Taylor Swift’s Opalite Music Video Explained | The Hidden Meaning of Her Strangest Love Story

Podcast Episode

February 25, 2026

Episode Description

Grab your emotional support rock. Adjust your scrunchie. Try not to change the channel during the infomercial.

In this extended episode of the Swiftly Sung Stories Podcast, we’re dissecting the “Opalite” music video like it’s assigned reading – because honestly? It kind of is.

Set in a hyper-nostalgic 1993, the video introduces us to two archetypes:

Lonely Woman (played by Taylor Swift), whose closest companion is a literal pet rock
Lonely Man (played by Domhnall Gleason), trapped in a deeply toxic relationship… with a cactus

Enter: an aggressively cheerful infomercial selling Opalite – a magical spray that promises to turn your problems into your paradise.

One spritz later?
The rock and the cactus are gone.
The loneliness dissolves.
The world turns brighter.
And our two isolated protagonists finally find each other.

But what is Taylor Swift really saying in this campy, retro romance? What does “Opalite” really mean in Taylor Swift’s metaphorical universe? And if there’s a magic solution to loneliness, what is it in the real world?

In this episode, we’re going frame by frame through the music video, unpacking:

The nostalgic setting, how it helps tell the story, and why and when Taylor might have been inspired to go back to 1993
The symbolism of inanimate objects as partners, and what pet rock, cactus, and stapler really mean as metaphors
The infomercial as satire – consumerism as a cure for existential loneliness
The idea of “spraying away” your problems instead of confronting them, and what the products “Opalite” and “Nope-a-Lite” really represent
And whether the “paradise” we see is really a transformation…or just the natural consequence of having identified the real problem.

We’ll talk Easter eggs & color symbolism.
We’ll talk lyrical connections to previous Taylor Swift songs (there are A LOT!)
And we’ll talk about how this video uses absurdity to say something painfully real.

Dust off your Discman. Don’t trust the late-night sales pitch.
We’re going back to 1993 – and we’re reading it closely.

Songs Discussed:

⌛Timestamps

00:40 Background: Taylor’s Inspiration for the Opalite Music Video
02:24 What You Missed on Graham Norton
06:34 Frame-by-Frame Deep Dive: Why The Infomercial Matters
08:41 Dissecting the Infomercial
17:12 Lonely Woman & Her Pet Rock
28:18 What’s with the rock?
36:31 Karaoke
42:36 Aerobics Dream Girl
47:43 Lonely Man & His Cactus
50:54 What Do Cactus & Rock Really Symbolize?
56:45 The Christmas Party
58:27 Ordering Opalite
01:01:08 Lonely Man & Woman Meet
01:04:08 Glamor Shots at the Mall
01:06:39 The Mall (Before the Internet)
01:08:43 Nope-a-Lite
01:11:32 The Plot Twist
01:15:21 The Dance Scene
01:23:14 The Epilogue
01:26:18 What does it all mean?

Listen to the Episode

Episode Transcript

“Taylor Swift always comes back stronger than a 90s trend, with the opalite music video, she’s doing it literally, taking us down a millennial rabbit hole of nostalgia, and easter eggs, and symbolism, and epic cameos, and some of the funniest storytelling she’s ever given us. If you thought the Fate of Ophelia music video was intricate and full of easter eggs, just you wait, because today on the swiftly sung stories podcast, we are journeying back to the neon world of the 90s with a deep dive into the opalite music video.

If you’re a bit overwhelmed or confused by this video, don’t you sweat it baby, because I’m going to break it all down for you frame by frame and metaphor by metaphor. Let’s go.

Setting the Scene: Taylor’s Inspiration

First, let’s set the scene. What was Taylor’s inspiration for the video, and where did all these ideas come from?

Taylor was a guest on the Graham Norton show during the promo for the life of a showgirl, and she’s been a guest on this show several times. It films here in London, and it’s like the British version of Stephen Colbert or Seth Meyers, except Graham Norton does one thing differently: he doesn’t interview one guest at a time. He invites several guests on, and they have a conversation all together.

So in this episode, which aired here in the UK on Friday, October 3rd, 2025, same as the release date for the album, the guests were Taylor, actors Domhnall Gleason, Jodie Turner Smith, Greta Lee, Cillian Murphy, and musician Lewis Capaldi. Incredible lineup. During one of the segments, Graham is talking about Domhnall ’s new show The Paper, and Taylor is praising it, and Cillian is praising it, and Cillian makes a comment, “it’s worth watching for Domhnall ’s dancing alone,” and Domhnall laughs and says this offhand comment, “I’m hoping to get in a Taylor Swift music video.”

Taylor’s face lights up with an idea. Her jaw drops, and you can see the wheels churning. So this is where the idea was born.

Now we’ haven’t gotten as much backstory for this video as we got for fate of ophelia, which she basically made a whole movie about the making of that video, but we did get some context when the video was released. On Taylor’s instagram, she said:

“My favorite part about writing is that first spark of an idea. It can happen at any time, for any reason. The idea for the Opalite music video crash landed into my imagination when I was doing promo for The Life of a Showgirl. I was a guest on one of my favorite shows, @TheGrahamNortonShowOfficial. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s a UK late night show where Graham Norton (the insanely charismatic and lovable host) invites a random group of actors, entertainers, musicians, etc to be on his show and we all sit there and chat like it’s a dinner party. They even serve wine. Anyway. I remember thinking I got ridiculously lucky with the group I was paired with. Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, @JodieSmith, and @LewisCapaldi. All people whose work I’ve admired from afar. When we were all talking during the broadcast, Domhnall made a light hearted joke about wanting to be in one of my music videos. He’s Irish! He was joking! Except that in that moment during the interview, I was instantly struck with an *idea*. And so a week later he received an email script I’d written for the Opalite video, where he was playing the starring role. I had this thought that it would be wild if all of our fellow guests on the Graham Norton show that night, including Graham himself, could be a part of it too. Like a school group project but for adults and it isn’t mandatory. To my delight, everyone from the show made the effort to time travel back to the 90’s with us and help with this video. You might even recognize some friendly faces from The Eras Tour. I got to work with one of my favorite people in the world, Rodrigo Prieto, again! I had more fun than I ever imagined – Made new friends, metaphors, and fashion choices. It was an absolute thrill to create this story and these characters. Shot on film. The Opalite video is out now on Spotify & Apple”

So we see when and how the idea happened, between the guest on the show and the first spark of an idea, but what about the whole aesthetic? Why travel back to the 90s? Just because it’s fun and nostalgic (for people of our generation at least)? Yeah, I’m sure that’s part of it. But if you watch the full episode, I think get some important clues for the setting, too.

The first reference to the 90s is when Graham is focused on Cillian, who is there to promote his film Steve, which he produced and also stars in. It’s about a headmaster in a reform school in the 90s. It’s adapted from a book, and Graham is asking him about the artistic choices they made in adapting the book, and asks, why did you choose keep it set in the 90s?

Cillian responds, “well the music was so good back then,” and Taylor kind of nods like oh yeah it was. And then Cillian says, “And also, we could tell a story where we didn’t have to deal with smartphones and the internet and all that.” And this makes perfect sense to Taylor, she agrees, “yeah,” so I think this is the first light bulb of a 90s setting going off in her brain, and keep in mind this is even before Domhnall makes the joke about being in the video. This is before the idea for the video is born.

Then as they’re talking about the music in the film Steve, they transition to talking about Cillian’s history as a musician, he was in a band that actually got a record deal in the 90s, and they show a photo of him and his band as teenagers, and it’s a very 90s teenage angst photo.

Then the next mention of the 90s, also before Domhnall makes the joke, is when Graham is focused on Greta Lee. Graham has this way of hitting these talking points and transitioning between guests really seamlessly, but doing it organically as the conversation flows. So he was just talking to Cillian about being in a band, and then Graham says, “Greta, you were in a band,” and Greta kind of cringes like yeah, what are you about to ask me?

Graham shows us a photo, and this photo I think is really important for the 90s aesthetic of the opalite music video. It’s Greta at 11 years old, and she’s singing in a shopping mall at Christmastime. She’s in this classic 90s outfit, and the mall behind her is just pure nostalgia if you were a kid during this period of time. Taylor definitely does, and she’s written about it before in Coney Island – “’Cause we were like the mall before the Internet, It was the one place to be, The mischief, the gift wrapped suburban dreams, Sorry for not winning you an arcade ring.”

When this photo pops up, Taylor is hyped. She says, “yess!!!” And then as they’re talking about how Greta doesn’t do music anymore, she’s an actor, Graham says, “what happened to that dream? And Greta jokes sarcastically, what do you mean, it’s what I’m doing, I’m here to announce my album. Taylor doesn’t know that there’s some competition.” And then Taylor says something important, she says, “it’s the past life of a showgirl.” The past life of a showgirl. It’s right there. That’s her idea for the setting of this music video, in her past life. In the 90s, and she’s been inspired by all of this talk of the 90s and seeing these photos, and I think especially Greta’s photo in the mall because major parts of the video are set in a mall.

So there’s so much more to this episode than Domhnall ’s joke to be in her music video – it’s all right here. And it’s so cool that we get to see how the wheels churn for her, and see the inspiration for this music video, right there in front of our eyes.

In the behind the scenes clips that we got in alternate versions of the video a week after it came out, we got even more context. Taylor told us, “Opalite actually sounds a little bit like a commercial or something, so I was like, what if it actually was, in the music video, like this magical product?”

And I think this, combined with the influence from the Graham Norton show, is what sets Opalite in the 90s. She calls out 1993 specifically in the behind the scenes, so let me know your theories on that. But when she’s thinking about this magical product and how it would be marketed, it’s completely natural to set it in the age of the infomercial. The type of ad she wants to make, for this type of absurd product, belongs in the 90s and lives in the 90s, and they have a very specific formula that we’re going to get into shortly.

Okay, so we’ve set the scene, and as we dive into our scene by scene recap, just keep that one line in mind: the past life of a showgirl. Okay, now onto our deep dive.

Opening Scene: Infomercial

I tried my best to cover every tiny detail in this video, but I’m sure there are some things that I missed. But I gave it a valiant roar, so let me know what you noticed in the comments.

