A Poetic Post-Mortem: “How Did it End?” Meaning, Explained

How Did it End? sees Taylor Swift pouring over a breakup, wondering what happened and how this relationship died. 

This track is her relationship post-mortem, and uses metaphors of death and dying to describe this slow breakdown of love. 

But what do the lyrics mean, who is Taylor talking about, and how does this song continue the narrative of You’re Losing Me?

Here’s my full English teacher examination of Taylor’s How Did it End meaning, line by line. 

Cover image for a post by Swiftly Sung Stories analyzing Taylor Swift's "How Did it End?". A vintage typewriter with a sheet of paper displays the words "How Did it End?" followed by "lyrical analysis."

How Did it End? by Taylor Swift

  • Title: How Did it End?
  • Written by: Aaron Dessner, Taylor Swift 
  • Track: 21, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology 
  • Pen: Quill
  • Lyrics from Genius

How Did it End? Song Meaning: Narrative Synopsis

  • Setting: After an earth-shattering breakup. 
  • Characters: Narrator (Taylor), subject (ex-lover, “he”), “all our friends” (“they”) 
  • Mood: Grieving, confused, bewildered. 
  • Conflict: “How did it end?” She doesn’t know.
  • Inciting Incident: “Our maladies were such we could not cure them” (they broke up because their relationship was “sick”). 
  • Quest: Try to figure out how it ended, why it ended, and why people are so callous in prodding for the dirty details. 
  • Symbols, Similes, Hidden Meanings & Metaphors: “How did it end?”, “we hereby conduct this post-mortem,” “hothouse flower” vs. “outdoorsman,” “maladies,” “cure them,” “birthright,” “foreign,” “come one, come all, it’s happenin’ again,” “empathetic hunger descends,” “tell no one except all of our friends,” “blind to unforeseen circumstances,” “right steps to different dancеs,” “interlopers’ glances,” “Lost the game of chance,” “they know they can trust him,” “calling their cousins,” “walking in circles like she was lost,” “called it off,” “once again with feeling,” “death rattle breathing silenced,” “soul was leaving,” “deflation of our dreaming,” “bereft and reeling,” “beloved ghost and me,” “sitting in a tree, D-Y-I-N-G,” “pretend like I understand,” “I still don’t know.” 
  • Lesson: Sometimes you’ll never fully understand what happened between two people. 

What is How Did it End About? 

How Did it End? narrates a breakup in Taylor’s life, and the public’s need to know the details of what happened. 

She frames the narrative as a “post-mortem” to determine the relationship’s “cause of death,” but she can’t assist in figuring out what went wrong. She doesn’t know what happened, and can’t give the hungry public the details they crave. 

This song seems to pick up where You’re Losing Me left off: a near-death turns into a final death.

Who is How Did it End About? 

Most fans believe that this song was inspired by Taylor’s breakup with Joe Alwyn, whom she dated for 6 years and separated from while she was writing TTPD. 

But moreover, this song is about her inner confusion over a lost love, and the public’s fascination with her private life. She has to go through a private breakup in a very public life, and tries to balance on that tightrope precariously. 

How Did it End Lyrics Meaning: Line by Line

Annotated lyrics of Taylor Swift's "How Did it End?" Red English teacher's pen highlights use of literary devices, translates tricky phrases, and suggests hidden and alternate meanings.
The first verse and chorus read: "We hereby conduct this post-mortem

He was a hot house flower to my outdoorsman

Our maladies were such we could not cure them

And so a touch that was my birthright became foreign
Come one, come all, it's happenin' again

The empathetic hunger descends

We'll tell no one except all of our friends

We must know

How did it end?

(Uh-oh, uh-oh)"

“We hereby conduct this post-mortem,” she says in the first verse. She’s the judge or jury, calling a meeting to order to determine “cause of death.” 

“He was a hot house flower to my outdoorsman,” she relays, submitting the facts into evidence.

They were opposites: he was a “hothouse flower” that needed a specific, sheltered environment in which to thrive. She was rugged, liked being out and about, and going on adventures. 

They’re opposites, and “Our maladies were such we could not cure them.” The “illnesses” in the relationship were incurable, which calls back to You’re Losing Me: “my face was gray, but you wouldn’t admit that we were sick”, and the CPR themes of that track. 

