Is Taylor Swift’s “closure” Really About Moving On? Full Lyrical Analysis

On the surface, you’d think a song entitled “closure” would be about forgiving, forgetting, and moving on.

But that’s quite the opposite of what Taylor Swift is saying on her evermore track 14.

The lyrics detail a deeply-held grudge, a catastrophic loss, and the subject’s need for forgiveness. But Taylor isn’t in the forgiving mood.

Here’s my full English teacher analysis of Taylor’s closure meaning, line by line and spite by spite.

closure by Taylor Swift

• Title: closure
• Written by: Aaron Dessner, Taylor Swift
• Track: 14, evermore
• Pen: Fountain
• Lyrics from Genius

closure Song Meaning: Narrative Summary

• Setting: After a major relationship has ended. 
• Characters: Narrator (Taylor), Subject (someone who has wronged her, “you”)
• Mood: Bitter, resentful, resilient. 
• Conflict: The perpetrator has reached out for “closure,” which is just as painful as the incident itself. 
• Inciting Incident: A letter arrives from her ex-friend or lover.  
• Quest: Let them know there will never be “closure.” 
• Symbols & Metaphors: “closure,” “shape of your name,” “your letter,” “Some situation that needs to be handled,” “spite,” “tears,” “beers,” “candles”, “smoothing me over,” “a wrinkle in your new life,” “iron it out”, “ across the sea,” “cut deep” & “right to the bone
• Lesson: You don’t need to forgive or forget. 

What is closure About? 

closure is Taylor’s response to an ex’s letter, in which they tried to gain closure for an incident that happened between them. 

Taylor insists that she doesn’t need “closure,” and seems to imply that she’ll be spiteful toward this person forever. 

Who is closure About? 

Taylor has never revealed who closure is about, but fans speculate that it could be directed toward her ex-best friend Karlie Kloss. The pair were good friends, but after the master’s heist were never seen together again. 

Kloss was managed by Scooter Braun, Taylor’s arch-nemesis, and Braun borrowed money from Kloss’s husband to purchase Big Machine and Taylor’s catalog. 

Fans speculate that the “letter” mentioned in the song was Kloss trying to reach out and explain to Taylor what happened, but this has never been confirmed nor denied. 

As much of evermore is fiction, or pseudo-fiction, we may never know how much of closure was inspired by true events, and how much is fantasy.

closure Lyrics Meaning, Line by Line

Verse one opens with “it’s been a long time.” This gives us both the setting and the context: it’s been a long time since Taylor has split from this person. In the chorus, she’ll receive a letter from them. 

But “seeing the shape of your name / Still spells out pain,” she says. She sees their signature – or maybe even the return address – on the letter. It hits her immediately. Their name equals pain for her. 

“It wasn’t right,” she says, “The way it all went down.” Something big happened between them that left Taylor as the victim of some great wrong. 

“Looks like you know that now,” she says, alluding to the letter she’s about to tell us about in the chorus. This implies that the letter contains some sort of apology. 

“Yes, I got your letter,” she tells them in a song, and not in a direct reply. “Yes, I’m doing better,” she assures them, though it’s not as if they really care. 

“It cut deep to know ya, right to the bone” means that just knowing them hurt her. Being involved with them in any way cut her in the deepest way possible: “right to the bone.” 

“I know that it’s over, I don’t need your / Closure, your closure” she says. The letter seems to be soliciting some kind of resolution to the situation. But Taylor is having none of it. 

She won’t even grant them a return letter: she’s putting her official response out to the world, forever. She doesn’t need “your closure.” 

This implies that the letter writer wants closure, but that’s their problem. 

Verse 2: “I’m Fine With My Spite”

“Don’t treat me like / Some situation that needs to be handled,” she says in the second verse. She’s being treated like some kind of PR crisis. Taylor doesn’t need help or an intervention. 

“I’m fine with my spite,” she says, “and my tears and my beers and my candles.” She has accepted this spite, and has no plans of letting go of it anytime soon. 

She’s accepted her “tears,” meaning this situation will always make her sad. She uses “beers” to cope; to soothe the pain.

She lights “candles” as a vigil, either in mourning the loss of this person, or still ‘holding a candle’ for them, meaning part of her still wants them. 

“I can feel you smoothing me over,” she says, alluding to a kind of disingenuous sentiment in the letter. They’re trying to coax a solution out of Taylor, but she cannot be coaxed. She sees through their attempts to reconcile. 

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Bridge: “I’m Just a Wrinkle in Your New Life”

“I know I’m just a wrinkle in your new life” in the bridge implies that this person has a totally different life than when they knew one another. Taylor is a “wrinkle” to them, meaning something that needs to be “smoothed over” or hidden from view. 

If she’s the “wrinkle,” then “staying friends would iron it out so nice.” She won’t grant them her friendship when it’s only to soothe their guilty conscience. 

They are “Guilty, guilty, reaching out across the sea.” The letter confirms their guilt, and the letter was only written from a place of guilt. They’ve just admitted what they’ve done. 

The “sea / That you put between you and me” is the vast gulf that now stands between them. They were once on the same continent, metaphorically, but now they’re oceans and worlds apart. 

The “reaching out” is “fake and it’s oh-so unnecessary.” She can see through their attempts to trick her into reconciliation. They shouldn’t have bothered, Taylor says, as the letter only brought her more pain. 

Final Chorus: “I Don’t Need Your Closure”

The final chorus summarizes what Taylor thinks of this whole situation, repeating that it’s their “closure”, and not hers. She’s just fine without closure, and it would be disingenuous of her to offer them any. 

She’ll sit here in her “spite,” forever loathing them, forever regretting them, and with a bone-deep cut every time she sees their name. 

“I don’t need your closure,” she repeats one last time. If they want resolution to soothe their guilty conscience, they’ll have to look for it somewhere in their new life. It won’t come from Taylor, and their old one. 

closure Analysis: Final Thoughts

Taylor once said: “You don’t have to forgive and you don’t have to forget to move on. You can move on without any of those things happening. You just become indifferent, and then you move on.”

Indifference is exactly what Taylor portrays in this song: she’s not over it, she’s just not going to give it any more brain space.

If her ex-friend or ex-partner wants “closure,” that’s on them. Taylor already has it, and in the rest of the evermore album, she slowly moves on.

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More Songs From evermore:

• evermore Prologue
• willow
• champagne problems
• gold rush
• ‘tis the damn season
• tolerate it
• no body, no crime
• happiness
• dorothea
• coney island 
• ivy
• cowboy like me
• long story short
• marjorie
• evermore
• right where you left me
• it’s time to go