We open the music video with a 90s style infomercial, and I think when we all clicked play on this video we were all like, wait, I think there’s been a glitch? No, no glitch. This infomercial sets up the entire concept for the video, so before we get into it, we need to understand why she’s doing it, and it’s not just to conjure up 90s vibes.

Now, if you weren’t alive in the 90s or you’re too young to remember infomercials, they were this specific type of TV ad built to sell you something directly. It wasn’t an ad for something you can buy in a store, you had to call the number on the screen or mail a check to the address, and then you’d get your product in the mail like six weeks later. Long before the days of internet shopping and 2 day delivery. The internet existed, but not a ton of shopping on there yet in the 90s.

Now, 80s and 90s infomercials had a very specific storytelling formula. They would start with a problem, convince you that you had that problem and it was ruining your life and you needed a solution, and then try to sell you this magic solution.

If you’re an 80s baby or earlier, you might not remember the specifics of what they were trying to sell, but you probably remember how these things made you feel. They were usually targeted toward women, and tried to exploit our insecurities to try to get us to buy whatever they were selling. They told you that you are the problem, it’s you, and that if you buy this thing, it’ll fix you.

Here’s just a quick clip from the thighmaster infomercial from 1991 to give you an idea of how these ads worked (and here’s your trigger warning for body shaming, because the 90s were the wild wild west of making us feel horrible about our bodies).

(insert thigh master)

So the problem is, you don’t have great legs. You weren’t born with them. You’re the problem. You’re working out until you pass out – that’s healthy – but you still hate your thighs because they don’t look like Suzanne Sommers’ thighs. Your definitely real and not an actor doctor might be concerned about your flabby thighs! The solution? Thigh master. All these experts recommend it, even personal trainers who have an entire gym full of equipment definitely use this as seen on TV gadgets in their professional gyms. Stop hating your body, and yourself. Try thigh master!

See how that works? Okay. So that’s what Taylor is trying to recreate in the first portion of the opalite music video. And what’s the problem that they’re selling a solution to? Loneliness. Emptiness. Feeling unappreciated. Self loathing.

So we open with a 90s office scene. It’s Karen, one of our favorite dancers from the Eras Tour, and she’s in this very 90s power suit, sitting at a desk, and looking sad and frustrated. A voiceover – who is Cillian Murphy, by the way, doing an incredible American tv accent – says, “hey pal, why so glum?” And Karen frowns, she’s dramatically glum.

We zoom out a bit and next to Karen at her desk is a huge overflowing trash can, and this looks really similar to Oscar the grouch’s trash can on sesame street. It’s one of those big old corrugated metal ones. Karen waves at her nose as if this trash can is really smelly, and she kind of coughs.

On the giant desktop monitor behind her, there’s a graph that’s trending down, which helps paint this picture that everything is going wrong for Karen. Cillian’s voiceover continues, “are you feeling unsatisfied in life?”

Then we cut to Karen at home, in bed, and next to her in bed is this same overflowing trash can, with the trash strewn all over the bed, just like the trash was strewn over her office. Her partner is trash, and this sets up this series of metaphors and symbolism that will continue throughout the rest of the video. Partners as inanimate objects, and symbolic inanimate objects. Karen’s trash can of course ties into the lyric from the song, “my brother used to call it eating out of the trash.” So that’s one possible trash can metaphor – the trash represents Karen’s (well, Taylor’s) past lovers. She keeps going back hoping it’ll be different, but it never is.

It’s also a metaphor for your partner just being a piece of shit, just being trash. A garbage person. But there’s also a deeper metaphor here which will become clear as the announcer introduces opalite, because both Karen’s work life and home life are being affected by this trash. Her love life spills into her work. This trash relationship follows her wherever she goes, but it never changes.

And this ties into the central theme of the album, which is the showgirl versus the girl. Can Taylor have one without the other? Or does having a happy home life mean having a terrible work life, and does having a great work life mean sacrificing her relationship? She’s used Karen and this trash to symbolize all of this and more.

So Cillian’s voiceover continues, “Maybe you’re lacking connection in a friendship, or a relationship,” and we see Karen kiss her fingers and plant it on the trash can. She’s showing affection to this trash can, which is, of course, unreciprocated.

“Maybe you give more than you get back,” Cillian says, and at this point we see Karen gifting her trash partner a heart shaped box full of Valentine’s chocolate. You keep sending me funny valentines. She’s symbolically giving this partner her heart, but as she places it on top of the trash can, it just falls off, and she looks disappointed and sad.

So the infomercial has established the problem: you’re unfulfilled in your relationships. You’re giving so much of yourself, and getting nothing in return. And, also, your partner is probably trash. So here’s where the infomercial is going to try to sell us the magic solution that will make all our problems go away.

“What if I told you you could magically turn all that crappiness into happiness?” Cillian asks. And when he says “magically turn,” we get a transition that’s one of those clock wipes where the scene changes in this circular motion, like time passing, and with so many Midnights references in this video, I think this clock wipe is intentional. And when he says “into happiness,” we get a diamond-shaped transition, which is also intentional, and there are a couple interpretations here. Most obvious is a gemstone, opalite is a gemstone. But there’s also “a diamond’s gotta shine” from Bejeweled, a song that’s also about turning crappiness into happiness. And we are going to see a ton more diamond shapes in the video.

So Cillian continues, “No more need to fret, no more frustration,” and by the way, the word “frustration” was the only point in which I could tell that it was not an American doing the voiceover, just because of how Cillian’s Irish accent is more melodic than ours, so instead of “frustration” like an American would say, Cillian kind of compresses the sounds with “frustration.” I only point this out because I was like, “no way is that Cillian Murphy,” but indeed it is!

We now see the trash can in front of a blue studio backdrop, and you know those 80s like marbled photoshoot backdrops that were behind every glamour shot and school photo? It’s one of those. But this blue backdrop is important, so keep that in mind.

“Introducing Opalite,” the voiceover says, “the revolutionary fix for your problems.” And a spray bottle of Opalite comes and knocks the trash can out of the way. Or kicks it to the curb, which is its own little metaphor. This spray bottle is orange with aqua blue accents, which are the primary colors of the album. The tagline on the bottle is “magical results!” and below that it says, “don’t sweat it,” which references a similar lyric from the song.

We now cut back to Karen back at her desk with her overflowing trash can. “Just one spray and Opalite magically transforms your problems into your paradise.” Karen sprays the trash can once, and then the scene transforms from her problems (stuck with this trash dirtying up all aspects of her life) into her paradise. And this scene is such a loaded scene, so let’s go through it.

The backdrop is purple and pink, which alludes to the lyric from invisible string: “Time, wondrous time, Gave me the blues and then purple pink skies.” The previous backdrop in the product feature was blue, and now we’re in purple pink skies. She’s visually demonstrating this change from sorrow into happiness.

Karen is now in an aqua blue/teal sparkly gown, the accent color of the album and the color of opalite (the product, which is an aqua blue spray as we’ll see later), and she’s sat on a heart shaped throne. She has a crown or a tiara on her head, which alludes to the line, “ditch the clowns, get the crown” from the alchemy. Beside her is Jan, down on one knee like he’s proposing, holding up a bouquet of flowers. Jan is dressed very Fabio with this ruffled blouse and leather pants. It’s hilarious. There’s piles of gold stacked all over, like gold coins, which reminded me of wishlist in its symbolism.

But the most important piece of symbolism isn’t that he’s on bended knee, referencing a proposal, or that she’s wearing a crown…it’s that she’s up on a pedestal. She’s literally on a pedestal, and her partner (who used to be trash that impeded her life), is now looking up at her in admiration and in awe. So her previous partner just littered her life with all these problems that spilled into her work life, her career. But now, everything has changed. Her partner is gazing up at her and putting her on a pedestal, and the heart-shaped throne means that he’s saved her heart. He’s won her heart, and he’s saved her from her previous trash-strewn life, from the fate of Ophelia.

Or as Taylor has told us, “trash takes itself out every time.” And it has done here, with a little help from Opalite.

The voiceover continues as Karen is just basking in the happiness of this new life, and says, “using our state of the art chemical potion, it works on friendships, couples, pets, and co-workers.” So this isn’t just “a conman sells a fool a get love quick scheme,” as she told us in loml. Opalite isn’t just for love, it’s for everything in your life that needs improvement. Any relationship you’re unhappy in, it’ll help you take out the trash in every aspect of your life.

And we’re going to learn a whole lot more about the symbolism of Opalite as the video continues, but remember that Taylor told us about her inspiration for the central metaphor of this song, that opalite is a man-made gemstone, so it’s about creating your own happiness.

The infomercial would lead us to believe that there’s this magic potion for love and contentment, which is really the opposite of the message of the lyrics. The song says you have to create your own happiness and stop getting in your own way, but the infomercial tells us that no, you don’t have to do that, you just need this magic potion. So keep that in mind as the video goes on – is this magic spray really the solution, or is she saying something much more complex? And how does this music video change the central metaphor of a manmade gemstone? We’ll get into all of that as the video goes on.

Scene 2: Living Room

We transition out of the infomercial by cutting to a television, and we can see that this opalite infomercial is airing on this tv. The tv is sat on this wooden sideboard, to the left of which is a vase of flowers and what looks like a crystal ball, which of course could tell you your future like the paper fortune teller she’s about to fold, and it could just be a visual representation of an opalite stone, though it’s more clear like class or crystal, but one thing it also reminded me of is a paperweight as she uses in The Prophecy: “I’m so afraid I sealed my fate, No sign of soulmates, I’m just a paperweight in shades of greige, Spending my last coin so someone will tell me it’ll be okay.” This whole portion of the prophecy is really narrating this scene in the video. There’s no sign of soulmates, she’s spending money in this blind hope that something will change her life for the better. The last line of the infomercial, right before she switches it off, is “call 1-800”…encouraging the viewer to buy opalite.

On the right of the tv are six vhs tapes on top of a VCR. I can’t make out all of them, but one says, “self help tape,” another says, “tips for making friends,” and another says, “don’t forget to watch.” Let me know if you can read any of the others, but we get the sense there’s a theme – she’s lonely and trying to improve herself, and we’re going to find out more about that as we really get into her character building.

