Taylor’s Sly & Sad “illicit affairs” Meaning, Explained

illicit affairs is a sexy, secretive song from Taylor Swift’s folklore. She describes a forbidden love affair, their sneaking around, and the devastating effects of the fallout.

But what do the lyrics mean, and who is this song about?

Here’s my full English teacher analysis of Taylor’s illicit affairs meaning, line by line.

illicit affairs by Taylor Swift

• Title: Illicit Affairs
• Written by: Jack Antonoff, Taylor Swift
• Track: 10, Folklore
• Pen: Quill
• Lyrics from Genius

illicit affairs Narrative Summary

• Setting: Inside a secret love affair. 
• Characters: Narrator (Taylor, as herself or an invented protagonist), subject (affair partner, “you”). 
• Mood: Regretful, angry, longing. 
• Conflict: The affair ruins her, but she keeps going back. 
• Inciting Incident: “What started in beautiful rooms” (they begin the affair). 
• Quest: Let the subject know what this is really doing to her. 
• Symbols & Metaphors: “illicit affairs,” secrecy/hiding (“Hood over your head”, “keep your eyes down,”), “You’ll be flushed,” “Take the road less traveled by,” “beautiful rooms” vs. “parking lots,” “glances” vs. “stares,” “a million little times,” “perfume”, drug high, truth vs. lies, “showed me colors,” “secret language”, “ruin myself.” 
• Theme: Forbidden love and lust. 
• Imagery: “Hood over your head,” “You’ll be flushed when you return,” “What started in beautiful rooms / Ends with meetings in parking lots,” “born from just one single glance,” “A dwindling, mercurial high,” “You showed me colors you know I can’t see with anyone else,” “You taught me a secret language I can’t speak with anyone else.” 
• Lesson: Affairs are both exciting and ruinous. 

What is illicit affairs About? 

illicit affairs describes a secret love affair between the narrator and an unnamed subject. The protagonist is slowly ruined by longing and secrecy, and grows to resent the subject for putting her through this torturous romance. 

Taylor told us in the folklore prologue and in interviews that many of the songs are not from her own perspective.  

“When I was making folklore, I went lyrically in a total direction of escapism and romanticism. And I wrote songs imagining I was, like, a pioneer woman in a forbidden love affair [laughs].”

-Rolling Stone interview 

Like other imagined narratives of the album like cardigan, betty and august, illicit affairs is likely about fictional characters.

Who is illicit affairs About? 

According to Taylor, illicit affairs is not about her own life, but an imagined character. 

She said in the Long Pond Studio Sessions prior to performing the track: 

“This was the first album that I’ve ever let go of that need to be one hundred percent autobiographical, because [previously] I think I felt like I needed to do that.” 

She said she was reading books and watching films everyday, which likely inspired the sentiment of illicit affairs. 

But keen listeners will notice the parallels between this track and Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big’s extra-marital escapades in season 3 episode 11 of Sex and the City, “Running With Scissors”. 

Carrie says, “Our affair, like our hotels, had gone from elegant with crystal, to seedy with plastic cups.” 

Taylor uses a similar sentiment in Illicit Affairs: “What started in beautiful rooms / Ends with meetings in parking lots.” 

Was Taylor watching Sex and the City while in lockdown? It’s entirely possible. 

illicit affairs Lyrics Meaning: Line by Line

The first verse describes the circumstances of the affair, from the perspective of one of the participants. 

The narrator says, “Make sure nobody sees you leave.” They warn their lover to stay sly. 

Put your “hood over your head, keep your eyes down,” they warn. Don’t let anyone see you; try to disguise yourself. But it’s also disguising their motives and destination, as well as their face. 

“Tell your friends you’re out for a run,” the narrator says, implying that more than just the husband/wife needs to be tricked. They’ll need an alibi provided by a friend. 

“You’ll be flushed when you return,” implying that they’ll be red-faced and sweaty from what’s about to happen between the sheets. Going for a run, therefore, is a good cover story. 

“Take the road less traveled by” means both to take a circuitous route on the “run”, but also references Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” That poem describes the implications of our choices, much like the affair partner’s consequences here. 

“Tell yourself you can always stop” is self-delusion: if they could stop, they would have already. They’re too far into “the road less traveled” to turn back now. It’s an addiction.

“What started in beautiful rooms / Ends with meetings in parking lots,” means the affair started out gorgeous and thrilling, as symbolized in “beautiful rooms.”

But now – in their world of sneaking around and going for fake jogs – it feels gross and dirty, like “parking lots.” 

“Beautiful rooms” could also refer to physical hotel rooms, and “parking lots” to quickies in the car in a secluded area. 

Chorus: “It Dies and It Dies and It Dies / A Million Little Times”

“And that’s the thing about illicit affairs,” Taylor says, “and clandestine meetings and longing stares.” They start off magically, in “beautiful rooms” with “longing stares”, but slowly devolve into “clandestine meetings” in “parking lots.” 

The entire affair is “born from just one single glance,” she says. This is reminiscent of Dress, in which she describes “our secret moments in a crowded room.” 

One innocent glance has turned into longing stares, symbolizing how the affair has turned from a temporary, innocent thing into a long, drawn-out mess. 

It might only be “born from just one single glance,” “but it dies and it dies and it dies / a million little times.” It starts off small – almost inconsequential – but then it can slowly kill you, over and over. 

“Dies a million little times” references the French phrase “la petite mort”, which translates to a “little death.” This phrase usually refers to an orgasm, and the brief transcendence or almost out-of-body experience that follows (a small death). 

