Packing it In: Analyzing Taylor’s “it’s time to go” Meaning
Taylor Swift’s it’s time to go is the final track on the deluxe version of evermore, and it symbolically closes the folklore and evermore eras.
The narrative centers around gut feelings: when to listen to your instincts, why, and what will happen if you don’t.
This is a personal song for Taylor, and she details some traumatic endings and heartbreaks in the lyrics. But what exactly is she talking about, and what are her biggest regrets?
Here’s my full English teacher analysis of Taylor’s it’s time to go meaning, line by line.
it’s time to go by Taylor Swift
- Title: it’s time to go
- Written by: Taylor Swift, Aaron Dessner
- Track: 17, evermore deluxe edition
- Pen: Fountain
- Lyrics from Genius
it’s time to go Lyrics Meaning: Narrative Summary
- Setting: Taylor’s present, looking back on her past and the clues she collected.
- Characters: Narrator (Taylor), subject (“you”, her audience or herself).
- Mood: Knowing, confident, regretful.
- Conflict: At times she didn’t listen to her gut, and got hurt.
- Inciting Incident: “You know when it’s time to go”
- Quest: Leave a bad situation in order to find the good.
- Symbols & Metaphors: “it’s time to go,” “dinner is cold and the chatter gets old,” “ask for the tab,” “he’s insisting that friends / Look at each other like that,” “words of a sister come back in whispers,” “twin from your dreams,” “crook who was caught,” “old familiar body ache”, “snaps from the same little breaks in your soul,” “Twenty years at your job,” “stay for the kids,” leaving metaphors (“run,” “giving up,” “walkin’ out”), “Fifteen years, fifteen million tears / Begging ’til my knees bled,” “I gave it my all, he gave me nothin’ at all,” “he sits on his throne in his palace of bones / Praying to his greed / He’s got my past frozen behind glass / But I’ve got me,” “You just go.”
- Lesson: Listen to your gut, always.
What is it’s time to go About?
it’s time to go is about knowing when it’s time to get out of a situation that may be bad for you.
In the lyrics, Taylor pulls in various anecdotes of situations where it might be best to just get out, just as a bad marriage, a boring dinner, or a dead-end job.
She also describes personal situations in her past where she should have listened to her gut, and would have been better off if she did.
Taylor said on Twitter: “it’s time to go is about listening to your gut when it tells you to leave. How you always know before you know, you know?”
Who is it’s time to go About?
it’s time to go narrates various anecdotes, some of which are personal to Taylor, and some that are only used to demonstrate gut instincts.
The sale of her masters seems to be a prominent theme, though Taylor has never confirmed nor denied what the song is about.
The lyrics could allude to her ex-friend Karlie Kloss (“ the words of a sister come back in whispers”), and Scooter Braun or Scott Borchetta (“Now he sits on his throne in his palace of bones”).
These three people were involved in the sale of Taylor’s master recordings, which she likely describes as “my past frozen behind glass.”
it’s time to go Lyrics Explained: Line by Line
The first verse opens with an anecdote of a time where the subject should leave.
“When the dinner is cold and the chatter gets old,” she says, “You ask for the tab.” If you’re bored in a restaurant (or maybe “still at the restaurant”?), you can ask for the bill and leave. The stakes are low here, but future anecdotes in the lyrics will raise the intensity.
A second anecdote refers to suspicions of cheating: “Or that moment again, he’s insisting that friends / Look at each other like that.” It might be time to go if you suspect your partner of cheating, and it’s been a pattern (“that moment again”).
Then the anecdotes seem to get personal for Taylor. “When the words of a sister come back in whispers / That prove she was not.” She’s heard gossip about a friend who is as close as family, and the rumors imply that this person is not who she thought she was.
This now-ex friend was not “In fact what she seemed,” Taylor says, “not a twin from your dreams / She’s a crook who was caught.” This anecdote is likely pulled from Taylor’s real life, and could refer to her ex-best friend Karlie Kloss.
The pair were thick as thieves, until Taylor’s master recordings were sold out from under her. Kloss’s manager was Scooter Braun, who bought the recordings, and Kloss’s husband partially financed the sale.
Taylor, understandably, probably felt betrayed that someone so close to her would knowingly go along with this scheme. Her friend now seems to her like “a crook who was caught” for her participation in the master’s heist.
She reflects that she should have left that friendship before it had the chance to hurt her. But it was too late – she didn’t listen to her gut.
Chorus & 2nd Verse: “Snaps From the Same Little Breaks in Your Soul”
![Selected lyrics from Taylor Swift's "it's time to go", annotated to uncover hidden meanings and analyze her use of literary devices.
The chorus and second verse reads: "That old familiar body ache
The snaps from the same little breaks in your soul
You know when it's time to go
[Verse 2]
Twenty years at your job, then the son of the boss
Gets the spot that was yours
Or trying to stay for the kids, when keeping it how it is
Will only break their hearts worse"](https://swiftlysungstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/its-time-to-go-lyrics-meaning-lyrical-analysis-1024x1024.jpg)
“That old familiar body ache,” Taylor describes in the chorus, “The snaps from the same little breaks in your soul.” Small fractures in your soul can spread throughout your body, metastasizing into a full-body ache. It’s the opposite of “my broken bones are mending“: it’s how her bones “broke” in the first place.
