“Lover” Song Meaning: Is it Really a Love Song?

The title track to Taylor Swift’s 2019 Lover album is meant to encapsulate the album. And with a title like Lover, you’d think this was a song – and an album – about finding contentment in true love.

But all is not what it seems. Lover goes deep, and shows us the complexities of Taylor’s inspirations for and interpretations of true love. 

Is Lover a love song? Maybe. But it’s not the happiest, purest love song she’s ever written.

Here’s my complete analysis of the Lover song meaning, line by line.

Cover image for a blog post that analyzes Taylor Swift's lyrics to "Lover." A soft pink and blue cloud background features neon pink title text. Part of the Swiftly Sung Stories collection of lyrical analysis essays.

Lover by Taylor Swift

  • Title: Lover
  • Written by: Taylor Swift
  • Track: 3, Lover
  • Pen: Fountain
  • Lyrics from Genius

Lover  Song Analysis: Narrative Summary

  • Setting: The home they share together, but also an imagined future and a pseudo-wedding. 
  • Characters: Narrator (Taylor), subject (“you”, “my lover”) 
  • Mood: Dreamy. 
  • Conflict: Love might not last. 
  • Quest: Declare her everlasting love for him. 
  • Symbols & Metaphors: “lover,” “christmas lights,” “our place”, “three summers,” “guitar string scar,” “borrowed” and “blue,” “All’s Well That Ends Well,” “magnetic force,” “save you a seat”
  • Theme: Declaration of everlasting love.  
  • Imagery: “leave the Christmas lights up ’til January,” “dazzling haze, “Mysterious way”, “With every guitar string scar on my hand,” “magnetic force of a man”, “My heart’s been borrowed and yours has been blue.” 
  • Lesson: It depends on your interpretation of the song, but mine is: you don’t need wedding rings to symbolize love. 

Lover Music Video

What is Lover About? 

Lover describes what Taylor feels about true love, whether it involves marriage or not. 

She said her goal in writing the song was a pure love song, without the anguish that most of her love songs to date had contained. 

She described the meaning of the title track at the album release event:

“I’m really, really proud of this song, because it’s always been very hard for me to write love songs that weren’t about love, and like, pining, love and secrecy, love and fear… 

I haven’t really been able to write a pure ‘Oh my god I love you’ love song, and this is the one that I’m the most proud of…

I kind of wrote the bridge as if they were vows. You know how when people write their vows and they sort of, like, customize them; I kind of wanted to do that in the bridge of this song.” 

–I Heart Radio Lover Album Release

Who is Lover About? 

Lover was likely inspired by her then-romance with Joe Alwyn, whom she had been dating for three years at the point of writing the song. 

But like any Taylor song, she likely had multiple influences, inspirations, and muses for the lyrics.

Lover Song Meaning: Line by Line

Selected lyrics from Taylor Swift's title track "Lover" against a pink cloud-like background. The lyrics are annotated with notes in red, highlighting various literary devices such as metaphors and imagery. The first verse reads: "We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January And this is our place, we make the rules And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you, dear Have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years?"

Verse 1 Synopsis: This is our special life that we share, and I feel like I’ve known you forever.

Verse one opens with Taylor talking to her “lover,” whom she shares a house with. 

“We could leave the Christmas lights up ’til January,” she says. Christmas lights represent something special and sparkling to Taylor, as she’s used before in The Moment I Knew. It’s the month of her birthday, so it likely means more than just Christmas to her.

There’s something mundane and un-special about leaving Christmas lights up the correct amount of time, and I think that’s the feeling she’s trying to portray here.

“And this is our place,” she says, “we make the rules.” “Our place” means their house, but also symbolizes their love and life together. They can do whatever they want with it, and they can choose exactly the path they want to take. 

“And there’s a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you, dear,” she says. Like the Christmas lights, he has something sparling about him, which both dazzles and puzzles her. 

Love itself could be described as a “dazzling haze” that’s mystifying, which I think is what Taylor is trying to describe. 

“Have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years?” she asks him. She feels like they’ve known one another forever. 

