or swans — perhaps it’s intentionally ambiguous.
Singing swans = courting activities? Or a shift in feelings for Colin?
But let’s pull that thread a bit, as swans singing comes up several more times. Swan songs have historically had an association with death, yet “their sounds are more distinguishable during courting rituals and not correlated with death.” We could then interpret hearing swan songs as times that are courting-esque, or perhaps moments when Colin’s perspective on Penelope is starting to shift.
In 2x06, Penelope has a heated conversation with Eloise about Eloise’s feelings about Theo. Eloise asks her if she’s ever felt the torment of feelings for someone, and Penelope says she could only imagine it. She then looks over at Colin and swans are heard in the background.
A few moments later, when Penelope walks over to Colin for the “purpose” conversation, swans are again heard in the background. (Listen very closely as she walks over to him.)
In 3x01, when Colin and Penelope talk in the garden after the presentation, swans are heard in the background as Colin looks at her while she looks away. In this scene, Colin is wearing his beautiful embroidered vest, which features a duck near the collar. It also features a parrot. (Shout out to u/EverEarthling for this amazing deep dive on the vest!) Perhaps when Colin bought this vest in Paris, he still viewed Penelope as a duck, and himself as a parrot (i.e. one who parrots the behaviors of what society expects). Given this, we might not see this vest again, as gorgeous as it is.
https://preview.redd.it/9r4qb648wi5d1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=facbf720d29560adad66b31923c1646ab7fc66c8
While we might think these were coincidences because they happened to be near water, it seems unlikely, as there are a lot of garden/park/outdoor scenes where no swans are seen or heard.
In 303, at the end of the Willow scene, swans are heard in the background as Penelope leaves. Swans then re-appear the Hawkins Balloon Fair. There is a giant wicker statue of a swan, decked in lilacs and light pink roses, off to the side of the balloon. (Lilacs being the favorite flower of the Bridgertons and light pink being the Bridgerton color of first love.) While we don’t get an obvious camera angle of this, based on body positions, Penelope would have been looking at this swan statue the entire time while talking to Debling.
Their conversation is about birds, and despite literally staring at a giant bird statue, she struggles to come up with one, and instead names a sparrow.
https://preview.redd.it/x25logl1wi5d1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3e95b51b6a6cf37cfb0010ea699158f5bfd12b86
Here's Nicola goofing around with said swan statue.
https://preview.redd.it/j1n4t28svi5d1.jpg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75bfa6f3a86aa6890d9ee9f8afc296b1762b77e2
In 3x04, the Queen has dancing swans in her wig. And, this is the first time in the season when Colin and Penelope dance together.
https://preview.redd.it/kmvtrgniki5d1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6caac598ac9992cd65b278059a1da22caa214e23
We also have a small wink in terms of grass. Swans who have not yet begun mating, even if they are paired, will gather in flocks in fields of grass. Paired swans who are too young to mate will move throughout the flock socially yet still be paired — much like the environment of a ball. In 2x03, Colin mentions how he once spent meditating for hours on a single blade of grass, and in 3x03, when trying to impress Debling and looking directly at a swan, Penelope says how she likes grass.
(Perhaps we can also interpret this to mean that Eloise is not a swan: she says she’d rather watch grass grow than talk to other debutantes. But, again, that’s for another post on Eloise being different than her siblings.)
Interestingly, at these swan social gatherings, “some individuals will have several courtships with other members of the flock, whilst others, tend to stay away from densely populated parts of the herd and do their own thing.” Sounds like Colin and Pen!
From the book, there's a mention of a "swan song:" (credit to u/leadwithlovealways)
https://preview.redd.it/4rui2ve22j5d1.png?width=3405&format=png&auto=webp&s=e0b63ac184f171f44735d9e58d2e43aff311383f

