The Ghost of Relationship Past: Holding on to a Relationship after it Ends in Haunted

The Basics: 

Taylor Swift sings, in anguish, about being “Haunted” by a relationship that recently ended.

Literary Device: Metaphor 

Taylor Swift sets the scene for her ghost story in the first verse: “It’s getting dark and it’s all too quiet / And I can’t trust anything now.” Swift then populates this spooky atmosphere with language suggestive of death for both her and her partner: “Something’s made your eyes go cold” as well as herself “Can’t breathe whenever you’re gone”. Each chorus ends with the words “I’m haunted.” 

Swift is not literally haunted – the spooky imagery is merely a metaphor for the unsettling feeling at the end of a relationship. In particular, a relationship that was once solid enough that Swift “never thought [she’d] live to see it break.” It did break, however, and now Swift is singing to someone who is not there. Swift admits: “Won’t see you again” and that “Something keeps me holding on to nothing.” The absence of Swift’s relationship has become a presence of sorts as long as she continues to think about it, sing about it, visualize it, etc. Haunted thus effectively explores the afterlife of a relationship by comparing it to a ghost. 

Analysis

Swift keeps rehashing the details of the relationship and what she believed about it. In the first verse she admits: “You and I walk a fragile line, I have known it all this time.” In the chorus, she sings “I thought I had you figured out” twice. Swift is assessing and reassessing her understanding of the dynamics, including her own words and actions: “But I still mean every word I said to you.” Swift is not haunted just by sadness or loneliness, but a desire to understand what happened and the role that she played in it. 

In literature and popular culture, ghosts generally linger because they have unfinished business from their lives. In this case, Swift’s relationship is haunting her because Swift is clinging to it and begging it to stay. Swift sings “Won’t lose you again” and begs “Come on, come on, don’t leave me like this” even after she is already in another relationship (“He will try to take away my pain / And he just might make me smile / But the whole time I’m wishing he was you.”) In the bridge, she desperately moans “I know / I know / I just know / You’re not gone, you can’t be gone no.” Although Swift’s relationship is literally and physically over, Swift keeps it alive through her painful memories as well as her desire to understand exactly what happened. Swift is haunted, but it is a haunting that she has created for herself since she is not yet ready to move on. Swift is at a point in her breakup where she would rather dwell on the past with someone who represents “all [she] wanted” than move along and let the relationship fade into memory.