The screen goes fuzzy and the television turns off, and we see Taylor for the first time. We are in this very 90s living room, and Taylor is sat on the couch holding the remote. She’s just switched off the tv. This whole scene is very floral – there’s floral wallpaper, floral curtains, and Taylor is wearing a floral nightgown. Thank you for the lovely bouquet…that exploded all over this 90s living room.

A couple other things of note: there’s these teal/aqua blue accents in several vases scattered around the room, and a lampshade that’s also that color. The curtain over the window is in the same shape and style of a theatre curtain, and the orange curtain that we saw in the fate of ophelia music video, with this kind of draped style.

In the fireplace there’s no wood or a gas insert – there’s stacks of books. We can’t see the titles – the spines are facing away from us, but this reminded me of a line from evermore, “writing letters, addressed to the fire.” Or “from sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes” from you’re on your own kid, because she’s definitely on her own here, and she is kind of writing letters addressed to the fire, because she’s playing with a rock – it can’t respond, so it’s just as effective as writing letters just to burn them.

At Taylor’s feet is an open pink box that we’re going to see more of in a minute. So Taylor is in this floral nightgown with a giant scrunchie in her brown hair. Side note, how can she pull off every single hairstyle we’ve ever seen her in? Every color, every texture, she looks incredible in every single style and I’m jealous.

She switches off the tv, and she’s kind of thinking about this commercial. She looks down next to her on the sofa, and we can see that it’s a rock. Like a giant pet rock, which was a thing in the 90s for some reason, they weren’t this big, but pet rocks were a thing we willingly paid money for. Power of marketing. Something else she probably bought from an infomercial. And it’s at this point that the music starts.

We get a close up of the box, and it looks like a giant barbie box, it’s pink with those like clear panels that let you see inside. And on the box, it says, “My best friend!” That’s the brand name of this pet rock. It also says “collect them all” and “friendship rocks!” the nerdiest rock pun to ever rock pun. There’s all of the varieties of this rock pictured on the front, which is hilarious, because they’re all just rocks. They all look the same. But the brand name “My best friend” reminds me of the line from wishlist, “please god send me a best friend who I think is hot,” so he’s sent her a rock. The wishlist, or the prophecy hasn’t yet been fulfilled. But it will be as we go along.

There’s a lot of meaning here to unpack with this rock and the box it came in, but the first thing it reminded me of was the lyrics to my boy only breaks his favorite toys, and the extended metaphor in that song is herself as a barbie doll, and her lover is like a kid who plays rough with toys and then gets bored of them. And in that song, she says, “Just say when, I’d play again, He was my best friend down at the sandlot, I felt more when we played pretend, Than with all the Kens, ‘Cause he took me out of my box, Stole my tortured heart, Left all these broken parts.”

So the central metaphor of that song, plus the best friend in the lyrics of wishlist is really what I think informs this pet rock in the video. Here, she’s taken this “best friend” out of the box, and she’s going to try to play pretend with it in a minute. But the rock, of course, is going to give her nothing. It’s a rock. But she’s flipped this metaphor to give it new meaning. She’s bought herself a best friend, taken it out of the box, and she’s going to play with it. And that’s what that previous relationship felt like, as she describes in my boy only breaks his favorite toys. She felt used, like she was just a plaything. A toy. And we’ll get into more of this metaphor as Taylor interacts with this rock, because this rock is really central to the whole storyline.

A few people have pointed out that the pet rock was first marketed in 1975, so think of that what you will, but I think the rock goes much deeper than Matty Healey or Joe Alwyn.

So the lyrics kick off while we’re still zoomed in on this box, “I had a bad habit of missing lovers past.” Now we cut to Taylor on a swing at a park. And it’s one of those swings for two where there are two seats facing one another. She’s a grownup, but she’s still full of this childish delight. She still plays with toys, and she still goes to the park. Remind you of any particular lyric? “I thought that I’d never find that beautiful beautiful life that shimmers that innocent light back, like when we were young.” She’s searching for this best friend partner that she can be herself around, and maintain that child-like wonder, and she’s tried to create that for herself with this pet rock. She wants it so badly that she imagines she can get blood from a stone, as the saying goes.

And she’s also conjuring this childhood magic in the background of this scene, where there’s a mom and two rowdy boys playing behind her in this park, kicking a soccer ball. Soccer ball in the UK where she filmed this is called a football…could this symbolize Donna Kelce with Jason and Travis? Maybe. But the important thing is that she’s a grown up, in a park, playing with a pet rock, like a child. She is trying to find that innocent fun that we all experienced in our youth, and trying to bring it into her adult life. It also reminds me of the lyric, “At the park where we used to sit on children’s swings, wearing imaginary rings” from fresh out the slammer. It’s the same vibe here. Imagining this perfect love, this perfect relationship that can turn to marriage. But it’s all in her imagination.

Sat opposite her on this swing is her pet rock. And as she swings, it falls off onto her feet and hits the ground. This isn’t off to a great start. Things have been a bit….rocky if you will. During this bit, the lyrics are “missing lovers past”, and that’s when the rock falls. It falls under the swing so the swing can’t move forward. It’s halted its momentum. It’s impeding her progress, and she rushes to pick it up, to rescue it. This is the same message as eating out of the trash, going after something or someone that’s always going to give you nothing in return. It’s only going to hurt you, but you keep pursuing it because you think you can make this into something it’s not. You’re pretending, just like you’re pretending that a rock can really be your best friend.

In the next shot, we’re back in her 90s living room. She’s in a different outfit, she’s in this primary-colored striped t-shirt, which is almost like a kindergarten color palette, and she’s wearing a sagittarius necklace, which is her star sign. I don’t know if we’re supposed to pay attention to the colors and the order of the colors on the t-shirt, but from bottom to top it’s purple (speak now), gold/yellow (fearless), red, and then teal green, which could represent debut, and debut is at the top, like it’s coming next. And we’re going to get more possible debut easter eggs as the video goes on. But like most easter eggs, it won’t make sense until it makes sense.

Here she’s doing another child-like activity- she’s folding one of those paper fortune tellers like we used to do in elementary school, and she’s writing on it with what I think are glitter gel pens. And according to Taylor’s own definition of her songwriting genres, Opalite is definitely a glitter gel pen song. So there’s a meta reference for you.

She does this fortune telling back and forth, and then shows it to the rock. She’s telling the rock’s fortune, and of course, it’s a rock. It doesn’t care. She gets nothing in return. The fortune teller on the outside flaps says onyx, opalite, sapphire, and moonstone, which is another nod to Midnights, “sapphire tears on my face, sadness became my whole sky, some guy said my aura’s moonstone just cuz he was high.”

But I think this scene is meant to point to her sort of obsession with fate, and synchronicity, and astrology, and numerology and puzzles and such. She’s trying to get the rock to interact with her in this way, to join in on her special interest, but he can’t. The rock is one of the “Dudes who give nothing,” as she says in glitch. But she is going to meet someone who will be a big happy nerd with her as the video goes on.

In the next scene, we’re in Taylor’s 90s bedroom, where she’s sitting on her bed and the rock is next to her. She’s wearing these embroidered denim overalls, and a baby tee, a choker necklace and has two clips in her hair. It’s the Delia’s catalogue come to life. What I would give to go back to the days of the delia’s catalogue.

On the bed next to her is a cd player and an open CD case, and we can see it’s George Michael’s Faith album, which is the album that the song father figure is on. And we’re going to see a few more George Michael easter eggs which makes me think that we’re getting a father figure music video, which, I would die. It’s my favorite song on the album. If we actually get that, don’t speak to me for 3-5 business days.

So she’s stringing these giant friendship bracelet beads onto this string, she’s making a bracelet for her rock. The beads she’s using are purple and pink, which could allude to that lyric from invisible string, “gave me the blues and then purple pink skies,” especially since she’s stringing beads in this moment, and we’re about to get more invisible string references. So she puts the bracelet on the rock, and it reads “friends 4 ever”. In this close up we can see her nails are glittery teal, which could reference the accent color of this album, or it could be an easter egg for Debut Taylor’s Version, which is also usually represented in a teal/green color. She’s really running out of colors. She’s gonna have to turn to patterns at some point…

But I want to pause here for a moment, before she takes the rock out to go to the karaoke bar. What’s the real significance of the rock? It helps to try to find lyrical references from before this song to rocks and gemstones. The first one I thought of was “people throw rocks at things that shine,” from Ours off of Speak Now. People will always try to yuck your yum. If you’re the “other”, you’ll always be chased with pitchforks. Here, Taylor is the thing that shines, and she’s trying to make friends with the rock. Trying to make it her best friend slash partner. And she’s ostracized because of it.

The second is “we gather stones, never knowing what they’ll mean, some to throw, some to make a diamond ring” from my tears ricochet off of folklore. Here, Taylor is gathering stones, not to throw, but to try to make a diamond ring. Trying to make this stone into her partner.

But that got me thinking about what opalite and onyx really are, and I think the rock is also a metaphor for this unpolished/unfinished version of onyx or opalite, like it’s a work in progress (I do realize that opalite is manmade, but metaphorically) the rock is like a rough draft, or a first pass. What could be, versus what is now, which is another big theme on this album: fate versus what wasn’t fated, and why it wasn’t fated. Because before she buys the opalite spray and gets a real partner, she’s toting this heavy stone around, trying to turn it into something it’s not. It’ll take a lot of refinement, and a lot of work, to turn this rock into a gemstone.

But the rock also, of course, reminds me of the story of Sisyphus, the character in Greek mythology who is cursed to push a boulder up a hill for eternity, only to have it roll back down once it reaches the top. He has to repeat this over and over again, and a futile task like this is what is called a Sisyphean task. We could say that what Taylor is doing with this pet rock is a Sisyphean task – it’s futile, it’s never going to work, and it’s neverending. And with her other references to greek mythology in the fate of ophelia music video – I just did a huge deep dive episode on that and how it ties into the odyssey and the sirens of greek mythology – I think she’s making a similar reference here.