Colin + Pen = Swans

Let’s talk for a moment about the behaviors of bonded swan pairs and their mating behaviors, as there are a lot of parallels.
One important part of the beginning of the swan courting ritual is that both will drop their wings completely to their sides, and not puff themselves up at all. We can see this literally in terms of Colin and Pen in the carriage (both have their arms down at their sides), but also metaphorically: they are both at their most vulnerable, their least puffed-up, in the entire season.
https://preview.redd.it/2jmk55zcxi5d1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2c3d3ce9c8046d8dacadf0254090ba5b2d6db57b
When swans are bonded, they will press their chests together and bend their necks together and rest their foreheads against one another, forming a heart shape. In their first kiss, we see Colin rest his forehead against Penelope’s ever so slightly — somewhat tentatively, almost, and his chest is not pressed to hers. (It is in his dream, though.). We see the forehead-resting and chests pressed together more times in the carriage scene.
https://i.redd.it/dqaj33bbyi5d1.gif
https://i.redd.it/unk6l20fyi5d1.gif
Mating dances
First, watch this video of swans doing a mating dance. (Or read, if you prefer.) Note how look away from each other and then back with intense eye contact.

They will stare at each other during the up and down motions of the necks and will sometimes raise both heads together at the same time to look at each other with sideways glances as they turn their heads from side to side.

Now, let's pivot back to Bridgerton -- and to another couple. In 2x05, Anthony and Kate’s pivotal dance when they can no longer ignore their feelings for one another resembles the courting dance of swans, with their arms interconnected and circling around another. While one could say that’s true of most dancing, this one is particularly striking, and perhaps it's when Anthony drops his rakishness or ability to think about others and starts to accept his committed, swan nature (though it takes him some time). You can also see echoes of the swan mating dance in how they pass one another side-by-side in Simon & Daphne's dance when they're truly in love, though the Kate/Anthony dance is much clearer.
The closest we’ve seen to Colin and Pen dance like this is 2x08, yet that dance is much more tentative than Kate and Anthony’s, and only bears a very faint resemblance to the swan mating dance. They make eye contact, but it is not intense or focused. Colin also refers to her as "Penelope", not "Pen," during that dance, and they barely touch. Distance is implied in multiple ways. But back to the topic of this post, one has to wonder whether we’ll see Colin and Pen dance in a way similar to a swan mating dance in Part 2.
Swan mating rituals
Now we're going to dive a bit deep in terms of parallels between swans and intimacy. Yes, this is completely fucking unhinged on an already unhinged post. I’m sorry if you will never be able to look at swans the same again.

• Swans will keep intense eye contact during courting and mating. Yup, check.
• While mating for most birds lasts only a few seconds, for swans it can be at least 20 minutes if not up to an hour. Seems fitting given the mentions of a 10-minute long intimacy scene in Episode 5!
• Right before swans engage in the act, the male swan will drape his neck over the female swan’s. We seem to be getting hints of this in the trailer, with Colin standing behind her in the mirror.
• We're going to skip over specifics of swan sex positions. That would simply be too unhinged.
• Right after mating, swans stay close together and echo the head turning/tilting of the courting ritual. We get a glimpse of this after the carriage scene is interrupted, and one can hope this means we get lots of after-sex cuddling. If not, it’s totally in headcanon now.
• After mating, swans will clean one another. We can see this in how Colin lovingly puts Pen’s dress and hair back in place before straightening his own clothes in the carriage scene.
• Swans also tend to mate many more times than is necessary in order to fertilize eggs. Based on this, and based on what we’ve heard about Part 2, we’re probably going to see this parallel, too.
• Male swans eagerly build a nest once they’ve decided to mate. This matches what we’ve heard about Colin quickly buying a house for him and Pen.
• Swan couples that are new to a territory/nest usually don’t lay any eggs for the first year, so maybe they’ll wait a bit before having children. But that seems unlikely with these two given that birth control didn’t exist…

