"I thought I had you figured out"
👻 Out now: Episode 26: Deep Dive - Haunted!
In this week’s episode, we dive into the Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) classic “Haunted.” We discuss how Taylor Swift’s song captures the haunting and fragile nature of relationships, the devastation of loss, and the immediate aftermath of a breakup. In true form, we also tie the idea of a haunting breakup back to our careers, and what it can feel like when you are constantly wondering “what if” about your past decisions. Whether you want some strong emotions or a bit of verb tense analysis, we get into it all in this week’s episode!
👀 Sneak Peek
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🎒This Week’s Extra Credit - Brought to You by Jenn
Taylor loves her haunting imagery, doesn’t she? In this week’s conversation, we focused on the narrator who was being haunted. She’s actually a pretty passive player in this song. While that totally works for the song's message, I was thinking more about the idea of the person doing the haunting. Ghost stories have existed for an incredibly long time (check out this 3500 year-old tablet from Babylon about ghosts), so I wanted to explore some of the more well-known stories and the purpose behind the hauntings.
Delivering a Message
One of the many reasons we see ghosts appear in stories is often to deliver some sort of message. It may be a message from a godly figure or themselves. One of the most famous examples of this is in Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Admittedly, the ghost of Hamlet’s father is a topic much debated, but it is clear that this ghostly figure is delivering an important message to Hamlet - his death was no accident.
But know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown.
This message is what pushes the plot of the rest of the play forward, but I want to focus on the purpose of the haunting. Some may argue that this is an “unfinished business” situation (which we will get into below), but the message delivery is just so important to this story. Hamlet knowing who killed his father changes absolutely everything. It sets the rest of the play’s action in motion. I have always interpreted this moment as the ghost having a message that is so desperately urgent that he finds a way to cross over to share the message. The ghost does not need to do anything other than inform.
Unfinished Business
One of the most popular tropes is that ghosts stick around due to unfinished business. Usually, the story goes that the ghost is trapped in between states of being (life and the afterlife) until they can resolve something. Whether it’s helping a loved one they left behind or exacting some sort of revenge, the idea is that their soul cannot rest until the issue is resolved.
A great example is the army of the dead in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. When these men were alive, they swore an oath to serve their king. And when he called upon them to fulfill that oath, they refused. Therefore they were cursed to never rest until their oath was fulfilled. Generations later, as ghosts, they can fulfill that oath and finally have peace.
These stories seem to have a strong hold on ghost narratives today. Death is a scary topic, so maybe these narratives of closure give us all some comfort.
Providing Moral Guidance
Moral guidance can come from a wide array of ghost stories. Perhaps the ghost is simply communicating a message, or perhaps the guidance IS the unfinished business, but this topic deserves a category of its own because we would be remiss to discuss ghosts with discussing A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Ghosts are a prevalent theme in so many stories, but the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future are perhaps some of the most well-known ghosts in our culture.
Why does this story have such sticking power though? It certainly has its creepy moments (looking at you, ghost-Marley), but overall it’s a heart-warming story of a man who has a compelling change of heart. In this story, the ghosts aren’t necessarily doing anything other than reminding him of things he either experienced or probably knows already, just in a specific way to help him understand the error of his ways.
It’s interesting to think of ghosts as moral compasses. Perhaps the idea that they have seen what is on the other side is what makes them such authorities on the messages. They understand better than we do the long-term consequences of our actions.
Bringing It Back To Taylor
We are barely scratching the surface of ghost myths here, but I’ve always thought that there is something very internal or psychological about the idea. Did Scrooge get visited by three ghosts or are those all happening in his dreams because he knows deep down that something is wrong with his behavior? I mean, the story clearly says he is visited by ghosts, but it still feels a little metaphorical to me.
Nothing in “Haunted” implies (to me, at least) that the narrator is being actively haunted by a ghost. But rather that the memory of this other person is what is haunting her. However, with lyrics like “you and I walk a fragile line” and “something’s gone terribly wrong,” I wonder if there is some lesson to be learned in the haunting. This “ghost” is definitely in her head haunting her. The stories we’ve looked at would imply that to get some peace, she needs to do something. Either learn a lesson (maybe don’t enter into such fragile relationships?) or resolve some unfinished business (figure out why their eyes went so cold maybe?).
When someone is a ghost, it’s usually because they need to do something to find peace. If you’re being haunted, perhaps you need to do something too. Or, just like, hire an exorcist. That’d be a whole different podcast though…