But it also alludes to the mental and emotional death that happens: the toll having an affair would take on you. 

🩶 Can you pass my tricky folklore Lyrics Quiz? 🩶

Verse 2: “A Dwindling, Mercurial High”

The second verse is either from the same perspective as the first, or it’s the female point of view: the other affair partner. 

“Leave the perfume on the shelf,” she says, “that you picked out just for him.” She’s bought a scent to wear just to entice him, but – ironically – she can’t wear it. That would leave her smell behind, which she can’t risk. 

To do so would put the marital partner “on the scent”: close to being discovered. “So you leave no trace behind,” she says, “like you don’t even exist.” 

To “leave no trace” is a commandment of hiking and backpacking. You need to “pack it in, pack it out,” meaning to take everything with you when you leave, so as not to litter the forest. 

In this case, the evidence is the perfume scent. But it also implies that she’s slowly losing herself. If there’s no evidence she was there, is she really real? 

It’s similar to the philosophical “if a tree falls in the forest” question. If it falls and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? These two lines are a very clever and coded reference to the woods, which is a common theme and imagery of folklore. 

“Take the words for what they are,” she says, meaning ‘don’t read into this.’ Don’t analyze it, just take it at face value. 

And what is it? “A dwindling, mercurial high.” To be mercurial is to be unpredictable. The “high” of this relationship is unpredictable, and slowly dwindling to nothing. 

It’s “a drug that only worked / The first few hundred times.” It’s slowly losing its potency and effectiveness. It’s devolving into something that will eventually kill you: you’ll keep taking more and more, and overdose. 

Taylor has used love and sex as addiction metaphors several times before, most notably in Don’t Blame Me, Death by a Thousand Cuts, and Blank Space.

Chorus: “Clandestine Meetings and Stolen Stares”

“That’s the thing about illicit affairs,” she says, following the drug high metaphor. The “clandestine meetings and stolen stares” are thrilling, but “stolen”. 

These stares – these moments – are not theirs to hold. They belong to someone else. 

The stares “show their truth one single time.” They’ve been ignoring the reality of what’s really happening, and only see the truth in small moments. 

But after the brutal reality surfaces, it quickly goes back underground. “They lie and they lie and they lie / a million little times.” The lies are that this is temporary, or innocent, or benign. But the lies add up and get very, very messy. 

Bridge: “Don’t Call me ‘Kid’, Don’t Call me ‘Baby'”

The bridge details the intensity of what it feels like to be in the midst of this affair. All the tension that has been building is finally released. 

“And you wanna scream,” she says, “Don’t call me ‘kid,’ don’t call me ‘baby’.” She’s pleading not to be infantilized, patronized and endeared to him. “Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me,” she screams.

(Side note: Mr. Big calls Carrie “kid” and “baby” frequently throughout Sex and the City, which is another clue that Taylor may have been inspired by watching the show in lockdown). 

‘Look at what you did to me,’ she yells. ‘Don’t mess me up this badly then call me “baby”.’ “Godforsaken” means she’s now devoid of value, but in this case it could also allude to sin. 

“You showed me colors you know I can’t see with anyone else” refers to many of Taylor’s color-coded lyrics. In the past she’s described both red and gold as love and blue as depression. 

He let her see the full spectrum of colors here: with others it’s all black and white or gray. But with him, it’s vibrant, and she can’t go back to her old monochromatic world. 

“Look at this idiotic fool that you made me,” she says. She’s been ‘played the fool,’ meaning she’s been painted as an idiot. She’s also been a “fool for love,” or played the Shakespearean fool.

“You taught me a secret language I can’t speak with anyone else,” she says, meaning they had an indescribable connection that she can’t find with any other person. Their world was coded for just the two of them, and now her “love language” is ruined for others. 

Outro: “For You, I Would Ruin Myself”

The outro saves the most painful declaration for last: “You know damn well,” she scolds, “for you I would ruin myself.”

He knows what he’s doing to her, and he’s taking advantage of her affection for him. He knows he can run off and come crawling back, and she’ll take him back every time. 

Each instance will “ruin” her, which refers to a “ruined woman” or “fallen woman.” In literature, a woman who is promiscuous is considered “fallen,” and forever marked with a “scarlet A” for adulterer. 

This is what he’s done to her, and she’ll do it over and over again, “a million little times.” 

She’s become a martyr for him, and sacrificed her own wellbeing for stolen moments with him. It won’t end well. 

🩶 Can you pass my tricky folklore Lyrics Quiz? 🩶

illicit affairs Lyrics Analysis: Final Thoughts 

Was Taylor influenced by Sex and the City to write illicit affairs? I think the parallels are too close to ignore altogether. 

But no matter what inspired her, the lyrics paint a devastating portrait of a treacherous situation. No one will get out alive, much like Carrie in the TV show, who goes on to lose Aiden due to her affair with Big.

What makes this track different from earlier cheating songs (Should’ve Said No, Better Than Revenge, et al) is the perspective. Like august, the protagonist is the one involved in the affair, and not the one being cheated on. 

Those previous tracks also clearly defined the relationship as over. But here, it’s never ending. It’ll repeat “a million little times”. 

It’s a more grown-up, realistic portrait of what cheating does to your psyche, your self-esteem, and your view of love. 

‘Why do we always chase what’s forbidden?’, Taylor asks And why can we never give up the chase? 

More Songs From folklore: 

• folklore Prologue
• the 1
• cardigan
• the last great american dynasty
• exile
• my tears ricochet
• mirrorball
• seven
• august
• this is me trying
• invisible string
• mad woman
• epiphany
• betty
• peace
• hoax
• the lakes