Chorus: “Can I Go Where You Go?”

Selected lyrics from Taylor Swift's title track "Lover" against a pink cloud-like background. The lyrics are annotated with notes in red, highlighting various literary devices such as metaphors and imagery. The chorus reads: "Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close? Forever and ever, ah Take me out and take me home You're my, my, my, my lover"

Chorus Synopsis: Can we always be together like this?

The chorus changes from them making decisions together, to her asking him to decide. She asks him a series of (possibly) rhetorical questions. 

“Can I go where you go?” means ‘can I follow you through this life?’ ‘Can I be wherever you are?’ 

“Can we always be this close?” means ‘can everything be like it is today?’ ‘Can we stay like this “forever and ever”?’ 

“Take me out and take me home,” she asks him. This is her doing what she asked previously: “Can I go where you go?” She’ll follow him out, then follow him back home. 

This could mean to take her out on the town – out to dinner, out to a show – and then take her back to the comforts of the home they share together, or it could just be about following him through life in general. 

But in all these rhetorical questions, there is one question that is implied but not asked: Will you marry me? 

She asks him for forever, but marriage is nowhere in the narrative, though we’ll circle back to this issue in the bridge. 

“You’re my, my, my, my lover” emphasizes this “forever” partnership, but uses the word “lover,” which is an interesting choice. 

A “lover” is commonly thought of as a side piece; not a forever partner. I think Carrie Bradshaw of Sex and the City describes it best in this scene, where she says she’s “taking a lover.” 

It’s not permanent, as Taylor is using the term here. Confusing? Yes. On purpose? Maybe. 

Verse 2: “I’ve Loved You Three Summers Now, Honey, I Want ‘Em All”

Selected lyrics from Taylor Swift's title track "Lover" against a pink cloud-like background. The lyrics are annotated with notes in red, highlighting various literary devices such as metaphors and imagery. The second verse reads: "We could let our friends crash in the living room This is our place, we make the call And I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you I've loved you three summers now, honey, but I want 'em all"

Verse 2 Synopsis: We can do whatever we want, and what I want is to be with you forever.

Verse two circles back to the house and home metaphor or setting.

“We could let our friends crash in the living room,” she says. “This is our place, we make the call.” Their house – their “place” – once again represents their life together. They can do with their lives what they please. 

But there’s also a ‘playing house’ vibe, like she’s saying ‘I’m an adult now, my friends can sleep over if I want them too.’

“And I’m highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you,” she says in jealousy. She’s eagle-eyed for potential competition. She wants him all to herself. 

“I’ve loved you three summers now, honey, but I want ’em all,” she explains. They’ve been together for three years (as she and Joe Alwyn had been at this point), but now she wants every one of his summer. She wants his autumns, winters, and springs: everything. 

Taylor often uses seasons to convey different types of emotions, with summer usually being exciting (as in the previous track Cruel Summer). Fall is a time of deep contemplation, and winter is when it all falls apart.

Are they currently in the “summer” of their relationship, and that’s why it all still feels like it will last?

Bridge: “I Take This Magnetic Force of a Man to be my Lover”

Selected lyrics from Taylor Swift's title track "Lover" against a pink cloud-like background. The lyrics are annotated with notes in red, highlighting various literary devices such as metaphors and imagery.

Bridge Synopsis: I want to be with you forever, with or without marriage.

The bridge brings us to the most confusing part of this whole narrative: the wedding march. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand?” she says, narrating the portion of a wedding where the guests rise as the bride walks in. 

Then Taylor – the metaphorical “bride” – strolls in and says her vows. 

“With every guitar string scar on my hand, I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover,” she proclaims. 

The “guitar string scars” represent all of her: every metaphoric scar she’s received, every trial she’s been through, every part of her personality. 

She takes him – “this magnetic force of a man” – to be hers. This means he’s irresistible, and there’s a force greater than herself that draws her to him.  

“My heart’s been borrowed and yours has been blue” echoes the familiar wedding tradition of “something borrowed, something blue.” If the bride has these things, it’s supposed to bring good luck. 