This ache is trying to tell her something, the pain signaling something important: “You know when it’s time to go.” This a metaphor for listening to your gut.
If you feel something small (“little breaks in your soul”) and ignore it, it will soon grow larger and larger, until you can’t ignore it anymore. You can prevent a lot of pain and heartache if you identify those small clues that are telling you to get out.
The second verse uses more anecdotes to illustrate her point.
“Twenty years at your job, then the son of the boss,” she says, “Gets the spot that was yours.” If you’re dedicated to your job for twenty years, then nepotism takes away your future, it’s time to get out.
[Side note for Swifties: Taylor has used the number 20 several times, and though I can’t point to a specific significance yet, it’s not used blindly (see Lover, cardigan, & epiphany). ]
“Or trying to stay for the kids,” Taylor says, alluding to a fractured marriage, “when keeping it how it is / Will only break their hearts worse.”
If you’re in a terrible marriage, it will be harder on your kids for them to witness the fighting than to be with separate parents who are happier on their own. It’s best to get out.
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Post-Chorus: “Sometimes Givin’ Up is the Strong Thing”
The chorus repeats the body-ache metaphor, then the post-chorus gives advice to anyone who is in a precarious position.
“Sometimes, givin’ up is the strong thing,” she says, meaning surrender is not always weak. Sometimes giving up on your dreams – in marriage, in work, in friendship – is the strong thing to do. It’s hard to let go, but sometimes you have to.
“Sometimes, to run is the brave thing” means that running away from a bad situation isn’t cowardly. Sometimes it’s what you need to do to save yourself.
“Sometimes, walkin’ out is the one thing,” she says, “That will find you the right thing.” You need to leave a bad situation to ever have hope of finding a good one.
This alludes to the idea of fate, which has permeated both evermore and folklore. Like the invisible string, life will lead you to where you’re supposed to be. But you have to listen to your gut to follow it.
Verse 3: “He’s Got My Past Frozen Behind Glass”
The third verse is the most personal for Taylor: she’s speaking in first person (“me”) instead of second person (“you”).
“Fifteen years, fifteen million tears,” she says, “Begging ’til my knees bled.” She was 15 when she signed with Big Machine and Scott Borchetta, and this is likely describing the pain of that long situation.
“Begging ‘til my knees bled” alludes to something denied by him – what was she begging for? Independence, making her own artistic decisions, or begging to own her music? It’s unclear, but she was rejected.
“I gave it my all, he gave me nothin’ at all,” she says, “Then wondered why I left.” She gave Borchetta and Big Machine 6 albums and 13 years, and what did she get in return? Her life’s work was sold to her arch-nemesis.
“Now he sits on his throne in his palace of bones,” she says, likely alluding to either Scott Borchetta or Scooter Braun. A “palace of bones” fits in with the kingdom metaphor Taylor often uses to describe her career and legacy (see Look What You Made Me Do, New Romantics, The Archer, Castles Crumbling).
In this context, he built the palace out of her “bones,” after he metaphorically killed her in my tears ricochet (sold her legacy).
Now he sits on his ill-gotten gains, “praying to his greed.” He only worships money. Did he ever care about her? Or was it all a ruse to use her for his greed?
“He’s got my past frozen behind glass,” she says, likely describing her master recordings in Scooter Braun’s possession, locked in a vault where she can’t reach them. She uses a similar metaphor in right where you left me (“Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen? Time went on for everybody else, she won’t know it”)
“But I’ve got me,” she smiles. He may have her past, but she has her present, and she’s in charge of her own destiny.
It’s Taylor herself that’s the most valuable, and that – her body, her soul, her career – he can never steal and lock away. She has “me”: the only person who can reclaim her lost music, her life’s work, and her own narrative.
Outro: “You Just Go”
The outro summarizes all the lessons she’s learned and taught in the song. “Sometimes, walkin’ out is the one thing,” she repeats, “That will find you the right thing.”
You have to take the leap into the unknown – and leave behind the predictability of your current reality – to ever get to a better place.
“And you know in your soul,” she says, “When it’s time to go.” Listen to your gut, she urges. Don’t ignore those vital instincts, or else you may end up in situations like Taylor has.
“And, well, you know, you know, you know, you know” alludes to the common phrase “when you know, you know.” When you have an inkling that something is true, it probably is.
“When it’s time to go,” she says, “So then you go and then you go / You just go.” If you ever have the feeling that it’s time to get out, go now, she urges her reader. Don’t wait for confirmation that your gut is correct. Just go, and go now.
Listen to your soul – it knows what’s best for you, and it will take you places you could never imagine.
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it’s time to go Song Meaning: Final Thoughts
The theme of evermore is closure, and there’s no more symbolic way to close the album (the deluxe edition, at least) than this song about leaving it all behind.
Like the track that ends the regular edition – closure – it ties up Taylor’s past with a nice bow. The past is said and done, and although she can never forgive and never forget, she can move on.
it’s time to go relays important lessons to us: she takes her most painful moments and translates them into a guide for how to live and listen to your gut.
And with that, she leaves the folklorian woods behind, and steps into a new era.
More Songs From evermore:
![Cover image for Swiftly Sung Stories' lyrical analysis of Taylor Swift's "Babe" (Taylor's Version) [From the Vault]. Red stylized title text pops over a background of aged books.](https://swiftlysungstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/taylor-swift-babe-meaning-cover-image-768x768.jpg)