“And so a touch that was my birthright became foreign,” she says, after they lost the battle with their incurable illnesses. His love (“touch”) was once an integral part of her, but all of a sudden, she’s exiled from the place she was meant to be. 

“Touch that was my birthright” alludes to themes of royalty, like in King of My Heart. But it also could reference Invisible String: a love that’s fated and meant to be, like a birthright. 

“Come one, come all,” she says in the chorus, like she’s conducting a circus, “it’s happenin’ again.” The ringleader and circus metaphors are strong in TTPD, and here, she conducts the “circus” of public speculation. 

‘Come see this spectacle of heartbreak,’ she satirically beckons to the hungry public. 

“The empathetic hunger descends,” she says, after she’s called forth the circus of speculation. They come rushing forth, curious and prodding, with faux-empathy.

“We’ll tell no one except all of our friends,” she says ironically, because as we’ll later learn, their “friends” are the ones who spread gossip like wildfire. 

“We must know,” the public says, yearning to hear what happened. They crave the inside scoop from the woman herself. 

Verse 2: “Fell Victim to Interlopers’ Glances”

Annotated lyrics of Taylor Swift's "How Did it End?" Red English teacher's pen highlights use of literary devices, translates tricky phrases, and suggests hidden and alternate meanings.
The second verse reads: "We were blind to unforeseen circumstances

We learned thе right steps to different dancеs

And fell victim to interlopers' glances

Lost the game of chance, what are the chances?

Soon, they'll go home to their husbands

Smug 'cause they know they can trust him

Then feverishly calling their cousins"

The previous chorus left off with the hungry public wanting more, and the second verse gives them some bits of gossip, but it’s still intentionally vague. 

“We were blind to unforeseen circumstances,” she says, using an oxymoron. They were “too blind to see” every bump in the road. 

“We learned thе right steps to different dancеs,” she tells the public, describing how they were never on the same page. They were never doing the same steps; never in sync. 

“And fell victim to interlopers’ glances” she reveals, describing cheating or illicit affairs. An interloper is someone who shows up uninvited: maybe someone who “crashed my party in your rental car”? 

“Lost the game of chance,” she shrugs, “what are the chances?” This uses a common Taylor metaphor of love as a game, and here, she describes it as a gamble. How were they to win big when the odds were stacked against them? 

“Soon, they’ll go home to their husbands,” she says of her “friends” or the public, “Smug ’cause they know they can trust him.” This slyly reveals that Taylor could not trust her “husband” – the subject of the song. 

“Then feverishly calling their cousins,” she says, the rumor mill churning and gossip spreading like wildfire through a phone tree. 

2nd Chorus: “Walking in Circles Like She Was Lost”

Annotated lyrics of Taylor Swift's "How Did it End?" Red English teacher's pen highlights use of literary devices, translates tricky phrases, and suggests hidden and alternate meanings.
the 2nd chorus reads: ""Guess who we ran into at the shops?

Walking in circles like she was lost

Didn't you hear? They called it all off"

One gasp and then

"How did it end?""

The second chorus narrates what their “friends” – who they quietly revealed the breakup news to – do once they have the information. 

“Guess who we ran into at the shops?” they gossip to others, “Walking in circles like she was lost.” This describes Taylor as trying to move through everyday life amidst turmoil, but never quite finding the way. 

Like “it’s happenin’ again,” she’s been here before, “walking in circles like she was lost,” and never finding a way out of the cycle of love and heartbreak. 

🪶🤍 Are you a tortured poet? Find out with my TTPD Lyrics Quiz! 🤍🪶

“‘Didn’t you hear? They called it all off’,” the rumor mill churns. To “call it all off” usually means to call off an engagement or wedding, and doesn’t normally describe a non-marital breakup. 

Here, she means they “called off” trying to make it work. The “maladies” got the best of them, and she “stopped CPR, after all, it’s no use.” 

“One gasp and then,” she narrates their reaction to the news, “How did it end?” As soon as others find out, their immediate reaction is wanting to know more. They need the inside scoop, and they need it now. 

Curious minds want to know, but part of what Taylor is getting at is that it’s none of their business, like in But Daddy I Love Him. 

