I’m a huge fan of the song Robin, and have enjoyed reading all of the various interpretations of this song. The song feels like such a mix of emotions to me! At first listen it sounds like a sweet song, almost a lullaby. But then the layers of meaning and nuance start filtering in. Then one realizes that “bloodthirsty” feels a bit…off. Every time I listen to it I get a different mix of feelings: hopeful, wistful, nostalgic, happy, sad, resentment, innocence, ominous. Sometimes all in the same listen.
Some of the various interpretations of possible meaning I’ve explored thru this song (as have many others here and on social media):
• Aaron Dessner’s son- a song about watching a child grow up and wanting to protect their innocence from the realities of the world
• Robin Williams- his child-like wonder but also his struggles with mental illness/dementia
• Robin Hood (I never really considered this angle)
• The Secret Garden- the robin shows Mary the key and door to the secret garden
• Robin Goodfellow/Puck- a fairy character who is known for being mischievous (also references back to Dead Poet's Society)
• Emily Dickinson poem “The Child’s Faith is New”- about how children eventually learn to see people for who they are rather than infallible beings (this also leads to a Dear Brutus and The Fault in Our Stars interpretation, and lamenting the alternative outcomes for our lives)
• The character Tiger Lilly in Peter Pan
• Cats (of course)
• Taylor talking to her younger self (calling herself a “tiger”) about the pitfalls of fame and hiding from her true (queer) self
• Taylor talking to her fans about “putting on an act” for them to keep them entertained even though she’s been putting her true (queer) self on hold
• Examining the dandelions in the lyrics video. Dandelions often represent childhood wonder, and sending “wishes off into to the world.” On the flip side they are also seen by many as weeds that are hard to control.
One interpretation of Robin that I almost immediately dismissed was Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh. It just seemed too...obvious. And I couldn’t make any connections with the story (besides “Tigger = Tiger”). But…
Perhaps it’s not the story of Winnie the Pooh itself that resonates with the song, but the real life story of Christopher Milne, the “real life Christopher Robin,” son of A.A. (Alan) Milne who authored the book. I don’t know if this story is one that Taylor would have heard of or seen, but I feel like there are some parallels to this story that might reflect aspects of Taylor’s life.
Christopher Milne outlines his experience in two autobiographies: The Enchanted Places and The Path Through the Trees. His story was captured in a book by Ann Thwaite, Goodbye Christopher Robin: A.A. Milne and the Making of Winnie-the-Pooh.
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“Goodbye Christopher Robin is a story of celebrity, a story of both the joys and pains of success and, ultimately, the story of how one man created a series of enchanting tales that brought hope and comfort to an England ravaged by the First World War.”
It was also made into a movie in 2017. I know movies can embellish biographical truth. But the premise of the story explores how the father, Alan, experienced trauma (likely PTSD) after returning from World War I, and despair over the toll and meaning of the war. It shows marital struggles with his wife, pressures from his publisher to write a new book, and his desire to leave London for a more quiet life. The end result is him connecting with his son and writing the beloved Winnie-the-Pooh book, but the heart of the movie examines the toll at which this occurred from the perspective of both father and son.
Movie adaptation, 2017
The story (spoilers below if you want to watch it yourself; trailer here):
The birth of A.A. Milne’s son is announced as his “latest Milne production,” similar to Taylor’s birth announcement ad.
His name is Christopher Robin Milne but his parents call him “Billy Moon” (Billy couldn't pronounce his last name "Milne").
A.A. Milne’s wife, Daphne, wanted a girl, and had picked out a girl’s name (Rosemary) and dresses. She later shares that this is because she is afraid of having a son who might get sent off to war (which does happen).
Due to Alan’s war flashbacks and desire for a quieter life to focus on his writing, they move to a cottage in the country. They hire a nanny, Olive, to watch over Billy. The wife, Daphne, is disenchanted with the country and her husband’s lack of producing any new work and returns to London, bringing Billy and the nanny with her. They visit the zoo, and Billy sees a black bear. He compares the bear to his beloved stuffed teddy bear, Edward. He states how big and fierce the black bear seems and worries Edward will “grow up” to be the same. His mom says not to worry, that Edward will “stay little forever, like my boy.”
Billy returns to the country with the nanny, while the wife stays in London.
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The nanny then has to leave to take care of her ailing mother, leaving Alan alone to take care of Billy. He struggles at first but finally bonds with his son after they start taking walks in the woods and playing make believe with Billy’s stuffed animals. Alan gets inspiration for his new book, using the stuffed animals and Billy (using his real name “Christopher Robin”) as characters in the book.