So a lot of possible interpretations of the rock, but let’s move on for now, and let me know what you think in the comments.

In the next shot, she’s getting ready to go out on the town with her rock. She’s in this red, almost maroon dress, and she’s trying to do up the string that ties around the waist. We used to wear these dresses that had meters and meters of string to wind around ourselves like a corset for some odd reason and they were impossible. But with the other possible invisible string references, this string could be the visible string…like it was right in front of her all along, but she tied herself up in knots trying to make this previous relationship (her pet rock) work. Because she’s struggling trying to tie up this string, struggling to find the invisible string, maybe, when it shouldn’t have to be that hard. But it also reminds me of that scene in the fate of ophelia, where she’s tied up in ropes in a rope dress, and I think that scene symbolizes her rescue, he’s thrown her a rope. Lots of possible meanings here.

She’s wearing these platform shoes that are quintessential 90s vibes, and her position in the mirror while she’s wearing these high heels reminds me of begin again: “Took a deep breath in the mirror / He didn’t like it when I wore high heels / But I do.” He, the rock, is right behind her when she’s getting ready in the mirror and wearing these high heels. And that song is about not believing that love exists, all it does is break and burn and end, but then she gets this glimmer of hope, and her belief in love begins again, just like she’s talking about in opalite.

Behind her we can see two George Michael posters, and of course Taylor’s version of father figure is an interpolation of George Michael’s father figure. There’s a larger poster on the wall, then over the top is layered a smaller one. It’s a double poster, and the size difference could represent the father figure and the protege from that song. But that’s the first George Michael reference. On the floor laying up against the vanity is another copy of the george michael album Faith, this time the vinyl version. So two george michael posters, two george michael albums. Read into that what you will.

Then we get a shot of her which seems like she’s looking at herself in the mirror. She’s straight onto the camera. She’s wearing what looks like an opalite necklace, and maybe an opalite ring, though someone who is more of a gemstone expert, sound off in the comments, and she has butterfly clips in her hair. In the 90s we wore these clips all the time, but butterflies are also associated with her debut album, and in this shot we can really see the color of her nail polish, and it’s darker than the accent color of this album. It’s definitely more teal blue, which is giving debut just like the butterflies.

On the floor next to her, we can see a vinyl record case, those trunk-like ones that Taylor sells as merch, but this one is floral. And with the floral all over the living room, that makes me think that maybe TS13 is going to have a floral theme? Especially since this floral is inherently tied to records as it’s on a record case.

Using two fingers, she smears body gel glitter on her collarbone.”The mark you saw on my collarbone” from maroon, maybe? And the two fingers are deliberate, I think, as we’re going to see her use two fingers again in a little bit. The twos are two-ing, and there’s the double george michael poster and the double albums in this scene, too.

The color of this glitter that she put on herself looks orange to me, as she’s in her showgirl era. But then she uses two fingers again to smear glitter on the rock, and this time, the glitter looks identical to the glitter from the Anti-Hero music video. It’s like purple, blue and green together, just like the glitter that comes out of her eggs and out of her body in anti-hero. So what’s the symbolism of the glitter? Because it’s important if she’s used it in both videos, and I think the difference in color is important, because colors are key pieces of symbolism in Taylor’s multiverse.

In the anti-hero music video – which, let me know if you want a deep dive on that one because it’s just as chock-full of symbolism as this one – Taylor told us that the glitter represents this part of herself that is othered. She bleeds glitter being a metaphor for she is different, she’s not normal, there’s something wrong with her. She’s the problem.

But I also interpret it as the part of herself that needs to be bejeweled. She bleeds being a performer and being the brightest light, it’s in her blood, it’s a part of who she is. But it’s also the problem – it makes her the “other.” It makes her a target, because she’s so shiny. And combined with all the other metaphors in that video – the problem Taylor, the giant Taylor, the monster on the hill – the glitter represents a part of herself that is both her identity and her achilles heel.

Here, it’s the same thing, and we’ll see more of this as we go along. But I think the two different colors of glitter could represent how she’s come to terms with who she is in how her private life and public life intersect, because she’s found someone whom she can be both the showgirl and the girl with. Previous Taylor, the midnights glitter, was trying to get blood from a stone. But present Taylor knows her worth and her value, and she’s embracing herself fully – both the showgirl part of herself, and just the girl part of herself. Because that’s really what opalite is all about – stop trying to force happiness with someone who just doesn’t get you. You can let yourself be happy if you stop trying to make something unnatural work. Getting out of your own way, get out of your sleepless midnights, or onyx nights, and learn to be happy.

Scene 3: Karaoke

After the glitter is applied, we cut to the next scene, and we’re in a karaoke bar. Taylor is up on this stage, and behind her is this shiny gold and red curtain party decoration type thing. Chiefs colors, red and gold. And this is important, and it’ll become clear in a minute.

She’s up on this stage with a microphone, and she’s holding this rock in her arm. Toting this heavy weight around with her, even when she’s just trying to have fun. To the left is a jukebox, above which is a neon sign that says karaoke and another with music notes, and to the right is a rolling tv stand with a tv on top that’s displaying the karaoke lyrics. The background of the karaoke lyrics is reminiscent of the backdrop in the infomercial after Karen sprays opalite and is transported to her paradise. It’s a purple pink sky with blue ocean and a sandy beach and palm trees.

In this scene there are also two not-quite disco balls that make everything look cheap, but they’re light projecting balls in rainbow colors. But this scene definitely could be referencing that verse from Ruin the Friendship, the prom scene.

As she sings this portion of the lyrics, “all of the foes and all of the friends,” she tries to get the rock to sing along with her. She’s brought it up on stage with her, and puts the mic next to it to try to get the rock to join in. But it’s a rock. She gets nothing back. She’s just trying to have fun and trying to involve her “best friend,” but of course it’s fruitless.

Now this is where the chiefs colors of the backdrop possibly come into play: previously, she tried to get her lover to join in on the fun with her. To join in on what she loves doing, like she’s tring to do with the rock here. But it never happened. But what happened on the eras tour? Travis came on stage and performed with her. He took part in something that was important to her and that she loved doing. So I think this is definitely a nod to Travis and their relationship – he takes an interest in the things that interest her. He embraces that performance artist in her that’s a quintessential part of what makes Taylor Taylor.

Now we get a closer shot of Taylor singing, with the karaoke lyrics on the tv behind her. The lyrics at this point are, “have seen it before, they’ll see it again.” With the previous twos, and the upcoming twos, this is intriguing. What have we seen before, and what will we see again? Maybe a debut album, and a taylor’s version of that album? Because the lyrics are on a TV, and TV also stands for taylor’s version. So she’s definitely calling our attention to something that’s going to be repeated.

But what really caught my attention in this scene is the necklace, because we get a better shot of it. It’s definitely an opalite necklace, so she already has opalite before her as-seen-on-tv magic potion arrives. It was with her all along, the ability to find happiness. Which is just a cool, beautiful piece of symbolism.

Now we’re still at the karaoke bar, and Taylor brings her rock to the bar. She sits on a stool and holds up two fingers, to signal to the bartender that she wants two drinks, one for her, and one for the rock.

We cut to the tv above the bar, tuned to channel 3, and here’s our first visual cameo from the graham norton show. Greta Lee is performing on the tv with an acoustic guitar on MTV. The background is once again this theatre style curtain, there’s a chandelier to her left, and she’s surrounded by candles.

In the credits at the end, Greta Lee is listed as playing the “indie rock goddess.” And that character name reminded me of the OG indie rock goddess, Alanis Morisette. And visually, this scene with Greta Lee looks a lot like Alanis Morisette’s MTV unplugged session from 1999. It’s the same colors, the same kind of background. And interesting tidbit: both Alanis Morisette and Taylor Swift are being inducted into the songwriter’s hall of fame this year. So is she shouting out Alanis? Possibly. Let me know in the comments what else you think this could be.

But this scene with Greta is also identical to the opalite life is a song acoustic single cover, with Taylor posed just like this with the guitar, and the curtain, and the candles.

The lyrics that Greta sings are, “life is a song, it ends when it ends, I was wrong, but my momma told me.” And at this point, we cut to a shot of Taylor at the bar from the other angle, from behind. We can see that Eras Tour dancer Raphael is our bartender, which is a great cameo but not as epic as when Raphael emerged from a pre-Raphelite painting in the fate of ophelia music video, which was just meta perfection.

This scene, by the way, was shot at the Mildmay Club in east London, which is a members club in Stoke Newington and has been since 1888. They do bingo and jazz shows and all sorts of fun stuff, if you’re a member. The pool scene with lonely man and his cactus was also filmed here in the pool hall portion of the club.

So as Raphael hands her two red cocktails, a person comes and tries to take the seat next to her that’s reserved for her pet rock. It’s Natalie from the eras tour. Taylor says, “actually, this scene is taken,” and she gestures to her glittery rock (which, now the entire rock is covered in glitter, and there could be some symbolism there but let’s keep going). Natalie kind of scoffs at her, like this girl is crazy, and goes away. “At every table, I’ll save you a seat,” is what she’s saying to this rock slash lover. Which breaks my heart a little bit.

Then the camera flips again and we get the bartender’s perspective. Taylor holds the two cocktails and says, “cheers!” and then tries to give the rock a drink, spilling all down the rock and all over the bar.

Then we get a shot of Raphael, and he says, “ma’am, please leave.” And that’s the end of this scene of Taylor out on the town with her rock.

Scene 4: Aerobics

In the next scene, we’re inside a very 90s workout video. Jodie Turner Smith is our aerobics dream girl, as she’s credited at the end, and she’s on a diamond-shaped teal pedestal in the middle, flanked by 4 other aerobics dancers. These are also dancers from The Eras Tour.

This scene is so nostalgic, and it reminds me of that episode of saved by the bell music video, go for it. And these reebok step things were everywhere in that decade.