Looking forward

Given that swans mate for life, we can be guaranteed a happy ending here.
As the show goes on, one can predict that swans will represent the two of them in various ways, and that we might expect to see swan motifs in the decoration of their new home. (In the Part 2 trailer, in the wedding scene, the walls are decorated with a swan motif.)
https://preview.redd.it/yhtphnem1j5d1.png?width=2436&format=png&auto=webp&s=3dab8825cccd5db6cd6c8f35c1f9f8605a4e68b1
In terms of children, swans keep their children close to them during their early life. We therefore might be able to predict that both Colin and Pen will likely be very attached to their children, and we will be unlikely to see them without their children once their children are in the picture. Even though Colin loves to travel, we could also predict he’ll quickly want to settle down and delight in being at home with their children, just like a swan.
Since male swans actively participate in child rearing, we also hope we’ll get to see lots of heart-warmingly adorable scenes of Colin bouncing their babies on his knees and taking care of them in future seasons. Maybe we’ll be lucky and even get a Regency-ified version of baby wearing with Colin wearing their baby wrapped around him with a shawl!

Bonus: Press tour Easter eggs!

In the Netflix India Bollywood/Bridgerton video, Luke wore a duck sweater. u/sc127's read on this:

Black Swan theory regarding Nicola's outfit: Do you think it's alluding to Colin and Pen getting married? In the eyes of the Ton, they would consider the Polin relationship as a Black Swan. It fits the criteria of being a surprise, having a major effect, and can be rationalized in hindsight.
Pink Ducks on Luke: I think the symbolism is more straight forward compared to Nicola's outfit. Pink is Pen's favorite color and it is the Bridgerton color of first love. Colin is in love with a duck named Pen :)

https://preview.redd.it/mrxy2a7v1j5d1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c4d919cbd7c18dab681e5516098c540e7d79b12

Most of these are screenshots from my favorite episode, The Day of the Dead episode, in which the apes go to a sementery in Mexico City where people visit the graves of their relatives. The apes do some journalism on this Mexican festivity and report back to their own planet.
First image: (from left to right) Mónico Chimpanzón, Monuel Changosé, Simeone Monarres.
Second image: while remebering their own dead relatives, Mónico starts crying at the memory of his mother and leans on Simeone's shoulder to cry.
Third image: interview with the cronist of the area, who explains the tradition.
Fourth image: interview with a man dressed as Mictlantecutli; translated quote "I am the god of death in three different cultures".
Fifth image: they dance to Michael Jackson's Thriller to see if the dead really do come back as Mexicans claim... Until the batery of the cellphone playing the song dies out.
The makeup artist, Edgar Vazquez, was inspired by the Burton film and wanted to make them look even more animal-like, but that never happened because the fake teeth hurt the actors and the contact lenses made them look scary.

Recently, Taylor has been using the phrase “dear diary” to describe her music on the Eras tour. Prior to the release of TTPD, she was using language like “excruciatingly autobiographical” and “live-streamed public autopsy” - which, in retrospect, seems like a hint towards the concept of TTPD as a “post-mortem.” In changing this language, it stands to reason that she may be hinting at something new.
I started to wonder if she might be pointing us back towards the Lover diaries. She’s also been mentioning the number 4 - “Dear Diary, I felt a feeling for 4 seconds” - and how many Lover diaries are there? 4! Taylor Nation also recently posted about the Lover diaries. (Credit to u/Different_Hedgehog16 for sharing the screen shot in the megathread!)
https://preview.redd.it/5hoae7tyrg5d1.png?width=432&format=png&auto=webp&s=cc428aa24495806db3c12dc5b53b0878c25f10a7
There have also been theories swirling that we might get a redo of the Miss Americana documentary, like this post. I’d argue that the diaries and documentary, as longer story-telling mediums, were essential to the fabric of the Lover era as a vehicle for a coming out. And if she were to re-do that coming out, she might also revisit those same story-telling mediums she attempted to use during Lover.
So, I decided to take a look back at the Lover diaries in a post-TTPD world to see what we can glean. There are quite a few interesting things, but what struck me first and foremost were connections to ME! and how those connections intersect with our current position on the road to "meet me at midnight." So, that is what I am going to largely focus on in this post.