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The middle of the story unfolds highlighting the inspiration for writing the book (Alan collaborating with his friend E.H. Shepard for illustrations), based on dad’s playtime and experiences with Billy. It is realized that this story might be popular and “healing” for a public who is disenchanted with the aftermath of the war. A scene shows Billy on a makeshift “float” with balloons as his dad and Shepard attempt to get him up into a tree so Shepard can draw a picture of “Christopher Robin knocking on owl’s door.” There’s also a scene where Alan and E.H. Shepard look over at an innocent Christopher Robin carrying his teddy bear and realize the magic they’re about to capture in the book (but it’s also an ominous scene as Billy looks so innocent in this moment, unaware of what's about to be unleashed upon him).
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Dad tells Billy he’s writing a book about their adventures and his animals, and “I’m putting you in it too.” Billy says he isn’t sure what to think about that. “They’ll think I’m not real.” Dad and son debate about his name for the book. Dad says “We’ll call you Christopher Robin then because it’s your real name but it’s not who you really are” (since he goes by Billy Moon).
The book is published and is an immediate success.
However, it becomes clear that “Christopher Robin the boy” is the star of the book. Reporters and the public start to seek him out, overshadowing the author himself (dad, Alan). Reporters start showing up in the woods as the boy is playing, with the nanny providing a protective role. Billy starts getting inundated with piles of fan mail. The dad starts to show resentment while the mother seems thrilled with the “success.” Billy starts to show some confusion over his new found fame. In one scene, he yells out “But I’m not really Christopher Robin, I’m Billy Moon.” A flurry of media chaos unfolds as the book becomes popular:
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“Everyone wants to be Christopher Robin.”
“The happiest young man on earth."
Movie screenshot of the \"happiest young man on earth\"
One reporter, talking to dad, states, “I can’t believe I’m talking to the father of the real Christopher Robin.”
After royal guards pay a visit to Billy for his birthday, later that evening he is on the phone with his dad, who is in London. Billy shares a conversation with his dad, who wishes him happy birthday. At the end of the call, it’s made apparent that his dad was in a studio and the call was played live on the radio. An ad plays- highlighting the commercialization of it all. Billy questions his Nanny about what just happened. The nanny takes Billy out in the night to play, and they look at the moon. She says “I think Little Billy Moon better get acquainted with Big Billy Moon himself.” They playfully drop sticks off a bridge into the water and she says “A person should do the things a person loves, with the people a person loves. Because you never know what happens next.”
Billy and his parents go to a London toy store where Billy is to promote a prize to “win tea with the real Christopher Robin.” Billy resists participating in this, but his dad says “You’re the luckiest boy in the world, you know the real Winnie the Pooh.” Billy questions to his mom, “Are you my manager then?” His mom states, “What gave you such a notion, I’m your mother.”
Billy shows signs of starting to question what is even real. He starts to show signs of protecting himself, telling fans that this isn’t his “real” life and that the names of himself and his animals are made up and that he’ll never tell fans their “real names.” At one point he tells his nanny “Are people going to look at us…like they look at Winnie the Bear in the zoo?”
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He is later looking at a map and asks his nanny "Is there anywhere in the world they don't know about Winnie the Pooh? I want to go there."
The nanny shares her concerns with his parents about Billy “being used as a show pony, he has to be allowed to grow up, to know that someone cares about him.”
The nanny is shown putting Billy to bed. She tells him a bedtime story about a “nanny that loves him.” “Be happy, Billy Moon.” “Keep your memories and I’ll keep mine”, “And that way we’ll always be together.”
The nanny quits/leaves and hands dad Billy’s schedule of busy appointments for the week. Billy wakes up distraught that his nanny is gone.
Dad Alan starts to question Billy’s schedule to his wife. “He can’t do all this. He’s a little boy. How have we let this happen?” “He should be running around in the woods.” Wife insists that Billy can do it. “He can [do it]. He’s rather good at it apparently.”
At a visit to the zoo for PR with the black bear, dad starts to push back at the role his son has been put in. He leaves the photoshoot, and he and Billy get ice cream, and are interrupted by fans as they’re eating.
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That night, dad tells Billy he’s decided he’s not going to write any more books about Billy’s stuffed animals or Christopher Robin. Billy asks “Does this mean Winnie the Pooh will just be ours again?” Dad states, “Winnie the Pooh is out in the world now and we can’t take him out of it.” But he tells Billy “you’ll never have to dress up again as Christopher Robin…and the day will come when everyone will forget about Winnie the Pooh.”