So Jodie is wearing this pastel sky leotard that looks very lover-coded, and then there’s two dancers in pink, and two dancers in blue. But it’s the background that I noticed the most, because it’s pink. In the infomercial, when Karen’s problems are turned to paradise, her background is this pink/purple sky. And the background on the karaoke lyrics is also a purple pink sky. And here the background is pink again. And the color contrast for these scenes is doing a lot of work in the storytelling, because the colors are kind of muted in the scenes with Taylor and her rock. The bar is kind of dark, her living room is kind of this bleak beige, her bedroom is also kind of washed out, but in these moments of excitement – the possibility of what could be – the scenes are these really bright colors.

Now we get a different perspective: we cut away from the workout video and see that Taylor is watching it on her tv in her living room, doing the moves along with them. She’s wearing this bright pink tracksuit with blue accents, which mirror the colors in the aerobics video. So we can tell that her mindset, reflected in her outfit, is subtly starting to shift. She’s slowly becoming the colors of the more optimistic side of this world, the paradise of the infomercial, and the bright tones of the aerobics video.

And remember the colors of the friendship bracelet she put on the rock? Purple and pink? What we understand now is that those symbolize optimism. She’s trying to be optimistic about this relationship and get her rock to be optimistic with her as well, so the colors are doing a lot of symbolic work in this video.

So she’s wearing bright colors, and she’s got one of the reebok steps, and there are some hand weights and a kettlebell next to her on the floor.

Her rock is sitting on the coffee table pointed toward the tv, and she’s doing these exercises beside it. But the beautiful bit of irony here is that they’re all dead weight, but the rock is dead weight that just weighs her down, and the dumbbells and the kettlebells are weights that can make her stronger.

Jodie does this hopping move while holding a dumbbell, and Taylor copies her, but she’s holding the rock instead of one of the weights that’s on the floor, and she does a few more exercises using the rock as a weight. So this is showing how she’s trying to use this relationship to improve her life, trying to strengthen her, but really there are other options that are much more fit for purpose. It’s also another attempt at connection, to involve this person that the rock represents in her daily life, but she gets nothing back. It also reminded me of the lyric from So Long London, “I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift, pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away.” She’s literally carrying her partner here, which is a devastating metaphor that leads back to TTPD. And another lyric it reminded me of was tolerate it, “gain the weight of you then lose it.” Because she does tote around the weight of this heavy rock, until she loses it. She can do it, she just has to believe she can.

But this could also be a metaphor, if you want to look on the optimistic side, for how her past relationships have made her stronger through the trials that she went through, the rock being used as a weight that both weighed her down, but in lifting and carrying that weight, she eventually gained strength.

Jodie says, “you can do it!” in the captions, trying to encourage her to keep going. But this is her sisyphean task – she can’t actually do it, because she’s pushing the wrong boulder up the hill.

She ends her workout and sits down on the couch next to the rock, which is now propped up on pillows. She’s had to metaphorically prop up, support this partner, when she’s the one doing all the work in this workout. She sits down out of breath and she says to the rock, “high five,” but of course, nothing happens. He leaves her hanging. She tries to celebrate with him, but gets nothing. And that’s when we cut to the next scene.

It’s at this point that I thought, maybe the rock is just supposed to be onyx. It’s symbolic of this long, sleepless, onyx night. This relationship that’s full of longing and trying to connect, but getting nothing in return.

And it also reminded me of this term that’s becoming increasingly popular, which is grey rocking. In psychology, this is where you show no emotion when you’re around a difficult person, you act like a grey rock. You give them nothing so that they don’t have anything to latch onto and argue about. Here, the grey rock is grey rocking her. She goes in for the high five, and she gets grey rocked by a grey rock. Do something babe, say something, you’re losing me. Incredibly meta.

Scene 5: Lonely Man

We cut to a different house, in a different bedroom, but with this same kind of muted palette. We see Domhnall Gleason, laying in his bed next to a cactus, and this is the first time we see Domhnall in this video, but it’s not the first music video he’s starred in – he was also in Hozier’s video for deSelby part 2.

So Taylor’s building this world where people are in relationships with inanimate objects. Lonely woman has a rock, lonely man has a cactus.

Let’s go through the bedroom then we’ll dive into the symbolism of the cactus. So it’s these same kind of muted shades, except for the wall behind him, which is this sea/mint green, and an orange lamp shade. The colors of the life of a showgirl. On the nightstand next to him is a framed photo of himself and his cactus, an alarm clock that reads 12:12, a watch that we can’t see well enough to read, a bottle of nasal spray, and a jar of biscuits or club crackers, I can’t tell exactly what they are. But I though this was a telling detail that really helps Taylor’s character building, because who eats crackers in bed? Getting the crumbs everywhere? People who don’t share their bed with anyone else. There’s no one else to be bothered by the crumbs. So this is also showing his loneliness and his solitude.

Pinned to the wall behind the framed photo is a card that says, “with love from your mother,” which could just be telling us that he’s the stereotypical lonely man momma’s boy, or it could reference how we refer to Taylor as “mother,” and she’s telling us that this video is with love from her. There’s also a sticky note that I can’t quite make out, but there is the word bouquet on there. Let me know if you can decipher this one.

On the wall behind him is a calendar, but it’s not a beach scene or a cute cat, it’s a photo of an office building, and the title on the calendar if you zoom in says, “middle management calendar.” So this is just a metaphor for his really boring, bleak life. This bland, bleak office building, he’s middle management, a really boring job, going nowhere. And this calendar also fits in with Domhnall ’s show The Paper that he went on Graham Norton to promote, which is about a boring office, just like The American Office from which its a spinoff. No matter what this particular building it is, how depressing and boring is it to have a calendar that shows an office block? I think this just ties into Taylor’s world building around lonely man. His life is so bleak that even his calendar is boring, and he can eat crackers in bed because no one is there to mind, not even the cactus.

So lonely man is getting ready for bed, and he’s taking out his contact lenses. This part of the lyrics is, “you couldn’t understand it, why you felt alone.” He has on a sleep mask, and he tries to put a sleep mask on his cactus, which is tucked up in bed next to him. As he puts this tiny sleep mask on his cactus, he says, “goodnight, darling,” and it pricks him. He starts bandaging up his finger, tending to the wound that his lover has inflicted. And this reminds me of a line from The Prophecy: “poison blood from the wound of the pricked hand”.

Then as the lyrics go on, “you were in it for real, but she was in her phone, and you were just a pose,” we cut to the image of him with the cactus. The framed photo on his bedside. He’s in it for real, but the cactus is just in it for the image.

So what does the cactus represent? A relationship you keep trying to make work, but all it does is hurt you. But you keep going back, hoping this time it will be different, but it never changes. It never gets better. But what else is a cactus? Prickly. Sharp. And thrives in dry, arid environments with very little attention. It doesn’t need anyone. And it won’t let anyone get near. It actively repels people who try to get close. But as the video goes on, we’re also going to realize that the cactus is death by a thousand cuts. Because it’s going to keep cutting him over and over again, until he decides that he can’t subject himself to this pain anymore.

I’ve seen a few people point out that the cactus could represent Joe Alwyn, especially because Taylor and Joe each posted separate instagram photos posing with the same cactus. They never posted any photos together. And while I think that could definitely be the case, the symbolism of the cactus goes a whole lot deeper as we go on.

In the behind the scenes clips, Taylor gave us a bit more information about her metaphors.

She said, quote, “Nope-a-lite is for people who want to choose to be unhealed. Opalite is for people who want to choose a path that serves them. But in our metaphor, inanimate objects represent the kind of toxic relationship they’re in. So I think I’m best friends with this rock, who is always weighing me down. Domnhall, he’s in a toxic relationship with a cactus, where he’s getting hurt everyday.” Unquote. So of all of the many possible interpretations of these inanimate objects, for Taylor, the central meaning is a toxic relationship.

But she’s not only talking about toxic romances, because also in this behind the scenes, we got to see Taylor posing with a fan. Another inanimate object, and it’s pretty obvious what this represents. It’s us, we’re the problem, it’s us. And there could be no louder message here. Just as cheeky as but daddy I love him, and just as loud. She just called us out big time. The crowd might be her king, but it’s not always a healthy dynamic. We can blow in and cause chaos at any time.

So in the next scene, lonely man is shooting pool with his cactus. This scene was also filmed at the Mildmay club where the karaoke scenes were shot. As he goes to hit the cue ball, the cactus pricks him in the eye, and it’s during the lines, “don’t we try to love love? We give it all we got.” So this is the same as what Taylor is trying to do with her rock – go out, have fun, have shared activities, shared special interests. Trying to love love. But it just never works, because they’re the wrong fit. The rock hurts her because he can’t interact and enjoy anything, and the cactus wounds him every time he tries to do the same.

There’s a couple things in this short shot that might be important: the pool balls we can see are the orange stripe 12, and the solid purple 4. But the stripe version of the purple ball is also a 12, and we already got a 12-12 on the clock in the bedroom scene.

The clocks above him read 7:55 and I think 10:30, which, 10/3 was the release date of this album, but the 7:55 I think is supposed to be read not as a time, but as pointing to the numbers 8 and 11, which 8/11, August 11th, was when the life of a showgirl was announced. I could be totally wrong. Let me know if you have any ideas in the comments.

Next we see lonely man take his cactus to a movie at the mall movie theatre, and as he approaches the box office, he’s now got several bandages on him. He approaches and he holds up two fingers, asking for two tickets for the movie. We see that working at the box office is Kevin from the eras tour, and his nametag says Kevin. He says, “sir, please leave.” So now both Taylor and Domhnall have tried to go have these shared experiences with their partners, they both hold up the two (“been number one but I never had two” from Elizabeth Taylor), and they are both asked to leave.

There are a few details in the box office: to the left of Kevin there’s a sign that we can only see part of, but it says, “patient for the encore,” so we can imagine it says please be patient for the encore. What encore, Taylor? What have we seen before, and will see again? What is this? It’s driving me crazy. But I think the most likely interpretation is a taylor’s version album, which is, essentially, an encore. Coming back out for more of the same thing.

Then on the right of Kevin there’s a sign that says, “no inanimate objects, thank you, including…” and then pictured is a cactus, a trash can, and we can imagine there’s also a rock and maybe a stapler on that poster. And although we knew they were trying to have relationships with inanimate objects, I love that this poster labels them, because what does inanimate mean? Lifeless. Showing no signs of life. Like, “how can you love someone you can’t tell is dying,” and “my face was grey but you wouldn’t admit that we were sick.” She kills me.