Intro: Significance of the Lover Diaries

Taylor’s music has long been branded “diaristic.” But it’s one thing to write diaristic music; it’s another thing to release your diary. Sharing your diary signals a new level of confession, unveiling something that is typically kept private under lock and key.
Of course, the diaries she released are not her literal diary. They are a curated selection of entries she chose to release and potentially edited for public consumption. These diaries are art pieces, packaged together as an accompaniment to the album. And as art, it doesn’t matter how literally “true” the diaries are. What matters is the meaning they convey. I’d argue that these diaries can tell us a lot about the Lover era.
As a concept, the first and most obvious thing the very existence of the diaries tells us is that the Lover era was intended as an era of authenticity and confession. This won’t shock anyone in this corner of the internet, but I think the very fact that she included her diaries to accompany the album lends credence to the failed coming out theory.

Opening the Diary Drawer in the Lover Era

Taylor has never used the word “diary” in a published song, but she did use the word in her poem for reputation, If You’re Anything Like Me:

If you’re anything like me,
You never wanted to lock your door,
Your secret garden gate or your diary drawer
Didn’t want to face the you you don’t know anymore
For fear she was much better before…
But Darling, now you have to.

Here, she describes how she never wanted to lock her diary drawer - never wanted to have to hide parts of herself from the world behind a locked (closet?) door, behind a gate in a secret garden. It’s telling, then, that with her next album release, she unlocks the diary drawer. This signals an intention to step out from behind the door and into the daylight.
The next few lines of the poem are relevant here, too. She describes not knowing herself anymore and not wanting to face herself - a self who she fears was much better “before.” Before what? Before she became estranged from herself, perhaps? But now she must face this self she is estranged from. The implication seems to be that after she locks the door, she is alone with herself - and then she must face herself. This idea of facing herself in isolation is reinforced in the next stanza where she speaks of her “own little golden prison cell” and says, “But Darling, there is where you meet yourself.”
She describes meeting herself behind a shut door on reputation. And Lover, in opening the diary drawer, represents an invitation for the world to meet her, too.
Of course, it doesn’t happen, and she finds herself shutting the door again. In that light, it’s interesting that this conception of what it means to meet yourself seems quite opposite to how she describes it in the Midnights foreword: “For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching - hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve…we’ll meet ourselves.” On Midnights, she isn’t shutting the door to meet herself. She is stepping out with lanterns lit to search for herself. And her hope to meet herself is directly tied to an invitation for the audience to meet her, too: “Meet me at midnight.” This shift might suggest a realization that the isolation of the closet is in fact not a place where one can truly encounter themselves. You don’t meet yourself in a prison cell; you lose yourself. To find yourself, you have to open the door. The diary drawer.

Lover as a Return to Herself, Through the Lens of the Lover Diaries

The diaries are a central part of the Lover foreword, the very first thing she mentions. She seems particularly drawn to the diaries from her childhood and teen years; she writes, “What shocked me the most was how often I wrote about the things that I loved.” This becomes her central inspiration for the concept of the album, as she goes on to explain it: “This album is a love letter to love itself.” And further, it serves as the inspiration for a decision she describes making about how she wants to define herself and her identity: “I’ve decided that in this life, I want to be defined by the things that I love - not the things I hate, the things I’m afraid of, or the things that haunt me in the middle of the night. These things may be my struggles, but they’re not my identity.” These words are so central to the thesis of the album that they bookend it: opening the album in the prologue and closing it in the outro of Daylight. And these words are rooted in the spirit of the young Taylor she describes encountering in the pages of these old diaries.
Lover Foreword
This is especially interesting when we think about the death of the “old Taylor” in reputation. Lover was an era of rebirth - not of the Taylor Swift personas she killed off in the reputation era, but of her original self. It was a return to her roots. A return to herself. Consider this quote from Rolling Stone where she says she’s never “leaned into the old version of myself more creatively than I have on this album.” (Credit to u/courtingdisaster for this find!)
https://preview.redd.it/mmn5p2vbug5d1.png?width=432&format=png&auto=webp&s=cb876b96cfa6a1a0734cbdae4882d6a034ff3a2e
This proves out when examining the contents of the diaries. The entries she chose to include are primarily from her youth. There are 51 total entries across the four diaries, spanning 2003-2017. Of these, over half (51%) are from her teenage years. Another 45% are from her early 20s (ages 20-24). Only two entries are from age 25+.