Billy is older now and goes to boarding school, where he’s bullied for his name as Christopher Robin. He starts going by the name “Christopher Milne.” Later, his classmates are shown going off to war. Billy is shown walking with his father in the woods. Billy tells his dad he wants to go to war (but has failed the medical exam).
“I want the chance to be private Milne. 607841 or whatever. Anonymous, a real person.”
Dad resists, but Billy says his dad has the clout to help get him in, and asks for his help, telling his dad that “I helped you write that book, now help me.”
The next scene show Billy in uniform ready to leave. As he goes to say goodbye to his mom, she walks away without saying goodbye.
Dad sees Billy off at the train station. While they’re waiting for the train, Billy feels there is something he has to tell his dad: “That bear made my life misery.”
“We played in the woods and then you wrote that book and it all stopped. As of it had all been a piece of research.” Billy and dad argue about the book. Dad says “You asked me to write a book for you.” The son says he asked for a “book for me, not about me.” Billy gets on the train and dad sees a flashback of him as a child.
In the next scene a letter comes that Billy is “missing and presumed dead.” The wife blames Alan. He has flashbacks about the last conversation with his son at the train station:
“About the money. The money we earned from ‘that bear.’ There’s mountains of it. It’s a fortune. You helped make it. It was just as much your doing as mine.” Billy declines the money, “I was just playing. With my father. If I take the money for it then I have to be Christopher Robin and I’m not Christopher Robin.”
Tigger's empty cage is shown.
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Later that night the dad sees his Billy come home and that he hasn’t died after all. He welcomes him home and calls him “Billy Moon.”
In the final scene, Billy and his dad revisit the woods and look over the landscape and the 100 Acre woods. Billy says “There it all is as if nothing had ever happened, just as I left it.”
Dad: “When I came back [from the war], everything seemed wrong.”
Billy shares with his dad what the Winne-the-Pooh story means to people, as he saw when he was off to war. He mentions a piece of the Winnie the Pooh song that he heard a fellow solider sing.
“Everyone on earth knows that song. But I knew it first. It was mine before it was anyone else’s.”
Dad wistfully says “Then I gave it all away.” Billy shares how much the story brought happiness to people when they needed it most. Dad states, “I’m sorry you paid the price for it.”
Billy: “You reminded people what happiness was…what childhood could be when everything else was broken.”
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Dad: “But your own childhood…”
Billy interrupts: “[my own childhood]…Was wonderful. It was growing up that was hard.”
Dad: “Who would have guessed that bear would swallow us up?”
Dad looks over and sees a flashback of his son as the young Christopher Robin. They walk home hand in hand. The end.
This story really drives home the ideas of childhood innocence lost to fame, the dichotomy between the “real” and the “famous” self, and the dynamics within a family of navigating the caveats of celebrity. The part that really connected me to Taylor’s story was Billy asking his nanny if they’d be “viewed like the bear at the zoo.” Again, I don't know Taylor's life or relationship with her parents. I have no idea if there’s any inspiration here for the song *Robin.* But this story makes me appreciate Taylor’s story (that we know of from our limited public perspective) and some of the difficulties she must have faced as a young person having grown up in fame for most of her life. She clearly loves songwriting and appears(?) to thrive in and seek the spotlight. And her music has brought so much joy and happiness to fans. But at what cost? Maybe The Manuscript perhaps alludes to this: maybe she sacrificed her early years and “true” (queer) self for that success (the "agony" she references), but also realizes the “gift” that her music has bestowed upon the world. At the end of the movie, Billy seems grateful for the "gift" of happiness and joy that his father's book has given the world, despite the hardships that it meant for them both.
I also appreciate when Billy's father says "Winnie the Pooh is out in the world now and we can't take him out of it" after he tells Billy he's not going to write any more stories. Much like Taylor's brand, like a dandelion, has been released into the wild.
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One of the things I love about Robin is the various interpretations it lends itself to. I’d love to someday learn from Taylor herself what her own meaning and inspiration for the song were. But in the meantime I’ll keep exploring it because I think it’s a gem- sweet and innocent at first listen, but so layered and meaningful as one listens to it from different perspectives.
What interpretation do you have of it? Has that changed?

I only kept things that I absolutely love

Keep fighting the good fight boys!

beyond poignant I ought to say, it has a very poetic setting similar to 'To walk Invisible 2017'. Emily's notions of love and mortality strike right through you. She longs for something unattainable and refuses to settle for less, even refusing to meet suitors.
After watching it I went to Wikipedia and found some claims of her romantic relationship with her sister-in-law, though it is in question as her material was heavily edited after her death. Cynthia Nixon also looks a lot like Emily's portrait.
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yes, there are two rows of books on both the 2nd and 3rd shelf