Bridge: “Death Rattle Breathing Silenced as the Soul Was Leaving”

Annotated lyrics of Taylor Swift's "How Did it End?" Red English teacher's pen highlights use of literary devices, translates tricky phrases, and suggests hidden and alternate meanings.
The bridge reads: "Say it once again with feeling

How the death rattle breathing

Silenced as the soul was leaving

The deflation of our dreaming

Leaving me bereft and reeling

My beloved ghost and me

Sitting in a tree

D-Y-I-N-G"

The bridge narrates Taylor’s parody of the breakup story. In the previous chorus, the public has poked and prodded, yearning to know “how did it end?”

Here, she tells them, and it’s a heartbreaking story. It may be the most devastating bridge Taylor has ever written.

“Say it once again with feeling,” she tells herself, performatively narrating the story of the breakup. And what will she say, repeatedly and with more emotion? 

“How the death rattle breathing / Silenced as the soul was leaving.” The “death rattle” is a phenomenon in dying people where their breath gets ragged and crackly. Their relationship was on its last legs, slowly dying an excruciating death. 

The “death rattle” was “silenced as the soul was leaving,” meaning their relationship stopped “breathing.” The metaphor of the soul leaving the body echoes her former lovers’ soul leaving her life, as well as her own soul departing from his. 

“The deflation of our dreaming” is what happened when the “lungs” of the relationship finally collapsed in death. The dreams of what they had together – and what could have been – have ceased. 

This death is “leaving me bereft and reeling,” meaning she’s grief-stricken and confused. She’s spiraling out of control, trying to figure out what went wrong. 

“My beloved ghost and me” is all that’s left, and it’s the ghost of her former relationship. 

With her haunting memories, she’s “sitting in a tree, D-Y-I-N-G.” Taylor twists the familiar childhood nursery rhyme “sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G” to have a much darker meaning.

It’s usually a kind of matchmaking, childhood crush rhyme. But here, she’s not with a crush, but with the ghost of grief, slowly fading away just like her lost relationship.  

Final Pre-Chorus & Chorus: “But I Still Don’t Know…How Did it End”

Annotated lyrics of Taylor Swift's "How Did it End?" Red English teacher's pen highlights use of literary devices, translates tricky phrases, and suggests hidden and alternate meanings.
The final pre-chorus and chorus read: "It's happenin' again

How did it end?

I can't pretend like I understand

How did it end?

Come one, come all, it's happenin' again

The empathetic hunger descends

We'll tell no one except all of our friends

But I still don't know

How did it end"

“It’s happenin’ again,” she repeats, “how did it end?” She’s been in this devastated place before, the the public has craved the dirty details before. 

“I can’t pretend like I understand,” she says of the whole mess. She can’t understand why the relationship ended, and she can’t understand why it causes so much public interest. Like You’re Losing Me: “You say you don’t understand and I say ‘I know you don’t’.”

“How did it end?” she asks, and this time, it’s not the public asking her questions. She’s asking herself. 

“Come one, come all, it’s happenin’ again,” she repeats one last time, “The empathetic hunger descends.” This time, it’s hunger to see Taylor broken. 

🪶🤍 Are you a tortured poet? Find out with my TTPD Lyrics Quiz! 🤍🪶

Like in mirrorball, “The masquerade revelers” (the hungry public) are “Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten.” They get high on her pain, even when their prodding provokes more pain. 

“We’ll tell no one except all of our friends,” she says one final time. But this time around, we know the result: all their “friends” will spread gossip like wildfire, only making life harder post-breakup. 

“But I still don’t know,” she says, “How did it end”. This time, there is no question mark. She’s not asking anymore, because there’s no point. 

She may never know, and she’s trying to come to terms with the painful uncertainty. 

How Did it End? Meaning: Final Thoughts

The death and resuscitation metaphors that began in You’re Losing Me are played out in full here, and it’s a devastatingly slow death.

So what have we learned from the “post-mortem” of this sad breakup? We’ve learned that the details are not ours to know. 

Even if we were entitled to private details on Taylor’s public life, she still couldn’t tell us: she doesn’t know how it ended, or why it ended. There were a myriad of reasons, and she can’t point to just one. 

But moreover, we learn a little bit about what it’s like to be in her position. The public doesn’t care about her heartbreak and mental health after something devastating has happened. We just want to know the gossip. 

That’s the central conflict here: we want to know “how did it end?” not “how are you doing after it ended?” 

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