The Lover Diaries and ME!

Looking at the contents of the diaries, the first thing that jumped out at me was the quote she included on the first page of Diary #1 and signed “Me!”
Opening Page of Lover Diary #1
It seems reasonable to think that the concept for ME! was inspired, at least in part, from this process of combing through her old diaries and facing the person she once was. These first pages from age 13 represent a celebration of herself. Her pride in her doodles, branding them “Taylor designs 2002.” Her belief that she would be a big star, that her signature might be worth money someday (hehe). Defiance in the face of anyone who would tell her she “[doesn’t] deserve what [she] want[s].” And a celebration of her words, featured right alongside Kenny Chesney’s. There’s a youthful wisdom in these words that she seems to return to in ME!, a song about celebrating everything that makes her who she is.
There are also visual parallels between the diaries and the ME! lyric video. The ME! lyric video is stylized as handwritten; we actually see her hand writing these words, and she is writing on paper with a Taylor Swift letterhead to boot, leaving no doubt about whose words these are. This in and of itself feels noteworthy, given it’s not a typical style for her lyric videos. The handwritten ME! lyrics tie the song directly to the diaries, also handwritten.
ME! Lyric Video
Additionally, the lyric video is full of sweet childlike doodles that also parallel the diaries - hearts, stars, smiley faces. Some of the imagery from her diary doodles also makes it into the ME! music video.
Left: Young Taylor in the Lover Diaries Right: ME! Lyric Video
If you’re in this corner of the internet, you likely understand ME! as deeply meaningful to the Lover rollout. And these ties to the Lover diaries, which Taylor made central to the thesis of the album in the foreword, lend further credence to ME! as one of the most important touchstones of this era. ME! as a self-love anthem inspired by and dedicated to her younger self, who once wrote: “The world is as big as you make it, never be shameful to fly.”
\"Never be shameful to fly.\" - Taylor Swift in the Lover Diaries, age 13

Connections to TTPD

The Lover era was characterized by a handwritten aesthetic - in the diaries and beyond, most notably in the ME! lyric video. This handwritten aesthetic is not typical for Taylor's work, but where do we see it pop up again? On TTPD, of course. The summary poem is specifically printed to look handwritten, but with none of the flourish of the Lover era. The color has been drained out.
TTPD Summary Poem
We also have a call-back to the Taylor Swift letterhead from the ME! lyric video in the TTPD era's "From the Desk of Taylor Swift." The fonts are not identical, but similar enough to suggest a connection. Both albums come directly from the desk of Taylor Swift.
Left: ME! Lyric Video Letterhead: \"Taylor Swift, Born in 1989, Loves Cats\" Right: Letterhead from TTPD Journal (Merch): \"From the Desk of Taylor Swift\"
These are of course not the first call-backs to ME! and Lover that this community has noticed on TTPD. This is an addition to a long and growing list of connections. I'd argue this is a noteworthy connection because, fundamentally, the excavation of the Lover Diaries - a central part of the fabric of the album and especially of ME! - represented a return to her most authentic self, before she learned civility, and an invitation for the public to encounter that authentic self emerging from her unlocked diary drawer. The Midnights foreword suggests we might now be on a mirrored journey towards "meet me at midnight," and TTPD might represent a pit stop on that journey. (If you're interested in more thoughts on this journey and how it connects to diaristic confession, I wrote this post about it!)
And if that's the case, if Taylor is coming back for herself, it just might mean coming back for the Lover Diaries and the 13-year-old girl found in their pages, who once wisely said, "May you never be scared of goodbye." Judging by a recent mash-up, perhaps Taylor is preparing to take her advice: You're on your own, kid, you always have been. So, take a deep breath as you walk through the doors.
EDIT: ADDENDUM
I just had another thought related to all of this that I thought I'd add on in case anyone else finds it interesting! It struck me that it's especially interesting that the TTPD Summary Poem is stylized as handwritten because the overall aesthetic for the era centers around typewriters, so that seems very intentional. I have a theory that the concept for TTPD was inspired, at least in part, by the confessional poets of the 1950s-60s (see this post if interested). And these poets worked on typewriters, but you know what was often handwritten? Their letters. And these letters are considered important primary source documents for interpreting their lives and work, especially for Sylvia Plath. Just like the Lover Diaries function as primary source documents for interpreting the Lover album. In stylizing the TTPD Summary Poem as handwritten, Taylor is positioning it as another primary source document, a letter written directly to the public. Will we get more of these documents? Is that what she is hinting at with "dear diary"? We might.