In the next scene, lonely man is eating out at a restaurant, with his cactus on the table across from him. Now he has even more bandages on. One wrapped around his head, his wrists, nearly all of his fingers, and he says to the cactus, “you look amazing,” and tries to touch it and show some affection, but then he recoils when the cactus pricks him again.

Behind him on the wall of the restaurant is a framed photo of Portofino, which is an elizabeth taylor easter egg. And with all of the diamond shapes – of which we’re going to see a lot as we continue our journey through this video – it makes me think that we might be getting an ET music video.

A server approaches, and we can’t see all of them, but we can see that their hand is bandaged, too, so now this prickly person is harming others that they come into contact with. Not just lonely man, but everyone.

During this scene, it’s the lyrics, “you finally left the table,” while they’re at the table, and then we leave the table and transition to a new scene. Lonely man is at a christmas party, and he’s wearing a red christmas jumper, and he’s still covered in bandages. He’s holding the cactus in one hand, and above them is mistletoe. He’s supposed to kiss the cactus, and he kind of starts to go in, but then decides no, not gonna do it. And when he decides to start not hurting himself, or letting the cactus hurt him, the lines are, “and what a simple thought, you’re starving til you’re not.” He’s starving – for love, for affection, for connection – until he decides that he deserves more.

This christmas party scene has a few important details, the first of which being Taylor’s brother Austin as a party guest in the background. You might remember that Austin played a ghost in her house in the anti-hero music video, though we didn’t get to see his face, and now he’s out of the ghost costume, which reflects the lines, “I thought my house was haunted, I used to live with ghosts.” He’s no longer a ghost. She doesn’t live with ghosts anymore, these haunting past relationships.

The bunting in the background is also interesting because we’ve seen this shape so many times in this album, it’s the shape of the curtains in a theatre, and it was the shape of Taylor’s curtains in her house earlier. It’s almost like this showgirl life, this new version of herself, is there, it’s always been there, she’s just needed to wake up and embrace it. But this scene is also really muted except for the red sweater and the christmas tree, and that’s important because once they find each other, the colors are going to get brighter, like going from onyx to opalite.

In the next scene, lonely man is at home at his computer, and we can see the ad for Opalite on his monitor behind him, in this really vivid pink and blue. So that’s the hope – there’s brighter times to come. He’s done being hurt. He has even more bandages on now, it’s become more than death by a thousand cuts – and he’s dialing the phone number to order opalite. He’s going to find someone better. And then we cut to him collecting the package off his porch. The opalite has arrived at his doorstep.

Next we get a side by side of Taylor and Domhnall opening their opalite packages, and the colors in this scene are hinting at what’s to come. It’s still muted, but they both have blue accents. Taylor’s nails and her choker are blue, and Domhnall ’s shirt has blue stripes, and as they lift the lid to these boxes, blue light starts pouring out. It’s the potential of the future that’s shining this light on them.

The markings on the box say “from opalite,” and “priority” like priority mail. But this hints that it’s a priority to change your outlook on life.

During this scene, the lyrics are, “life is a song, it ends when it ends, you move on,” and that’s what they’re about to do: they’re both about to move on from their inanimate partners, who are lifeless and only burden them, and take a chance at happiness.

One interesting detail before they use the spray bottle: lonely man no longer has bandages on. He’s already given up trying to show affection and interact with the cactus. So he’s already, essentially, done with this relationship before he even sprays the opalite.

So they both have the spray bottles, and on the left, Domhnall goes to spray the cactus. The cactus is the problem – his partner is the problem. But Taylor goes to spray herself. I’m the problem, it’s me. She doesn’t spray the rock – the partner isn’t the problem, she thinks it’s her that’s the problem.

And if you think about the larger context of this moment, it’s really a metaphor for the patriarchy. Women are conditioned to believe that it’s them that’s the problem – we’re too much, we’re hysterical, we’re too needy, we’re too demanding – and it’s never our male partners (if you’re straight) that are the issue. We’re led to believe it’s never the man – or the rock, or the lack of a rock – that’s the problem. It’s always us that needs to change, and that’s why Taylor sprays herself, she thinks that she’s doing something wrong, when in reality, she was just with the wrong person who wouldn’t let her be her most authentic self.

So here comes the spray. Domhnall sprays the cactus with this blue spray, and the cactus disappears. Taylor sprays herself with this blue spray, and she disappears. She is transported to lonely man’s living room, covered in this blue goo, and there’s a puddle of blue goo on the carpet where she appears. She says, “what the…” and looks around like, what the hell happened?

She’s no longer at her house with her pet rock. She’s in his house. She’s moved on, and he’s moved on. What does that remind you of? “I took the miracle move on drug, the effects were temporary.” And “I love you, it’s ruining my life,” applies to both of them. Lonely man keeps getting hurt by the cactus, and lonely woman is stuck with this grey, lifeless partner. It’s ruining both their lives, but they take the miracle move on drug. Will the effects be temporary? Stay tuned.

Now, the color of this goo isn’t quite the same as the anti-hero glitter goo. It’s more teal blue, whereas the anti-hero goo was darker. There’s been a lot of teal in this video, and though it’s the accent color of the album, let’s also keep in mind what the teal could represent. Opalite is usually white and/or sky blue, and this isn’t a sky blue goo. So what’s up with the teal? We’ll revisit this later.

She makes eye contact with him, and it kind of clicks for her that after she’s sprayed the opalite, she doesn’t disappear or turn into an inanimate object. She was just placed with a different partner. It wasn’t her that was the problem, she’s the same as she ever was, it was the rock, it was the place she was at in her life. She just needed to move on.

In the next shot, Taylor is in Domhnall ’s bathroom, and he’s washing off the blue goo in the bathtub. And here’s where I think Taylor is tying into the fate of the Ophelia music video, because in that video, she was drowning, or nearly drowning in the bathtub, alone. But here, she’s sitting up, and being cared for by another. He won’t let her drown, he’s helping her. And in washing off the goo, he’s symbolically washing away this idea that she was the problem.

The shower curtain is this lacy diamond pattern, and in the next shot, Taylor is cleaned off and dressed, and they’re sat opposite each other at his dining room table, and the curtains also have a diamond pattern. This also reminds me of the fate of ophelia video where she wore that diamond, almost snakeskin like chainmail dress in the go-go girls/Ronettes scene. We also got the diamond scene transition in the infomercial, so keep that in mind and let me know what you think all the diamond patterns mean besides the obvious, a gemstone.

In the dining room scene, just like in the bathroom scene, the colors are also muted. But that’s going to change pretty soon. So they’re sitting across from one another at this dining room table, and they both have their hands clasped in front of them on the table. They haven’t opened up to one another yet. And then, Taylor gets up and goes to sit next to him, and she’s holding the paper fortune teller that she had in a previous scene and was trying to play with the rock. She takes a chance. She tries something new, and this is what changes everything. Lonely man’s reaction is the big contrast – he lights up and he says, “oh I love this game!” She’s shared something she enjoys with him, and he enjoys it too, and takes part in her world. Her interests.

We get an overhead shot of them doing the fortune teller, and on the inside flaps is “oh, oh, oh, oh,” and they fold it in time with the chorus.

Photo Session

Then the scene changes, and we’re now in a mall photography studio, with the couple posing for the camera. This is the beginning of things looking brighter visually. The photo backdrop is a blue sky with white clouds, and behind them is a white trellis arch with flowers, which looks a lot like the vibes of Travis’ proposal setup in his backyard, so I definitely think she’s calling out that moment in this scene.

They’re both dressed in jeans and striped sweaters, with vests over the sweaters, and the similar outfit is visually telling us that they’re the right match. Before, she glittered herself and tried to glitter the rock to get them to be similar. But here, she just fits perfectly because she doesn’t have to try so hard. They’re the perfect match.

To the right of them is a column prop with a crown on top, which reminds me of “ditch the clowns, get the crown” from The Alchemy, or “you wrap around me like a chain, a crown, a vine,” from the fate of ophelia. In this shot we can see the lights and the camera, which is similar to some of the shots in the fate of ophelia music video, and I think this is also a metaphor for being in the spotlight, and having this public life that usually scares people away. But it doesn’t scare Domhnall away – he stands with her right in front of the camera, and he’s enjoying it. He’s having fun with her in the spotlight.

Lewis Capaldi is our photographer, credited at the end as “the greatest mall photographer to ever do it.” And behind him we see an arcade that’s outside this photo studio. There’s a sign that says “game over,” which means it’s game over for this couple – they’ve found the right person, so they don’t have to play the game of love anymore. But with the previous references to coney island, the arcade also reminds me of the lyrics, “sorry for not winning you an arcade ring.” And the other line from that song, “sorry for not making you my centerfold” has new meaning here, because they are making one another the centerfold. They’re posing together in this photoshoot. They’re prioritizing one another and their relationship.

So they’re doing these different poses that are just funny and lighthearted and cute. Domhnall is sitting on her knee, then he’s holding up her feet in this wheelbarrow pose. They do this sort of yoga tree pose, they open their vests and flash their sweaters, it’s so cute. And then we get a shot of Lewis, who says, “I want to be your friend!” And they smile and beckon him over like, yeah! Be our friend!

Previously, she had to mail order a best friend who was a rock, and she had a VHS tape that said “tips on making friends”. But now that she’s happy, and found her person who lets her be herself, she doesn’t have to work so hard. It just happens naturally. Now Lewis is posing in some photos with them, and one of these is really interesting: Domhnall and Taylor frame him with their arms in a diamond shape, and Lewis tosses some glitter in the middle of this diamond shape. More diamonds. And glitter.

In the next shot, we get an overhead view of this mall where the photo studio is. And here’s where visually the video really changes in the tone and the brightness visually – the mall (walking through life in this new relationship, we were like the mall before the internet, it was the place to be) is bright, whereas the previous scenes when they were alone were kind of drab and monochrome. Their emotional skies have gone from onyx to opalite, because they’re now choosing happiness.

There’s so much detail to the mall, so let’s take a look. In the middle are no-longer-lonely woman and no-longer-lonely man going down the escalator, this time in different outfits.

