I can go anywhere I want, just not home
We're deep diving "My Tears Ricochet" on this week's new AP Taylor Swift podcast episode
This week on AP Taylor Swift, we take on “my tears ricochet,” the gut-wrenching Track 5 from “Folklore”. From its funeral imagery to what it means for a tear to “ricochet,” we explore themes of grief, regret, and power dynamics. Whether this song is about romantic heartbreak, a friendship gone sour, or even a toxic job, we explore why this song resonates so deeply with so many, and what it means for each of us.
🎧 Listen above and ⬇️ scroll below to read Maansi’s extra credit about the legendary Labyrinth of Crete, the real life destination behind the Greek myth.
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🎒This Week’s Extra Credit - Brought to You by Maansi
This week’s extra credit is actually in response to last week’s topic of Greek Mythology. In that episode, Jodi compared My Tears Ricochet to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, and Jenn tackled the song Labyrinth. I promised I would share a bit of my own experience of visiting the famous Labyrinth itself, in Knossos, Crete, so that’s what I’m writing about today.
In 2021, I had been studying ancient civilizations and I really enjoyed learning about the Minoans. The Minoans were an old civilization, from the Bronze Age, that thrived chronologically before what we think of as the classical Greek civilization. However the mainland Greeks and Mycenaeans eventually converged and the Mycenaean culture remained significant in Greek culture. Other than the fact that the Minoans were an ancient culture that had their own language and were remarkable in several technological ways, they were also a matriarchal society, which just fascinates me.
I had an opportunity to travel to Greece after the Covid restrictions were lifted, so I jumped on it. Visiting Crete, the home of the Minoans, let me see some of the art and artifacts I had been studying but also just BLEW me away. I got to visit the Palace of Knossos, a structure that has been destroyed by multiple earthquakes, rebuilt two more times, and has been the home of human civilizations for 10,000 years. Originally, when Palace of Knossos was first excavated, it was by Sir Arthur Evans. At the time, he made some leaps and assumptions based on his understanding of the world at that time. His theories have come under criticism for being careless and misrepresenting, and overtime, a lot of his original theories have been revisited and revised by later archeologists.
Similar to how we apply different lenses to each of Taylor’s songs, archeology is a social science that requires some educated guesswork. The more that they uncover over time, the more they research, the more we get new theories of what may have actually transpired. Our tour guide gave us an incredible tour which include a lot of information that still had not been totally confirmed.
Heard of King Minos and the Minotaur of the Labyrinth? What if I told you the Palace of Knossos, rumored to be the very Labyrinth from the story, is actually the site is the home to one of the biggest plot twists in history? We all know the story about King Minos, or we think we do. According to our tour guide, newer working theories say Minos was the title given to the high priestess (female), an incredibly powerful person who held the entire Minoan empire together. The labyrinth was the name of the Minoans’ city center, their temple and center of trade. And the Minotaur? The monster that everyone feared? Maybe it was a man-made explanation by the mainland Greeks to justify how women were in power for so long (they must have had a secret monster weapon - surely there was a beast protecting them!) or maybe it referred to the earthquakes that lurked beneath the surface (near by island Santorini is an active volcano) and caused devastation.
Archeologists and historians continue to work on excavating the massive site, and as far as I know, there’s no complete consensus on this piece of ancient history. But whatever the answer, the idea that the entire tale of the Labyrinth and King Minos could mean something different, the idea that in this matriarchal society, it could have been an incredibly powerful female in charge — it almost makes me want to stare into space for a very long time just to reevaluate how little we as a society know about the incredibly civilizations that came before us. Walking through these ruins and unearthing the history behind the myths was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had on my travels.
Bonus shoutout to the Minoan Snake Goddess who makes frequent appearances in the museum of Heraklion. Her true story is also one that continues to evolve and be researched, but I thought I’d throw it in here, because you know…. we love a Snake Goddess.
