So scarlet it was, maroon.
New episode "Maroon" deep dive, out now!
What’s the true meaning behind Taylor Swift’s “Maroon”? This week on AP Taylor Swift podcast, we dive into the shades of red, love, and memory that define this “Midnights” favorite. We explore how Taylor uses colors to capture the complexity of relationships—the highs, the heartbreaks, and the legacy they leave behind. Listen as we unpack the layers of this fan-favorite track.
🎧 Listen above and ⬇️ scroll below to read Maansi’s extra credit to learn more about the color maroon and how Maroon is a Ron Weasley song!
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🎒This Week’s Extra Credit by Maansi
For our Holiday Special episode at the end of last year, we discussed which Taylor Swift songs could be tied to Harry Potter. I briefly mentioned this in our episode this week, but today, I’d like to revisit that theme and make a pitch that Maroon is a Ron Weasley song. Perhaps it’s a Hermione to Ron Weasley song, but it’s a Ron song.
Before we get into it, I think it’s worth taking a moment to do a quick wikipedia level overview of the color maroon. The word maroon comes from the French word marron, which I know from my American French education to mean brown, but really is more nuanced and actually translates to chestnut. It’s been used in English since around the 1700s, and shows up frequently in National flags, and interestingly enough, school colors, and by extension, sports teams. I thought it was absolutely fascinating that the two most prominent musical references of the color maroon are in the name of the band Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift’s song Maroon. I wanted to see if I could find other literary examples of the color being used prominently, but nothing really stood out to me as being particularly noteworthy.
Except for Ron. In Harry Potter.
While the lyrics don’t map as closely to the books as some other songs that we discussed on our Holiday episode, I do believe this song is a Ron song for two main reasons:
Maroon was undoubtedly Ron’s color — it was the color of the sweater that Mrs. Weasley knit for him every Christmas, the color his own mother assigned to him.
This song is about many, many different shades of red, and Ron Weasley embodies all of them (and maybe this is how I reiterate - JUSTICE FOR RON!).
Maroon is Ron’s color
One of my favorite traditions from the Harry Potter universe is that Molly Weasley would knit each of her kids a sweater for Christmas every year. Being an amateur knitter myself, there’s so much I appreciate about this gesture, especially given that the Weasleys were people of humble means. With such a big family, giving Christmas gifts every year may not have been so easy. I imagine this little, fierce woman furtively knitting away throughout the year to prep Christmas gifts for her kids. In the first book, we learn that Harry’s designated color is green, presumably to match with his very striking eyes. Ron, however, ends up with maroon year after year, a fact that he’s quick to share his disdain for.
We never officially learn the other Weasley kids’ sweater colors, but the movies took some liberties and assigned the Twins with blue. We assume Ginny’s could be purple given her sweater in the first movie, but I’ve also seen some claims that Mrs. Weasley also made hers green (perhaps to compliment Harry’s?). What’s clear is that Mrs. Weasley always associated Maroon with Ron — thought it’s what would suit him best, even though he always felt it clashed horribly with his hair.
Why the shades of Red from Maroon are the shades of Red for Ron
Although Ron is the color maroon, as designated to him by his mother, he is also the embodiment of all shades of red. Just like Taylor Swift lists off the very many shades of red, if we were to consider Ron from, say, Hermione’s perspective, we could also probably write a similar song:
“The burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed your wine into me” - I’m going to write off burgandy and shirt as a reference to his Weasley sweater, which we’ve discussed.
“And how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet” - Ron Weasley’s notorious blush! He is embarassed easily and often described in the books as turning a shade of red that reaches all the way up to is hairline and clashes horribly with his hair.
“The mark you saw on my collarbone” - going along with the “bruised neck” shade of red, it’s little bit of a stretch but Ron ends up with a bunch of scars all over his body in two instances:
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, in the Department of Mysteries, Ron gets attacked by a bunch of brains and the thoughts leave angry red scars all over his arms
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Ron is splinched when Hermione has to suddenly apparate them all away from Grimauld Place and a chunk of Ron’s leg is left behind (although in the movies it’s also his arms that are affected).
“the rust that grew between telephones” - Ron is a huge fan of the Chudley Cannons Quidditch team, whose colors are a bright orange (or rusty red?). His entire room is described as being decked out in this color.
“The lips I used to call home, so scarlet” - We discuss how “scarlet” can be an allusion to The Scarlet Letter and be synonymous with scandal (Hermione would surely know the reference being a muggle bookworm). Well the biggest scandal involving Ron’s lips was definitely his tryst with Lav Lav in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
“Carnations you had thought were roses” - I think of this as a nod to how Ron has had a humble upbringing. Carnations are much cheaper than Roses, but could be considered just as beautiful. While Ron is not always able to show up with grand gestures, he means well and has heart.
“The rubies that I gave up” - Finally, Ron is a Gryffindor through and through. Book Ron was strategic, he was unrelentingly brave (facing his biggest fears, spiders, in 2nd year just for Hermione?!) He’s perhaps THE definition of what it means to be from this esteemed Hogwarts house. Not only is ruby red one of the Gryffindor colors, but Godric Gryffindor’s sword was ruby-encrusted.
Tying it all together
On this week’s episode we talk about how Taylor lists out a bunch of different shades of red and then essentially says they were all maroon. It’s a nonsensical lyric that we spend all episode analyzing, but when applied to Ron Weasley it makes so much sense. Because he is all these other colors (as explained above), but at the end of the day Ron Weasley = Maroon. So by the transitive property that we learn in grade school, every one of those shades of red ultimately equals maroon. There you have it folks.
P.S. Does this validate that Taylor Swift is actually Lavender Brown?
I love this!!!