If \"Chum\" had a cover, we've never seen it!
1994 saw the release of Fd's first demo tape, "Chum", recorded at Idful Music (R.I.P.) in Wicker Park with the legendary Brad Wood behind the board. Until the discovery of the B-Sides, Demos, & Covers bootleg (a CDr that will prove itself to be extremely important to the legacy of the preservation of this band's music), it wasn't even known that "Chum" existed. Lucky for us, though, we already had two of its tracks - the openers, "Nimble" and "Bury Me", released on two different 7" vinyl editions, one black and one white.
"Chum" is the third-most-lost Fig Dish release behind "Easy Lover" and the unreleased post-Shove demo. And maybe those Shove-era singles that may or may not exist. We do not have any images of the release whatsoever - no tape, no card, no case. We do, thank god, know the tracklist in order thanks to the B-Sides bootleg:

1. Nimble (Smith)
2. Bury Me (Ness)
3. Hover (Smith)
4. Going Gone (Smith)
5. Spit the Part (Smith)
6. Dirty Clothes (Ness)

"Hover" and "Dirty Clothes" are, à la "Miss California" from her double A-side single, songs that were never otherwise re-released. I suppose given the fact that "Spit the Part" was recorded for the Love songs sessions, and three other tracks from "Chum" made it onto the album proper, then it's not out of the question that "Hover" and "Dirty Clothes" were as well (though I'm not so sure about the latter, I don't feel it gels all that well with the Love songs material - can't say the same about "Hover" though). "Going Gone" is probably the most significantly changed between the demo and the LP; its choruses are played at double time, the solo is ever-so-slightly different and the whole song is just a touch faster, the clean third verse is played dirty, and the Wang Chung quote in the bridge is gone. "Spit the Part" has a few minor changes, especially in the solo, and instead of the outro solo that appears on the LP version there is an extended reprise of the intro.

What can you do?

If you have one of these tapes, we would love to see pictures! And a high-quality rip! Currently the only copies of these songs that exist are my YouTube rips of the Liquid Meat single and the B-Sides upload from GeerStreetRecords, and the latter suffers from being a bootleg - all of the tape-transferred tracks run too fast. "Hover" and "Dirty Clothes" need a once-over with different ears; I've done the best I can to transcribe their lyrics but there are still things I cannot make out. If you'd like to try your hand at fully transcribing any of the unique tracks here (so, not "Nimble" or "Bury Me", although the latter does have a modified outro), then please do, but know I will probably do my own pass once I have made some satisfactory progress with my own music. Once I find some free time I will upload time-corrected versions of the latter four tracks to YouTube.
Bury Me / Nimble: Discogs - Genius - YouTube "Chum": Genius