The song "Fortnight" by Taylor Swift and Post Malone tells a story about strong feelings, complicated relationships, and secret wishes. It talks about love, betrayal, and wanting someone who doesn't feel the same. The word "fortnight" shows short-lived happiness and guilty pleasures, leading to sadness. It shows how messy relationships can be and the results of hiding emotions. “I was supposed to be sent away / But they forgot to come and get me,” she kickstarts the song in the first verse with lines suggesting an admission to a hospital for people with mental illnesses. She goes in the verse admitting her lover is the reason why she is like this. In the chorus, she sings about their time in love and reflects on how he has now settled with someone else. “I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary / And I love you, it’s ruining my life,” on the second verse she details her struggles to forget about him and the negative effects of her failure. “Thought of callin’ ya, but you won’t pick up / ‘Nother fortnight lost in America,” Post Malone sings in the outro.
Getting crazy on the waltzers but it's the life that i choose
Sing about the sixblade sing about the switchback and a torture tattoo
And I been riding on a ghost train where the cars they scream and slam
And I don't know where I'll be tonight but I'd always tell you where I am
In a screaming ring of faces I seen her standing in the light
She had a ticket for the races just like me she was a victim of the night
I put my hand upon the lever said let it rock and let it roll
I had the one arm bandit fever there was an arrow through my heart and soul
And the big wheel keep on turning neon burning up above
And I'm just high on the world
Come on and take a low ride with me girl
On the tunnel of love
It's just the danger when you're riding at your own risk
She said you are the perfect stranger she said baby let's keep it like this
It's just a cakewalk twisting baby step right up and say
Hey mister give me two give me two cos any two can play
And the big wheel keep on turning neon burning up above
And I'm just high on the world
Come on and take a low ride with me girl
On the tunnel of love
Well it's been money for muscle another whirlgig
Money for muscle another girl I dig
Another hustle just to make it big
And rockaway rockaway
And girl it looks so pretty to me just like it always did
Like the spanish city to me when we were kids
Oh girl it looks so pretty to me just like it always did
Like the spanish city to me when we were kids
She took off a silver locket she said remember me by this
She put her hand in my pocket I got a keepsake and a kiss
And in the roar of dust and diesel I stood and watched her walk away
I could have caught up with her easy enough but something must have made me stay
And the big wheel keep on turning neon burning up above
And I'm just high on the world
Come on and take a low ride with me girl
On the tunnel of love
And now I'm searching through these carousels and the carnival arcades
Searching everywhere from steeplechase to palisades
In any shooting gallery where promises are made
To rockaway rockaway from Cullercoasts and Whitley bay out to rockaway
And girl it looks so pretty to me just like it always did
Like the spanish city to me when we were kids
Oh girl it looks so pretty to me just like it always did
Like the spanish city to me when we were kids
Sing about the sixblade sing about the switchback and a torture tattoo
And I been riding on a ghost train where the cars they scream and slam
And I don't know where I'll be tonight but I'd always tell you where I am
In a screaming ring of faces I seen her standing in the light
She had a ticket for the races just like me she was a victim of the night
I put my hand upon the lever said let it rock and let it roll
I had the one arm bandit fever there was an arrow through my heart and soul
And the big wheel keep on turning neon burning up above
And I'm just high on the world
Come on and take a low ride with me girl
On the tunnel of love
It's just the danger when you're riding at your own risk
She said you are the perfect stranger she said baby let's keep it like this
It's just a cakewalk twisting baby step right up and say
Hey mister give me two give me two cos any two can play
And the big wheel keep on turning neon burning up above
And I'm just high on the world
Come on and take a low ride with me girl
On the tunnel of love
Well it's been money for muscle another whirlgig
Money for muscle another girl I dig
Another hustle just to make it big
And rockaway rockaway
And girl it looks so pretty to me just like it always did
Like the spanish city to me when we were kids
Oh girl it looks so pretty to me just like it always did
Like the spanish city to me when we were kids
She took off a silver locket she said remember me by this
She put her hand in my pocket I got a keepsake and a kiss
And in the roar of dust and diesel I stood and watched her walk away
I could have caught up with her easy enough but something must have made me stay
And the big wheel keep on turning neon burning up above
And I'm just high on the world
Come on and take a low ride with me girl
On the tunnel of love
And now I'm searching through these carousels and the carnival arcades
Searching everywhere from steeplechase to palisades
In any shooting gallery where promises are made
To rockaway rockaway from Cullercoasts and Whitley bay out to rockaway
And girl it looks so pretty to me just like it always did
Like the spanish city to me when we were kids
Oh girl it looks so pretty to me just like it always did
Like the spanish city to me when we were kids
Lyrics submitted by Novartza
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Fortnight
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
I noticed that some comments from the US point out that there are references to American amusement park locations as well as those in the Newcastle UK area. This is because the song is set in two periods, which I don't think anyone has commented on.
The narrator is an itinerant fairground worker in the present day hoping to break out and make it big ("money for muscle"). This life takes him everywhere. These sections are intercut with flashback verses recounting the day with the girl at Spanish City when the narrator was a teenage boy. When he says he's been riding on the ghost train, he means he has been revisiting past memories that are gone forever. It is a lament for lost love, lost youth, a home town as it was in childhood, failed dreams. And all that yearning is, as plenty have said, so beautifully evoked as the final guitar solo builds to its crescendo.