Her “borrowed” object is her heart, which has been used by others in the past. Her “blue” object is also a heart (his), which has been sad or hurt in the past. 

Now they have their ‘good luck’ pair of hearts, ready to finish the ceremony. But then Taylor conjures the most confusing metaphor of the whole song: “All’s well that ends well to end up with you”. 

“All’s Well That Ends Well” is one of Shakespeare’s lesser known comedies. In the plot, Helen is to marry the man of her dreams, but because she’s of a lower social rank, he won’t agree to marry her. The entire play surrounds her quest to prove herself worthy of him. 

Taylor has also used this phrase in All Too Well: “They say all’s well that ends well, but I’m in a new hell every time you double cross my mind.” In that instance, all was not well, and it did not end well, to say the very least. 

So what does it mean in the context of this pseudo-marriage in Lover? She’d do anything to end up with him, even go through the trials and tribulations that Helen faces in the Shakespearean comedy. 

Now when we look back at the rhetorical questions: “Can I go where you go?” “Can we always be this close?”, it all seems less dreamy. It feels like she’s asking him to accept her into his heart, over and over again. 

But nevertheless, the vows go on: 

“[I] Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover” is her ironic promise to always be herself around him. The irony is that the song itself is overdramatic, as is Taylor for writing a wedding scene for a man she’s not marrying. 

And what does he offer her, besides getting to tag along with him? He’ll “save all your dirtiest jokes for me.” So at least she gets that.

“And at every table, I’ll save you a seat, lover,” she says, closing the bridge. 

She’ll “save him a seat” in her life; make space for him, always. Which is – actually and not ironically – a sweet sentiment. 

But is he ever going to come sit down next to her? 

Final Chorus & Outro: “Take Me Out and Take Me Home”

Selected lyrics from Taylor Swift's title track "Lover" against a pink cloud-like background. The lyrics are annotated with notes in red, highlighting various literary devices such as metaphors and imagery. The final chorus reads: "Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close? Forever and ever, ah Take me out and take me home (Forever and ever) You're my, my, my, my Oh, you're my, my, my, my Darling, you're my, my, my, my lover"

The chorus repeats, but this time – after the faux-wedding bridge and “All’s Well That Ends Well”, it seems a bit more like pleading than deciding to be together because you love one another. 

This time, “take me out” feels like she’s asking him to ‘take her out’ of playing the “game of love”. She just wants all the drama of her past – “every guitar string scar” – to be put behind her, and to go home with him. Is this settling? Is it resigning? 

The final line repeats: “you’re my, my, my, my lover,” and we’re left with only that last word. 

But what is a “lover”? I’m going to do the cliche thing my university professors said never to do and define it as part of my thesis. 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “lover” as: “a partner in a sexual or romantic relationship outside marriage”. 

Taylor knows this, and she used the word on purpose not only to title a song, but to title an album and era. 

She said her goal for the song was to “write a pure ‘Oh my god I love you’ love song.” But in that song, she defines true love as the chase and not the capturing. 

In her Shakespeare reference, her rhetorical questions, her description of how she feels about him (but never how he makes her feel)…what’s absent? Holding him. Catching him.

She’s asking him to be with her, over and over again. But she never gets to grasp him. 

She’s said from the very start of her career, “how can I ever try to be better? Nobody ever lets me in.” She’s still asking to be let in, a thousand love songs and lust songs and breakup songs later. 

She might be in the house with him, but he still hasn’t opened the door to his heart. 

Lover Lyrics Meaning: Final Thoughts 

Does this song feel different when hindsight is 20/20, and the relationship that likely inspired the song is over? Yes. 

But she also wrote another song in her search to define true love: You Are in Love. Even though the relationship that inspired that song is also over (Jack Antonoff and Lena Dunham), the contents of the lyrics still stand up (the cliffs notes of that song is: small moments add up to big moments that add up to love). 

But in Lover, the small moments are only her asking for him to be with her, wedding ring or not. 

She’ll always “save him a seat,” but will he ever actually come and sit down?

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