From top to bottom in the mall, the shops are “Sweeter than a peach,” “Dear protege,” and “Infamy Loves Co,” Infamy loves company. On the bottom level, there’s a Nope-a-lite ad featuring Graham Norton, another ad that we can’t see too well but it says, “it’s electric,” and a little merry go round carousel ride thing for kids. Which also references a coney island lyric, “The fast times, the bright lights, the merry go.” Then there’s the movie theatre box office that we saw before, and the movie showing at the theatre is “view of portofino.” Another elizabeth taylor song reference.

As they’re coming down the escalator we get a close up shot of their hands slowly drawing together until they’re holding hands. Taylor is wearing a maroon fanny pack, which I think is a metaphor for the baggage that we carry with us into new relationships, and maroon being all her regrets and ruminations as she talks about in that track.

We cut to another shot of them coming down the escalator, and they’re now holding hands and we can see Taylor’s nail polish, and I can’t tell if this is the same glittery teal as before, or if it’s more grey. It could just be different lighting, but anyway. They’re both holding identical pretzels, no more twisting themselves in knots trying to make a relationship work. Taylor is wearing a yellow sweatshirt with a cat on it, with a dark orange polo shirt underneath. Domhnall is wearing a very 90s dad sweater with diamond shapes on it. More diamonds.

And this scene is so cute because we see the looks on their faces – it’s just pure joy and excitement that they’ve found one another.

Nope-a-lite

Now we cut to a shop inside the mall, and it’s the nope-a-lite store. The whole store is blue, accented with these yellow bottles of nope-a-lite that have pink nozzles. The bottle says “nope-a-lite, reverse opalite, extremely toxic.” There’s a sign that says “no 2 bestseller,” which is hilarious. And the color of the shop I think is important, because it’s symbolizing what could happen if you go back to the way things were before. Back to those blues, or like she says in honey, “redefined all of those blues.”

Graham Norton is there as the spokesperson/salesman in a blue suit, and he is spraying people with samples. Whyley and Sam approach, Graham asks, “free sample?”, Sam says, “sure,” and Graham sprays Sam with nope-a-lite on the wrist like it’s a perfume sample. Sam immediately disappears and turns into a stapler. Whyley picks up the stapler, and Graham nods like, yeah, there you go, you’re welcome.

“I took the miracle move on drug, the effects were temporary.” The effects of opalite are temporary if you take the antidote, nope-a-lite. If you refuse to stay optimistic, if you don’t work on yourself and try to identify the problem, you’ll go back to the way you were before.

Just a funny Graham story: he said in a recent interview that took home one of the props, a bottle of nope-a-lite, from the shoot, and he says he got a new house cleaner. And the cleaner put the empty bottle of nope-a-lite in the trash! But he found it and rescued it. Can you imagine having a Taylor Swift music video prop and it being thrown away? Whew. Close call.

So Taylor and Domhnall are walking past this shop with their pretzels, and then they spot cactus world. Jeslyn from the eras tour is the shopkeeper there, but on the display, they spot Domhnall ’s cactus. And it’s blurred out like it’s giving them the middle finger. Then they spot, next to it, Taylor’s glittery rock, and this time it’s wearing a friendship bracelet that says “f-you forever.” This refers to the line from madwoman, “What do you sing on your drive home? Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn? Does she smile? Or does she mouth, “f-you forever”?”. And this is such a funny and appropriate lyrical reference, because before opalite, when Taylor was with the rock, she thought she was the problem. She thought she was the madwoman.

Also, the rock gave her nothing when they were together. No communication, no effort, nothing. But now that she’s moved on, that’s when the rock communicates with her, and he says “f- you forever.” It’s the only communication she gets from him.

But we also have to talk about the cactus, because Domhnall sprayed the cactus and it disappeared. But here’s where we find out the big plot twist: the cactus didn’t turn into Taylor, like we just saw Sam turn into the stapler. The cactus just went away, back to where it came from. So Domhnall didn’t conjure Taylor, he just got rid of the problem in his life, which was the cactus. So when Taylor sprayed herself, thinking she was the problem, she didn’t disappear. She just changed location. She was just with the wrong person. Her problem wasn’t her, it was where she was, and who she was with. I just thought this was a really interesting bit of the storyline that adds more layers to this narrative.

So when they see their exes, metaphorical exes, the cactus and the rock, and one is flipping them off and the other is saying f-you, they’re spooked and they back up really fast. And they’re spooked because their inanimate objects have become animate. All this time, they were pretending that these things could interact with them, but they never could, but now they do.

Taylor drops her pretzel, and they’re backing away. But behind them is the nope-a-lite shop, and that’s the direction they’re going. This is the first time we see an exit sign, which we also saw a lot of in the fate of ophelia music video, and you might not have caught these because in the UK exit signs look different than the light up all caps “exit” signs in america. But there’s one above the nope-a-lite shop, meaning that you can exit your opalite happiness at any time, so you have to tread carefully.

And above them on the second level, we can see more shops, one of which is called “softer than a kitten”, and another with a key sign that says “keys to this city,” both of which refer to the title track.

And at this point in the lyrics, it’s “this is just a temporary speed bump,” which is appropriate, they’re at a temporary speed bump in their relationship, reminded of the past and not wanting to go back there.

As they’re backing away we get a shot of an opalite ad on the wall, and it’s Cillian Murphy as the spokesperson. It says, “don’t sweat it, opalite, magical results,” and it’s Cillian with a thumbs up. It’s the only time we see his face, and I’m not surprised that he wasn’t physically in the video. He’s an intensely private person, and one of the most reluctant celebrities of all time. But my god is he a talented actor. And for those people who said that Cillian seemed like he didn’t want to be on the graham norton show and he didn’t care, that’s just how he is. He has resting bored face, and he’s the same in every interview. I think if he could just act and never do promo that would be his ideal life.

So Taylor and Domhnall have backed away, and they’re taking a moment to breathe. But they’re in front of the nope-a-lite store. Taylor says, “oh my god,” with her hand on his shoulder, like that was really scary, I’m glad we avoided them. And the lyrics at this point are “but failure brings you freedom, and I can bring you love.” They were confronted with their past failures, but now they bring each other love.

Graham Norton comes up behind them and says, “free sample?” And he’s doing a good job looking creepy, lurking behind them. This is trouble. We see Domhnall ’s face as he’s taking in what’s happening, and he comes to this slow-mo realization that it’s not opalite in that bottle, it’s nope-a-lite! Taylor puts out her wrist to get the free sample, and Domhnall is terrified. In slow-mo, he tosses his pretzel behind him, and takes this dramatic leap toward Graham to knock the bottle out of his hand. He’s protected her. He’s guarded her against anything that could harm her, or harm their future.

We see the bottle fly into the air before Graham can spray Taylor, and that serves as our transition into the final scene.

Dance Routine

When the lyrics, “don’t you sweat it baby,” start, we’re now in a new scene, and it’s the two of them on stage. And this scene is incredibly important symbolically. So let’s go over some of the details.

Number one, they’re both on stage together. Before, Taylor was doing karaoke alone, trying to get her unresponsive rock to join in. The showgirl finally gets to share the stage – to share doing what she loves – with a real partner who supports her and joins in, just like Travis performed with her on the eras tour stage.

They’re both in matching aqua blue glitter tracksuits with orange stripes, the colors of the album, and across their faces are these teal glitter masks done with makeup. They’re now both wearing the glitter, the same color glitter, not two different colors like she did with the rock. They’re two peas in a pod. They’re reclaiming the glitter because she’s no longer afraid to shine – I can still make the whole place shimmer – and she shares her shine with him. They can shine together, and the lights don’t blind him. Like in Elizabeth Taylor, “Under bright lights, They withered away, But you bloom.” He blooms in the spotlight just like she does.

Behind them is a shiny foil streamer curtain, just like the one that was behind Taylor in the karaoke bar. But this time, it’s not just red and gold, it’s also silver and blue, which I think is symbolic for the two of them merging their lives and their interests. They have more color in their lives now that they’re together, or “you painted all my nights a color I have searched for since.”

So this dance that they do together is incredibly funny and awkward, and it’s meant to be that way. It reminds me of Monica and Ross’ dance in Friends, or the Napoleon Dynamite dance, or most appropriately, Taylor’s dance in the delicate music video. And it reminds us of those because those are also purposefully awkward, and they’re used for character building, to show us who these characters really are. They’re dancing like no one is watching, or being their truest selves together, and they’re really letting go of all their inhibitions and just having fun together.

In the delicate music video, she’s had to become invisible in order to be her truest, goofiest, cringiest self. But here, she doesn’t have to be invisible. She can be perfectly visible and be herself, because she’s with a partner who sees her for who she truly is.

So on the stage there’s the foil curtain background, and then there’s two giant silver stars hanging from the ceiling, and a piano on stage that looks like the same kind of piano she used on The Eras Tour. Across the front lip of the stage is purple bunting that’s the same shape as all of the curtains we’ve seen, this very theatrical, showgirl type curtain. Let me know in the comments what you think of this detail, and especially the stars at the top, and we’ll see some more stars in the shots of the judges, too. In the fate of ophelia music video, there were 12 orange stars hanging from the ceiling, but here, there’s just two silver ones, which could represent the pair of them both being stars in their own right.

So they do some of these funny moves, and then Domhnall jumps off the stage, leaving her up there for a moment on her pedestal, to let her shine and have the spotlight symbolically. But he then beckons her down, and she jumps down to be with him, and they continue this dance. The steps down the stage are red carpet, an obvious metaphor for being in the spotlight there, with gold diamond shapes on it. More diamonds.

We zoom out a little bit, and we get a silver sign strung across the room that says, “dance competition”. And that reminds us of the talent competition in the Bejeweled music video, where Taylor goes to the ball and crushes the competition – as a showgirl – and defeats her evil stepsisters to win the crown and the castle. Here, the stakes are lower. It’s a dance competition in this bingo-hall type setting, and it’s not clear what they would get if they win, but it doesn’t matter, because they’ve already won. They get to be themselves and do what they love, and dance like no one is watching even when people are, in fact, watching.

In the bejeweled music video, she wins the competition and therefore prince, but she ghosts him and keeps the castle. Here, they don’t win the competition, but they’ve won each other.

We get a few shots of people in the crowd while they’re dancing, and we also see another exit sign, that’s the second exit sign. We got TWO exit signs, and we also got a lot of other twos. In the crowd, there’s an older woman playing checkers in a line of other people playing checkers along the wall, checkmate, I couldn’t lose, none of it was accidental, and there’s a couple others in the crowd that we see, and they all look bored as hell, like they’re hating every moment of this. And I think this is symbolic for her haters, like she can’t do anything right, people will always be bored, say she’s cringe and glare at her. And they will, of course, say this video is cringe.

As the dance ends, we pan to the judges, and they get zeros across the board. It’s three old people, who all give zeroes, and then our Kam-eo, and Kam also gives a zero and kind of sighs like, oh my god that was terrible.

The first judge has a bingo ball cage next to her, like Taylor used in Midnights Mayhem with me, another reference to Midnights in a video that’s already been heavy on the midnights reference. The second judge has what I think is supposed to be the trophy next to him on the judge’s table, but it looks like a goblet. It’s at the third judge that I noticed they’re holding ping pong/table tennis paddles with numbers on them. So let me know what you think of that.

And then Kam, our 4th judge, is wearing some interesting stuff. His tie has two hearts on it, and then on his jacket are three silver broaches that look like either starbursts or flowers or both. The biggest broach has a stone in it, and it looks really dark like it could be onyx. And if it is, it’s symbolic for someone trapped in the onyx night. They haven’t found the joy of opalite yet – they’re stuck in pessimism.

Just a quick note about this moment – Kam posted on his instagram: “the 3 other incredible judges in this scene with me had my heart. I couldn’t help but think of my grandma the entire time. So gentle. So kind. So giving! After Tay introduced herself to them and went back to the monitor to finish directing, the older gentleman gently leans over to me and goes “excuse me young man… was that TAYLOR SWIFT?!” With so much joy in his face. I responded softly “yes sir. That’s her.” and he goes “oh my!” It is the privilege of a lifetime watching people of any age be changed, in REAL TIME, by Tay and her kindness and generosity.” I just though that was such a sweet behind the scenes moment shared by Kam, so thank you Kam!

After they get all zeros from the judges, they’re not disappointed. They’re elated. They hug each other and they’re laughing, like they just had the best time in the world. But in this shot something caught my eye – there’s a wheelchair in the background. Makes sense, because there’s a lot of seniors around, but why would they leave it in the shot? I think what she could be referencing here is her past onyx nights of the tortured poets department, and in the fortnight video she was in the asylum, a place you’d have a wheelchair. But it also reminded me of a song from way back, Mary’s Song (Oh my my my), and that has the prophetic lyrics, “I’ll be 87 you’ll be 89, I’ll still look at you like the stars that shine, in the sky, oh my my my.” 87 is, of course, Travis Kelce’s jersey number, and 89 is the year Taylor was born. I think the wheelchair, especially combined with the stars in the sky and the way they’re looking at one another, could be referencing this song, saying that she’s going to grow old with this partner because she’s finally found her opalite skies.

So they’re hugging and laughing and Domhnall does this celebratory karate kick. And that’s the end of the dance scene, and then we get an epilogue.

Epilogue

Our first shot in the epilogue is on the same backdrop as the mall photoshoot. It’s the blue sky with clouds. And it’s rock and cactus sitting on the white column prop. This time, rock has on a friendship bracelet that says “just married,” and the caption on the screen says, “Rock and cactus married in a small, intimate ceremony after meeting through opalite.” The friendship bracelet is kind of draped over one of cactus’ arms, and it’s at this point that I realized that they are the perfect match, because cactus can’t hurt rock. Rock is impenetrable. Rock was too boring for Taylor, cactus was too sharp for Domhnall, but break those two couples up and rearrange them, and you have the perfect matches. So Long London, you’ll find someone.

The next caption we get, in the same image of rock and cactus, says, “stapler is happily single, and has been working through its possessive, codependent tendencies in therapy.” And I thought this was so funny, because what does a stapler do? It attaches things together. It holds things tight and doesn’t let go. But it also reminded me of that 1999 film Office Space, where Milton Waddams is obsessed with his stapler. His iconic line, repeated a million times, is “have you seen my stapler?”

Next, we’re still in the same shot but the position of cactus and rock change, and the cactus is tipped over onto rock under the friendship bracelet, like they’re making out. But cactus can’t prick rock, so it all works out. And the caption says, “garbage is still garbage.” So either Karen got sick of Jan and transformed him back into garbage with nope-a-lite, or she’s not talking about Karen’s garbage, and she’s just talking about garbage people. People who just mess up your life and don’t give you anything in return. Either/or. But a hilarious line to close the video.

The credits come up on a black screen, written and directed by Taylor Swift, cinematography Rodrigo Prieto, whom she also worked with on the man, cardigan, willow, and fortnight, as well as the release party of a showgirl.

Next we’re back to the shot of Taylor’s TV in her living room, and it’s the graham norton show graphics, and it says “starring Graham Norton as Nope-a-Lite spokesperson,” and then we roll into actual footage from the show. It’s Graham introducing all his guests as he does in every episode, and he begins by introducing Lewis Capaldi, and it says, Lewis Capaldi as the greatest mall photographer to ever do it. Graham introduces Domhnall Gleason, and it credits him as “lonely man,” Jodie turner smith is “aerobics dream girl,” Greta Lee is “indie rock goddess,” and when Graham introduces Cillian Murphy, the captions say “opalite spokesperson and ad voiceover by Cillian Murphy.” Then Graham says, “the biggest pop star on the planet, Taylor Swift,” and Taylor walks out and it credits her as “lonely woman.”

Next we get a clip from the episode in which the idea was born, Domhnall jokes that he’s trying to get in a Taylor Swift music video, and we see Taylor’s face reveal that the wheels are churning. And then the screen goes black. That’s the end of the epic, nostalgic opalite music video.

What Does it All Mean?

This might be my favorite Taylor Swift music video in terms of storytelling, because she’s told such an intricate, immersive story in just a 6 minute movie. The total length is 5 minutes and 59 seconds on youtube, if those numbers mean anything in Taylor’s numerology. But think about this incredible story she’s just told – she’s created this entire world in which the video takes place, and populated it with characters who all get backstory and motivations and challenges and triumphs. It’s really incredible, and I can’t believe she wrote this script and sent it to Domhnall in just one week. She’s a creative writing machine.

But in all of this, she’s really given us a new definition of opalite through all of this symbolism and all these new metaphors. In the lyrics, opalite is man-made happiness. You have to curate your own life to be happy, and that’s a hard lesson to learn. In the video, opalite is for sale as a magic solution. Throw money at a problem and make it go away. But in buying opalite, you’re making the choice to change your life for the better. The act – the change – isn’t in the purchase of this magic product. The change is in identifying the problem, and choosing to do something about it. So opalite is really about growth, and self-acceptance, and learning these big, hard lessons as we mature. It’s easy to get stuck in pessimism and get lost in these long, onyx nights of the soul, but it’s much harder to recognize the problem and decide to do something about it.

Sure you can get some magical assistance from this windex potion, but unless you can spot something in your life that’s holding you back, whether it’s yourself or your partner, or your job, and decide to make that change, you’re never going to transform your problems into your paradise. And that’s really what opalite is all about, both the song and the video, it’s accepting that things need to change, and having the courage to make that change.

We’re going to wrap up for today, but I want to leave you with a couple open-ended bits of symbolism that we didn’t really get answers for, and I want to hear your thoughts in the comments. Number one, what’s with the different shades of blue? We got the darker blue backdrop in the opalite infomercial, a lighter blue in the nope-a-lite shop, and the aqua/teal blue of the opalite spray. Then we also got Taylor’s nails, and other bits of teal green and aqua blue throughout. Taylor’s always intentional with her colors, so what do you think it means? Debut easter eggs? Something else?

Second, what’s with all of the diamond shapes? We got so many, and yeah it’s easy to find this kind of geometric pattern on a lot of 80s and 90s clothing and homeware, but this seems incredibly intentional. So what’s with the diamonds?

And the final, maybe most important open-ended question: what is trash, what is rock, and what is cactus? Are they meant to symbolise specific people, specific relationships, or are they just overarching metaphors for “dudes who give nothing,” as she says in glitch? The gorgeous thing about Taylor’s art, and art in general, is that it’s subjective, and it means different things to different people. So let me know what it means to you in the comments, because that’s the most important part about all of this. Not what it means to me, but what it means to you.

Thank you for joining me on this deep dive into the opalite music video, and if you’re watching this on Youtube I’m really working hard to reach more people, so please hit the hype button, and like and subscribe and follow wherever you’re seeing or hearing this. Thank you so much for taking a break from the real world with me here at Swiftly Sung Stories, and I’ll see you next time.”

Taylor Swift’s Opalite Music Video Explained | The Hidden Meaning of Her Strangest Love Story

Episode Description

Listen to the Episode

Episode Transcript

Setting the Scene: Taylor’s Inspiration

Opening Scene: Infomercial

Scene 2: Living Room

Scene 3: Karaoke

Scene 4: Aerobics

Scene 5: Lonely Man

Photo Session

Nope-a-lite

Dance Routine

Epilogue

What Does it All Mean?

Why Does Taylor Swift Matter?

“Actually Romantic”: Taylor Swift’s Vicious Lyrical Valentine, Explained

Taylor Swift’s “Eldest Daughter” Lyrics, Explained

“The Life of a Showgirl” Lyrics, Explained

Taylor Swift’s “Elizabeth Taylor” Lyrics, Explained

“Opalite” Lyrics, Explained

Episode Description

Listen to the Episode

Episode Transcript

Setting the Scene: Taylor’s Inspiration

Opening Scene: Infomercial

Scene 2: Living Room

Scene 3: Karaoke

Scene 4: Aerobics

Scene 5: Lonely Man

Photo Session

Nope-a-lite

Dance Routine

Epilogue

What Does it All Mean?

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